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When you're listening to radio station WBAI in New York, the time is 8 o'clock.
Time once again for Off The Hook.
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And a very good evening to everybody.
The program is off the hook, we're coming your way every Tuesday night at this time.
Manuel Wellstein here with you along with Isaac over the other side of the room.
How are you doing, sir?
And Bernie S. down there in Philadelphia.
Bernie, how are you doing?
I'm here.
I'm kind of sick, so pardon me if I cough in your radio.
Yeah, I heard about this.
You're really miserable down there, huh?
Well, I'm not miserable, I just have a bad cough.
Yeah.
Well, we'll try not to make the show too stressful tonight, but we're going to deal with matters
of injustice and frustration, as we always do.
And of course, our listeners are welcome to call in.
We were supposed to have Kevin Mitnick on the air this evening.
That's not going to happen because Kevin had a scheduling conflict with a conference
out there, and he's going to have to do this next week.
He promises he'll definitely move hell and high water or whatever to be here next week.
Not be here in the studio, but be on the phone and have an interactive type of a show where
we talk back and forth.
So that will be next week, so all you people who planned around it, you can resume a normal
life for one more week.
We have lots of other things that have been going on over this past period of time, including
a brand new website.
Isaac, I think you're very excited by this.
Oh, yeah.
The Computer Crime and Intellectual Property section.
Cybercrime.
Cybercrime, yeah.
Cybercrime.gov.
Cybercrime.gov.
I can't believe cybercrime is a word that falls under dot gov now, but it does.
It's the times we live in.
The word cybercrime was just introduced into the Oxford English Dictionary, by the way,
too.
Really?
How do you introduce a word into a dictionary?
What do you like to introduce?
Well, the OED is now online.
It's a fee-based service.
I think it's like $5 a month or something, but it beats buying like 20 volumes of this
huge compendium of human language.
It's giant.
It looks like a huge encyclopedia.
Anyway, they just added cybercrime to that, and they update the OED quarterly now online.
Wow.
Five bucks a month?
But how do you introduce a word?
That's what I want to know.
Well, I guess they have these ... They've got about 100 people on their staff.
What they do is they go out, and they're like etymologists.
They listen on the streets, huh?
Well, they're etymologists.
They study the English language, and they have some official way of determining whether
a word is actually in common usage.
I guess they do surveys and do searches to see if it appears in print, media, that sort
of thing.
Hmm.
Interesting.
Interesting, indeed.
Well, in any event, cybercrime is, I guess, a word, but it's also a website.
U.S. Department of Justice has launched a one-stop shopping site for information on
computer crimes that officials hope will make it easier for victims to report cyberattacks
and help law enforcement catch, investigate, and prosecute the criminals.
That site is going to be so owned.
You know that.
Very quickly.
Somebody is going to hack that site, and they're going to be merciless.
And I'm just going to laugh because it's just funny.
You've got to read the site.
You've got to wander around to see what people say.
Well, they've got a good idea at the top.
The text-only version is the first link on the top of the page.
It shows that somebody who is at least conscious of text-only browsers is kind of working with
them on the matter, which I think is a positive aspect.
The FBI estimated recently that electronic crimes cost $10 billion a year, but it's believed
only 17% of the corporate victims report the crimes because of worries about copycats and
possible effect on shareholder and consumer confidence.
So basically, they have no idea what they're talking about.
That's a nice way of saying that.
In the words of Ted Koppel, I just read the news.
He said that, huh?
Yeah, a couple years ago, there was something the ABC News reported that was false.
You're sure that was Ted Koppel because he doesn't read the news?
He's supposed to do like an interview type of show.
He was an anchor.
He was an anchor a couple years ago, at least some nights on the ABC Evening News.
And he said, hey, basically, don't blame us.
I just read the news.
Don't blame me.
I just read the news.
I forget what this particular story was.
Yeah, well, we don't just read the news here at BAI.
We investigate the news.
I wish they'd do that more in the real world.
Not that we're not the real world, but it's just, you know,
you see things on the net.
You see things on commercial TV, and it's all the same,
and they don't investigate it.
And I think, Isaac, you've got a really good example of how they did that on this website.
This is fairly amusing.
Bobcat actually sent this my way.
If you go to cybercrime.gov, at the very bottom,
they have a link on the page for their privacy and security notice.
Well, you know, they have a nice little page,
and it's got this GIF89A with a blinking eagle on the top,
which is the Department of Justice logo.
And the second paragraph here, if I could read it.
Our website does not require you to disclose any personal identifying information.
If, however, you choose to contact us via e-mail,
please keep in mind that your e-mail address,
any other information your e-mail headers show about you,
such as your name or organization, will be revealed in the e-mail.
We pledge, however, that when you communicate with e-mail,
we will use your e-mail information only for the specific purpose of responding to you.
Your e-mail address will not be sold,
nor will it be shared with others outside the bank,
unless we are compelled to do so by law.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Stop. Back up. PPP.
What, uh, what bank?
Your e-mail address will not be sold,
nor will it be shared with others outside the bank,
unless we are compelled to do so by law.
You're reading something from cybercrime.gov.
Who's the bank?
Well, you know, the Department of Justice is obviously very confused
about what kind of business they're in.
So, uh, with a little bit of, uh, investigation...
Bernie, you're laughing. You think this is funny?
Hilarious.
Well, here's the actual source.
There's a bank somewhere up there I don't get.
Well, here's the source for that particular section of the privacy statement.
Okay.
If you go to www.firstmid, F-I-R-S-T-M-I-D.com,
that's the First Mid-Illinois Bank and Trust.
And the second paragraph of their privacy policy is,
uh, our website does not require you to disclose
any personally identifying information.
If, however, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Word for word?
Your e-mail address will not be sold,
nor will it be shared with others outside the bank,
unless we are compelled to do so by law.
Oh, my God.
It's the same thing.
Okay, so to me, this sounds like some kind of, like,
little thing that they cut and pasted from...
Right.
Well, there's actually...
I'll bet you go to any bank on the web
and see that same privacy notice, but...
Well, this is the one place it was located.
Uh, the only difference that I can see
is, uh, in the first line.
They say, disclose any personal identifying information
for the DOJ version,
and our website does not require you
to disclose any personally identifying information
on the...
Who says personally?
Who says personal?
Personal is the DOJ.
Personally is the First Mid-Illinois Bank and Trust.
I think personal is grammatically correct.
Maybe they made a correction.
Well, it's identifying information.
Mm-hmm.
Personally is the adverb
which modifies the adjective identifying.
Which you don't need to do.
It's completely unnecessary.
Modifying something that doesn't need to be modified.
It's a waste.
Well...
So many people go around modifying things
that are not supposed to be modifying,
and you know how much time is wasted
because of that and how many words and letters?
Well, it's identifying information,
and then there's personally identifying information.
I applaud the Justice Department for de-adverbing that.
Well...
That's the only thing I applaud them for
is your, uh...
What's the word?
Uh...
You know,
what the guy from Delaware did.
He stole words and, you know,
said they were his.
Uh, copy something.
Yeah, plagiarism.
Right, that's the one.
Well, I hope the bank...
Emmanuel, do you think
the Justice Department will prosecute itself
for stealing the intellectual property
of the bank whose words they stole?
Only if we demand it.
And I think we should.
All right, what else is on this site?
This, uh...
It's a fun site to wander around.
This is CC-IPSD.
CC-IPS, of course.
Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section.
And, uh...
Section of what, then?
I don't know.
The Computer Crime and Intellectual Property
Section attorney staff
consist of about two dozen lawyers...
Oh, God.
Two dozen lawyers
that are gonna figure out ways
to prosecute people for all kinds of new things
who focus exclusively on the issues
raised by computer and intellectual property crime.
Section attorneys
advise federal prosecutors
and law enforcement agents
comment upon and propose legislation
coordinate international efforts
to combat computer crime
litigate cases
and train all law enforcement groups.
That's kind of interesting.
They're international in scope?
Everything's international in scope these days.
We've got little teams of feds
going everywhere in the world
trying to influence policy.
I thought that was the responsibility
of the Department of State, so we may.
Other areas of expertise
possessed by CC-IPS attorneys
include encryption,
electronic privacy laws,
search and seizure of computers,
e-commerce,
hacker investigations,
dum-da-dum-dum,
and intellectual property crimes.
So, uh, yes, CC-IPS...
There's gotta be a better way to say that.
CC-IPS.
Do they want us to pronounce that somehow?
I don't know.
It's one of those, like, odd acronyms.
We're gonna be hearing from them in the future,
that's for sure,
because every time somebody
gets prosecuted for something,
I'm sure they'll have something to say.
Here's a word
on the international aspect of this.
The borderless nature of computer crime
requires a large role
for CC-IPS
in international negotiations.
CC-IPS chairs the G8 subgroup
on high-tech crime,
which has established
a 24-hour-a-day,
7-day-a-week point of contact
with 15 countries
for mutual assistance
in computer crime.
I don't have the number, do you?
Nor do I.
All right, if anybody out there
has the number for 24-hour-a-day,
7-day-a-week point of contact
with those 15 countries
in CC-IPS,
we'll print it on our website,
you know?
I'd be interested.
Trying to help out here.
CC-IPS also plays a leadership role
in the Council of Europe Experts
Committee on Cybercrime.
C-E-E-C-C.
That's a rip on CCC.
I don't care.
Chaos Computer Club
is going to have a thing
to say about that.
Well, we'll wait for it.
And also a new cybercrime project
at the Organization
of American States.
I've never heard of them.
All right.
That's pretty crazy.
But here's another
fun thing here.
It's kind of a chart.
Where you go
to report your particular crime.
Computer intrusion,
i.e. hacking.
Who would you go to?
What particular group?
What particular
federal agency would you go to?
I would...
I'll go for CERT.
No, no.
It's got to be enforcement.
Bernie?
I would say
the United States Secret Service.
That's very good.
U.S. Secret Service
local office.
But there is also
FBI local office
and NIPC.
My pick.
The National
Infrastructure Protection
Committee.
No, never mind.
If anybody knows
what NIPC stands for.
National
Infrastructure Protection
Center.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Apparently there's
some overlap
in the charters
of both the FBI
and the Secret Service.
If you read up
on their charters
and their missions
and their responsibilities,
the Secret Service
is responsible
for protecting
the President,
counterfeiting,
credit card fraud,
and telecommunications
and computer
fraud-related crimes.
But apparently
the FBI also
has anything
to do with fraud.
They're responsible
too.
So I guess
in some cases
they probably
sort of flip a coin
or fight with each other
as to who gets
the case.
Well, at least
we've narrowed it
down to two
organizations.
Previously
you'd have to ask
the Air Force
and NASA
had their own
little thing going on
and the DOE
had their own deal.
At least now
we've got it down
to two investigative
agencies.
Well, don't forget
NIPC.
NIPC is there too.
And also the same
organizations with
password trafficking
you would contact
them.
But here's a different
one.
Copyright,
software,
movie,
sound recording,
piracy.
Actually copyright
piracy,
which includes
software,
movie,
copyright,
piracy,
software,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
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piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
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piracy,
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piracy,
piracy,
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piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
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piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
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piracy,
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piracy,
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piracy,
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piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
piracy,
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you can register online,
you know,
you've never been able
to register online
for a hacker conference before?
It's kinda kind of cool.
Oh, that'd be interesting.
It's a really exciting results.
On the registration manual.
Yes.
I registered months ago.
You don't have to register.
You're,
you're,
you're a part of the staff.
Well,
I wanna pay my fair share,
but in any case,
how do I confirm
that I'm registered?
Is it a way to confirm
if you've been registered?
You'll,
you'll get a little uh,
thing in the mail.
Cause this was like
two or three months ago
I registered
I sent in a money order for the payment and with my name and address.
And you didn't get anything?
I got nothing.
Are you sure you sent it to us?
I did, to the address on the website.
Alright, we'll talk after the show because you definitely should have gotten something by now.
Alright, well there may be other people that want to find out if they're, you know, confirmed as being registered, so...
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Well, you can mail me personally, Emanuel at 2600.com, and I'll look into that.
Or mail the radio show, OTH at 2600.com.
I'm sure they got it, I just want to find out.
Well, no, you should have gotten something in return.
I mean, I know that we've been sending things out, so it seems kind of strange that we would treat you in this shabby fashion.
I mean, others I could understand, but you?
No, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Alright, let's read a couple letters and we'll take phone calls.
212-209-2900.
Here's a letter.
Hello, everyone.
I've got a question for all of you.
I am constantly hearing clicking sounds on the phone system at work, almost like the signal is dropping in strength.
And I've read somewhere that this might be a sign of tapping.
I know you can get tap detectors.
They're like 80 bucks.
Is there a way I can hook up a standard voltmeter up to the phone line to test for a drop in current from someone picking up another extension or tapping into the line with a recording device?
I know I could probably make one of these extension lights that I've seen schematics for, but I was wondering if there was something I can just use with a voltmeter.
If so, how much should the drop be across a normal untapped line?
How much would it change?
Bernie, do you?
That's a really good question he put in.
Virtually all of those commercial tap detectors are complete wastes of money.
There's nothing that can determine if there's a real law enforcement tap on your phone line.
They don't, like, attach a tape recorder to your phone line with alligator clips anymore like in the old days.
It's actually done at the central office.
That's not a tape recorder.
In fact, they don't even have to with this CALEA bill that was passed in 1995.
They can just do it from the FBI office and have direct access to your telephone company's central switch without the phone company even knowing about it.
Just type it in.
Now, of course, they're going to get a warrant before they'll type in your phone number, obviously.
Sure.
You wouldn't ever think the FBI or other federal law enforcement agencies would ever, just out of curiosity, punch in a phone number just to see what's going on now that they can do that.
But, of course, I trust them.
In any case, this guy can take a voltmeter, just a simple, like, RadioShack, even an analog.
Actually, I would recommend an analog voltmeter as opposed to a digital one.
With an analog voltmeter, you can actually see the needle swinging back and forth.
A digital one, you can't see those voltage fluctuations that are subtle.
When a normal phone line, like a POTS phone line, not a digital line that you might have on the PBX where you work,
but a regular, plain old phone line, when the phone line is on hook, you should see about 48 volts.
That voltage is coming from a huge rack of batteries at the central office, which is supposed to keep the phone system working and keep the power goes down.
You notice your phone still works because of all those batteries putting 48 volts down your phone line.
Anyway, you should see 48 volts when the phone line is on hook.
When you take it off hook, it should drop down to about 6 volts and fluctuate slightly as you talk into the phone or, like, dial digits.
Now, if while you're on the phone, you see the voltage drop consistently to, you know, like 5 volts or 4 volts,
at the same time you hear a click, that's a good sign that somebody else has picked up an extension.
There are fairly inexpensive items on the market that will, that, you know, can sometimes light up an LED accurately if there's been an additional voltage drop,
but they're not that reliable. Really, if you look at a DC volt meter doing that, it's a clue.
But if you, it's a one in a million chance that if you, maybe not one in a million,
but it's very unlikely if you hear any clicks in your line that somebody's actually wiretapping you.
It could be some amateur out there hooking a butt set up, you know, a test phone up to your line.
It could be a telco guy. You know, I catch them doing that all the time.
You know, they have, most of the professional butt sets have a high impedance transformer in the thing,
so you wouldn't even detect a voltage drop. They could monitor the phone line without you even hearing any clicks.
So unless it's somebody who's really amateurish, you're not going to hear any noise.
It's not like Hollywood. You're not going to hear any clicks or telltale noises anymore.
That's just an invention of the movie industry. It has nothing to do with reality.
You know, it's something that people like to think, you know, their line is clean unless they hear something.
You know, the fact is you could be monitored at any time, and you won't know it.
So just assume that you're being monitored on your telephone. It's very simple to do.
And the difference between law enforcement that will go around and just do this with or without a warrant,
and hackers, because hackers, when they figure out how it works, will tell everybody and show everybody,
and of course be blamed for it, but, you know, I would like nothing better than to actually see this thing working
and to be able to show people just how easy it is.
That would make things, you know, that would wake people up.
They'd say, wow, someone can just type this in.
And if they can get beyond the fear of hackers thinking, oh, hackers can do this, no, anybody can do this.
Anybody, the cop down the street who doesn't like you for some reason can spy on your conversations because he's got the access.
You know, all kinds of people can abuse it.
During my stay in federal prison, I got a chance to talk with some organized crime affiliates
who had had mounds of electronic surveillance imposed on them by the FBI,
and the vast majority of it did not involve actual wiretaps of phone lines.
The majority of it was actual hidden radio transmitters or hardwired microphones installed into buildings.
And in this particular organized crime family's case, the lawyer for the mob boss,
the lawyer's office was actually bugged by the FBI.
They installed all kinds of monitoring equipment in the actual lawyer's office.
Most of the evidence against these guys was obtained not through phone line surveillance but on other means of surveillance.
So be aware that just because you're not saying it on the phone doesn't mean you're not safe.
If you're concerned about being under some sort of electronic surveillance, whether it's by law enforcement or who knows,
the industry for electronic surveillance equipment is huge.
Literally hundreds of millions of dollars of this stuff gets sold every year.
Well, most of it is garbage.
Exactly. Well, exactly, but that doesn't mean people aren't using it.
The vast majority of this stuff is apparently not being purchased by law enforcement.
There's a huge commercial market, not a government market, for this stuff.
And if you look at the sales statistics of all this electronic surveillance equipment that's being sold
and compare it with the actual number of electronic surveillance warrants that are issued by federal courts,
there's just a few thousand warrants that are issued every year
compared to literally millions of dollars a year of this stuff that's purchased by the federal government.
So either they have tons and tons of this stuff sitting around not being used or they're using it illegally.
So take your pick on what's happening, but you can probably have a clue.
Well, you have to look out if there are federal statutes.
It's in the USC, which state that you're not supposed to possess, use, or generally possess a device for surreptitious bugging.
Title III.
Correct.
And that term, the definition of Title III, is becoming increasingly vague as we witness from the fine folks at Ramsey Electronics
who were rated a few months ago for selling the most mundane hobby-type radio transmitters
that ham radio operators would play with.
Boy Scout troops were buying these things as science projects.
This is like Mr. Microphone-type toys.
And they were rated by U.S. Customs.
And Ramsey's had about $40,000 worth of this stuff confiscated from them.
It's being sold at ham radio flea markets and ham radio and radio hobbyist magazines for decades openly.
Nobody who's really doing serious electronic surveillance would think to use this little stuff.
So apparently the government is trying to squelch anything that could possibly be used for anything that involves,
anything that sort of infringes on their territory, which is surveillance.
Right, so we don't for one minute think that they're doing it because they want to protect our privacy.
I don't think it has anything to do with it.
All right.
Well, I just wanted to cut that off at the pass before they quit.
They don't like competition.
Well, going back to Kalea, there's actually a U.S. company that's selling some German-developed software for Kalea.
If you go to cryptome.org, C-R-Y-P-T-O-M-E.org, you'll see a wonderful little article on that.
It's a great site, by the way.
It's an excellent site.
I recommend everyone go there daily.
He's got a list now.
And speaking of which, because—
Doesn't he have the DCSS?
Yeah, well, now, they've been keeping a copy of the DCSS on that particular site as well.
Now, Krypton has not been charged, as we have been charged by the MPAA in this lawsuit, which is still ongoing.
But what the MPAA has been doing over the past couple of weeks is methodically going down our list of mirrors and contacting the owners of all of those sites and sending threatening letters to them.
In many cases, that has gotten people kicked off systems, kicked out of classes and fired from jobs and things like that because it's intimidation.
And they're going to the people that run sites.
So if you want to join us and have a mirror of DCSS, we welcome you.
We'll add you to the list.
But you should be aware that the MPAA is playing hardball and that they're going to resort to any tactic to try and silence you.
So go to our website, www.2600.com.
We have a story up there now about everything that's been going on.
And if you want to join us in the fight, hey, we welcome you.
But know the risks.
Know what's going on.
Because these guys, they're playing for keeps.
We are, too.
But they've got real money behind them.
Oh, boy.
It's unbelievable.
All right.
Let's take some phone calls.
212-209-2900.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hey.
My name's Aaron.
I've been listening for a long time.
You're the one.
We knew we had a listener out there somewhere.
Yeah.
This whole FBI in school thing is really crazy.
Secret service.
Oh, yeah.
Secret service.
Excuse me.
Well, the last year in my school, well, in the public school that I should be going to.
You're going to an unauthorized school now?
What?
Are you going to an unauthorized school?
Let's let the guy talk.
What's on your mind?
He made copies of dollar bills using the school's equipment.
Uh-oh.
Bad idea.
And then he got caught with them trying to use them in a snack machine.
And by the end of the day, he was taken away.
So, yeah.
Well, you know, that's the kind of thing that I grew up expecting the secret service to do.
If you copy money, they'll take an interest in you.
You know, not if you're on a website or something like that.
It's really incredibly dumb to try and counterfeit money and pass it off yourself, certainly,
especially in the place that you did it.
But, you know, this is obviously a kid that needs to learn something.
And hopefully they didn't, you know, crucify him too badly.
They just kind of scared him a little bit.
Do you know what happened to him?
Yeah.
They scared him.
They charged him with some minor stuff and let him go.
Yeah.
You see, now that's the thing.
That's clearly a financial crime.
Counterfeiting money.
You can't get much more financial than that.
What they did was they scared him.
He's probably never going to do it again.
If this had involved computers, we'd be talking prison time.
Do you think what he was trying to do was actually rip off the machine
or do you think he was trying to figure out how it worked?
Because how does a machine recognize a dollar bill?
Well, he was ripping off the machine.
He was trying to get a candy out of the machine or something.
But was he trying to figure out how the machine recognizes a dollar bill
by seeing if a photocopy would work versus green paper, for example?
I don't know.
No, he knew it would work, and it worked.
Does it work?
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
I would try to see if it worked once,
but I wouldn't go around passing it out to people and say,
oh, this is a way to get free stuff because that's stealing, obviously.
But figuring out how it works, that's experimentation.
A lot of people can't see the difference.
Yeah.
That's what's scary these days.
Exactly.
I've also had trouble with the Bell Atlantic DSL.
Oh, boy.
Oh, yeah.
You too.
You and everybody else.
I know.
I've heard nothing but horror stories.
Our DSL has managed to stay up.
But, you know, I've got to tell you something.
We've gone from 112 to 512 as far as our connection speed,
and nobody notices any difference in speed.
Now, explain that to me.
Is that just because the net has gotten so much more lagged in the past few weeks or what?
You'd think it would be four times faster, but it's not.
Yeah, I think they're tricking you in some way
because I get, like, great speed monitors, but it takes forever to download the same thing.
Well, one of the things that these companies are doing is they're selling so many DSL lines,
but on the other end of that DSL line is still maybe a T1,
which you're sharing with, like, 40 other subscribers.
So the pipe between you and the ISP may be, you know, exceptionally high,
unlike my 2888 modem, which I'm still very happy with mine.
But so far as the ISP connectivity to the rest of the known Internet,
you're sharing just a limited amount of bandwidth
and parceling it out over however fast your individual line happens to be.
It's one of the unfortunate things that comes with especially cable modems.
People are noticing that, too.
That's right.
Hey, thanks for the call.
Yeah, down with the MPAA.
Okay, take care.
That's the attitude we need in our schools.
But who will make the nifty green screen with the previews and the ratings?
Well, we'll come up with an appropriate solution.
It's not just the MPAA.
It's all the movie houses, too, that are after us.
Yes?
Oh, no.
Just making a reference.
Okay.
Never mind.
Go ahead.
You have to understand this is radio.
You can't make references.
No, I was making a reference to you, not to the public at large.
Emmanuel, have you gotten the caricature of Jack Valenchi, the head of the MPAA, yet?
We're working on it.
We're working on his head, yes.
Somebody sent me a copy of it.
It's very funny.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
Well, interesting.
What else?
Yeah, well, let's take another phone call.
212-209-2900.
Yeah, Secret Service in schools.
That'll solve a lot of problems.
Is that constitutional?
I don't know.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
How many years did you say that kid's going to be facing for hacking into the D.A.R.E. site?
Seven and a half to 15 for each offense, and he did it twice within two days.
What do you get for possession these days?
I don't know.
You know what I mean?
Is there any irony there at all with the folks at D.A.R.E. that this guy's going to face more time than if he's been dealing drugs in the school or something?
Absolutely.
But I think there's enough room in the prison system to accommodate everybody at the rate they're building prisons.
We have, what, 2 million people there now?
Pretty soon you'll be able to hack into the prison website that you're incarcerated in.
That'll be kind of nice.
Well, I don't think they're going to give net access to anybody anytime soon.
Well, you could always sneak a computer in and tube a toothpaste or something.
They're getting smaller and smaller.
Bernie, I think you were accused of having a computer and tube a toothpaste.
Yeah, I had these two guards storm into my cell at 3 o'clock one morning, and they tossed my bed upside down,
demanded to know where the computer was, rifled through all my personal papers and effects,
then handcuffed me and took me to this other hole-type cell, locked me up there for a few hours while they searched my cell for a computer.
And as they were dragging me out, I saw one guard squeezing a tube of toothpaste on the floor,
like I had a really ultra-miniature computer concealed inside the toothpaste tube.
It was all obviously a misunderstanding.
I had dictated a letter to a friend on the outside and asked her to fax it to the prison.
Long story, but in any case, that's the mentality we're dealing with.
Anybody can make that mistake.
Sure.
Did they allow you to have a fax machine in prison?
No, but apparently they thought I was using a computer to fax.
All right, thanks for the call.
All right.
212-209-2900, let's go over here.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hi, Bernie.
I'd just like to ask you an opinion on something.
One thing.
Make it fast.
Okay.
Did you notice that when you call the Census Bureau, guess what the first question they ask you is?
Your social security number.
No.
Whether you have buttons on your telephone.
I mean, what else?
I don't know if that's for the census, Rebel.
I think that's to decide how you're going to continue with the call process.
You know, I got my census envelope in the mail recently.
Really?
And it says on the outside, you know, your response is required by law.
I found that kind of interesting.
So I looked up the law.
Basically, you can opt out of the sentence.
Out of the sentence?
No, the census.
Yes.
Out of the census.
It's a $100 fine.
So, you know, if you're really up on privacy, you know, start opening your wallet, folks.
Well, wait a minute.
How do they fine you if they don't know who you are?
Well, that's the other thing.
If they send you a certified letter and you refuse to reply, they can charge you the $100 fine.
If they just send you, like, the mass mailing that they've been doing forever,
it's very difficult to prove that the census contacted you,
rather that the Department of Commerce contacted you for the census.
I'm going to grab a dial tone.
Let me just do that fast before we do this.
Yeah, get that.
Okay.
Because all lines are taken up.
Someone told me.
One of these census guys actually threatened to arrest me.
You see, you're defeating the whole purpose of what I'm trying to do here.
I want to make a call before the dial tone goes away.
Basically, this really has nothing to do with the census,
but when Rebel said, you know, call up this thing, I thought of calling something.
It seems that there's rumors of a new area code,
and I want to verify if this area code actually exists.
Bernie, maybe you might have heard of it.
Can you hear me over the dial tone?
I can hear you.
Okay.
Supposedly, there's an area code called 666.
Oh, yes.
Now, who, what part of the United States would be insane enough
to actually go against the Bible Belt and have an area code like 666?
I want to know who's got the guts to do that.
Las Vegas.
You think Las Vegas?
Sure, Cincinnati.
All right.
Well, let's get an operator because, well,
let me try calling 666 information, see if that works.
Oh, dial tones don't time out.
Isn't that kind of cool?
Uh-oh.
I think we can't call information from this phone line.
I think that's the problem there.
All right, so what we're going to do instead is get an operator.
But do you know what they're going to do?
They're going to transfer us to the pay service when we ask where the area code is.
You'll hear us getting ripped off, basically,
unless we get a nice operator like last time.
She was nice.
She was very nice.
Stand by.
AT&T, to place a call, please dial the number that you are calling.
Operator.
Please hold for operator assistance.
I never get to say operator.
AT&T, how may I help you?
Hi, operator.
I've heard rumors of a new area code.
I'm trying to find out where it is.
Can you help me with that?
One moment.
Let me transfer you to someone that can.
Oh, okay.
Very helpful.
There goes 75 cents.
AT&T, 111S, how may I help you?
Oh, how much did this call cost?
Within state 99, out of state $1.49.
Oh, really?
Okay.
See, I just want to find out where an area code is.
Will that cost me money?
Yes.
And I don't know if they charge you the full 99 or half.
I don't know.
If I hang up now, do I get charged anything?
No.
Oh, I don't.
Okay, that's good.
That's good to know.
Well, maybe you can help me with this, then.
I'm looking to find out where area code 666 is, if there is such an area code.
Okay, let me see.
One moment.
Thank you.
No area code listed under that number.
Really?
Really.
Okay.
All right, thanks anyway.
You're welcome.
Bye-bye.
There's our 99 cents.
I guess our source...
I don't know if I got charged for that.
We'll ask the station later.
I guess our sources were wrong.
All right.
Well, we'll look into this.
We'll look into this a little further.
I didn't think there'd be any place around here that would do that.
But we'll just have to...
We'll look further.
All right.
Sorry for wasting everyone's time.
212-209-2900.
Let's go over here.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
All right.
You were on the air.
That was your moment of fame.
Let's go over here.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi.
This is Bertha.
How are you?
Okay.
How are you?
Hi.
Two things.
One, hi...
Okay.
I didn't do that.
I didn't do that.
That person hung up.
I didn't do it.
And I can tell.
The reorder proves that they hung up.
I didn't...
You wouldn't get a reorder if I hung up.
Good evening.
Good evening, fellow revolutionaries.
How are you doing?
Very, very good.
Listen, I have...
I'm not in the computer age yet,
but this year I think I'm going to go out there
and spring for a computer.
Now, I'm not going to bore you
with the computer questions.
I'll wait for the computer program to do that.
Very good.
But...
Not that you're going to bore them either,
but I'm just saying...
I wanted to ask you what you thought of,
like, Linux.
Linux?
Linux.
Linux.
Linux.
It's...
It's a good operating system.
They've got the right attitude.
And since they're kind of like co-defendants
in our lawsuit,
I have to say that they got a lot of guts.
Yeah.
And...
For...
How about if you put things...
A mirror on your site.
You're telling people that...
They're going down,
each of the people that are...
You're on the...
They're on the site and...
Yeah, they will contact the person
who is listed as your administrative contact
on that particular site.
They may even go to your provider
and try to intimidate them.
So make sure that everybody knows the stakes
when you go into it.
Cool.
All right?
If you really believe in something
and you're with people who do,
it won't be a problem.
I mean, yeah,
you might find yourself in court with us.
But, you know,
sometimes you have to...
You have to take a stand.
And it always feels good when you do.
Yeah.
It always feels good
when you do the right thing,
doesn't it?
That's been my experience.
Yep.
Been mine too.
All right.
Have a good night, Chuck.
I'm going to tactfully refrain
from offering my comments on Linux.
Okay.
We'll refrain from listening, then.
Those who know me are chuckling to themselves
out on the radio.
Well, they always do that.
Well, that's true.
Because they know you.
Good evening.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello.
How are you doing?
I'm doing fine,
but I'm hearing you very hard
because I'm listening to a computer
calling from Scotland
on a mobile phone.
Do you have a pair of your Go phones in the USA?
I wanted to ask you.
You're calling from Scotland right now?
Yes.
Oh, great.
What part of Scotland?
Sorry?
What part of Scotland?
Edinburgh.
Ah.
I've heard of it.
Now, what's your question again?
Do you have pay-as-you-go phones in the USA?
What kind of phones?
Pay-to-go?
Pay-as-you-go.
Pay-as-you-go phones.
Yes.
You dial a number on the phone,
dial a number after that,
and it adds up money to your phone,
and you talk afterwards.
Yes, we do.
You do?
We do.
Sprint carries their calling...
not their calling card.
What is it?
The prepaid telephones?
Yes.
OmniPoint has the same kind of thing.
It's just as popular here as I would imagine
across the pond.
Yes, exactly.
And it's very popular here
to have conversations like this with you now,
which is now about,
if you know what I mean.
Right.
How are you calling us?
Are you calling us through some weird way?
Because you sound kind of...
It's a mobile.
It's a mobile phone.
Okay.
Yes.
All right.
And I guess I'll probably hear my voice
in a few minutes on the computer.
A little bit of delay.
We're being broadcast on real audio,
and there's always a little bit of delay.
Yes.
Okay.
Five minutes remaining.
Ah.
Oh, that was a warning you got, huh?
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
So, do you know,
if you could check this site,
freedom.bg.com
or .net or .org,
so it's freedom,
with a ph, freedom.org.
Uh-huh.
That's not taken?
That's a Bulgarian site
for phone phreaking and so on.
Really?
Yeah, very interesting site.
I'm Bulgarian myself.
Uh-huh.
You're Bulgarian living in Scotland.
Yeah, exactly.
Very interesting.
Yeah, so I recommend you to see that
when you get some time.
And I'll write you a mail,
and I'll explain you why it's so interesting,
especially for you to see that.
Okay.
I look forward to it.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
Take care.
Wow, a Bulgarian from Scotland.
Yeah.
Calling from a car phone.
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
I wanted to hear the sounds
he made when he hung up.
But, you know,
these days,
you don't get any sounds anymore.
You used to hear all kinds of neat sounds.
There's a bit of a reorder there, I heard.
That's the BAI phone system doing that.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Hey, we're out of time.
I'm sorry, everybody, we didn't get to.
But next week, we'll have Kevin on.
He'll be taking questions and calls
and things like that,
and we'll have all kinds of other updates
on the various exciting things we're involved in.
Bernie, any closing comments from you?
I had a great time
at the annual Winterfest gathering
this past weekend
of pirate radio operators
and shortwave enthusiasts.
So I want to say hi
to all those listeners
who are listening tonight
and hope to...
I'll publicize it a little better next year
so everybody who's listening
can attend if they wish to.
Okay, and we will try
to get the shows up this week
for all the dedicated listeners out there
that like to hear the show twice
or maybe aren't listening yet
and haven't heard us say this yet.
We'll try and get that updated
as soon as possible.
Isaac Porschup,
any closing comments?
Those of you who are actually interested
in electronic countermeasures,
bugs, and so forth,
go to Search Engine,
look for TSCM,
Technical Surveillance Countermeasures.
Great site.
Great site.
Yes, it is.
Also, for Linux users,
X11R6, X11R4...
One of those.
New X11 is out.
Get it.
Kind of cool.
All right.
Until next week,
Emmanuel Goldstein.
Have a good night.
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