...Connect to the Avenue in Brooklyn. For more information, 212-330-8277. That's 212-330-8277.
Cuban focuses back in a regular monthly one-hour time slot.
The last Monday of every month from 8 to 9 p.m. as part of the WBAI weekly report on the Americas.
So, for the latest news, culture, and information about Cuba...
...that the corporate media won't broadcast, join Sally O'Brien...
...Consuelo Correter...
...and Zenzile Hoysan...
...the last Monday in the month...
...from 8 to 9 p.m. for Cuba in Focus.
And you're listening to radio station WBAI in New York. It's just about 10 o'clock, which means it's time for Off the Hook.
...much worse. But if they could, they would. For Billy Bo, for the best, expect the worst. I hope that's understood. For Billy Bo!
For Billy Bo!
And a very good evening to everybody. This is Emanuel Goldstein. The program is Off the Hook...
...where we talk about computer hackers and the internet. Why is everybody standing? It's not a holiday in the hacker world, is it?
Okay. We have all kinds of special things for you tonight, including information on 500 numbers.
And we don't mean 500 different telephone numbers. We mean the 500 area code, which is starting to come around and rear its head.
And we also have some neat info on various crazy things going on in the world, of which there are always many.
So stay tuned, and we'll let you know exactly what's going on.
Galactic matter strewn through unimaginable emptiness, like dewdrops on a spider's web.
I call this part spaceflight.
It helps the mind to relax, because we're in a situation where it's silent, tranquil, very calm.
We're in a situation where we're floating, and so we're in a weightless situation.
There really is no up or down.
Everybody's weightless. You can just... loose.
Well, it's been a busy week, as it always is.
And we have some really interesting things from the Risks Digest, which we haven't looked at in a while.
Risks Digest is a Usenet magazine that you can see on the Internet, those of you with true Internet access.
And here are a couple of things which may make you think a couple of times before you do things that involve privacy or security or whatnot.
Here's something from England.
The Manchester Guardian Weekly reported that plans for the UK national ID card system was found in a government surplus store.
That's right, the second-hand file cabinet was sold for about £35, which I guess is about 60 or 70 US dollars.
It's kind of wild to find something in that particular manner.
The second-hand file cabinet contained memos on investigation into the feasibility of smart card technology, a detailed card design,
as well as cabinet-level letters exchanged on this topic.
And yes, the government has confirmed that the files are authentic.
At least at one point there was a plan to have nationwide ID cards in England.
And that's the way you find things. You go to garage sales, you look in old file cabinets.
And also, if you buy old computers, you always want to look at those old hard drives to see what kind of things haven't quite been erased yet.
And some of you may have heard this story about the plumber.
Yes, that's right, there's a plumber in Leavittown, New York.
He was accused of calling Bell Atlantic to order ultra-call forwarding for at least five of his company's competitors,
which enabled him to remotely redirect their calls to his phone.
Yeah, so you call his competitor and you get him.
It had to happen sooner or later, you know, with all these nifty services that they keep offering.
Somebody had to figure out a way to abuse them and use them to his advantage.
Well, he was charged with theft by deception,
criminal attempt, unlawful use of a computer,
criminal trespass, and impersonating an employee.
Oh, also, unlawful use of a computer,
criminal trespass, did I say that already?
Yes, and impersonating an employee. They say it twice here. I guess something's wrong with the risk digest this week.
The scam was detected when a customer complimented another firm on work performed over the Christmas weekend
when in fact no one had been working.
And over to Germany now.
Police have searched offices of Deutsche Telekom AG on Tuesday
to determine whether staff at the German state telephone monopoly
had withheld proof of computer hackers tapping into private phone lines
to call foreign sex hotlines.
You know, what is it with computer hackers?
I mean, you've got all this ability and you use it to call foreign sex hotlines.
I don't know. Not exactly the criminal mastermind of the 20th century.
Jürgen Fröhlich, chief prosecutor in Cologne,
a city really hit by floods this week,
said in a statement that police went through telecom offices in Bonn, Cologne, and Dusseldorf
The author continues with the following key points.
Legal authorities are investigating the possibility that Deutsche Telekom employees
concealed data on stolen phone services.
Over two million Deutsche Telekom clients have complained about fraudulent phone calls
charged to their accounts over the last 30 months.
Deutsche Telekom officials deny that its customers paid for any fraudulent calls,
explaining that the criminals placed their calls from accounts obtained using false names.
Now, keep in mind that over in Europe, it's a lot less common to get itemized billing.
So what you get instead is you pretty much get a number
and you have to believe them and pay whatever they say you owe.
And there's no way to prove it.
Kind of like your electric bill.
I mean, how do you really know where those kilowatts are going?
Well, it's the same thing with telephone service in many places.
You have the option of privacy to print the actual phone numbers that you called.
Apparently, people can look at that information.
In a way, it's very realistic.
If you don't print those numbers, people can't find out who you're talking to.
And back in Europe, several decades ago, there was great interest in who was talking to who.
That could happen again.
And we have complete accountability here in this country.
Sometimes you know things before you've even done them.
Well, a couple other interesting items.
Let's see what would be good here.
How about this? How about the cat that sent a reply to somebody?
Yeah, this story comes from a reader,
Andrew Koenig from AT&T,
who contributes this to the Risk Digest.
This morning, I was sitting at my home terminal reading mail.
I got up for a few minutes. When I returned to the terminal, the screen showed a partial reply to the last message I had been reading.
It looked something like this.
You see a from line, a to line, a subject,
actually a blank subject, and a partial word.
The word is EDBONE, E-D-B-O-N-E.
Now, it didn't take me long to figure out what had happened.
This particular terminal has function keys that can be set to store strings.
Once upon a time, I used a machine called Redbone,
the name of which was therefore stored in that function key.
Sitting on the table next to the keyboard was one of my two big fluffy cats.
She had evidently pressed that function key,
and the mailer interpreted the R of Redbone as a request to reply to the message.
And after that, she must have spent some time sitting on the two key.
Fortunately, she didn't hit a control D,
or whatever you use to send mail in that particular mailer,
but if you ever get a strange message from somebody, who knows?
It could be a cat, or some other animal that happens to be wandering through.
How about a stamp machine horror story? We've all had these.
But this is an intelligence stamp machine horror story.
That's right, this is a stamp machine that was designed to protect you.
Except it did the exact opposite of what it was designed to do.
Yes, there is a stamp machine in the basement of one of the buildings
in our corporate campus. This comes from Belcor, from John Creans.
We also have a U.S. post office in our backyard,
but if you're lazy or in a hurry, it's much simpler to use the machine.
Anyway, I wanted to buy a book of stamps, back when they were still a bargain at $5.80 for a book of 20.
I decided to go to this stamp machine.
Now I had $6 with me, a 5 and a 1.
There was a sign on the machine saying that the machine would give back no more than $0.50 in change.
I took this sign to mean that I could put in more money if I wanted,
but the most change I could get for overpayment would be $0.50.
Makes sense, right? Okay.
Anyway, for some reason I decided that I wanted to get a quarter back rather than two dimes.
So I put in $6.05, get $5.80 worth of stamps,
and get a quarter back.
Most candy vending machines will let you do this,
but you have to put your change in first because if you put the bills in first,
they'll know that you're overpaying and they won't let you put the coins in.
I started off with a nickel. I then put the $1 bill in.
So far, so good. I then attempted to put the 5 in.
The machine just wouldn't accept it.
I can't remember what message the machine gave me, but it was not very enlightening.
After trying 5 or 10 times to get it to take the bill,
I reached the conclusion that it just wasn't taking $5 bills today
since my bill was in pristine condition.
It also wouldn't let me get back
the money I'd already put into the machine.
Since I was stuck with either losing my money
or getting change and hoping I would finally get my stamps,
I left the machine and dashed upstairs to our credit union to get change for the 5.
Luckily, there was no line,
so I got my 5 $1 bills and ran back downstairs.
The money was still registered in the machine, so I proceeded to feed my $1 bills in.
Everything went fine until I got to the 5th bill,
which the machine refused to take.
Once again, the bill was in perfect shape.
After trying a bunch more times,
I realized that I would need exact change,
so I walked down to the change machine in one of the break rooms
to get the bill broken into coins.
Unfortunately, it took too long to get the coins,
so I had to go back to the machine and reset itself,
removing all traces of my money from the display.
You may have read about this guy that went berserk at Belcourt
and took out a whole mail room full of people.
Here's the finishing touches to the story.
As you have probably deduced by now, the machine had been programmed to not allow a person
to put more than the next highest dollar amount into the machine
Since all the denominations of stamps were between $0.50 and $0.00,
books of $0.29 were $2.90 and $5.80,
and postcard stamps were $1.90 or $3.80,
the machine assumed that anyone putting in more than the next dollar would risk losing money,
something they clearly would not want to do,
since they would lose money.
Never mind that they would also lose the money they put in up to this point,
because if you program the machine, they don't come back out.
The sign about getting a maximum of $0.50 back was misleading,
since the machine gave no opportunity to lose that much.
Luckily, the post office refunded my money without any hassle,
but I still wish whoever programmed the machine hadn't thought they were being so damn clever.
And that came from John Krians at Belcourt. Our condolences.
You just gotta watch out for those smart machines.
The program is off the hook.
We're here until 10 o'clock, and FiberOptic, you're here too.
Welcome.
We're a little late, then, if we're only here till 10.
Did I say we're here till 10? I meant to say we're here till 11. We're here FROM 10.
Sorry, I'm losing my mind today. What's up with you? Anything new?
Uh, yeah, actually. The other day this week,
I attended a meeting at 9X World Headquarters,
an ironic place to be.
Where is 9X World Headquarters?
9X World Headquarters for the uninformed is at 1095 6th Avenue.
Uh-huh.
And they were having a meeting there because, guess what?
What's that?
They're entering into a deal with a management company
and the city government,
which is Go Ahead,
to set up some Metro Tech office complex thing,
or something like that.
Metro complex office thing?
Yeah, one of those things.
In downtown Manhattan.
And what they want to do is lure companies, lure them in,
to set up shop in this huge office complex.
Now, what the meeting was supposed to be about,
was to see what a whole bunch of different cross-section of companies
really wanted the building wired to do.
9X wants to be the ones to wire it.
So they called this meeting at World HQ,
and what it turned out to be was, guess what?
A ploy to push ISDN.
A ploy to push ISDN?
Yeah.
Okay.
Now, the reason why that really fell apart,
and it kind of turned into something really ugly.
9X bashing?
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm familiar with that. I've seen that.
The majority of people there were into video production and graphics rendering.
A good number of people there were.
And they need lots and lots and lots of bandwidth.
So once they announced, and there were no technical people there.
They were all marketing people from 9X and from sales
and from the ISDN basic rate and primary rate departments.
And they're touting how great it is that you have two B channels,
and that's a whopping 128 kilobits.
Yeah, whopping.
Or you can even get 23 B channels on your T1.
And everyone kind of just stares at each other,
giving each other these funny looks.
And then it kind of turned into a real pissing match.
Yeah.
Well, it's not the kind of crowd you really want to say things like that in front of.
I mean, maybe you could say that in a mall someplace and get people to act impressed.
But, you know, for people that need the kind of bandwidth you're talking about.
Right.
The majority of people there, which, you know, was just coincidental,
did a lot of video production work.
They wanted things like, you know, like T3 access, which is roughly 45 megabits.
So that kind of blows away the whole ISDN or primary rate ISDN service type thing.
So 9X tried to handle it well.
They said, this is good.
We just want to take requests.
The whole purpose of this meeting is to see what you as the subscriber need.
And everyone's yammering that how come 9X isn't out there seeing what people need?
Why are they the last ones to get ISDN?
And they openly admit, yes, we are behind the times.
I'll say they're behind the times.
Other RBOCs, if they still call them that even, in other parts of the country,
are offering ISDN service now almost as much as basic service.
They're offering it for residential people as well as businesses at affordable rates.
And I have not yet seen that for 9X.
I'm waiting.
What's interesting is that where I live, we have a digital switch.
We have a DMS-100 in our central office.
And it's certainly ISDN capable.
Granted, the software might not be installed yet.
But it's a problem that ISDN is not available.
I just moved in where I am now, and I wanted to get ISDN service, residential ISDN.
Does that exist, residential ISDN?
I have not yet heard that phrase.
Oh, yeah.
It does in fact exist, although it's kind of a secret.
In fact, at this particular meeting, one of the business people brought up the point that ISDN,
as far as 9X ISDN is concerned, is a stealth service.
You either know about it or you don't.
And whatever you know about it usually isn't enough to go by
because they're simply not out there pushing for it.
But anyway, I wanted residential ISDN.
I wanted basic-rate ISDN where I live.
So I brought it up at this meeting.
And originally what it was is that January 15th, we were all supposed to be set and ready,
an ISDN-capable city, and all sorts of fanfare and trumpets blaring and stuff like that.
And 9X is the one that made all this possible.
Well, anyway, that didn't happen.
And the reason, the excuse that 9X came up with is that the new mayoral administration apparently,
according to them, had put a moratorium, sort of a temporary cease on the deadline,
claiming that they need to...
I don't see what the mayor's office has to do with any of this.
Well, they don't.
I mean, the mayor's office only handles New York City.
Right.
So 9X is claiming that in New York City, the reason why the January 15th deadline was not held,
they didn't keep up with that deadline.
They're saying that the mayor's office put this temporary stop on it
so that they can reassess the situation and negotiate the tariffs further with the FCC.
It's amazing.
9X is great at blaming virtually everybody except themselves.
They blame the Public Service Commission, the FCC, the mayor's office.
I'm sure they blame the customers at some point, not to us.
So now the new date is February 4th.
Oh, well, now that's a couple of days from now.
Yeah.
Isn't that a Saturday?
Is it really?
Well, today's the 1st.
Oh.
Yeah, it's Saturday.
How can you have something like this on a Saturday?
So I guess it's not going to be.
I think they're yanking your chains.
I told the primary rate ISDN representative if I could hold him personally responsible if it's still not available.
And he says, well, here's what we're going to do.
And I sounded like I was trying to buy a used car.
They said that they were going to come out with an interim service called virtual ISDN.
Yeah, like their virtual phone service, which doesn't really exist.
And virtual ISDN is supposed to be ISDN for people who don't yet have ISDN available.
How they're going to do this, they didn't explain.
They didn't explain how they were going to do this.
Provide things for people without providing them.
Yeah, that sounds like 9X's credo there.
So they said hopefully I should be able to get virtual ISDN in the interim.
They said it's not as good because it's virtual.
Uh-huh.
But they assured me it would be available.
I see.
So now they took all our questions.
Did they give you a virtual date for all this or?
Virtual date.
Well, we have a virtual date for the next meeting, which is on February 23rd.
Uh-huh.
At which time they say that there's going to be people from 9X Science and Technology, 9XST.
Can anybody go to these meetings?
Well, I'm sure.
Well, I'd invite you.
I mean, how are they going to know?
What are they going to say?
Maybe the fact that we're transmitting over 50,000 watts in New York City, that might be an indication that they know something.
But I mean, is the meeting open to the public as well?
No, it's not.
Oh, it's not.
It's open to businessmen, but we're businessmen.
But the street below the meeting is open to the public, right?
The street below the meeting.
They all have to walk through that door at some point.
So, you know, a nice little demonstration of some sort if people want to get to the ones that make decisions.
There's a note conspicuously attached to a magazine here in the studio that says,
Virtual ISDN coming February 30th.
There is no February 30th.
It really says that.
Yeah, it really says that.
Okay, great.
All right.
So we're left with this meeting.
And like I said, there were no technical people at this meeting at all.
And 9X was certainly at a loss because they had all these angry people demanding answers.
All 9X could do was write them down and say that they were going to forward them to their engineers,
who were supposed to be at this next meeting.
Well, do you have people to follow up with that you can call them and see how the progress is going?
On their preparing these answers?
Yeah.
No, they were very nondescript about how this whole process was going to be.
But they assured us to attend the February 23rd meeting, and they would have answers.
Yeah, okay.
Well, that certainly sounds promising.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, one thing that I should mention, though, is some of the little catchy mockery that was going on, which is really funny.
People were saying, never underestimate the bandwidth of a FedEx truck.
Because we had horror stories of video developers, people that are actually designing ads
and cutting 30-second commercials and doing rendering on Silicon Graphics workstations and so on.
And what they were doing to get the ads to the people that contracted them was that they were saving them on tape,
and then they were either FedExing or LearJetting the tape across the country.
And they say, this shouldn't be.
No, that's true.
It's like communicating via tape instead of on the phone.
Yeah, it was kind of ridiculous.
Another guy had a horror story specifically with 9X, and this was the icing on the cake.
And it basically left 9X just staring at each other.
Dumbfounded, right?
Dumbfounded.
The old 9X dumbfounded look, yeah.
Well, this gentleman apparently was giving a presentation at 9X.
He had basically rented space at 9X.
He wanted to demo ISDN and Internet service to some potential clients, apparently.
So 9X gives him the office space at their headquarters, okay?
They give him a room that does not have ISDN, number one.
Okay.
Number two, if that isn't bad enough, their name service doesn't work.
And for those out there that are familiar with Internet,
if you don't have a domain name server, you don't really have much of an Internet connection.
And the 9X people were scrambling to answer, well, it normally works.
But unfortunately for that presentation, it did not.
And this gentleman was not very pleased.
No.
So this was a pretty ugly meeting, as it sounds.
Well, at the moment, we don't have much of a choice.
There are some choices out there.
But in the months ahead, there will be choices.
Yeah, I just want to say that the most logical alternative that we might see in the near future,
Metro Fiber Systems, while they do offer service all over the city currently,
they only have one switch so far in northern New Jersey.
And as it stands, Metro Fiber Systems will have most any price that 9X offers for any service.
Unfortunately, MFS does not yet offer ISDN service.
They offer everything else that 9X does, though.
And I'm sure we will see ISDN availability from Metro Fiber Systems in the future.
So we should keep our eyes open for that.
Okay.
Well, that's the update for ISDN, or the lack thereof, here in New York City.
And we'll be keeping people updated as far as what happens in the future.
Hopefully, we'll be seeing some movement on this, because ISDN is the future.
But then again, 9X, well, you know 9X.
They kind of live in the past.
In fact, let's dedicate this to 9X,
I think it really defines them well to say that they're stuck with the modern Stone Age blues.
And it just kind of makes you want to scream.
Woo!
Don't be a square wave, hands in the air, got nothing to lose but the Stone Age blues.
Show them that they're that, you have them to care, got nothing to lose but the Stone Age blues.
Living in backdrop can be sweet, though it's a little hard on the feet.
But I don't mind what I have to do, as long as I can lose the modern Stone Age blues.
When the whistle blows and it's time to go, you got nothing to lose but the Stone Age blues.
Stone Age blues, if you want to go on to rock and roll, you got nothing to lose but the Stone Age blues.
It's the freest of times we're living in, so please don't consider giving in.
But I don't mind what I have to do, as long as I can lose the modern Stone Age blues.
Why do you got to lose the modern Stone Age blues?
Why do you got to lose the modern Stone Age blues?
Take the weekend away and write a book of it, got nothing to lose but the Stone Age blues.
There won't be no delay until I die to let it win, got nothing to lose but the Stone Age blues.
Pressure sometimes surely can get to the midst of Cro-Magnon man.
But I don't mind what I have to do, as long as I can lose the modern Stone Age blues.
Why do you got to lose the modern Stone Age blues?
Why do you got to lose the modern Stone Age blues?
Why do you got to lose the modern Stone Age blues?
Why do you got to lose the modern Stone Age blues?
Lay it down.
Why do you got to lose the modern Stone Age blues?
Why do you got to lose the modern Stone Age blues?
Big Audio Dynamite, Big Audio Dynamite 2, now they're Big Audio, so I don't know.
Who knows what the next album will be, maybe they'll just be big.
Our phone number is 212-279-3400.
But I want to demonstrate something first.
I'm not sure if this is going to work.
I've never done this before.
But let's get ourselves a dial tone here.
We have one, great.
I'm going to try calling a 500 number, which I've never really succeeded in doing before.
In fact, I'm going to try dialing my own 500 number.
If I can remember what it is, oh yes.
Let's see if it goes through.
If it does go through, I have no idea where it's going to go.
I hear silence, total silence.
Your call cannot be completed as dialed.
Please check the number and dial again.
Didn't sound like it went through there.
Well, that's what happens right now if you call a 500 number.
Let's try one other 500 number, and that's 500 information.
See if we get anything on that.
Theoretically, that should exist, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't.
We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed.
Different recording.
Check the number and dial again, or call your operator to help you.
132-82.
Where's that coming from, Fiber?
132-82.
A2.
Unfortunately, I don't remember things.
You're supposed to know this.
It is a 9X recording, however.
Okay, so it never made it out of 9X.
No.
That's a shame.
Okay, so the 500 service basically is replacing the 0700 service that AT&T offered.
It's kind of funny.
AT&T a few years ago offered what is known as EasyReach, which is now called True Connections.
That was a service where you had one phone number, and it followed you around for the rest of your life.
Well, sure enough, within two years, they were changing all the phone numbers because they changed the standard,
and they gave the 500 area code for numbers that follow you around for the rest of your life.
It's kind of weird because every time I talk to them about getting 500 service, they ask me,
so, do you want to get rid of your 700 number now?
And I'm always telling them, no, I don't want to.
I want to keep that one for life.
And I can just sense how annoyed they are because they don't want the 700 service anymore,
yet they promised everybody that this would be a number that you can keep for the rest of your life.
And I'm just causing them all kinds of problems by refusing to relinquish it.
But that's not going to stop me from getting a 500 number because they're kind of cool, too.
You don't have to dial the carrier access code of 10288 or, God forbid, in the future, 1010288.
How are people going to know it?
That's going to be crazy.
1010288, I think, right?
Yep.
1010ATT.
There you go.
I don't know.
The 500 numbers right now from AT&T, they're only available in certain exchanges,
which that's a big disadvantage because the 0700 numbers you could get on virtually any phone number.
But they only seem to have a couple of different exchanges with AT&T.
Let me see if I have a list of those.
They have a limited number, they say here.
I don't have a list in front of me.
I know 677 is one of them.
I think 377 is another.
There aren't very many.
There aren't very many at all.
Basically, there are three different kinds of services that they have.
One is called the Stay Close package.
I'll read you a little blurb on what Stay Close is all about.
Even if you're separated from your kids or your parents by half the world,
you still want to remain an important part of their lives.
That means you'd hear from them more often.
You'd even consider paying for their calls.
You'd even consider paying an awful lot for their calls.
You can figure out what parts I'm adding.
Or maybe you'd just like for them to be able to reach you no matter where you go.
Either way, you could definitely use an easier and less expensive way for them to stay in touch.
A personal 500 number that doesn't have to change no matter where you live or how often you move.
Place-A-Call lets you use your 500 number to call home without worrying about change for the pay phone.
And AT&T is working to enable you to use your 500 number to place virtually all your calls when you're away from home.
Your choice of reverse billing or call forwarding.
Reverse billing gives you the option of paying for calls from select members or friends,
even if they're calling from over 130 international locations,
provided they have access to a touch-tone phone.
So you can automatically accept a call from somebody.
And then call forwarding allows you to choose to answer your True Connections calls at the phone closest to you at any particular moment.
You can forward your calls from any touch-tone phone and select the calls you wish to receive, even if you're out of the country.
So you get that.
And reverse billing and place-a-call with Stay Close.
And you also get AT&T True Connections voicemail option at an additional monthly charge,
which allows callers to leave a message when you're not available.
And the added call screening features ensure you'll only receive the calls you want while all the others are routed to voicemail.
Then the next package above that is called Traveler.
You may not know what city you'll be in tomorrow, but you do know you have to be available 24 hours a day,
even when you're traveling overseas.
After all, one missed call could mean the end of your life, or one lost client, or one worried family member.
On the other hand, you don't have time to waste on unimportant calls.
You need a number that follows you from office to car phone to hotel and home again, but only puts through the calls you want.
This service ties into your brain to sort of know what it is you need before you actually know yourself.
So with this, you get a personal 500 number, place-a-call, reverse billing.
You know, this sounds exactly the same as the Stay Close package.
Okay, the difference is Stay Close gives you a choice of reverse billing or call forwarding,
whereas the Traveler package gives you both reverse billing and call forwarding.
Everything else is exactly the same.
And then the final package is called the Navigator.
That's right, the Navigator.
Juggling your career and your personal life puts you in constant demand and keeps you on the go.
The problem is, when you have to be in three places at one time, no one ever knows where you are.
You need a number that will ring first at the office, then in the car, and then at home, so you won't miss an important call.
What they neglect to mention is, by the time it rings at your house, the person's probably gotten all upset and hung up.
You know, I don't really know how patient people are going to be.
So with the Navigator package, you get a personal 500 number, you get place-a-call, you get reverse billing,
and then you get this thing called call sequencing, which navigates your calls to up to three destinations you select one after another.
So if you don't pick up at the office, your call will ring in the car, and if you're not there, the call will ring at home.
Then there's the override feature, which allows you to forward all your calls to one number without going through your call sequence.
So if you're going on vacation for a week, you can have all your calls come with you,
without having to change your usual ringing sequence before or after your trip.
So you get call forwarding if you activate override, and then you get the True Connections voicemail as well.
Now let's see, the cost for this is not that bad, actually.
They have this special promotion now where it's only a dollar a month for the next month.
So you've got Stay Close is $3, Traveler is $5, and Navigator is $7 per month.
And then the voicemail is an extra $5.95 a month.
It's not that bad, but then again, we haven't seen the service yet.
I called them, and I'm interested in playing around with it, but they don't offer Navigator in this area.
They offer Up to Traveler, but they don't offer the one that rings in three different places yet.
So I don't know.
It looks like it could be a good service.
Can it core a apple?
I don't know about that.
It seems to do quite a bit.
It's the phone service of the future, though, that's for sure.
That's AT&T's 500.
And they're not the only company offering 500 service, from what I hear.
So as other companies get involved, we'll keep you updated.
Now, the thing is this.
Those prefixes that they mentioned, are those the only ones that exist so far,
or are they just giving those to AT&T and not yet doing portability?
I saw a list of exchanges, and I think we read it over the air a few weeks ago.
One of them was given out to a person, remember?
I forget the guy's name, John Smith or something.
And the rest were for different phone companies, and AT&T seems to have been assigned maybe four or five of these.
So I don't know if they're going to get other ones.
I'd like to have a particular one, but I had to settle for a different one because that exchange was not available.
I'm not really sure.
Well, from the looks of it, it looks like initially they're not supporting portability.
No, it doesn't look that way.
You're locked into certain exchanges.
I believe 377 is one of them, and 677, I'm pretty sure, is another.
But you can call them. I'll give you the phone number.
It's 1-800-ATT.
Wait a minute. What happened to it?
1-800-ATT-1500.
Now, they say to ask for extension A7G, but I found that you don't have to do that.
The person answering the phone always knows.
What do you think A7G means?
I think it's just a weird sequence of alphanumerics to see how much they can really make you do.
Well, I think it means something, though.
I think it's so that they know where their calls are coming from or what brochure you're responding to or something like that.
I mean, what the hell kind of connection is A7G?
It reminds me of a story.
They have a phone service there that has A7G, A7H.
I mean, I've never heard of anything like that.
It reminds me of a funny story.
Oh, that's nice.
All right, what's the story?
It reminds me of an old story known as the Gilligan's Island BBS story.
Gilligan's Island BBS story?
Yeah, it was one of those rumors that people would start in the old underground BBS realm
to see what stupid things you could get somebody to do.
Well, the stupid thing was that there was this really cool BBS known as the Gilligan's Island BBS,
which the name itself is comical, so if anyone could take that name seriously, they deserved a prank.
But what the prank was that the BBS was so underground and so hidden
that you literally had to call an AT&T operator,
whistle into the phone, and tell her,
please connect me to the Gilligan's Island BBS.
And this has to be a story that has never been proven.
No, actually, there is no Gilligan's Island BBS.
I didn't think so.
Yeah, but the interesting thing was to see who came back to you and said,
why can't I get on the board?
But there were people.
Oh, boy. Well, we just have to come up with more stories like that.
Oh, we have a ringing phone.
Who could this be?
Yes, do you have information on 500 numbers?
Yes, I sure do. Are you interested for your residence?
Well, actually, I just wanted to know what exchanges are available. Can you tell me that?
Sure. Do you have something to write with?
Yes, I do.
I've got 288-346-367-677-437-442 and 443-445-449, 488-673-675 and 679.
Wow, you're getting more, aren't you?
Well, we've known about the first four for several months.
The additional ones we found out about two to three weeks ago.
I see.
At the same time.
Okay, great. Do you think you'll be getting more in the future?
Hopefully, we sure will.
Okay, well, thanks for your help.
You're welcome.
Bye-bye.
On AT&T.
Wow, that certainly was nice for her to call us like that and tell us this.
I guess she was listening.
I don't know how she managed to play the ring on the air like that, but that's the magic of telephones.
Okay, our phone number is 212-279-3400, and it's time for us to take some phone calls.
If you have any questions about 500 numbers or 600 numbers or 700 numbers or any kind of numbers,
give us a call.
If you have stories or questions or anything like that.
Good evening, you're the first caller.
All right.
Good evening, you're the second caller.
Second caller?
Yes, go ahead.
All right, well, I wanted to ask you something sort of unrelated to the 500 numbers,
but I have this phone card here, which I'd never really heard about until recently,
and I wondered if you knew much about them.
The prepaid cards?
Prepaid cards.
Okay.
Well, they, I don't know, it looks like they're a little bit easy to misuse
because they sell them in these little packages that, you know,
it's a piece of cardboard with a piece of plastic on top to sort of seal up the card and open it up.
You know, it's quite easy to just rip it off, and you can find the PIN number, if you will,
on the back of the card, and it looks like anyone could just find a whole batch of these somewhere.
If you work in a store.
Just peel off the plastic and look at the numbers on the cards
and seal them back up again with glue or something.
It doesn't look very secure.
These are on the shelves at stores?
Well, not necessarily on the shelves for customers to take,
but the store where I bought it, it was behind the counter.
But it looks like, you know, anyone who works there could.
A disreputable person or maybe the truck driver that brings all those in?
Exactly.
I wonder if they have trucks that bring nothing but phone cards.
That would be something.
And I guess if you even knew what you were doing, you could sort of guess what these numbers are.
I mean, it's a 10-digit PIN number.
Do you think there's, is there any rhyme or reason to the numbers?
Well, sort of.
I mean, it's sort of like a phone number.
It's like another three numbers and then...
What do you mean, something like an area code?
Yeah, I mean, if you probably had a few hundred of these cards,
you could see some rhyme or reason to it.
Uh-huh.
But I was wondering if you had ever used one or...
No, I have yet to stoop to that level to use one of these things,
but I might just get one to experiment with it and see, you know,
if there is some sort of similarity.
Do you know if it's the same 800 number each time?
The same 800 number?
No, it's not an 800 number.
It's a PIN number.
But you have to call an 800 number, don't you?
Yes, and I think it probably is the same number that you call each time.
This one that I got happens to be from a company called TLC,
the Long Distance Company,
which is a division of Caribbean Telephone and Telegraph Incorporated.
Really?
Not affiliated with the Learning Channel, right?
Probably not, or the Texan Limousine Commission, either.
Popular letters there.
Well, it's easy to figure out.
How much did you pay for it?
Well, it was $5, and to be honest,
I really don't know what I'd get for that $5.
I was just more curious to get it and see it than anything else.
But, I mean, there was a 24-hour customer service number.
I think the rate to go by, and this is the rate that's speculated,
is about $5.
So, you know, I think it's about $5.
I think it's about $5.
I mean, there was a 24-hour customer service number.
I think the rate to go by, and this is the rate that Sprint seems to be into,
the rate that AT&T seems to be into,
$0.10 a minute after 5 p.m. and all day weekends.
If you can match that on anything, it's worthwhile.
Otherwise, you know, stick with direct dial.
Well, I did see this chart they had in the window of the store that was selling this,
and they were comparing it to, well, I think it was something like
comparing it to calling from your house versus calling from a pay phone
and, you know, before 11 or after 11, something like that.
And, of course, they made it out to seem a lot cheaper if you used this phone card,
but, you know, I don't know if that always applies.
Well, calling from a pay phone is always going to be notoriously more expensive
because the first minute of any call on a pay phone outside the state
will cost something like $2.50.
And they also compared it to using, you know, an AT&T,
you know, one of these cards that you get from AT&T for long distance.
Is that right? Or maybe NYNEX?
A calling card, yeah.
Well, they have surcharges on those, which is another crazy thing.
A calling card is probably cheaper because there's no service charge or surcharge.
Right. Completely unnecessary charge, too, by the way.
I'm sure.
All right. Well, keep us informed if you crack anything on that.
Sure.
And we'll keep an eye out for phone cards, too.
I guess we should be keeping track of how many different kinds there are.
Well, I have a few from different countries,
and this is much different because there's no magnetic stripe on it
because, of course, there's no, you know, there's no pay phones.
There are very few pay phones here in the city that use mag stripes.
Right.
So this, you know, works a little differently.
But, you know, the ones from other countries usually have mag stripes on them.
Right. That's true.
Well, I mean the ones in this country that they're starting to push.
Yeah, starting.
The ones you can buy at 7-Eleven now and various other places.
Well, if you want, I can send you a couple of these other cards.
I don't know if you have any use for them.
Well, yeah, use them up and send us.
Yeah, that's a good idea.
Send us your used phone cards.
They're not of use to anybody out there anymore after they use them,
but you can study them and see if there's any kind of similarity.
Come to think of it now, I think the one that I have from Australia
happens to look very much like a metro card.
Oh, really? Well, that could be interesting.
Well, I mean not the design so much as there's no magnetic stripe on it,
yet it does store something on the card.
Uh-huh.
And be damned if I can figure out how they store it, but they do.
Okay, we can look at that.
But if anybody out there has phone cards that they no longer need,
these are domestic ones that they sell around here,
you can send those to us.
What's your address?
You can send them right here to the radio station,
which is off the hook here of WBAI,
and that's 505 8th Avenue, New York, New York, 10018.
Okay.
All right.
All right, thanks.
Thanks for calling.
All right, bye-bye.
That should be interesting, getting all these phone cards in the mail now.
What do you think?
Think I'm opening up a Pandora's box here?
Yeah, I don't know.
We might come in next week and there'll be five large mail bags waiting for us.
Yeah, or five large mail men waiting for us,
saying they don't like us doing that kind of thing.
Who knows?
Good evening.
You're on the radio.
Hi.
Hi.
How you doing?
How you doing?
Pretty good.
Just thinking of when I was growing up in Pittsburgh around the early 50s,
and we used to stick a pin right through the cord of the pay phone
and ground it out on the box, and you'd get a dial tone.
Did you ever hear of such a thing?
Through the cord?
Yep.
If you had a cord, you could stick something through, right?
Well, after they started putting the metal things around the cords,
we'd just come with a punch and go right through it.
Wow, you're determined, aren't you?
And it still worked.
Uh-huh.
Well, does that work today?
I haven't tried it, but I remember when I was eight years old,
what a thrill it was to hear that dial tone come on,
that little spark jump from the pin to the box.
That was back in the days before dial tone first phones.
That's when you pick up a pay phone and you don't get anything until you put a dime in.
That's right.
Yeah, that's the way it used to be everywhere.
That's right, you didn't get a thing.
Yeah, so I think, if I'm not mistaken, when they went to dial tone first,
that sort of got rid of that particular way of making free phone calls.
That particular way, yeah.
That was really a thrill.
I'd be right on that, right?
Yeah, that was around 20 or 30 years ago,
the last ground-start phone in any metropolitan area.
Well, actually, it was, yeah, the mid-70s, I'd say.
Mid to late 70s is when they changed things around here.
There was a similar problem that surfaced.
I remember rotary pay phones, I do.
I've even seen a few.
You'll see them in my parents' neighborhood.
Really?
Yeah, they put them there on purpose.
Oh, yeah, of course, the stupid anti-drug things.
They don't want drug dealers beating people, and all that stuff.
But a bug that surfaced a few years ago, about maybe 10 years ago,
was pay phones, in order to recognize, still to this day,
whether money should be collected or returned,
uses a reversal of polarity, even on modern pay phones.
And this could be spoofed.
It was being done for a while, similar to the old problem,
but slightly different.
People used to stick a paper clip into the mouthpiece
and touch it on the phone and hold it there.
You could only make a local telephone call,
but you would hold it there and place the call,
and the call would go through.
I remember seeing many mouthpieces in New York
with a big, wide hole in the middle.
Yeah.
You could tell that people were there with their pins.
Yeah, there was no exact reason to get the exact little dot in the center.
You could have did it one dot over,
but people must have superstitiously thought
that it had to be the dot exactly in the center.
So that one was always worn out the most.
It's interesting.
It's rumored that New York Telephone came up with the acronym PIN
after that particular method was used.
But that could be wrong.
Maybe they didn't.
But yeah, that doesn't still work, does it?
No, no.
I still see some of those mouthpieces.
I think people are still trying.
Well, I mean, they might be just leftovers.
There's probably no reason to replace the receiver if it's not broken.
Do you ever notice how every payphone in New York
has Love God scratched into it or Praise God
or something having to do with God
in every single metallic chassis of a payphone?
Go-to church.
No, but God is on every single one of them.
At least a couple of years ago this was true.
I haven't read payphones recently.
It didn't seem to hold true for Co-Cots for some reason.
God was not with the Co-Cots.
I don't quite understand who was doing that.
But I'd like to know how they managed to get something
that was so permanent.
They really were using some heavy-duty machinery to do that.
Maybe they were using their finger.
I don't know.
I've seen the guy that did that.
I don't know.
Hello?
Hello?
You're on the air.
I'm calling.
I have a question.
Yes.
Is there a device that will go on a PC
that will record the incoming and outgoing phone numbers
and the duration of the call?
Do you know of any such thing?
You mean like a pen register?
Is that what you mean?
Something that will go into a slot of a computer
and save it to a file, the number.
The number dialed and the incoming number
with the caller ID.
There are interfaces with computers that can do that.
I don't know one specifically.
That will take caller ID data and display it someplace?
Right, right.
And save it to a file.
Right.
That's the purpose of all that.
It takes the signal and translates it into something
that is written to a disk.
Right, right.
Exactly.
I have one, but the manufacturer went out of business.
So I wonder if there is, you know,
do you know of any current manufacturers?
Because it decodes the outgoing tones and stores it
and it decodes the incoming caller ID.
Well, maybe not that does both in one card,
but I certainly know a company
that has computerized pen registers.
And I recommend them because they were the pen registers
that were used in my case by NYNEX.
And they are manufactured by a company called Hekimian,
H-E-K-I-M-I-A-N.
And they're located in Atlanta, Georgia.
And you can get their phone number from
Directory Assistance in Area Code 404.
Okay.
And that's a place to start.
They might deal with more corporate customers,
but you can certainly get a catalog from them.
Okay.
All right.
Thanks a lot, guys.
Thanks for the call.
Now, we have a detail on the payphone scratching.
There was a guy who used to go around doing it,
an elderly black gentleman who literally,
this was all he did.
He was arrested a number of times.
I've seen this guy numerous times doing this.
And all he had was a nail.
It was not some high-tech device to scratch it.
A nail like you hammer into the wall.
A nail as in hammer and nail.
And he was a religious fanatic,
and this is what he did.
Are you saying one person covered all these phones?
I swear to you.
I am not kidding you.
I used to be in various necks of the woods
on the subway system,
and I've seen him in the Bronx,
in Manhattan,
and in Brooklyn.
Same guy?
Same guy.
You think he's still around?
I think he's dead.
Yeah, I could explain why it's not appearing
as much as it used to be.
Well, there's an opening out there
for some enterprising person.
But, you know,
maybe you want to scratch off the hook
on Wednesdays at 10 o'clock on WBAI.
Well, that's a lot more to scratch.
We're not suggesting that 9x people out there.
Okay, let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
You're on.
Go ahead.
Yes, sir.
Well, I don't know where to start.
Well, you're going to have to make it quick
because we're running out of time.
Well, you know, let me take...
Wait a second.
Sorry.
All the erroneous interpretations
of information about the 500 service,
my number is working now.
The sequencing works beautifully.
No one will hang up because...
Excuse me.
After, you can set it to ring
any number of rings from 1 to 10
before it goes to the next,
the second or the third number
when you have sequencing in effect.
Each time before it changes,
it says, please hold on.
We will try to reach your party
at a different number.
Oh, really?
Right.
How do you set it?
Do you call a special number?
Sure.
You call it,
enter your five-digit master pin
just as you would with the 700 service.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
By the way,
AirTouch, the cellular people
in Georgia and California and Nevada,
they have gotten the 400, 600, 700, and 800
exchanges on the 500 service.
AT&T will get dozens or scores or hundreds more
The non-portability will only apply
for the first two or three years
and then you will have portability
just as you got with 800 service
starting in 1993.
Okay.
Now, my question is,
when you call a 500 number,
are you saying it doesn't ring?
Instead, you get some sort of little
bong tone or something
and you enter a pin that way?
No, you get the same prompt
that you do with the 700 service.
Right.
Okay.
Well, the thing is,
what they're saying is,
in their advertisements,
500 service is different from 700 service
in that you don't have to go through that menu
to make the phone call.
Now, does it ring immediately
when you call a 500 number
or do you have to hit a tone?
Yes.
If you're calling from a non-public telephone
and you dial 1 plus 500 plus the number,
then that means you're paying for it
and you hear simply AT&T
and then it starts ringing immediately.
Since I have multiple lines,
I can call from one line to another
and check it rather than having to
ask somebody else or call a next-door neighbor.
Okay, but if you dial 0 first,
then you get the opportunity to enter the pin?
Or to either an AT&T-compatible calling card
or meaning their own
or their own universal MasterCard or Visa
or a local phone company in this country card.
Right.
And so it's either a calling card
or a four-digit charge reversing pin.
Does this thing at all integrate caller ID?
In other words, so that you can recognize
somebody calling you?
I would love to know the answer to that question.
As you know, on Wednesday, April 12th,
nationwide caller ID will go into effect.
And I can only speculate,
as you might answer that question,
it would be terrific if when calls come in
via 800 or 700 or 500 service,
it displays the number.
I wouldn't, you know, expect it.
But of course, if you're using the charge reversing pin
or it's an 800 number,
then the caller's area code and number
is still going to at least show up on your bill
when your bill comes.
Mm-hmm.
Since you're paying...
Yeah, I imagine it probably would if they answer a pin.
You'd see their phone number.
Oh, you do.
You already do with your 700 service.
Right, that's true.
How long have you had your 500 for?
Josh, mine started on January 21st.
They took the order on December 21st
and said it will go into effect on January 21st,
and it did.
Uh-huh.
I've called them three different times,
and each time they claim never to have heard from me before.
So I don't know quite what's going on.
They don't use order numbers, as NYNEX does.
So that's...
Yeah.
That's awful.
Let's see.
They have the policy that if you have a 700 number
and they end up getting the exchange that it is on in the 500 service,
they'll give you first dibs on that number as a 500 number
if you do want to convert.
Right.
The way a supervisor described it to me
is they are not proactively continuing to sell the 700 service,
but not only will you still be able to keep your 700 number for life,
but as long as you know to ask for it,
yes, you can still sign up for the 700 service
and get just about any number that's not already being used by somebody else.
And the free offer...
Not the free offer.
The offer at a dollar a month,
because of a glitch that turned up...
For example, in some parts of the country,
you could dial the 1-500, but not the 0-500.
Uh-huh.
That was like in this area for a few days.
And in other parts of the country, it was a reverse.
You could do the 0-500, but not the 1-500.
So instead of being until the end of March, which it had originally been,
everybody gets the whole kit and caboodle,
the Navigator thing for a dollar a month through...
In other words, everything except the voicemail,
through the end of April.
Well, that's great, except they told me Navigator wasn't available.
I'll call them again and say that it is available.
Maybe they were mistaken.
I mean, I'm in Brooklyn, out of the Kenmore Place Exchange.
Uh-huh.
I'm at the central office building at 1421 Ocean Avenue,
but you're out on Long Island, right?
Yeah, it should be available there too, though.
We have everything else, so I don't see why it would be.
DMS-100, this is all 5AE.
Maybe that has something to do with it.
Well, we are out of time, but thanks for the update.
You're welcome.
And let us know if anything changes in the future.
Right.
Okay, this is an exciting era that's upon us.
500 numbers, integrating everything in sight.
I don't know.
Do you think it's going to be good, or do you think it's going to be bad?
I don't know, but it sounds like since they're telling you that a service
that one person claims is available and you're being told that it's not.
Well, that's just something you come to expect.
But, you know, I'm more concerned with when they tie in Nationwide Caller ID
and you know who's calling you at all times.
I don't know.
This could be used for bad things as well, but it's up to us to see what they are.
Well, hey, we're all connected.
Yeah, that's true.
Nationwide Caller ID, I mean, that is coming in April.
I don't know what that's going to mean to the rest of us.
I mean, will we be able to do an all-call block on calls to California?
We might be able to block our calls to New York,
but the FCC has mandated that all-call blocking is not necessary for crossing state lines.
And that's going to be kind of interesting to see how the two technologies mesh together.
That's our show for tonight.
We'll be back again next week, 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock,
with another edition of Off the Hook.
I'm Manuel Goldstein for FiberOptic, and everybody else, have a good night.
♪
♪
♪
Good evening.
In the news tonight, residents in the nation's capital wait to see if Uncle Sam will come to the rescue
now that the District of Columbia has declared a fiscal state of emergency.
With the Cold War supposedly behind us,
some say it's time the nation's nuclear industry faces the music.
And in New York, Governor Pataki outlines his budget plan,
with sweeping cuts slated in many areas,
including cuts to welfare, city and state universities, and to Medicaid.
With these and other stories, I'm Jose Santiago in New York,
with Cheryl Grant in Washington,
This is the news for Wednesday, February 1, 1995.
First to Washington for the Pacifica National News.
The Federal Reserve has hiked short-term interest rates as expected by half a percentage point.
The Fed says the economy is continuing to substantially grow,
and so today's hike was needed to contain inflation.
But others worry the Federal Reserve's interest boost will push the country into recession.
Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat from Connecticut,
notes this will be the seventh rate hike in a year.
Another rise in interest rates could kill jobs
and keep the economic recovery from ever-reaching, hard-working families.
It's true that our economy is not at full health,
but prescribing another interest rate hike as a cure
is like prescribing brain surgery for a headache.
It's unnecessary, and it could kill the patient.
Many analysts anticipate the Fed will hold the line on interest rates for the next few months.
Among the major human rights violations last year,
the U.S. counts the Russian bombardment of Chechen civilians,
the Rwandan Hutu genocide of Tutsis,
and the Mexican government crackdown on the Chiapas region.
That's from the State Department's annual report on human rights.
As for China, last year President Clinton severed ties
between human rights and most favorite nation trading status,
hoping Beijing's human rights record will improve.
John Shattuck, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, admits that didn't happen.
With respect to the last year, there has been a significant crackdown on dissent,
but there are also more complicated trends at work in China,
and the U.S. is engaged on human rights issues across the board
with respect to China and at all levels.
But at least one representative who opposed giving China MFN status last year
wants that issue reconsidered, Republican Frank Wolf of Virginia.
We should never give MFN to a nation that is persecuting its own people
and destroying the Christian church and plundering Tibet.
One of the positive signs cited in the State Department report
was the return of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and democracy to Haiti.
Today in Washington, Haitian Prime Minister Schmert Michel
says parliamentary elections are set for April 28th,
subject to official approval by the current parliament.
One-third of the 80,000 U.S. public schools should have extensive repairs
or even be replaced.
That's the conclusion of a General Accounting Office report.
The total bill to be sure students attend safe schools, $112 billion.
Senator Carol Moseley Braun says it's appropriate for the federal funds
to step in to fill the shoes of local property taxes.
School districts have borrowed from Peter to pay Paul.
They've taken the scarce resources and the scarce money to use for operations
and not put it into the regular maintenance.
They've deferred maintenance in order to keep up operations
because the property tax dollars have been relied on so heavily to fund education.
The Democrat from Illinois sponsoring the Education Infrastructure Act,
which will plump $100 million in federal funds to shore up the nation's schools.
Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry has declared a state of emergency
as the district threatens to sink under a flood of red ink.
There's a shortfall of about $700 million, about 22% of its budget.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich says Congress will have a major accounting firm
audit the district's books.
When people can find $100 million at a time missing and say,
Oh, we didn't know we owed this. This is only a city.
I mean, this is a level of disorganization and confusion that is, I think, mildly astonishing.
Mayor Barry is expected to soon propose cuts in medical benefits for the poor to save money.
In New Mexico, the Mescalero Apache tribe has turned down a proposal
to store radioactive nuclear waste on their reservation.
Payments could have totaled $250 million for 40 years of storage.
And those are the stories topping the news.
Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry today declared a state of emergency in the district.
Barry is taking the drastic action in the face of an exploding budget deficit
and the threat of a possible congressional takeover of district finances.
Declaring a state of emergency will allow the mayor to slash spending
without needing approval from the city council.
Barry tried to stem the flood of red ink in December
when he made nearly $300 million in cuts in order to gain confidence on Wall Street.
But that medicine wasn't strong enough.
A new audit of D.C. finances found a $335 million deficit for 1994.
The new figures put the city's shortfall for this fiscal year at nearly $700 million.
That's 22 percent of the district's budget to give you a sense of what that means.
The debt is double the amount the city spends each year on police, fire, and emergency medical services.
The district is in a dire crisis, one of the worst urban fiscal crises in American history.
But how did it get this way?
District observer Ron Walters has the political science department at Howard University.
One thing I think we have to say is that you have had and continue to have
an outflow of residents from the District of Columbia,
and that takes away the tax base of the district so that there's less revenue coming in.
The district, like most major cities, then, leaves behind two kinds of populations,
well, actually three kinds, an elderly population, which needs city services,
a poor population, which needs even more, and then, of course, a very affluent population.
So I think that given the increased demand on city services,
what you see is spending at an extraordinary rate to take cognizance of that.
So I think that what has to happen is that the balance between the demands on the city services
and the revenue have to come into some balance, and I think that's where we are right now.
It's obvious to me also that Sharon Pratt Kelly, as the mayor, did not move quickly enough,
for example, to stop spending in the health sector.
Again, like the health sector in most states, this has been ballooning
because of the extraordinary cost involved.
She should have moved even more quickly to get a hold of that.
Since she didn't, Medicare costs are skyrocketing.
So I think that when you look at, finally, the fact that the federal government
has had a very stingy attitude towards cities in the last 15 years,
has not provided the kind of funding for cities, has had, in effect, no urban policy,
I think that there is enough blame to go around.
But certainly I think in the immediate period here, you've got to give Marion Barry a lot of credit
for unearthing as much of this and bringing it to light as possible.
Okay, what about Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton's recommendation
that the residents be exempt from paying federal income taxes?
Well, I think that that's a fair proposal, because what it would do, in effect,
is to give the district a commonwealth status equal to that of several other territories.
It would then free up the monies that district now pays in federal taxes to the government
to take care of its own needs.
I think that most people don't understand that the federal payment to the District of Columbia
accounts for less and less of a total share of the district budget, less than 20%.
So most of the money that is in the district budget is collected from city taxes,
sources of city revenue from the citizens of the district.
If those monies were not paid in taxes, therefore, to the national government,
and one could use those taxes internally, you could probably have much more money
than the federal payment to offset whatever deficits we do have in the district.
But that's not likely to happen, is it?
I don't think it's likely to happen.
Right now you've got a Congress that is in a cutting fever,
trying to find sources of revenue everywhere.
They're not likely to let $2-3 billion in taxes from the District of Columbia get away from them.
So I don't expect that they will accept that particular resolution of the problem.
How will the residents of the district feel this fiscal crisis?
Well, I think that the unfortunate thing about this is that the people who always feel any cutback
in city services are the people who need it most.
And there we're talking about people who have to depend upon health care services from the city,
being funded by the city.
They certainly will get less.
What that means in terms of the quality of life for the poor citizens,
it's likely to begin to slide again.
That's unfortunate because the district had made some strides, for example,
in trying to deal with problems like prenatal health care.
And then, of course, children in their early stages of life, the diseases they suffered,
they had begun to make some inroads into some of those problems.
I think that they're going to probably slip back if the quality of health care suffers.
I think the same thing with respect to general assistance and welfare
and some of the other things that the poorest people depend upon.
I think that many of those things are liable to be cut back.
And so the people who depend upon it most are the ones that are going to certainly feel it.
Okay. What about the impact on labor?
I think that we don't know yet how this is going to impact labor in general.
But I think that certainly what it's going to do to those people who work for the city government
is to put extraordinary pressure on them.
The unions that service the district government, especially ones like AFSCME and AFGE,
those large civil service-oriented unions,
are going to come under tremendous pressure for workers to have givebacks.
The mayor is already talking about layoffs, furloughs, these kind of draconian measures.
So I think that you're going to see him in the next few days begin to meet with the labor leaders
and begin to talk to them about some of the measures that he's considering there.
Ron Walters of Howard University.
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said that Congress has a moral obligation to help the district out.
Gingrich is calling for an independent audit of the city's finances,
and he's also suggesting that maybe it's time for the district to be turned over to the state of Maryland.
The city is now considering a 10-day furlough for all city workers,
firing some employees, breaking some contracts with vendors,
ordering all agencies to stop spending, capping school spending, and limiting Medicaid.
Pressures to cut the federal budget apparently haven't convinced the Energy Department
to close any of its weapons research facilities.
For nearly half a century,
the labs have been the key in developing America's most sophisticated nuclear weaponry.
But now that the Cold War is over, critics say it's time to close them down.
Pacifica's Don Rush reports.
It wasn't that Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary didn't realize that the nation had entered a new era.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union,
the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons is slated to be scaled back dramatically.
We needed to recognize that we are beyond the Cold War.
I know even what to call it.
We are in the area of national security in a time of collaboration, cooperation,
and dealing with so many complex threats that are so different
that it requires a new way to operate our business
while we cling to the certainty that the ever-diminishing stockpile we have
is safe and secure and reliable.
But, she said, there will be no proposal to close down any of the weapons labs
in President Clinton's budget next week.
That did not mean there wouldn't be some downsizing, she said.
Indeed, a special department commission has found
the labs plagued by inefficiency, duplication, and micromanagement from Washington.
So streamlining was the buzzword of the day.
Take, for instance, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California.
As the arms race began in earnest,
it was built in 1952 to provide competition for Los Alamos
in an effort to speed up development of nuclear weapons.
And over 40 years later, the commission recommended to continue to keep it open.
Task Force Chair Bob Galvin.
The task force believes that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
should retain enough nuclear weapons design competence and technology base
to continue its activities in nonproliferation,
counterproliferation, intelligence support, and verification
to provide independent review for several years.
Over the next five years, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
will see much of its nuclear work transferred to other facilities.
That includes the National Ignition Facility, estimated to cost nearly $2 billion.
Both the U.S. and the former Soviet republics
have begun scaling back their nuclear stockpiles
under the weapons agreements known as Start I and II.
But the Energy Department task force argued it's still a dangerous world
and noted that there's no guarantee that Russia would not change its mind.
So Galvin concluded the U.S. nuclear weapons-making facilities should be maintained.
Capability-based deterrence requires the potential for weapons production
in the event of increased threat
based on the residual capabilities of Pantex,
Los Alamos National Laboratories, and Sandia National Laboratories.
But no further investments in production capability are needed at this time.
But the commission also recommended the continuation of research
into tritium production that enhances the detonation of nuclear weapons.
A year ago, the Galvin Commission was directed to examine the government laboratories.
But critics of the nuclear weapons industry
are not impressed with the commission's findings.
It's an astounding piece of trying to justify business as usual.
Greg Bishak with the National Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament.
There's a real lack of attention to the big issues,
the comprehensive test ban, the nonproliferation treaty,
what that might imply for fundamental restructuring of the labs
downsizing, cutting back on these investments
and reinvesting our savings in areas of real national need.
But there's a budget squeeze, and the Energy Department is going to take a hit.
So Secretary O'Leary touted plans to cut another $10 billion from the DOE budget.
This included $4.5 billion from efforts to clean up the environmental damage
from the weapons industry.
Again, Greg Bishak with the National Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament.
Essentially they saw what was the biggest growth item in the budget
and they said we're going to cap that.
And that's all we've heard.
We've seen no blueprint either in this report
or anything else that's come out of DOE or the administration
to give us any indication of what these savings really amount to.
O'Leary says the savings will come from lower contract costs
and more effective technology.
But Bishak adds missing from this discussion is any mention of responsibility
that have been involved in weapons production.
Don Rush, Pacifica Network News, Washington.
As we reported yesterday, the attack against public broadcasting has taken a new turn.
Republican Senator Larry Pressler has requested that National Public Radio
report the names of all their reporters and other staff
who have in the past worked for Pacifica.
The big question now is will NPR cooperate and name names?
Pressler, who is trying to eliminate all subsidies for public broadcasting,
insists this is not a throwback to the McCarthy era.
Pacifica's Mark Bevis reports.
Senator Larry Pressler, Republican from South Dakota,
has written a letter to the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
a man named Henry Cawthon.
Attached to the letter are 16 pages of questions.
Some of the questions have to do with money,
such as who funds Garrison Keillor's National Indian Radio Program,
a Prairie Home companion.
Others have to do with public radio's balance and so-called objectivity.
But then at the end of the 16 pages,
Pressler asks one question that's raised the hair on the back of some people's necks.
Question 25K.
How many National Public Radio staff have previously worked for Pacifica stations?
Please list them by name and job category.
Today at a press conference unveiling unrelated legislation,
Pressler was asked to explain this question
and whether he was carrying on a witch hunt against Pacifica.
It certainly is not.
It's just an issue that has been raised by people in the public,
and if they do receive public funds,
it's a legitimate question to respond to,
to constituent questions and so forth.
So it certainly is not.
Does it matter where NPR reporters have worked in the past?
Well, it might to some people.
And if there's a definite pattern,
and if some people are excluded, some people are included,
it might make a difference to some people.
Pressler says he does not want to set up a blacklist.
So what does he plan to do with that list of NPR staff who've worked for Pacifica?
I plan to publish it in the congressional record
along with the other answers to the questions.
And they're legitimate questions that have been asked in the media and elsewhere.
If they are receiving public funds, the public can ask questions about it.
And I don't plan to harm anybody or anything like that.
It's just information that I shall make available.
When Pressler ended the press conference,
which was about draft legislation deregulating the telecommunications industry,
plugging his plan to do away with any federal funding for public broadcasting.
Part of my effort, if the Corporation for Public Broadcast were privatized,
we wouldn't have these problems.
But so long as there is public money there,
a lot of our citizens and groups do raise money and have questions.
So if they adopt my plan of privatizing, those problems will go away.
It's not clear what Pressler means when he says,
those problems will go away.
In a written response, National Public Radio's President Del Lewis
stated only that NPR would answer Senator Pressler's questions to the best of its ability,
but that the network would keep in mind the First Amendment and privacy rights of its employees
with the advice of its legal counsel.
An NPR spokesperson admitted there's a great deal of talk
at the network's Washington headquarters about Pressler's request to name names.
At the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
Chairman Henry Cawthons reported to have been in meetings all day
to discuss Pressler's questions.
A spokesperson could say only that they've received the letter and are working on it.
Pacifica, however, did have a response.
Pat Scott is the acting executive director of the Pacifica Foundation.
It sounds like going back to the McCarthy era
of finding out everything you can about everybody,
and there has to be some reason for it, you know,
other than people want to know, which is what Pressler says.
I mean, it just doesn't work that way.
I mean, it really is meant to chill and intimidate people,
not to really have the people in public broadcasting running.
And being in Washington this past few days, they are running.
Scott sees Senator Pressler's actions as an attempt to drive a wedge
between Pacifica and other public radio networks.
And Scott admits Pacifica has made some mistakes in the past,
and she answered the charges most often leveled against the network
that it broadcasts racist and anti-Semitic programs.
Look, we had some serious management problems at KPFK,
and the problems that we repaired, we fixed them.
We terminated the programmer, and we in turn terminated the manager
for not dealing with it the way it should have been dealt with.
And that problem no longer exists at KPFK.
And so what they're bringing up are things that happened in 91 and 92
that are essentially dead issues now,
and they are issues that at the time we took care of.
Anytime you have a community broadcasting station
that is run by volunteers, sometimes these things happen,
and generally if the station is being run properly, they're taken care of.
And at Pacifica, we took care of them.
Scott has spent the last few days on Capitol Hill
talking with Congress members about public broadcasting.
And she says she's come to understand that the real issue
is not about the political slant of public radio.
It's who can make money off the privatization of public broadcasting.
Newsday columnist Lars Eric Nelson's been exploring this angle.
He reports, and others have confirmed, that media magnate Rupert Murdoch
has met with members of Senator Pressler's staff,
and Nelson believes that if Pressler can convince Congress
to defund public broadcasting, Murdoch is poised to snatch it up.
If the government, the Republican-controlled Congress,
can sell off private TV stations,
there are some corporate interests who can make a fortune
by buying up these licenses very cheaply.
And in the case of Rupert Murdoch, he has this technology
which would let him split each signal eight times or more.
So he would get eight stations for the price of one,
which he buys at a fire sale.
Nelson believes there may be a political angle to the debate,
but he advises, follow the money trail.
Mark Bevis, Pacifica Network News, Washington.
And you are listening to the WBAI Evening News.
I'm Jose Santiago in New York.
In local news, it appears the Bronx District Attorney
will go ahead and empanel a grand jury
to determine if any police officers should be indicted
in the death of 29-year-old Anthony Baez.
Baez is the young man who died,
possibly as a result of a police chokehold,
a death the medical examiner has ruled a homicide.
The incident has triggered much community outrage,
given the young man's reputation in his Bronx community
as a youth counselor.
He was one of four brothers playing football
in front of their home on December 22.
Witnesses say their football accidentally hit a police car,
that an officer leaped out and challenged the boys to a fight,
and as they tried to arrest Anthony,
he was held in a chokehold, he collapsed and died.
At first, police said that Anthony Baez's death
was the result of an asthma attack,
but two separate autopsies have concluded he died of asphyxia
and that he suffered compression to the neck and chest.
The Bronx District Attorney's office
has been investigating the death.
Today, the family and their attorney said they have been told
the case will go to a grand jury,
possibly as early as next week.
Susan Carton is one of the Baez family attorneys.
The family has been advised
that the matter is going to be proceeding to a grand jury
and that although we're not clear exactly when,
but we expect that it will be sometime in the next week to 10 days.
The family, having been advised of this information,
is very anxious to get into the grand jury
and to tell the truth as to what happened that evening
and hopeful, and very hopeful,
that this will lead to an indictment of one or more of the police officers
involved in the tragic death of Anthony Baez.
Attorney Susan Carton, who represents the family of Anthony Baez,
a spokesperson for the Bronx District Attorney's office,
said there would be no comment until tomorrow morning.
Meanwhile, Francis Exlavode,
the principal officer involved in Baez's death,
remains on desk duty.
Published reports say the officer had a history
of at least 11 complaints of police abuse against him.
However, he had been exonerated of any wrongdoing
in each and every case.
And New York State Governor George Pataki
went before the state legislature in Albany today
and outlined his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year,
a budget which, for the first time since 1943,
is lower than that of the previous year.
Under Pataki's $62.6 billion proposal,
as many as 11,400 state employees
could lose their jobs,
State and City University of New York students
may wind up paying higher tuition,
some 190,000 people will be thrown off the welfare rolls,
while some middle- and high-income New Yorkers
will receive a tax break.
As he had promised during his campaign,
the governor imposed some of the most dramatic cuts
in social services.
Welfare has failed.
It isn't working. It must end.
Despite its noble intentions,
welfare has kept the poor from prospering.
What began as a safety net has become a spider web,
trapping the needy in a stranglehold of dependency,
choking off the life's breath of freedom and responsibility
that all individuals need, desire, and deserve.
Think about this for a second.
In 1980, there were 1.3 million New Yorkers
on the welfare rolls.
Today, 15 years later, tens of billions of dollars later,
1.7 million New Yorkers are welfare recipients,
a 30% increase.
And during that time frame,
New York State has lost population.
The experience of New York and the nation
after decades of more and bigger welfare programs
has shown that welfare offers only a counterfeit compassion,
an oppressive, counterproductive form of caring
that diminishes rather than renews the dignity
of those less fortunate members of our society.
Welfare is hurting people, not helping people.
It must end.
That's why, in New York,
Workfare will replace welfare.
Transforming welfare's failed past
into Workfare's promising future
starts with the recognition that welfare must end.
Simple tinkering with the existing system
won't do the job.
We need sweeping, fundamental change.
Workfare will replace welfare.
This budget proposes that Workfare be required
for all home relief recipients.
Further, while only 2% of AFDC recipients
now participate in Workfare,
this budget aims to enroll 30% in Workfare programs
during the first year,
with a goal of 50% enrollment by 1997.
To make Workfare work,
we must free our economy to create jobs.
We must change the tax code to reward work,
encourage savings, and stimulate investment.
And certainly, we must end the way
our tax code discourages people.