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cannot confirm it. That's the usual fed way of talking. Now here's an interesting
piece that was posted on the Kevin Mitnick mailing list. For those who don't
know the Kevin Mitnick mailing list has been ongoing now for quite some time and
people talk about various things in the news, various ideas as far as what we can
do to help help Kevin Mitnick out who's been in prison now for over three years
with no trial and no bail and it appears that well the judge in this case it
seems like she has this thing against Kevin it really you know it feels that
way that she just doesn't like him she doesn't trust him in any sense
whatsoever and she really believes that he needs to be locked away and never let
out or just you know locked away until the trial anyway with absolutely no hope
of of bail or looking at the evidence if it involves a computer or things like
that in other words she seems a little clueless as far as how the technology
works you know somebody can't start a war by using a phone or or you know
can't hack the Defense Department by looking at the evidence for his own case
the interesting thing about this is that if you look back someone actually went
back into the Los Angeles Times archives went to November 22nd 1995 as an
attorney Mariana Fowler I think I'm saying it right once said that an
effective lawyer had to think as deeply and widely as possible about a case you
keep testing to see how far the ripples go as the federal judge who Monday
declared key portions of Proposition 187 unconstitutional Fowler has set off a
shockwave that may well ripple the legal political and social fabric of California
for years to come her bold judicial action based on her
contention that federal authority over immigration supersedes many elements of
Proposition 187 dealt a sharp blow to proponents of the popular voter approved
immigration control measure now I find that fascinating that obviously she's you
know she's got enough there to realize when something is completely wrong and
needs to be you know corrected even though it flies in the face of popular
sentiment but I don't know where is it when it comes to dealing with matters
of technology this goes to show that we can say you know these people are stupid
idiots that don't understand anything but they're not stupid idiots they're
smart people who just don't get it because they've been instructed by the
wrong people because they've had bad experiences in some way and I think
that's the majority of what we wind up facing are people that are otherwise
rather nice but just don't get it as far as this particular subject matter
goes and that's what our real task is is reaching these people somehow getting
through to them getting them to to see that's part of what the whole free Kevin
campaign is all about the bumper stickers are being spread around far
near in fact there's many different people now making the same bumper
stickers which is really great because they'll be popping up everywhere I see
them now myself on cars that I did not put on you know they're on other
people's cars willingly I assume so there'll be more information about that
on the 2600 website and in the new issue of 2600 which will be out in about three
weeks that is the the latest on the Kevin Mitnick situation I believe
there's a new trial date or not trial data court date coming up in a couple of
weeks we'll have information on that as soon as we learn what happens a privacy
expert has challenged the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to produce
evidence of its recent claim that computer-related security breaches have
risen by 250 percent in the last two years the increase in computer attacks
was announced about a week and a half ago by Dick Watson assistant special
agent in charge of the white-collar crime program at the secure enterprise
management seminar in Boston shortly beforehand the FBI asked the FCC to make
a compulsory for computer and telecommunications manufacturers to
build wiretapping capability into all of their equipment Simon Davies
director of Privacy International said the FBI was crying wolf with its latest
figures based in London with offices in Washington DC Privacy International is a
human rights group formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance by governments
and corporations Davies has accused the agency of overstating the problem to
garner support for continuing controls on the export of encryption keys the FBI
statistics have no credibility Congress makes the mistake of accepting FBI
director Louis freeze figures without question sound familiar the problem is
Brussels is no better Davies said alluding to the European Commission's
passing a memo of understanding on encryption control it's obscene the way
these issues are being discussed in a democracy and oh we have someone who
just flew in from actually let me get this microphone to turn on tell us where
you flew in from because I'm not really sure where you flew in from from London
and your mic still isn't on so I'm just gonna turn them all on go ahead from
London I'm London okay and you have something to add about well before you
get to before we get to that uh-huh the there was an article posted at CNN
CNN's website yes ago about how the NSA had organized people to try to break
into the Pentagon's computers again to really test the volatility of the system
yeah the fact that's how do you think next story here how do you think the
these government these different government organizations differentiate
between people who are not sanctioned to try and hack into the system and the
people who do try to hack into this well I think they must tell them at some
point they say oh you know those people that were you know ping flooding you
before that was us that was us at the NSA you know trying to get into your
system there but you know sometimes I think they might forget to tell them and
they just blame the hackers for everything else or maybe they they just
keep the total and forget to subtract all the attempts that the NSA makes on
their computers and who knows but whatever it is I just don't think the
figures are accurate I never have I just I just don't believe these things at
face value I believe they should be questioned and so now tell us about the
encryption the British government has had a second reading of a bill for
public key encryption I don't know exactly what the contents of the of the
bill actually says but there's a weekly email journal called NTK need to know
and they've been trying to get people to rouse support around the fact that this
is not a good thing for people to have in England and it's gone for a second
reading which means now it's gone to some kind of committee and they're
supposed to schedule a public hearing about it but people and for the vast
majority of people who just use the internet in England they have no idea
what this is about and they don't understand why it's a significant turn
of events for them or or what it could mean to their privacy or their own
ability to authenticate themselves I'm sure it's the way that the people in
charge wanted to be could be a clueless public is is a public that won't cause
any problems yeah that's true except maybe in the bars or something you know
those English they have enough a couple hundred years or so things are
definitely taking some interesting turns I'll just say that okay computer hackers
this is the story computer hackers could disable military system compromise in
secret exercise senior Pentagon leaders were stunned by a military exercise
showing how easy it is for hackers to cripple u.s. military and civilian
computer networks according to new details of the secret exercise amazing
you know this is how easy it is for hackers to do the hackers have never
done this but this is how easy it is for them to do it so next time someone even
tries to do anything people will remember that hackers could cripple the
nation's defense yeah using software obtained easily from hacker sites on the
internet a group of National Security Agency officials could have shut down
the u.s. electric power grid within days and rendered impotent the command and
control elements of the u.s. Pacific Command said officials familiar with the
war game known as eligible receiver the attack was actually run in a two-week
period and the results were frightening said a defense official involved in the
game this attack run by a set of people using standard internet techniques would
have basically shut down the command and control capability in the Pacific
theater for some considerable period of time Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon
said eligible receiver was an important and revealing exercise that taught us
that we must be better organized to deal with potential attacks against our
computer systems and information infrastructure the secret exercise began
last June after months of preparation by the NSA computer specialists who without
warning targeted computers used by u.s. military forces in the Pacific and in
the United States the game was simple conduct information warfare attacks or
info war on the Pacific Command and ultimately forced the United States to
soften its policies toward the crumbling communist regime in Pyongyang the hackers
posed as paid surrogates for North Korea the NSA red team of make-believe hackers
showed how easy it is for foreign nations to wreak electronic havoc using
computers modems and software technology widely available on the darker regions
of the internet network scanning software intrusion tools and password
breaking login scripts according to US officials who took part in the exercise
within days the team of 50 to 75 NSA officials had inflicted crippling damage
they broke into computer networks and gained access to the systems that
controlled the electrical power grid for the entire country if they had wanted to
the hackers could have disabled the grid leaving the United States in the dark
you know they say that sentence now and you know they make it seem as if it's
you know regular hackers again before it was make-believe hackers showing how
easy it was but now it's the hackers could have disabled the grid you know
it's just they fall into that pattern group in the movie sorry there was a
scene like that from the movie sneakers uh-huh remember they yeah one of the
places that they got into was the national i'm sure they thought that was
playing out right in front of them groups of NSA hackers based in Hawaii and
other parts of the United States floated effortlessly through global
cyberspace oh boy breaking into unclassified military computer networks
in Hawaii the headquarters of the US Pacific Command as well as in
Washington Chicago St. Louis and parts of Colorado the attacks were not
actually run against the infrastructure components because we didn't want to do
things like shut down the power grid so the defense official involved in the
exercise but the referees were shown the attacks and shown the structure of the
power grid control and they agreed yeah this attack could have shut down the
power grid knocking out the electrical power throughout the United States was
just a sideline for the NSA cyber warriors i'm having trouble finishing
this their main target was the US Pacific Command which is in charge of
the 100,000 troops that would be called on to deal with wars in Korea or China
the most telling thing for the Department of Defense when all was said
and done is that basically for a two-week period the command and control
capability in the Pacific theater would have been denied by the info war attacks
and that was the period of the exercise would have been wasn't really but it
could have been right the attackers also foiled virtually all efforts to trace
them FBI agents joined the Pentagon and trying to find the hackers but for the
most part they failed I guess they didn't know either did they they just
were chasing these people that they had no idea who they were they thought they
were hackers I'll bet they're mad now only one of the several NSA groups a
unit based in the United States was uncovered the rest operated without
being located or identified so how do they know that there weren't real
hackers involved that you know during the same period of time they could just
say all the others were never identified but how do they know if they
don't identify them how many there were the attackers breached the Pentagon's
unclassified global computer network using internet service providers and
dial-in connections that allowed them to hop around the world it's a very very
difficult security environment when you go through different hosts in different
countries and then pop up on the doorstep of Kiesler Air Force Base in
Mississippi and then go from there into sing pack using the acronym for
commander-in-chief Pacific the targets of the network attacks also made it easy
they just were not security aware said the official in other words they're
complete morons a second official found that many military computers take notes
everybody many military computers use the word password for their password yeah
things haven't changed and Kevin Mitnick's in prison for over three years
yeah these guys did far worse at anything he ever did but of course they
were doing it for purposes of good a 22 year old man faces dozens of charges in
the case involving the cracking of the computer security codes at top aerospace
facilities in the United States and he doesn't work for the NSA the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police which conducted a 14-month investigation say a hacker
broke into the computer systems at the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration Center it's just like a rite of passage for any hacker just to
break into NASA also the National Ocean Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Association and Hughes STC an aerospace firm so that's another person rounded up
for for being mischievous I guess and an addendum to last week's show we were
talking about GSM being cracked and that person hasn't been imprisoned yet I don't
think Bethesda Maryland based OmniPoint Corporation said it plans to change the
mathematical formulas used in its wireless phone service after two UC
Berkeley researchers discovered a way to break the code that protects it this
is after they said that it wasn't a problem well apparently it is a problem
OmniPoint executive vice president George Schmidt you know last week he was the
president I don't know what happened here okay OmniPoint executive vice
president George Schmidt said he's going to personalize OmniPoint's formula for
identifying phones rather than using the general formulas of the global system
for mobile communications or GSM digital wireless standard it's expected that most
GSM operators will follow OmniPoint's lead digital phone services for which GSM is
the world's most popular standard give users clearer sound longer battery life and
greater security that security lies in the long encrypted digital codes through
which a signal is transferred and which were cracked a couple of weeks ago well
Seth is back from London now you've been listening to the show in real audio over
there haven't you yeah it was really great yeah it was really clear there were no burps
the servers didn't disconnect it was great it was good to feel a part of it I mean
BT is far too expensive to have two telephone lines in there and yeah hopefully people are
listening all throughout the world tonight as well this is our last show for at least
three weeks maybe four they should I mean the servers do rather well through Europe
I mean I've listened in in Paris and in Prague Berlin and Budapest and I never had a problem
sometimes there were some problems in Prague because the phone system is are these internet
cafes or yeah there's a there's a great internet cafe in Prague it actually has its feed from a
via satellite do crowds gather around when you listened off the hook they really didn't
understand it you know they speak Czech so they didn't right yeah that would be a disadvantage
I guess by and large they didn't understand and it was hard to have to well not hard but I mean
it took a moment to like reconfigure the browser so that I could actually read in
English character set versus uh right yeah that's your fonts and stuff like that that you have to
change um but uh it was pretty cool you know I mean they have a they have a t1 by a satellite
through I think Uunet is the one who provides the service but I don't know who actually owns
the satellite and um it's a really funky place they have gold glitter walls and tile floors
and trees coming out of ceramic tiles which is it's kind of weird but they serve great coffee
okay that's uh that's what matters hopefully people are listening to us in internet cafes
throughout the world and uh feel free to give us a call country code one area code 516 not 516
where are we 212 uh 279 3400 I've been moving around a lot so actually I was at the Trenton
computer show this past weekend and that was something that was something that a lot of people
there had no idea how many people were into hacking I mean yeah I sort of had an idea but
these are a lot of you know just computer people that are fascinated by the whole thing and aren't
really you know on the front lines I mean I see entire families we brought some back issues and
shirts down there and they were just thumbing through them all I mean I couldn't tell who was
more into it you know fathers or sons you know they were I don't know what our audience is anymore
but so many people were just so enthusiastic and met a lot of really uh really cool people and saw
a lot of uh you know neat machines for sale for really cheap prices and I'm sure yeah so um that
was uh that was definitely fun and I'll have to do that again next year uh we have a letter from
Australia that's right isn't technology great it allows someone thousands of miles away to be part
of a group or listen to a program or add constructive ideas where before they could have done
nothing like most writers I have to say I quite enjoy the program and topics covered I thought
I'd write to give you an Australian perspective on things I'm guessing you don't get too many
letters from Australia actually this was a written letter actually handwritten on a piece
of paper that got sent to us not on the net which is nice I like seeing letters like that I'm not a
quote hacker unquote nor do I really plan to be but your site is one of my favorites because it
gives a different perspective on things and tells me things I should say informs me about issues
which receive very little coverage in the mainstream press even if an issue is covered
often basic facts are wrong or the person reporting does not understand the issue
things are the same all around the world aren't they over Christmas I spent most of my time
listening to beyond hope we have uh the panels up on the net so you can listen to them in real
audio format very interesting I love the social engineering session particularly the call to
Kmart I'm trying to find out if major Sydney stores have similar PA systems it appears that
Australia is about to become victim to AOL oh boy recently an ad appeared for a free two-month
trial subscription with them so I figure they'll launch in about six months one thing that will
please you though is a the fact that an Australian has already registered the address AOL.com.au
AOL must have paid a substantial sum to get it from him oh they got it that's that's too bad
AOL competitors were also interested in it for obvious reasons I've been trying to tell as many
people as possible to be wary of them in Australia ISP fees range from between 25 and 40 dollars a
month cable connections cost around 120 a month and it's not very very good at the moment most
experts say that people who need the speed should stick with ISDN because cable is too expensive
one ISP is advertising 500 for a lifetime connection I'm very skeptical though I think
they'll take the 500 and leave Australia's telecommunications system is being deregulated
presently the telecom monopoly is slowly being eroded Telstra is the old telecom and is slowly
being privatized unfortunately Telstra's level of service sounds just like that in America
recently complaints have increased dramatically phone calls cost around 25 cents public phones 40
cents timed local calls in Australia are illegal Optus a new competitor wants to charge 20 cents
per call but Telstra will not sell access for less than this even though Optus argues that they can
afford to sell access at 12 cents a call long distance charges have fallen dramatically with
competition interstate calls after 7 p.m now cost three dollars for unlimited time only in the last
six months has caller id come in and awareness is not very high many people are unaware that
companies now know their phone numbers I'm not sure how big the hacker freaker community in
Australia is but I figure the percentage of computer users who are hackers is similar to the
U.S. it's a tragedy to read of Kevin Mitnick's plight I think I'll write him a letter which is
always a good idea to do recently an Australian hacker got three years for the theft of credit
card numbers from an ISP like America Australian press doesn't distinguish between hackers and
computer criminals there was an article recently about a group who were using music artists songs
without permission and making their own mixes recording it and selling it on the internet
since computers were involved these people were called hackers I'm no expert but I don't think
they were hackers it annoys me when people comment on issues of which they are not fully informed
about or have a poor understanding of my mother age 48 took her first internet training last week
I gave her the 2600 and Kevin Mitnick site addresses a good introduction to the internet
I also managed to get my grandmother age 84 to start a computer course now I'm trying to get
her onto the internet that's an 84 year old hacker that letter uh comes from Gavin of uh
Karingbah Australia and uh we also we've got a lot of letters this week for some reason uh got a
letter from Argentina a whole other part of the world and um it's going to be a very small bit of
this uh the other day I was able to hear your radio show for the first time from the 2600.com archives
it was a rather strange thing let me tell you the internet it's such a strange and wonderful thing
in that program you talked with yourself in the future which was also interesting um and now you
have this letter with a photo from the past yeah they sent me a photo of myself from the past which
is kind of kind of scary and um various other things going on in Argentina as well if you want
to write to us off the hook care of WBAI 505 8th Avenue New York New York 10018 if you're too lazy
to actually write something on a piece of paper then send us email oth at 2600.com we'll be taking
phone calls in just a moment but uh before we do I want to share something that happened over the
weekend this is uh it's kind of scary actually because I don't understand it and when I don't
understand something it's uh it's troublesome uh let's get us a dial tone here okay we're going to
uh give a call to a special number and check into something because this is uh this is something I
think that affects everybody let's turn down the music here so we can uh actually what we're going
to be doing is is accessing a uh accessing a special voicemail account yeah leave a message
yeah that's uh that's that's the password okay here we go oops don't want to uh give out too
many digits over the air all right and hopefully that's it you have three messages three are saved
to listen to your messages press one okay we're going to listen to these messages now I'd like
you to pay special attention to the phone numbers on the messages because there really
aren't any messages they're just silence but listen to these phone numbers saved messages
monday 4 44 p.m telephone number 2 0 2 4 5 6 1 6 9 8
uh yeah you're right to erase this message that is the white house
to reply press 8 well we can't really reply I don't know why they even give you that option
uh let's skip to the next message to erase this message press 7 to reply press nobody knows to
skip to the next message press pound okay listen to this one now saved message monday 9 0 7 p.m
telephone number 7 1 0 0 8 2 4 1 0 0
now you can't have a phone number beginning with a zero message press 7 and besides
press 8 the 7 1 0 area code press pound all right listen to this next one this is the last one
saved message sunday 2 0 7 a.m telephone number 7 1 0 6 2 7 4 3 8 7
now that number that number translates to 710 ncs gets which is something we've talked about
in the past it's um it's the emergency telecommunications system that the federal
government has set up for all kinds of disasters i'll read you a little bit of a pamphlet that they
put out economic pressures and technological advances have made telephone services increasingly
more vulnerable to disruption by natural or man-made disasters recent events have shown
that fires power failures fiber cable cuts and software problems can cripple the telephone
services of entire regions congestion in the public switch networks such as the well-documented
mother's day phenomenon can also prevent circuit from being accessed gets as designed and maintained
in a constant state of readiness to make maximum use of all available telephone resources should
outages occur during an emergency crisis or war yes gets uses three types of networks and they go
into all kinds of technical detail here which uh if you read the latest 2600 you'll see all this
printed in uh in full detail but basically you're supposed to call into this number and enter i guess
your pin you know some sort of a a code to signal that you're who you're supposed to be
now how is it that on my voicemail i'm getting calls from the 710 area it's kind of scary
it's also kind of scary that i'm getting calls from the white house but uh we'll deal with that
later that just came in now so somebody somebody's playing games with something they've either
they've either figured out a way to uh to send fake numbers on caller id or they've actually
managed to crack the 710 system now let us see just what's involved in cracking the 710 system
the ncs gets number what we're going to do it's it's interesting because i've learned this over
the weekend because i was experimenting with it myself there are three different long distance
carriers that you can use to get to this thing and every single one that you use will get you
something different let's uh first listen to at&t we're going to uh use the at&t carrier access code
and then dial one seven one zero ncs gets
listen to what we hear strange low tone
please enter your destination number now i have no idea what a destination number is
probably it's the phone number you're calling
okay i guess that's our second chance
please re-enter your pin now okay now they're calling it a pin so either they didn't hear the
first one didn't care please re-enter your pin now okay i'm going to continue to refuse to enter
my pin let's see what happens your call cannot be completed as dialed please check the number
and dial again 1203 okay so no hope of getting an actual human being now if you go through sprint
you get something completely different however for some reason listen to what happens when we
try to go through sprint we're dialing the same exact phone number except we're using the sprint
carrier access code your long distance service has been temporarily discontinued oh well so we
can't use sprint and that's too bad because uh i think they're the most entertaining but
fortunately mci also offers this service now keep in mind that this is supposed to be for uh
i believe military federal government employee types so this person who we wind up talking to
is going to think we're one of them let's see how much information we can get as far as just you know
how long the pin is for one thing okay that was them that's their dial tone same number different
sound may have your card number please uh yeah okay i have uh i have a 14 digit code here i've
got a seven digit code here i've got a let's try the 14 digit okay it's a 14 digit uh is this the
same as my sprint card because that's the 14 digit card too no i i don't think the sprint card will
work okay because they told me this was run by sprint is this sprint no this is mci oh boy i'm
just i'm completely confused by this whole system this is the first time i've ever actually used it
i give you a 14 digit pin and uh that's what you need right now see this is a sprint card i'm
looking at well i would have to use a different kind of card then okay so i need to get the the
mci version of that code is that right you were saying you had another number you could give me
i have a seven digit number okay tell me that number and i'll see what comes up okay that would
be two seven nine three four zero zero
okay there's no additional numbers that's well you see i don't know for sure that that's the
number that i'm supposed to be using for this you see i have a there's a code to get into the
compound there's a code to get into my my office it's a code to to do just about everything around
here now and i i don't know which code is for which okay on on that card is that does it have
a different number anywhere now you see this is just something that's written down on a piece of
paper oh okay that's the whole problem it's probably you need to dial the right 800 number
to use this seven digit card number right oh for that seven digits so this is not this would not
be a seven digit number in other words no i'm in a different department so it's not going to come
up okay i have the code someplace around here it's just i'm a slob and i don't know exactly
which one is is which um but it takes an 800 number to get you in the right department to
use the different cards okay so you're saying i have to dial an 800 number now right then
well the only thing i could i don't have any 800 numbers to give you to get you into the
right department but for the sprint card you usually dial 10 33 30 and that'll get you
into sprint operator yeah i know and i know how to use that it's just this is the uh the 710
the 710 service the 710 ncs get service right yes that's that's the one i'm trying to use
right now it's just i'm not sure which of these codes is the right one to use for that service
well i have a 14 digit slot here to put so i'll try any number you want me to that's about that
length 14 digit slot okay well you see i don't want to i don't think it's my sprint card it
wouldn't be that would it shouldn't be yeah so i don't really want to give that out i mean you know
but okay i'm not i'm not generally a non-trusting person but i just well i don't have a clue what
the numbers go to yeah i don't have any way of keeping any numbers it goes in the computer and
then the call goes through do you know the first 10 digits would that be my phone number
sometimes yes okay because that then i just would have to find a four digit pin right right
okay now i'm starting to understand it uh i can do this with touch tones too right yes sir okay
so i just i would enter my 14 digit pin when i call up the number and then uh at what point
do i enter the number i'm calling usually after you dial your 800 number the computer prompts you
as to whether to enter the number you're calling or the card number first you mean 710 number right
not 800 yeah whatever okay great um okay well let me let me dig around and uh you're here 24 hours
right yes we are okay great thanks very much for your help you're welcome i can try to put you
through to customer service if that would help uh sure go ahead okay thank you very much
just need to see where we wind up
do not do this at home by the way
i'm giving you two more rings
okay well that's about enough of that but we did find out that it's a 14 digit code which
i think is rather interesting so it seems like they use a standard way
of passing information around the standard way being 14 digits which is what mci sprint use
might be an interesting idea to try regular mci calling card or regular sprint calling card if
you call through the right companies and uh who knows somebody apparently and i say this because
it's possible something else happened but somebody apparently figured out a way
to uh to get through this system i think it's our duty to inform the uh people in charge of
the system that maybe it's cracked you know or maybe someone is just messing around with uh
with caller id let's call that that white house number see who that goes to
and then we'll take some phone calls two one two two seven nine three four hundred
we'll do this one through uh at&t
you have reached a non-working number if you need further assistance please call area code
202-456-1414 recording number n7
well that's a that's an official white house recording have you heard anything like that
before i've never heard of that before i've never heard of that before
that's an official white house recording have you heard anything like that before
i've heard that before you have no i haven't oh okay didn't think so i've never heard that
before i didn't know you there were special recordings for the white house but that was
the main white house number they gave out so apparently that number that called me is just a
a weird number anyway we'll uh we'll play around with this some more and let you know what we find
out two one two two seven nine three four hundred let's take our first phone call good evening you're
on the air hello yes go ahead yes hello okay uh i'm just cute hello yes you're still on the air
yeah okay i'm just curious to know um what kind of security um say an internet user has
um say if they go on the web um how much information can the other site uh know about
your system and it was okay if you download files do they know who you are what your address is i'm
going to give you an address right now and this is going to answer all of your questions all right
www.anonymizer that's a-n-o-n-y-m-i-z-e-r.com and click on uh there's a section there to to give
information about you you will be scared to see how much they find out about you just by you
visiting them so just go over there and uh and check it out and and uh that should answer all
your questions thanks for calling good evening you're on the air speak up please hello yes go
ahead where are you calling from i'm calling from new york new york okay great and what's on your
mind well i'm going out of the country and um i need a cellular phone that can keep me in touch
i'm going to be in greece and turkey uh i would suggest gsm then right i mean it's that's really
the only thing that they i think they use over there um and the local short you know short term
yeah well you might want to just get an omnipoint phone then and uh and and get one of those phones
that allow you to you know use it both here and over there some phones that only work in one
country or another well are you sure that there are phones that let you use it here and there
yes there are there most definitely are what uh you could also just take the sim out of the back
of the uh of the phone and stick it into another phone if you if you needed to but
there are phones that will work in both areas okay and that's by omnipoint yeah i would what
i would do is uh give them a call or you know drop by one of their stores and and ask them about this
because that that's that's supposedly the whole selling point of gsm is the fact that you can do
this you can go from one country to another let us know how you do that because uh you know while
everybody says what you're shaking your head why are you shaking your head a gsm phone here won't
work on the gsm network well no a standard one won't but there are phones that that uh i was
told this there are phones that work both yeah they they work on on both frequencies the frequency
here and the frequency over there i came back and forth a lot i asked on i don't think you got the
right phone no definitely no yeah well ask around and you know in any event you can use the uh the
little card in the back and that will work and a different phone over there all right thanks for
calling 212-279-3400 good evening you're on off the hook hi um uh i called in last week about the
kid who um sued his school yeah the band director or whatever yeah yeah i found out he won thirty
thousand dollars thirty thousand dollars on the school board wow and his lawyer did it pro bono
so but he got 15 yeah he'd be kicking himself if he didn't uh that's uh that's and just recap again
for the benefit of the listeners that he this is somebody who got suspended from school
because he said something nasty about the band director on a web page or something and he took
it down uh-huh and then the school board suspended him and the the band director did not do a thing
you know and the general opinion was if anyone should do anything it should be the band director
and i don't think he really cared so he took no action himself it was the school board that did
this it was all the school board amazing and uh another thing um there's a game called ultima
online yeah and 10 players uh filed a class action suit against the company because they uh
were complaining about the lag and they said 24 and uh ultima online said that they could have
you know 24 hours continuous action and uh all they want is for them to drop the $10 a month fee
that they make them pay after buying a $50 product uh-huh you know and uh i was wondering what you
thought about that i don't really know enough about to to say much but it sounds like you have
an opinion well i think uh that that what they did is they had a press release and they said uh
that all this does is make it harder for us to make games and i say that's uh you know that's a
load because you know if this will help them make better games because they should think
you know before releasing game and having the players beta test the games because i understand
that they already released like 10 patches for the game you know that that supposedly came out
and they made them pay $50 for it you know what i mean yeah no i i see the point that's a problem
with a lot of a lot of software uh-huh that uh that people have so uh yeah that's a good point
definitely okay uh where are you calling from again uh cleveland ohio okay great thanks uh
thanks for calling okay 212-279-3400 good evening you're on off the hook hello yes speak up hey how
you doing this is zapp in dallas how you doing i'm good i'm uh calling about ultima online that
game kind of rubs me the wrong way uh it cost it didn't cost me 50 when i purchased it it was 60
bucks uh-huh and several of my friends also purchased it because you know we like to play
games together online some of my internet friends and uh it's interesting that in the 10 years or
so this show has been on the air no one has ever talked about this before in two calls in a row
talking about the exact same thing i just think it's fascinating yeah well you know i'm listening
uh-huh but uh anyway the problem with the game i don't know anybody or hardly anybody who has
played past the first free month you pay 60 bucks to get the thing you play for one month and then
after that it's 10 bucks a month but the problem is that the game does not deliver what it claims
to deliver uh on the box it tells you you know you're gonna have all these cool adventures and
all these monsters and you know it's sort of like an online rpg that you play with other people
in reality you get into the game and there are hardly any monsters the world has been basically
picked clean and all there is to do is kill other players or you can actually get a job like you can
be a tailor and make shirts that's a lot of fun you know i have a job oh wait i don't need a fake
job as a wait wait what kind of game allows you to be a tailor making how does that work i just
want to know how that thing you start out with nothing and you can do you can do practically
nothing and the first thing you need to do is get a job you pick a a vocation of some sort okay and
you know you can be a blacksmith you can be a tailor etc can you be whatever you want you have
to be certain things you can be whatever you want there's there's many choices and you know can you
be a computer hacker for hire no they didn't have those back in the medieval days unfortunately
yeah i guess you're right but uh yeah i mean it's just basically not fun and i would caution
anyone out there who is considering purchasing ultima online to try it at a friend's house or
talk to some people on irc and some of the channels and get some opinions before you invest
60 bucks are you sure it's it's a problem with the game you're having and not a problem with
the medieval period which because that was kind of a dull period oh well yeah and i would agree
because i'm into technology myself but uh the problem is there's just the primary crux of the
game is just building up your guy and having a job there is very little to do and that's what
mattered to people back then was a good you know good paying job you know that's what people were
into yeah well i suppose you're right but it's medieval values that that exist today too it's
well you look at something like diablo i don't know if you've ever played that but uh that game
was really fun i mean that game and it obviously suffered from uh all the cheating problems but
other than that it was a really good game and it was a lot of fun you went through you you
went through dungeons you killed monsters you achieved goals and on this thing you're led to
believe you get to do those things but you don't i say so it's it's a big disappointment i was
really you know sometimes you buy a game and you like it sometimes you buy it and you're kind of
so-so and sometimes you really wish you didn't right and that's one of those titles yeah and
sometimes strong feelings about uo sometimes people just you know copy the game and and check
it out to see if it's what they want to buy well you couldn't do that with uo right because it has
a serial number and when you purchase it you put the serial number in and you log in and get an
account on their website which is you know it's a great system for combating piracy and you know
hats off to him for that because it's probably the only game i've ever seen that has not been wares
right but uh unfortunately that also means you don't get to see that it sucks before you buy it
well uh word gets out in other ways and i imagine people won't be buying it as much
yeah i mean you know doom probably did better or mist will certainly do better you know or you know
a lot of the games that are available on the net anyway uh probably will do better financially than
something like this that uh gets bad reviews assuming it gets bad reviews from other people
as well oh yeah if you do some some web searches or usenet searches you'll just see people
complaining left and right about the game and the reason that it really rubs people so badly
is that it could be something really neat i mean it has enormous potential it's a fascinating
concept i mean a world filled with you know literally thousands of other players all live
yeah i mean that's a really neat idea but it's just such a flawed execution and you know there's
not anything to do in this world well i mean the main problem i have with most of these games is
that they're basically you know the graphics change a little bit the characters change a
little bit basically you're running around shooting a gun at a monster and oh yeah doing
little flips and things like that you're talking about all the quake flavored games you know every
game seems to be basically that and you know i realize some people's lives are basically that
but you know not everybody not everybody and and you know even a game like where you get on the new
york city subway and just like explore different stations because they've all been cataloged
somehow oh you drive on a freeway and actually go places you know and have little mini adventures in
the various towns you go to that would be interesting to me maybe it won't be interesting
to anybody else but i'm just tired of all the games where you have to just you know shoot the
monster and uh you know eventually die yourself because you can't shoot the super monster i
totally agree i completely agree it's been a long time since there's been any real innovation in the
game industry i mean if you look back at at pac-man and donkey kong days you had a ton of
games and almost everyone that came out was a totally different concept than the other right
and people still play those today sure they're terrific games i mean they've got the arcade
emulators where you can play them now on your pc right and they're terrific but you look at the
new games and you know we had like the mario era where everything was a platform game right and
now we've got the doom and quake era where everything is a 3d maze push the button shoot
the monster game yeah i mean the 3d thing could be good except why you always have to be shooting a
monster there must be something else you can think of to do in a maze i totally agree i would love to
see somebody take that to another level and you know the 3d engine is great we love the ability
to explore you know a place like that but let's do something with it like an rpg of that sort would
be really neat uh-huh okay let's hope somebody is inspired to do something thanks very much for
calling hey you're welcome take care bye calls from cleveland and dallas good evening you're on
off the hook speak up please yeah yeah where are you calling from um yeah long island long island
great what's on your mind yeah i just wanted to know just um i was just asking i was just asking
about um this you press 311 you got you got to sort of turn down your volume though because you're
gonna get very confused hearing me twice yeah hold on okay not to mention what it does to me
okay always keep the radio near the phone too that way you don't go on a long trip yeah i know
is there a delay between the yes there's a delay and if you're on the net it's a super delay but
regardless what about 311 all right when you press 311 on the telephone line you get you get
this weird beeping noise yeah i just want to know it is that's a teletype device for the hearing
impaired and it's uh it hooks you up to the new york state police which is something i don't
really understand why hearing impaired people need to reach the new york state police not the local
police but supposedly that's uh that's not going to be lasting much longer 311 is going to be the
non-emergency number for the real police for everybody well except for hearing impaired
people won't be able to hear them obviously uh but uh that's uh that's one of clinton's ideas
is that 311 will be the national standard for non-emergency use and 911 will be the emergency
number i just think everybody's going to be confused and a lot of people be dialing 411
oh what a great guy yeah okay okay thanks for calling all right thank you no problem and uh
that's yet another yet another weird number that we'll have to get used to in the in the future
good evening you're on off the hook um hmm you're having audio problems
this person must be calling from a portable phone good evening you're on off the hook
hello yes go ahead um yeah i have a question for the host of the show okay well you're on
the air right now so this would be a good time to ask well actually yeah my question is about the
anamizer the website you told the kid about anonymizer yes yeah could you spell that again
i'll spell it again okay ready the www part is obvious a n a n o n y m i z e r dot com right
and um anonymizer.com and if you click on a certain uh a certain button there it'll give
you all the information about your and do you have a website or um address that i can use to
get all this information you talked about tonight uh which information do you mean about the about
the on computers the the white house the the voicemail uh well uh there's no one site that
contains all that i mean the ncsgets yeah the 2600 website well that's www.2600.com um
the the information about ncs i mentioned it was in 2600 it's in the physical magazine 2600 we uh
have some memos that right and do you know if they offer any directories or anything
uh you get this information well the federal government does actually give out a lot of
information and uh most people don't know about it if you if you ask around um for instance what
we were doing tonight calling up that number just asking some questions they'll you know they'll
eventually transfer you to a number that may ring a long time but uh might get you connected
to somebody who has the answers oh okay all right thanks very much for calling let's try to squeeze
in one more call good evening you're on the air hi uh i'm calling with a question uh as regards to
value with cellular phones in the lake uh i have an omnipoint phone now which when i bought it last
year was maybe valued at uh oh gee i guess they started out with like 100 something for it and
suddenly it ended up being like about 50 dollars it's an ericsson you couldn't get rid of about
20 now i don't think well you know what i'm trying to figure out is just that you don't like to have
some sort of like concrete idea of like when i walk into a store and someone is telling me you
know like uh they're going to sell me a phone for 200 bucks if i'm really getting 200 bucks worth
of anything or is this just you know like a thing you know like hey if you want at the time you
probably are the time this phone can do amazing things that you've never seen before but within
six months every other phone's doing the same thing and as there are more phones that do it
better so obviously it decreases in value and uh that's that's just going to happen you can always
wait but then the thing is they disconnect they discontinue making the phones yeah so you can't
get them anyway um it's just something it's it's the same thing in the computer industry things
i know well second part of my question is you guys make it really quick because we're out of
time okay i have a mac laptop and i'm wondering if they have any uh really decent cellular uh i'm
not cellular i mean but internet phone uh software that would work well with it oh yeah there's there's
all kinds of uh of companies offering things like that for macintosh uh i don't i'm not sure does
yeah yeah i'm told that they do um companies like idt i believe do that and uh and and other
other companies just do a do a web search for uh for that kind of thing okay thank you you should
find quite a lot okay thanks uh thanks so much for calling we're out of time once again and in fact
we're out of time for the next well we're not going to be on next week we're not going to be
on the week after that and they have not told us yet if we're going to do a marathon show
the week after that so it might be a while before we're back check our website www.2600.com
slash off the hook one word and uh we'll be updating people as to when the next show is there
since we can't do it here obviously until whenever that is
this is emmanuel goldstein for off the hook have a good night
the telephone keeps ringing so i ripped it off the wall i cut myself while shaving now i can't
do
so
Spring is here, and the WBAI Spring Membership Drive is starting on Monday, April 27th.
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We look forward to seeing you here at the station on Wednesday, April 22nd at 5.30 p.m.