But, you know, $10, $20, it really means a lot to us.
You keep us on the air.
You can listen to us ramble and we'll probably be able to do another one of these long three-hour
drawn-out pledge drives sometime in the future.
Yes, we'd like to.
I mean, it's unpleasant having to ask, but it's really not unpleasant giving because
I think all of us have given at some point, too, and you realize that it's part of the
process.
The station would not be here were it not for listeners, and that's a fact.
Commercial radio, and Laszlo can attest to this, commercial radio exists because of the
market economy, because people buy things, because that's just how it works, and unfortunately
the radio spectrum, unlike in Yugoslavia, we were just talking to someone at B92, it's
just about money here.
It's not about speech.
It's just about money, and that's sadly how it is in most cases.
At 99.5 FM, though, it's about more than that.
If this were a commercial station, we would have auditorium testing.
Auditorium?
What's that?
Well, basically what you do is you get a whole auditorium full of the demographics that you're
trying to hit, and you would play some music and say, do you like this?
Would you like to hear it over and over all day long?
Why?
Yes.
Yes, we would.
How would you get auditorium tests at your show?
That's a pretty scary thought, although we did a show in an auditorium at the Beyond
Hope conference.
At Beyond Hope, that was an interesting technical marvel as well.
Yeah, but I think the audience, the auditorium response was all right.
You don't have any call-out testing here, where people call in, do you think Emanuel
should change the way he...
No, no, no.
They usually call in and...
Make their demands known.
Right.
Okay, let's go over the update with the Kevin Mitnick case, and it's quite an update.
And unfortunately, we have so much to do tonight that we don't have as much time as we should
to devote to this.
But if you recall, two weeks ago, when we were on the air last, we basically told you
of some documents that we had released on the web.
Documents that...
That's kind of an exaggeration, is that a nice word for it?
There are certain companies said that they were hurt by Kevin's accessing their systems
or getting a hold of their source code, taking a look at NEC here, claiming $1,750,000 based
on the development cost for the stolen software, again, a software that was looked at, not
stolen because it was still there.
That was actually in the low end.
That is very much in the low end.
Some of these Nokia mobile phones estimated $135 million.
We got a hold of these documents.
One of them, in fact, came from Sun Microsystems, and they, in a very roundabout way, claimed
that their product was worth more than $80 million and implied that Kevin breaking in
caused that kind of damage.
We found on the web, if you go to the Solaris website, and this is reflected on our 2600.com
website, we found that it's available for nothing.
Yes.
For nothing.
In fact, they say, Solaris says, that they always have believed that source code should
be available to students and enthusiasts.
It's important.
It's vital.
Well, if you're a student, it's free.
If you're an enthusiast, it's $100.
At the most, it would cost $100.
What we did was a little calculation, and we figured if everybody exaggerated to this
degree, and probably everybody exaggerated a lot more than this, Kevin's total damages,
total damage for all the heartache and anguish he caused, is something on the order of $350.
That's what we're looking at right here.
We saw an estimate of nearly $300 million in damages.
We printed the letters, put them up on the website, and guess what?
Things hit the fan.
It was after we got off the air last week that we found out about this.
That's that, basically, the federal government got wind that these documents were out there,
and filed a motion to hold Kevin Mitnick's lawyer in contempt of court for allowing these
documents to be released.
Now, first of all, there is no indication that that is where we got the documents.
They're making a very gross assumption by even saying that.
But second of all, why?
Why would anyone say that these documents that detail the losses, which is what this
is all about, why should that remain secret?
Why in God's name would you keep something like that secret?
Well, they want to, and in fact, they succeeded.
The judge a week ago had a hearing where she did not object to the federal government's
request to keep any further revelations of damages secret.
We're not going to hear about it until sentencing, so there will be absolutely no way to hear
any of the evidence.
It's supposed to all be kept secret.
Well, they don't want any out there because it's so ridiculous.
Well, I think what this proves is that public opinion does matter.
When people saw this, they started contacting these companies, and these companies, by the
way, they claim to have lost all this money.
Do you know not one of them has filed any kind of statement to its stockholders saying
they lost this kind of money?
Do you know that's a violation of the Securities and Exchange Commission rules, and quite possibly
IRS rules as well?
People are starting to ask questions, and these companies are getting very nervous now
as it's becoming apparent that either they lied to everybody about the extent of Kevin
Mitnick's hacking into their system and what kind of damage it caused, or they lied to
their stockholders and didn't report a major loss.
Which is it?
We want some answers.
Now, what I imagine happened is that these companies started contacting the FBI saying,
hey, we don't want to be involved like this anymore.
Please get us out of this mess.
And of course, the FBI is very upset now too because all of a sudden, people are starting
to realize the whole thing has been a charade the whole time.
Throughout it all, Kevin Mitnick remains in prison, and he basically has stayed in there
since February 15, 1995, over four years.
Didn't we run into a Nokia employee at the Dayton Amp Engine?
Well, we saw one.
We saw a Nokia employee, but that was it.
How did you identify him as a Nokia employee?
They looked broke because they were, you know, Kevin took all that money.
He had a Nokia hat on.
That was pretty much it.
That doesn't really say he was a Nokia employee.
No.
Well, people were walking around Dayton and TCF with 2600 hats on that they had just bought.
That's true too.
I don't know about all 2600 employees, but...
Sure.
Okay.
So now, we have demonstrations taking place on the 4th of June, which is Friday, Friday
the 4th of June.
And very briefly, we've added some cities since the last time we were on the air.
No doubt we'll add some more next time we're on the air, which is in two weeks.
Those cities are Buffalo, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Omaha, Nebraska, Philadelphia,
San Francisco, Spokane, Washington, and Washington, D.C.
Wow.
Every single one of those demonstrations will be starting at 2 p.m. outside the federal
courthouse building of those cities.
And again, if you want to check the status, see the exact location, talk to the coordinating
people, go to www.2600.com slash demo, or just the main page, and you'll see a big reference
to it there.
And if you want to start something on your own, please feel free to mail us, june4 at
2600.com.
It's very important that we have a massive turnout throughout the country on that day,
where we'll be handing out leaflets, maybe holding picket signs, whatever it is you
feel is right to do.
If you just want to stand in the corner and hand out leaflets, that's fine.
In San Francisco, there's going to be a plane with a banner in the back of it.
Did we in New York figure out a way to top that?
Because we were racking our brains.
There was talk of the Goodyear blimp, but so far we haven't heard back from the right
people on that, and somehow I don't think Free Kevin is going to qualify as a public
service announcement.
Even though we think it is, I don't know.
But again, please, if you have ideas, if you have connections, anything we can do, that
would be a really cool thing to do.
They take PSAs?
Yeah, they do.
Maybe like, you know, Free Kevin, get a mammogram, something like that.
We have to think creatively, definitely.
Or skywriting, just skywriting, that might be kind of cool.
Well, the airspace over the city is somewhat...
But if you go high enough, it doesn't matter if you're over the city.
Well, if you go high enough, A, you're not going to be able to read the skywriting.
It's really big.
They have skywriting out on Long Island all the time.
Oh, yeah, on Long Island?
All the time.
Above Jones Beach and stuff like that.
That would be pretty cool.
Well, even if, you know, it's on Long Island, not in the city, they could put Free Kevin
in a big arrow point towards the city, with a demonstration.
I don't know.
They'll think of something.
Towards California, yeah.
Anyway, that's the point, to get people out there, and also, by the reactions of the prosecution
over the past week or so, we know that it's working.
We know that they're getting nervous.
We know that they have something to hide.
They don't want it to get out there, so it's working, folks.
Public opinion is playing a very big factor in this case, and you, the public, and your
support for WBAI, by calling 212-209-2950, shows that you care about this station, and
you want us on the air to tell you about these incidents like Kevin Mitnick and some of the
other things we talk about here.
Okay.
Well, we are at $3,760, and we're very appreciative to the people there.
We're going to have another guest joining us in just a little while.
Bernie, I'm going to try to figure out a way to keep you on the line, assuming you want
to stay around.
Sure.
I'll stay around if possible.
Okay, great.
What we're going to do now is something that we do every now and then, and that is satisfy
the curiosity of people who listen to the show, who have listened to the show over the
years.
They always want to know, what is the opening theme?
Who does the opening theme?
Where can I get the opening theme?
Well, the answer to most of those questions is, I don't know, because ... Well, it's something
that I don't think is in print.
He doesn't remember.
It's something I don't think is in print, and it was so difficult to find just the right
version of this.
Hey, what's that really large black disc type thing?
This is what I understand to be a form of music that ...
Wow, that is larger than a CD, or a DVD.
It's black, and apparently what they did was they printed the music directly onto this
...
What are the groove patterns?
... black disc.
I don't really understand the technology myself, but let me get on with the explanation here
of what this is.
It's from a band called Big Audio Dynamite, which you've probably heard of, and we've
played several times on the show.
In fact, one of the CD-ROMs is an interview with that band, so if you're interested in
that, get the CD-ROM and you'll hear that yourself.
It is indeed on there.
There is a single they had called Just Play Music.
This is what's known as an extended mix, a 12-inch extended mix of that particular single.
The thing is, there are several versions of it.
Even though it's a hard song to find, there are several versions of it, or of the release
anyway.
There is one 12-inch EP that had two versions of Just Play Music, and had a picture of a
radio that says Big Audio Dynamite on it.
It says, turn on your radio, just play music.
Then there's a second version that has the same cover, and a slightly more flimsy material
that's packaged in.
It says, turn on your radio, just play music, but on the B-side, instead of Just Play Music
Remix, it's a song called Much Worse.
Extended mix, and it says 648, meaning the time, but then there's a little sticker on
there that says, timing correction, B-side runs 523 minutes, not 648 minutes.
I don't know what that was all about, but there are two versions of Much Worse.
One is longer than the other.
I'm not entirely sure, because I didn't have access to one of these big record players
until just now.
I'm not sure which one we're going to hear, if we're going to hear the shorter one or
the longer one.
I'll know at the end of the song which one it was, obviously, because there's a third
version.
This one says Big Audio Dynamite, Just Play Music, but it's got a picture of two people
on the phone on the front of it, and that has an extended mix of Much Worse on the B-side
without any time given.
That's what you have to go through to find that song.
It's called Much Worse.
It was by Big Audio Dynamite, and it came out in, appropriately enough, 1988.
Without any further ado, let's listen to that, and when we come back, we'll continue with
this extended version of Off The Hook.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cut.
And now I got a headache, or maybe it's the tooth, I'm in the know.
Things couldn't get much worse, I gots to tell the truth.
No, it couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bundled it up for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bundled it up.
I just ran out of milk, there's no paper in the loo.
The millie bombed, and now it started raining, lightning thunder too.
The millie bombed, and I begin to wonder, how bad can it get?
A bird with thumbs in through my door, makes my TV set.
So I light up a cigarette, listen to some sounds.
Set my house on fire, burnt it to the ground.
Couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bundled it up for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bundled it up.
Now I've got a console, my brother's on the run.
I might have a change of luck, before my day is done.
Couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bundled it up for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bundled it up.
This is for V.I.J.
This is for all the youth that can't see.
This is for dynamite and V.A.T.
Put it all together, that's a V.A.T.
Feeling down now, turn around now.
My head is wetter than a ball case on now.
It could be blacker, it could be whiter.
It could be gotty or dynamite.
Go!
Go!
See you soon, sir.
Ha, ha!
Ha, ha, ha!
Ha, ha, ha!
Ha, ha, ha!
Yeah, I've been running out of foam for this one.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
And now I've got a headache, or maybe it's the tooth.
I mean, you know, this couldn't get much worse.
I've got to tell the truth, no, it couldn't get much worse.
But if they could, they would.
I really vow for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
And then you go!
This is for V.A.T.
Put it all together, that's a V.A.T.
Feeling down now, turn around now.
My head is wetter than a ball case on now.
It could be gotty or dynamite.
Go!
My head is wetter than a ball case on now.
It could be gotty or dynamite.
Go!
See you Saturday.
See you Saturday.
See you Saturday.
See you Saturday.
There you go.
That was a lot of fun.
Yeah.
And I actually hadn't heard the whole thing of that before.
And the first time for me is probably many of our listeners.
I moved all the way to the end of the device there.
Bring up the sound where it starts giving.
It is up.
It's just not making that much of a noise.
Oh, come on.
That's as loud as it's going to get.
Wow.
I don't know, maybe those people are right when they say that sounds crisper.
It does.
On an LP.
I actually like hearing the little crackle in the background.
What I love is people produce albums now and they insert crackle into the digital audio system.
Oh, come on.
Yeah, seriously.
That's the kind of thing you expect from commercial radio, right?
That kind of fakeness.
I don't know.
It's your wonderful AAD recordings.
Yeah.
Anyway, the program is off the hook.
We're here tonight.
We're winding down a special three-hour show.
I've got Isaac over there.
We have Laszlo from commercial radio over here.
And I have on the phone Bernie S.
Are you still there, Bernie?
I'm still here in Philadelphia.
And joining us now from Michigan is Daniel Morgan, who is president of Morgan Aerospace Incorporated.
Is that correct, Dan?
Yes.
Good evening, everyone.
Can you speak up a bit more?
Yes.
How was that?
Was that better?
Still very low.
Okay.
I'll try to get you some more audio.
Hold on one second.
Yeah, please.
You sound like you're calling from a distant planet.
How was that?
Much better.
Except for those horrible noises, it's just great.
Except for the ear-piercing feedback.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
I think we're okay now.
Now, Daniel, you publish a newsletter called Satellite Watch News, is that correct?
Yes, I do.
And recently, within the last year or so, you seem to have ruffled some feathers.
We're used to ruffling feathers around here.
But in your case, you ruffled feathers of someone who decided to go out and sue you
for what you did.
Do you want to give us an outline of what this is all about?
Okay.
So basically, what we do is we publish a magazine.
It's monthly, entitled The Satellite Watch News.
The Satellite Watch News publishes the untold reality about an industry that likes to pretty
much keep total control over what it does and what actually goes on.
And unfortunately, for the people who are programming, sending signals to the satellite,
their encryption system was real vulnerable and it was hacked.
Reporting the honest truth about this industry, we ended up in a lawsuit in federal court
with DirecTV being the plaintiff and suing us, trying to force us to cease and desist
our publication.
Now, when did this take place?
The suit was filed back, oh geez, it was, let's see here, June of, excuse me, July of
98.
And prior to that, they had sent us a cease and desist letter and threatening us with
all sorts of litigation if we just didn't go away and we refused to go away because
of the Constitution.
That entitles us to print material like this.
That little piece of paper that, you know, came out 1770-something, yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it really seems in the publishing industry that more and more publications are
being challenged on a daily basis and that the Constitution, I mean, the Constitution
that's been around for, what now, 100 years or so, really isn't worth the paper it was
written on.
People can file lawsuits against you and try to terminate, literally make you extinct,
take away your existence.
Now, you basically published something about, you basically published something about how
to defeat a system, how to, or how a system was defeated by somebody, somewhere, how it
was vulnerable.
Very much the same kind of thing we do at 2600, except it had to do with a commercial
entity that sends satellite signals to people and those people are supposed to pay for those
signals.
Now, what was the hack?
What was the hack?
Someone figured out a way to get around the little card they stick in the machine?
Exactly.
Basically, the encryption system is based on a smart card, if you will, and what happened
is a group of guys got together and, like many smart cards, I'm sure you guys are pretty
familiar with smart cards, they interrogated it.
They basically wanted to find out how it worked, what was required to compromise a system,
if in fact it could be compromised, and a bunch of engineers got together and they worked
day and night and they found the loopholes in the encryption system and were able to
make it basically come up in a plug-and-play type situation, plug it in, away it went,
and people who are operating DirecTV systems purchased one of these and actually had all
the programming for one fee.
The programmer became aware of this several months after it happened, through our publication
by the way, and started doing countermeasures only after they purchased one of these devices
from one of the people who sell them.
They're basically supplied out of Canada.
This type of hacking is legal in Canada, and they don't condone it here in the United States,
however, product apparently does end up here, and DirecTV found us to be, I guess you might
say, too good of a source.
We must do well at what we do.
They're suing us for basically writing about their magazine.
Of course, the allegations in the suit go far beyond just publishing a magazine.
Publishing a magazine may accuse us of many things, but I guess the only way you get sued
nowadays is if you're doing something and doing it well.
Well, you certainly seem to get a reaction that way.
Now, if I understand correctly, the people who are hacking this system aren't actually,
they're not breaking into a computer system, they're not dialing into something remotely,
they're taking something in their homes, they're taking a piece of equipment that they've bought,
a receiver of some sort, they're taking a card, which they've also bought,
and they're figuring out a way to make that card react in a different way.
That's correct.
And these signals are being beamed into their home.
They did not ask for these signals to be beamed into their home.
They're coming in because they're coming into everyone's home.
And what they're saying, what they're alleging is that just doing this,
or in your case, even talking about this, is illegal.
Is taboo, yes.
That's exactly what they're saying, and in my eyes and many other people's eyes,
it's reporting on an industry that, basically the satellite industry has gotten corrupt.
It's a very, very corrupt industry.
There's so many players allowed, and those that don't play by the rules end up being in big trouble,
including the people who publish magazines in this trade.
They're trying to bully people, and I have taken a stance.
I mean, I am not a rich man at all, but I've taken a stance.
Doggone it, there is a constitution.
I do have a right to publish.
I don't sell.
They claim I have aided and abetted through my publication.
All I'm doing is telling the truth about an industry that, basically, it's gone astray.
They don't want no one to know about it.
Most of your bigger trade magazines that get large advertising from folks like DirecTV
don't publish any of the untold stories.
You seem to be coming back to a theme, and you weren't with us for the first part of the program,
but we were comparing commercial radio and non-commercial radio,
and how if someone sponsors you, all of a sudden you don't talk about certain things.
I imagine in those magazines, because they are sponsored in part by DirecTV,
they don't talk about things that DirecTV might not like.
Now, your magazine, Satellite Watch News, on the other hand,
you're pretty much commercial-free as far as content.
You talk about the news of the satellite industry,
which is exactly what the title says, Satellite Watch News.
I was reading it the other day.
I actually met you at the HamFest, and I couldn't put it down.
I was just reading all about satellites.
But the funny thing about it was that a lot of the information was about DirecTV,
and it wasn't negative information.
It was talking about their channel expansions, their programming,
things that they would normally pay to get this kind of information out.
Emmanuel, I would say that we're probably the only fully unbiased publication
in the entire industry.
We tell it the way it is, and we report on all aspects of it.
We've been classified as the hacker journal extraordinaire.
We are not that.
We tell the entire story about an industry,
and if a system is being hacked in the satellite industry,
that's as much satellite industry news
as general instruments developing a new decoder for the industry.
It's not our fault that News Datacom,
the people who provided DirecTV with their encryption system,
that they built basically a flawed device.
If it was a good device, we wouldn't be writing about it in the way we do.
It is not a good device.
It was very vulnerable, and they could have used much better circumstances
for security or much better encryption algorithms.
The problem was that they used an encryption system
that has, in fact, been hacked for years in Europe.
It's also basically threatening
one of the brightest revenue models of all time.
People pay to have stuff to decode these signals
to come into their house to watch channels
that have commercials on them.
Cable television and that whole industry amazes me
because it's like, OK, you want me to pay $50 a month
so that you can sell commercials to people,
and I watch them.
OK, that makes a lot of sense.
Basically, this is just about watching TV.
People want to watch television,
so they try to figure out a way to get these programs, this information.
I get DirecTV. I like DirecTV.
I think it's kind of cool to be able to get all these channels.
I'm able to see BBC Now and some Canadian stuff.
It just seems to be better than cable.
The weird thing is, if it's priced low enough,
obviously people will find it reasonable.
They'll pay for it, and everybody will be happy.
But if it's priced too high,
then that's when you start running into some difficulty.
Now, the weird thing about DirecTV as opposed to cable,
there is really very little expense that they have to put in.
A cable TV company has to wire a neighborhood.
They have to provide you with the box.
They have to make sure the wire comes to your house.
They have to fix things if they go wrong.
They charge a price based on all of that.
Now, let's look at what DirecTV has to do.
They have a satellite up there.
It probably cost them something to put that satellite up there.
But now that it's up there, they're beaming down a signal.
If 100 people get one of their stations,
then they charge people a certain amount of money.
If 1,000 people get their stations,
they charge the same to all those 1,000 people.
10,000, 100,000, however many people.
Every time more people are added, they just make more money.
There's no more investment for them.
They don't have to make more boxes
because you buy the equipment.
They don't have to wire neighborhoods
because it's coming through the air.
I think that's rubbing people the wrong way
because obviously something should be happening
if the service is becoming increasingly popular
when the rates should be going down, shouldn't they?
You would think so.
The most ironic situation here is
in the litigation,
I don't know if you had time to read the entire lawsuit,
but in the litigation,
they claim that we are,
through our publication,
we've caused them great harm.
The actual ratio,
and I've compared this with other people
who are definitely involved
in providing these compromised cards,
our advertisers,
they figure the actual ratio is
25,000 people actively using these things.
DirecTV has over 5 million subscribers.
Wow.
So the actual damages are very minimal.
However, they claim there is many, many more.
The other trade pubs,
they write that there's upwards of a million
to two million people using these cards.
That is not true at all.
But anyway, the big thing is here
is they're lambasting us for doing
what is legally allowed in this country
and that's publishing a magazine.
On one of the pages of the lawsuit,
they're accusing you of advertising,
promoting, and arranging the sale
and use of counterfeit DSS access cards
and other illegal signal theft devices
through, and this is the interesting part,
through your distribution and sale
of Satellite Watch News
and Pirate Video 9,
which is a videotape.
Now that's interesting.
In this particular part, anyway,
they're not saying that you're selling the cards,
but by putting out your magazine
you are responsible
for what's going on.
Now that's a really scary leap of logic right there.
Yes, it is.
It's very frightening.
It doesn't make sense
to me at all.
Our attorneys are having
real, real problems
trying to make sense out of this.
However, I guess in this country
anyone who wishes to sue someone
can do it just by merely filing
a lawsuit.
It's frivolous, and I think we both know
just by looking at it
that it is basically
a very frivolous lawsuit.
There were no criminal charges filed, is that right?
No. No, there was no criminal charges
filed at all.
So they're seeking monetary damages?
In a criminal court, there'd be no case against you.
That's correct.
The federal prosecutor,
from what I understand,
has not even looked at any part of this
and really cares not to.
This may be of interest.
Years back, prior to DirecTV,
five years ago,
there's the big dish that was compromised.
The encryption system there
that was used
was called VideoCipher.
I don't know if you guys know anything about that,
but the neat thing is
General Instruments, the people who provided
that security,
never challenged this magazine
whatsoever.
As a matter of fact, their head security officer,
actually looked forward to each and every publication
as a means to
go after the actual people who were selling this stuff.
So we were never
challenged by General Instruments at all.
It was DirecTV
that took the first step in challenging the publication.
They also say,
and this is kind of interesting too,
they refer to the videotape, and they say that
Pirate Video 9 includes
clips and footage from a number of copyrighted
motion pictures and other protected programming
as the programming appeared
on DirecTV's digital satellite system.
The videotape also displays the DSS logo
on DirecTV's programming menus
and that your
reproduction is without authorization
or consent. As if
changing a channel, which is literally what it is,
I watched a video earlier today,
changing a channel,
you're violating a copyright by showing how
a channel gets changed and flashing
the program as it goes by.
We've done that under the Fair Use Act.
60 seconds or less.
This was one second or less.
Yes, right. But we've done that under the Fair Use Act.
And of course,
if you noticed at the end of the videotape,
DirecTV
was given credit in the credits
that they rolled
for the actual video.
Are they charging you with any kind of
copyright violation? Oh, yes. Yes, definitely.
I guess that's part of it,
showing their logo
and, like,
images from their screen on your video
constitutes, in their mind,
a copyright violation?
Yes.
That's pretty scary.
So, now, this is a civil suit
filed by DirecTV. It's not a
legal suit, at least.
Yes, it's just a civil suit
filed in federal court based in Michigan.
And what are they asking for
as far as damages?
Well, basically, the damages they're asking for
are under the actual federal statute.
If I were charged criminally
by a federal prosecutor,
it would be the same awards
under those sections of the USC
that could be
judged against me
in an actual federal criminal suit.
So that's what they're asking for in damages,
which could end up being
multiples of millions of dollars
should they succeed and win.
And even if they don't succeed,
how much have you already had to worry about
as far as...
We're looking at $300,000,
and so far to date, we've spent about $50,000.
Have you considered a countersuit
to make up for the
losses in legal fees?
There is very large considerations right now
going on between myself and legal counsel
as the next step to take.
And there may very well possibly
sooner or later be
an antitrust suit filed
based on some information
that we've just learned about DirecTV.
That'll be interesting.
Have you contacted the ACLU?
Yes, and talked briefly,
and nobody has returned any of our calls.
That's the ACLU we know, too.
They tend not to do that.
I'm very familiar with that, unfortunately.
You mentioned EFF, but evidently
that's the response they're going to get.
I don't think they're going to care about satellites anyway.
But I imagine you've talked about this
pretty openly in your magazine.
Yes, I have.
How has the response been to that?
We are getting some legal contributions.
They're not substantial enough.
It's a struggling battle, let's face it.
We're having trouble raising
all the necessary money that we're going to need.
Our attorneys tell us it could be upwards of $300,000
just to get it to jury trial.
If we do get it to that point,
I feel very confident that we will win.
But it's a matter of getting it there.
You know, it's really disturbing
to me especially
because I'm involved in this kind of thing
on a daily basis involving computer hackers.
But for someone to sit there and tell me
that I am not allowed to take a card
in my own house
and try and figure out how it works
in a machine...
First of all, as I said,
I already subscribe to the system.
I already pay for it.
How is it illegal for me to try
and figure out how it works?
What are they going to charge me with
if I figure out how it works
since I'm already paying for it in the first place?
How can they twist people's brains like this?
It's ludicrous.
According to
the U.S.C.
47605,
in this country
it is illegal to own
or possess
a device
that allows you
to compromise
satellite television programming
based only
on transmission
from a program provider
to a cable provider
that sells, resells
the signal
to an end user, which would be
the cable homeowner.
There's not
really a great deal
in that section
that covers direct-to-home broadcasting.
So this
lawsuit very well could open
up a whole new avenue
for legalized
television hacking in the United States.
The case has to be tested.
Imagine a legislative
history on the existing law
pertains to
pre-DBS.
Is that right?
It's all pre-DBS, yes.
Bernie, I have to tell you,
you're coming in extremely low, so our listeners
aren't able to hear you, unfortunately.
Oh, how about now?
I think it's our fault. I don't think it's your fault.
So even if you scream, I think it might be a problem.
But if something really important
comes up, scream as loud as you can.
I can hear Bernie fine on this.
You can hear him, but
the rest of us can't, unfortunately.
Where it stands now is that
you're being sued by DirecTV
for printing articles and for putting out
a videotape.
What's the next
court date, I guess?
Right now, we're in depositions.
We have to get through that, of course.
They're subpoenaing everything right down to my
Visa and MasterCard records.
They have subpoenaed my bank statements,
my cellular phone calls.
They have been
up and down one side
and down the other.
Right now, we need to get through the
depositions.
The actual court date
is set sometimes towards the end
of the year.
So basically, even if it's proven
to be completely without merit, it's
tying you up in court.
It must be hurting the magazine.
Yes, it is. It's damaging us very badly.
It's taking our
needed financial resources
to continue on.
So far, we've been able
to do that with the little support
that we've had, but we need a lot more support.
Tell us something about
Satellite Watch News.
Satellite Watch News is a publication
that's published monthly. There's 12 issues a year.
It's totally
unbiased. It reports the truth,
the honest facts about what's
going on in the industry.
If you want to know
what's happening again with DSS,
how it's being hacked,
when it does happen, that information
is in there. If
DirecTV is going to be having a big
prize fight, they're going to be doing a system upgrade.
It's in there. All the information
that you need to know about
an industry that is
basically a very big part
of America entertainment is in
this publication. And how long have you been coming out?
Ten years. Ten years.
So your audience is from the casual
user, or rather the casual
viewer, all the way up to the gentleman
who's interested in all of the technical aspects.
Exactly, yes.
Excellent. It's interesting, because like I said
before, when I was at the Hamvention,
I was reading the magazine,
and I could
only see this as a good thing for the people
running these services, because
it spreads information, but
at the same time, it
spreads education as well.
And how the technology
actually works, and people should be
interested in this. They shouldn't just be
consumers who just
simply subscribe and never ask any questions.
It's more than that.
Don't you want to know how the technology works?
Don't you want to know what the weak points are?
And doesn't DirecTV benefit from learning
where the weak points are as well?
Imagine if there wasn't a magazine to say this. Imagine
if it was all done secretly.
There's
two ways of looking at everything.
Again, I was talking earlier about General Instruments
during the C-Band, the big dish days.
The big 10-foot dishes that most people call
butts, but the ugly dish.
Anyway, the neat thing about that is
General Instruments Corporation, now these folks
are very large into the cable and
satellite encryption.
They learned how
to build a better box
from our publication, and they
finally did.
And to this day, it has not been hacked.
Interesting.
Do you think people just stopped trying?
Or do you think they're still trying to
figure it out?
Well, I think people found
a better avenue, a quicker
money-making avenue as far as
the people who resell the hacking
products in
DirecTV's venue.
But I think
General Instruments finally built the ultimate
go-ahead-try-to-break-it-if-you-can box.
It's been very difficult.
Maybe they're trying to recoup the money from
all these satellites that have been exploding
into bits. In the last
year, like four rockets blown up.
Yeah, Titan IVs have been
going boom. Surprised they don't blame you for that.
Well, that very well could
happen one day.
Oh my goodness, it was incredible. Did you guys
get to see the Chinese lawnmower go up when they were
going to launch EchoStar One? No.
It left a pad in China.
It took off, got up about
500 feet, made a U-turn, and took
out a village. Oh yeah, I did see that on
CNN. I did see that. It was pretty
incredible. I guess they won't be
watching TV for a while down
there. We're speaking with
Daniel Morgan, who is the publisher of
Satellite Watch News, and
we're in the tail end of our
special off-the-hook program for
tonight. You should mention the phone number. Yeah,
I'm about to do that, because we're about to mention a special
offer that people should know about involving
just this. That's right, you can
become part of the controversy. You can
learn things that
they don't want you to learn about.
By calling us, 212-209-2950,
and pledging
$75, you
will get a year, a year subscription
to Satellite Watch News.
Not only that,
a year of Satellite Watch News,
and
the videotape that
was mentioned in the indictment. The videotape
that, in itself, is
a crime, according to these people.
A videotape that shows
you how the technology works,
what it's all about.
They don't want you to know about this.
You get a year's worth
of Satellite Watch News. That's 12
issues. You get the videotape, and
we even throw in a 2600 t-shirt.
That's quite a lot of stuff there
for a mere $75 pledge.
We're in the home stretch. What's that number, Emanuel?
212-209-2950.
Again, consider
this. We're a non-commercial
station here in New York City, broadcasting to the
world through the internet and over the FM
radio waves. How
many other places have you heard this talked about?
Not very many. Why?
Because DirecTV sponsors
these radio programs
on other radio stations.
They sponsor the entire station.
I actually did a rant on Gateway, and radio
stations wouldn't run it because Gateway
advertises
on that station. Can you believe that?
I went mental. It's ridiculous.
They have total control.
I cannot say that my Gateway laptop died
five times and had to get shipped back to
the North Pole or wherever
those guys are. In the Happy Cow Box?
Right. I could not talk about that
on the radio because, you know, Gateway
spends some money on the station. You know what, Laszlo?
You're talking about it here, on this radio
station. You're able to come here and
talk about how bad your Gateway
is.
What else do you want to get off your chest?
Some stations ran it. There was only two or three.
There was actually one in New York that refused to run it.
How do you like that? Right here in New York,
the enlightened capital of the world, and we
censor our radio station because
the sponsors don't want it to be said.
Stations in Nebraska ran it, but here
in New York City.
Wow. So, this is what we're offering you
here, and by calling us, you're voicing
support for the radio station for freedom of speech
so that we can have more
people like Daniel Morgan join us
and tell their tales
of woe as the big corporations
strike out against the individuals.
212-209-2950
Again, $75 pledge for the
one-year subscription to Satellite Watch News,
the videotape, and a t-shirt. Again, we
still have those other
packages available, the Mega Package.
Every last
issue of 2600 Magazine ever published
from 1984 on to the present,
and also... That's enough to get you
indicted. Yeah, you're talking about
incriminating material. They find that
in your next grade, and you're out.
That's for a pledge of $250, plus you get
the obligatory t-shirt with that, or
if you want to listen to our happy voices
for the last 10 years or so,
pick up the
four-CD-ROM set of
every episode of Off the Hook from 1988
to 1997,
and also, again, your t-shirt comes with that.
I pity the people who don't like t-shirts.
You're getting one.
That's for a pledge amount of $150,
but please, the important thing,
the numbers 250, 150, 75,
they don't matter as much as 212-209-2950.
Call that number.
They have all the information there.
Ask them whatever questions you have.
Maybe there's something else that we have
at BAI that you prefer that's not related
to Off the Hook. We have so many different
things. We have so many different
programmers here. The most important
thing is for you to contribute something
so you can show your support, so we can
make that number grow. Remember, we started...
We did the interview with the B92 person
live from Belgrade, Yugoslavia,
and after we finished that interview,
the number on our tally screen...
This was about 8 o'clock at night.
The number was zero. It was zero
because we hadn't asked for money,
obviously. We hadn't asked during the first hour.
We just talked to somebody in Yugoslavia.
We mentioned it very casually.
After that, the calls started flying in.
The calls really started flying in,
and right now we are at $4,585.
That shows
the power of individuals
who join forces
and show
their support for a radio station.
Remember, we don't have commercials here, but we have you.
That is
just so much more preferable because
that way we can give you
what you want, not what
Wall Street wants, even though we're right here on Wall Street.
It's kind of ironic what our address is.
When you give money to it...
I know when I give money to
stations, you feel like you're part of a club,
like you've contributed, like you've helped it out.
It's something to feel
proud about.
You know,
that you're supporting a cause
and something that the community
needs and appreciates instead of just
going through the drive-thru.
It is something you feel proud about.
I've given money to radio stations before.
The one time I regretted it was when I gave money to my
local PBS station because they wouldn't stop
calling me afterwards wanting me to do it again.
For 10 years
after I did that, I was getting postcards.
They must have spent every last penny I gave
them just to mail me junk over the last
10 years. But regardless,
we don't do that kind of thing. We don't
have these mass mailing businesses
going on. But when
you do something like that, you do feel really good
afterwards. When you participate in a demonstration
of something you believe in,
you feel really good after you did something
because you're showing your true feelings.
You're participating in a cause.
You're adding something to it.
Now, Daniel, you've been pretty intimidated
by all these
high-priced
lawyers that want you to buckle in.
What is it that keeps you going?
I guess
after spending three and a half years in Southeast Asia,
it's all
worth it in the end. I believe in the Constitution.
There's not many of us
left, Emmanuel, that will stand up and say,
Hey, wait a minute. You might be General Motors.
Which DirecTV is, by the way.
General Motors used Aerospace.
That's right. You forget about these things.
You forget about what companies own what companies.
But I think if you're doing an honest
thing, and we are doing an honest thing,
we're publishing a magazine, a mere magazine.
We write about it.
We have connections in the industry
that basically no one else
has.
They tell us what happens.
It's almost flattering to be considered a threat.
It's almost
incredible because actually where we're based,
folks, we are based in northern
lower Michigan. Population
in the town that we're in, it's 540.
And our
magazine is read
by many people around the country.
And the
flattery, I guess, is when DirecTV
said, Hey, this guy must be good because
he's got us very irritated.
So we're going to sue him.
It's not like you're inciting violence or anything.
What happens? Some guy gets
to watch WrestleMania for free.
That's it. WWF for
free.
We didn't even sell him the damn car.
That's pretty
incredible. We just wrote about
something that was happening in the industry.
What people do with our information
is up to them. We're not
babysitters to the world.
We publish a magazine. It's to inform
people. What's incredible
here is that no matter what it is
we're talking about, whether it's to someone
trying to run a radio station in Yugoslavia,
someone trying to get out of prison
for being a computer hacker,
or someone like you who publishes
a newsletter, it all comes down
to control of information.
What people in high places
don't want everybody else to know about.
And so many times
those are the people that wind up winning
simply because they use fear and intimidation.
Whether it's soldiers, whether it's
lawsuits, whether it's prisons,
whatever. And that's what
we have to stand up against. We have to
show the power of the individual.
Emmanuel, let me interject something here.
DirecTV has filed several lawsuits.
They filed several lawsuits
in Canada against the actual people
who are distributing these products.
But isn't Canada still a
country that's not...
What happened is the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police who conducted the search and seizures
and the raids were bought off
by DirecTV
and American Corporation.
They were literally bought off.
Their dollars influenced
the Canadian government enough
that their government, the Canadian
people's government, would turn against them.
Now tell me, that is
not scary.
That is extremely scary. It seems like borders
mean less and less these days when it comes to
American corporations.
The problem here is it's not even a matter
of a treaty.
It is an American corporation
saying, hey, for X amount of
dollars, we want you to go do this to
this guy, this guy, and this guy.
It's like a hitman.
Definitely.
To me,
that is the most irritating thing
in any country.
To turn against one's people.
Oh my goodness.
There's just not enough bad
I can say about that.
It's definitely disgusting.
212-209-2950
We're speaking with Daniel Morgan
who is a publisher of
Satellite Watch News. I see a lot of parallels
between this and 2600
and a lot of the same
fierce devotion to freedom of speech
and the right of people to know something.
So please, by giving us
a phone call, you'll be getting a year
of that newsletter.
You'll see for yourself just what it's all about.
You'll also get a copy of the videotape
which they also don't want you to see.
I imagine they want you to destroy
all copies of that, is that right?
Exactly.
In the actual
subpoenas that we received
and I believe somewhere in the lawsuit
I just don't happen to have it right in front of me
right now.
Actually, it was in the discovery.
They wanted all the outtakes.
There was no outtakes.
We do video, we do it once
and that's it.
They wanted all that stuff.
They have subpoenaed all of our records,
our bank statements,
my email.
My ISP
called me one day and said,
Dan, what's going on?
At least he knows you by your first name.
Oh, definitely.
He says, we've got a subpoena here
to turn over all of our
archives of email and all this other
stuff and
they basically don't keep
all that stuff and he said,
I told him what was going on.
He said, this is outrageous.
He couldn't believe it.
I know this guy well.
He was very, very irritated with what was going on.
They turned over
what they had and my email
does not consist of much more than orders
and a howdy doody.
Whatever they got, I hope they got a thrill out of it.
212-209-2950.
We're up to
$5,285.
That's pretty amazing, I think.
It shows the power of listeners
and shows what important things
our guests have to say tonight.
Please show your support by calling us.
You're not only showing support for the radio station,
you're showing support for people
like Daniel Morgan, for people
like our friend in Belgrade,
for people like Kevin Mitnick, for people like
Bernie S, all those people who stand up
for freedom of speech, for what it's
all about. 212-209-2950.
We've been here for
three hours tonight. We're pretty tired.
We're going to try and see Star Wars
after midnight and see
if that works out.
We'll hear about it tomorrow.
How is Kevin doing, by the way?
As good as somebody can do inside prison for
four years, it's horrible.
It's terrible. The nightmare never seems to end
and they don't seem to ever want to stop
making him pay for what they consider
to be a crime. It's the same
goonish mentality that we see
in so many places these days.
Whether it's a civil
lawsuit, whether it's
prosecutors
in a federal case, or
army soldiers in a foreign country
trying to intimidate people.
It's really sad, but
individuals have power and that's the point
we're trying to get across tonight.
212-209-2950.
Daniel, I want to thank you very much for
joining us and wish you all the luck
with the upcoming lawsuit.
Again, if anybody out there can help
with your particular
case, how can they contact you?
They can reach us here at our office at
517-685-3410.
Okay. And do you have
any kind of email or anything like that?
Yes, I do. It's
D-M-O-R-G-A-N
D-B-
at I-
star
S-T-A-R dot com.
Is that the account that gets subpoenaed?
Yes.
Can you repeat that email one more time?
Sure enough. It's D-Morgan
D-M-O-R-G-A-N
D-B-
at I-
star S-T-A-R dot com.
Okay.
Again, thanks. Best of luck to you.
We'll be following this case in the future
and I look forward to reading future issues
of Satellite Watch News.
It's a really cool zine.
Emmanuel, hey, it's been my pleasure
and 2600 does rock.
Okay, thanks very much.
Bernie S, thank you for joining us
from Philadelphia, even though we can barely hear you.
Thank you!
And we'll of course be in touch with you
over the next few weeks and of course
our next show will be in two weeks.
I'm really glad I went out
to Dayton because the people there were great
and I got to meet people like Dan
who had a
lot of things to say
and there are a lot of people out there who do have
a lot to say and fortunately
here at BAI we have
a means of bringing those people together
and you have a means of showing support
for that. One last time,
212-209-2950
we have three packages for you.
You can subscribe or you can
by subscribing to BAI you get Satellite Watch News
delivered to your house
or post office box or office or wherever you want
or a friend, you know, wherever you want
it to be sent. Now can they still call
even though we're not on the air?
They better hurry because this isn't going to be
talked about much more after this show.
We have a special comic book special
coming up in two hours. In fact, people
listening on Real Audio stay tuned because
this show is going to continue
to be carried on Real Audio.
Doing that as a special public service.
212-209-2950 for $75 you get
the Satellite Watch News and
the secret videotape.
Well it's not so secret, it's what they want
to outlaw to make it illegal to have
this videotape so get it soon before
they succeed.
And of course you get the 2600 t-shirt that's for $75
for $150 you get all four
CD-ROMs of all our shows from 1988
to 1997.
100 hours per CD, all you need is a computer
and a CD-ROM drive
and you again get a 2600 t-shirt
that's $150 and $250
every back issue of 2600 from
1984 to 1999
well worth twice this amount
and if you add in the t-shirt
it's worth even more, it's $250
212-209-2950
Simmanuel Goldstein for Isaac
thank you very much for coming in
Laszlo, thanks for making the pilgrimage
from commercial radio
It was a long ugly road
Hopefully we'll keep you on our side here
Right on
and hopefully we'll have you back again sometime
Our number at this point
5485, thanks very much to everybody
who called in and pledged. I also want to
give a special thanks to the Real Audio crew
Jwince, Schifflock,
C-Note, Jules, Dark Tech, Absolute Zero
and to the MP3 crew
Anakin, Timrek, Droop, The Snow Dog
and also thanks to
Nate G for the custom
stat program
These are the people who bring you
the sounds of Off The Hook, Over The Air
Over The Net every week
I want to thank them very much and also thanks very much to Port Shop
and happy birthday to Port Shop
for helping us out
week after week. Okay, that's it, goodnight
We'll be back in two weeks
...
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