New York City, 700,000 children who live in poverty, almost half the children in the city
are living in poverty.
So 44% of the committee against anti-Asian violence released a report documenting what
they say is a pattern of police abuse in Asian American communities.
If my son was shot in the back, then the officer should be arrested and this kind of ineffective
and at times incompetent behavior by NYPD.
He shot my son in the back.
Someday the times will stumble upon this tragedy.
Robinson, an African American plainclothes transit officer, was shot several times in
the back by a white off-duty officer, Peter DelDevio.
This is a call from an inmate at a correctional facility.
It's amazing to me how we can always afford another policeman to build another prison.
This cut that the mayor is instituting will destroy the ability to care for all the citizens of New York.
The WBAI Evening News, Monday through Friday at 6 p.m.
And for those of you gnashing your teeth that it's two hours after that, fret not because
in just three hours you can catch a rebroadcast.
But for now, you'll have to settle for off the hook.
I hope that's understood.
Funding me? No!
Ain't got to make them kill him.
But I've got to, ain't got to make them kill him.
A proud woman can be a faithful man, don't you know that?
And so you come, but you never come home.
Tell me, pick it up already.
Now we're talking, baby, and Sammy's never like that at all.
No, no!
Once when I see an empty vessel that's carrying your water,
Sammy James, he's bound to get water.
Playing my little champion song,
There's those original youth boys coming down to the roof,
And they really play, yeah.
And a very good evening to everybody.
The program is Off the Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Tuesday night.
And, boy, it's been a fun, action-packed week for me.
How about you, Isaac?
Oh, yeah, that's right.
He's not here this week, is he?
Either that or he's really thinking about what happened this week.
Okay, well, Isaac, that's right.
He went out west to the desert or something.
Yeah, okay.
Well, I guess we'll hear from him next week.
Actually, he was supposed to call us, wasn't he?
But I guess there's a lot of stuff going on out there in the desert,
so he probably slipped his mind.
Anyway, maybe we'll hear from him.
Maybe he'll call in.
Bernie, though, you're with us, aren't you?
I hope Isaac did not get stung by a scorpion in the desert.
That would be unfortunate, wouldn't it?
Yes.
They glow in the dark.
If you take an ultraviolet lamp out into the desert,
what do you do?
They glow up like neon lights, scorpions.
Yeah.
That's how you find them,
if you're walking around in the dark in the desert.
Well, you know, scorpions are something I've always kind of wondered about,
you know, as far as how they manage to exist
and people don't die in great numbers from them.
I haven't seen one lately.
What mischief you can cause by the introduction of scorpions.
Did you hear about the sewer lizards?
Oh, this is amazing.
All over town, there are stickers on sewers and manhole covers saying,
avoid inhaling sewer lizard extermination in progress.
And if you go to this site, www.sewer-alert.org or seweralert.com
or any combination,
you'll get this whole really well-defined look at what a sewer lizard is
and how they exist in New York City sewers.
They grow to six feet long, two feet wide,
and all kinds of things like that.
And people are panicking.
People are really afraid of, you know, sewer lizards.
I mean, think of it, sewer lizards.
This sounds like the old alligator scare I heard when I was a little kid
where, you know, people would have a little pet baby alligator
and then when it started to get too big, they'd flush it down the toilet
and it would just feed on the rats in the sewers
and grow to this enormous size and eat sewer workers.
And that's basically the same story that has worked its way
into the sewer lizard lexicon now.
You know, there is such a thing as an alligator,
but I don't know if there's such a thing as a sewer lizard.
The city officials are really upset because I heard a radio report on this on Friday.
And it was really funny because they said that they have no idea
who the pranksters are, you know,
and how this is affecting people all over the city.
People are panicking.
Elderly citizens aren't going outside at all,
although being inside isn't much of a bargain either
when you consider that the sewer lizard can attack you from your own plumbing.
But in this particular case, they said that they had no idea who it was.
All you have to do is type whoisseweralert.org
on any Unix prompt or any prompt you get on the Internet
and you'll find that the owner is the Sci-Fi Channel.
So they're up to something.
We don't know what.
It's probably a promo for some kind of a program of some sort.
Have there been sightings?
There have been sightings of stickers.
I don't know if there have been sightings of actual sewer lizards,
but I'm sure we can arrange for sightings of sewer lizards.
That's what people want.
In India, there's all these sightings or some kind of a...
Yeah, the Hairy Wild Man of India.
Monkey Man or something?
Monkey Man, Hairy Wild Man, whatever you want to call it.
Yeah, he's out there, he's attacking people,
and nobody quite understands why or if it's even possible.
I think that'd be a good movie theme,
Monkey Man Meets the Sewer Lizard.
How about a movie theme of stupid people fall for anything they're told?
I think that's an even better one.
That's a given.
All right, well, speaking of stupid people falling for whatever they're told,
let's go to the news and see what's happening in the world this week,
because, as always, there's something of interest happening,
and we'll be taking phone calls later on, 212-209-2900.
You know, I think this week the theme should be cameras,
because I've gotten all these stories about cameras,
and as I got into the studio,
I noticed that we have a brand-new color monitor staring us in the face.
Right now, I can see everybody who gets off the elevator on this floor.
Isn't that amazing?
It's my own personal monitor, and I can't change the channel.
I can't even turn it off.
It's just a monitor here where I can watch.
I mean, it's transfixing.
I want to watch this more than I want to talk on the radio,
because seeing people getting on and off the elevator,
I guess it's like something I've always enjoyed doing,
and they don't know I'm watching.
I'm in that little ceiling thing right now.
It's me looking out that eye, and it's kind of...
If people show up for the show late, Emmanuel,
and they don't have a key or whatever...
What am I supposed to do?
Stop talking and walk out and let them in?
I can't do that.
Well, I don't know.
At least you'll know.
You can say on the air, like,
well, so-and-so is here, but they can't get in.
And they can't hear me either, because there's no speaker out there,
so it doesn't really work either way.
But, yeah, it'll be fun to watch them get increasingly frustrated
standing out there.
I wish I could turn to any of the other channels that we have,
because we've got all kinds of little black things all over the studio now.
You need a video multiplexer.
Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, in Colorado,
Colorado has quite an interesting story here.
First, it was the photo radar van
snapping pictures of Denver-area speeders.
Now, some fear Big Brother's roving eyes
soon will be watching all of Colorado
with the arrival of a new European import called face recognition.
Yes, we've talked about this in the past,
and now it's made its way from Tampa to Colorado.
So, the Department of Motor Vehicles,
in an effort to prevent identity theft,
that's good, prevent identity theft.
You don't want that to happen, so you must have cameras.
And also driver's license fraud.
The Department of Motor Vehicles is buying cameras
that will map every driver's facial characteristics
like a three-dimensional land chart.
Yeah, three-dimensional land chart.
The danger critics say,
as if there's only one danger,
is that the technology could eventually be expanded
to monitor the comings and goings of ordinary Coloradans.
No.
Coloradans.
No.
Yeah.
This week, Tampa, Florida,
became the first city in the United States
to install similar high-tech security cameras
on public streets
in the city's nightlife district.
Nightlife district?
Yeah.
Well, it's Tampa.
And images will be compared against a database of mugshots
of people with active warrants.
There is a danger, said Representative Matt Smith,
and he's a Grand Junction lawmaker and attorney
who serves on a statewide task force
studying the issue of privacy.
The intended purpose of facial recognition
is to help the state prevent the theft of identity.
Now the question is, what will its future use be?
There has to be a point where the government
doesn't have its nose over every shoulder.
Or other parts of your body.
Yeah.
Old driver's license photos will be scanned
into a computer database using the new technology.
Then, starting next July,
new mugs will be compared with those on file
to make sure people are who they say they are
when they go to get or renew a Colorado driver's license.
It doesn't matter if you gain 200 pounds
and go bald between photographs.
Short of plastic surgery,
the camera will recognize you.
Right.
Facial recognition deals with spatial details
where a nose is compared with the eyes.
Baldness doesn't count.
Weight doesn't either.
It's the basic facial structure.
We know of cases where individuals
steal personal information from other people,
forged documents,
and go to six or seven driver license offices
getting licenses with their pictures
and other people's identities.
In theory, they have a legitimate license,
but in actuality, they're not who they say they are.
Now we'll be able to say, after the first one,
no, you can't have another one.
Or the police could be called in.
My guess is, if we saw something
that is an egregious misuse of the system,
we might alert law enforcement to that.
Yeah, right.
The cameras can't prevent
the types of fraud that now occur
when people make their own driver's licenses
using home computers and the Internet.
However, as part of the new program,
invisible markers will be added to each new license
so stores or banks can scan the card
to see if it's genuine.
Digital markers?
You know, maybe we should make a digital marker right now,
on July 10th, 2001,
and see where we are on July 10th, 2011,
ten years from now, with this kind of technology.
I have a feeling that we're going to look back on these days
and say, boy, you know,
I wish we hadn't messed with that, you know?
Hey, there's people being let in right now.
I can see it on the monitor.
Look at that.
They're being let in.
The fight's breaking out.
Okay, now there's people being thrown all over the place.
Oh, wow, that's really cool.
No, I'm only kidding.
But there are people being let in,
even as I speak, and now I know it.
And now I see them through the glass.
This is amazing.
We could install them in the elevators, too,
and in the street,
and we can monitor people's progress all throughout.
Or better yet, install them on the people themselves.
That way we know where they are at all times.
Wow.
Do you have any cameras, Bernie?
I've got quite a few at my workplace,
and I have one here where I live looking out on the street,
and I can switch on my TV
and see what's going on out in the street,
which is kind of useful.
What we should do,
we should have little dramatic plays in front of the cameras.
I don't know if there's sound.
I'm not sure if there's any sound,
but it's nice color.
It looks like if it's recording,
it looks like it's recording digital video.
Throwing fake punches and things like that?
Throwing fake punches
and doing all kinds of dramatic readings
or acting of plays or whatever.
Depending on the camera angle,
a fake punch can look very realistic.
Yeah, well, the camera is being shot from above,
so everybody pretty much looks the same height.
And you could have some really interesting, dramatic...
And there's lots of space.
Lots of space to move around in.
Back to these government cameras, Emanuel.
Yeah.
Thank God these aren't government cameras.
Oh, my God, yes.
That would work.
I'm glad Pacifica is using them,
not the government.
Yeah, that makes me feel a whole lot better.
Let's get to Palm Springs,
which is another government camera thing.
Yes.
City Council votes tonight on downtown installation.
Elected officials are seeking...
This is actually dated...
Oh, this is old.
June 13th.
How come I just got this now?
Elected officials are seeking approval today,
which I guess was June 13th,
for a downtown security system sharper than 14 sets of eyeballs.
Rather than hire additional police officers
to patrol the 10 or so blocks of Palm Canyon
that make up downtown,
the City Council will consider installing
14 state-of-the-art security surveillance cameras
to watch out for the bad guys.
Palm Springs resident Dick Sirota
has been vocal in his opposition to the cameras
from the beginning.
I just think this is a stupid idea that went bad.
Freedom is not just a word, he said.
While he and some others didn't like the idea of spy cameras,
police officials in Hollywood, that's Hollywood, Florida,
say they are a necessary tool in fighting crime.
After all, they know firsthand
they've had surveillance cameras in what used to be labeled
one of the highest crime areas in Hollywood.
The Yucca Corridor, from Highland to Cuyunga Streets,
is known for being an area to score drugs.
Old dilapidated apartment buildings
are home to illegal immigrants, gang members, and drug addicts,
says Sergeant Roger Jackson,
Hollywood Community Police Station Area Commanding Officer
for the Los Angeles Police Department.
That's not Hollywood, Florida.
I'm sorry, that's Hollywood, California.
Jackson patrols the area on a regular basis
in his 32 years with the LAPD.
He's seen it all.
The quality of life here is going down the toilet, he said.
Graffiti lines the streets.
During the day, it looks like any other old neighborhood in the area,
except for the concrete cylinders that barricade the intersections.
This keeps motorists from using Yucca as a through street,
which cuts down on some of the illegal drug activity.
By night, the gang-infested streets become toxic.
Cameras help.
Any help you get is a deterrent.
It's an expensive situation with these cameras, though.
Cost them $90,000.
If you lock everybody up, it will deter them from buying drugs.
You should present that idea.
That might actually be listened to.
Because they're looking for solutions to this problem.
Certainly making barricades along streets,
getting rid of pay phones,
installing cameras,
and basically targeting people who look suspicious.
I think we're doing all we can, you know?
People who look suspicious.
Do they have an algorithm that calculates the suspicious factor of a face?
I wasn't planning on talking about this.
I actually wanted to mention it last week.
But I mentioned that I went to Mexico last week.
Of course, when I go to Mexico, that usually means I have to come back here.
I did that again.
First of all, let me describe Mexico.
It's a polluted place,
because they have bad air pollution there in the cities.
However, the countryside is really very pristine and nice.
I went down to the desert part, Baja California.
The people there are just so incredibly friendly.
They literally offer you the shirt off their back.
They would give you food or anything like that.
Despite the fact that you're from the north.
Despite the fact that Americans look down on Mexicans,
which unfortunately is the case.
I was reminded of that as soon as I got back into this country.
It's always something that I look forward to doing.
It's going down there and just hanging out and being welcomed into a place
where it's really kind of alien to me.
I suggest that people go down there.
They don't go to one of the tourist resorts.
They go actually to a small town and just kind of hang out.
Even if you don't know the language, you might be surprised.
I come back here.
The first thing that I'm hit with in New York
is the problem of illegal Mexicans on Long Island
who are working in the fields.
People out there are worried that all these illegal Mexicans,
as they call them,
I don't know what they think they're going to do
because they're working in jobs that nobody here wants to take.
The thing that upsets me is that they're working for slave wages
and being mistreated,
but that's not what the people there are concerned about.
They're concerned about their property values,
and they're worried about the safety of their kids,
even though the only crimes that have been committed
have been against these people who are just trying to find a way to survive
and a better life for themselves.
It's incredibly hypocritical that we open up factories south of the border,
pay people slave wages,
but if anybody from one of those factories manages to make it across the border
and somehow makes it all the way up here to New York,
there's people that are willing to stand outside their home
and harass them until they run away.
That's what I came back to,
but that's not what I wanted to mention, actually.
That's just another side note.
I was targeted again.
I was one of these suspicious people flying back to New York from San Diego.
Of course, the person picks me up and says,
Sir, do you mind if I just examine your bag?
I'm like, do you mind if I examine you?
I mean, who the hell are you to tell me that I look suspicious
and you're going to rifle through my bags,
taking all the clothes that I have inside,
all my luggage, everything,
and spraying some strange chemical on it
to see if they've been in touch with gunpowder or drugs or God knows what,
just because you don't like the way I look.
Yeah, I mind that, but it doesn't make a bit of difference.
They're going to do it anyway.
So I had to, once again, wait 20 minutes
while they rifled through my bags and did all this nonsense.
What did you say when they asked you that question?
Well, she asked me the question and then she was 20 feet away,
so even if I had said something, she wouldn't have heard me.
It was a rhetorical question.
Yeah, but I did get my bit of sarcasm in at the end
when she said, thank you, sir, and I said, no, thank you.
I think she knew that I didn't mean that.
I should have said more, you're right.
It's so frustrating when this constantly happens,
and I can imagine it's nowhere near as frustrating as it is for a lot of other people.
Do you think this was just because of your appearance?
I don't know.
Or do you think it was, did she know who you were?
Did she have up your identity information when she called you over?
Well, this was the person, this was after you go through the little metal detector thing.
Right.
So I don't think, they might have taken my ticket there, I don't really remember.
It was an airline person that did this, I'm pretty sure.
I'm not sure if it was an airport person or somebody else.
I was with Autojack, you know, who got stopped by the DEA in that very same airport,
so who knows, you know, maybe a flag was thrown somewhere.
And it was a drug-related thing because they were searching,
you know, with that little chemical compound for drugs or something like that.
It's just so annoying when something like that happens.
And you realize how stupid they are too because, once again,
I had the little Altoid box, which I just handed to the person in the basket,
and they didn't even open it to see if there were Altoids in there
or some kind of plastic explosive or even a metal explosive, you know.
They didn't even check.
You're trying to give people ideas now, Emanuel.
Well, that's what I'm here for, to give people ideas, good or bad ideas.
I'll tell you, it's annoying every time I travel.
I'm going to be traveling to Europe too, and I can just bet how that's going to be when I get back here.
Next month?
Yeah, actually later this month.
I'm going to be going to Norway.
Oh.
Yeah, Norway, and I'll be stopping in Denmark again.
I was there last December.
This time I'll be there for the 2600 meeting, I think in Copenhagen,
next first Friday of the month in August.
And then, of course, HAL, the hacker conference that will be taking place.
You're going, I understand, to HAL.
I'm going to HAL.
And have you ever been to HAL before?
I've not. I'm looking forward to it.
It's going to be great. It really is.
We've been selling tickets to it on the 2600 website,
and we've basically gone over the amount that we initially predicted we were going to sell,
so we have to, like, expand the capabilities.
We had initially contracted to sell a certain amount, and now we have to double that, it seems.
Did you disclose that number?
I don't think I should because the people might not want me to, that we did it with.
Well, it's a good sign.
It's a good sign. We're doing very well on that.
And that's only one of the sites that's selling tickets.
And, of course, you can get tickets there, most likely.
It's a big field, it's a big campus, so it's not likely to fill up or anything like that.
You might want to mention on the air, or I'll mention it,
that people who purchase tickets online will not be receiving tickets in the mail.
They'll pick them up when they arrive at HAL, correct?
That's right, because that's one of the ways we save by not sending something to a foreign country someplace
because a lot of people are coming from all different countries all around the world to take part in this true hacker convention
that brings people together to build networks and share ideas, see how things are done in other lands.
And that's where you really learn the most.
That's where you really come out of it feeling great, feeling like you can really make a difference
because you see how other people are doing it.
And that's what inspired the whole Hope series back in 94,
and that pretty much led to the conference scene in America taking off into what it is now.
I mean, we first saw the social engineering panel.
The very first social engineering panel was over there at HEU,
Hackers at the End of the Universe, in 1993.
And then we did the first one in the United States in 1994,
and it's pretty much become a tradition since then to do things like this.
So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to it.
The conference takes place August 10th, 11th, and 12th,
but you can get down there early and help out, help with the setting up of, you know,
tents and cables and networks and things like that.
It's really going to be a trip.
We looked over today.
We were over at the Hotel Pennsylvania looking at the site for H2K2,
which is taking place almost exactly a year from now, July 12th, 13th, and 14th in New York City.
And, boy, we have a lot of space.
We have a lot of possibilities, a lot of potential of things we're going to be doing.
And we brought a bunch of people over there to just survey it today,
and everybody was pretty much blown away by the potential of what we can do with this space.
We have about four times the amount of space as we did last time, last year at H2K.
So if you were there and you saw how crowded things got at some point,
yeah, we were aware of that, too, and that's not going to be a problem next time,
unless, of course, four times as many people show up.
And I hope that doesn't happen, really, because when you get that many people,
you kind of lose sight of what you're really all about and don't want to do that.
So, Bernie, anything else from your end?
I should mention, not that I make a habit of watching Disney TV, ABC,
but there is a documentary this evening on ABC's Nightline documentary show,
which I think is at 11 o'clock, about the National Security Agency, the NSA.
So I think many listeners of this show would be interested in NSA activities.
And I'm sure Disney News is not the best source of information,
but generally that kind of stuff is not covered on mainstream media,
so it might be worth checking out.
If you really want to find out more about the NSA,
I would recommend a couple of books written by a guy named James Bamford,
one written in 1981 called Puzzle Palace.
Is that out of print?
Well, here, it's interesting. No, it's still in print.
The first edition was out of print very quickly,
because it's the first book in the history of the United States
where the President of the United States signed an executive order
classifying sections of a book that had already been published.
You can't buy the first edition anymore.
If you check out used bookstores, you might be able to find a copy of the first edition.
Or if you go to eBay or something.
You might be able to find the first edition of Puzzle Palace that way, too.
I have a first edition.
I figured.
Actually, I found that in a used bookstore.
I had an original one that was taken away by the secret service
with a bunch of other stuff back in 1995.
I found another copy, that's right.
But you get the second edition, and I compared the two,
and I didn't find too much difference between the two.
There's a new book out by James Bamford just a month or so ago
called Body of Secrets, which is about the same size, several hundred pages.
Pretty interesting, but I kind of prefer the original Puzzle Palace,
because it went into a lot of technical details
about how the NSA eavesdrops on basically everything around the world.
And that's the part they cut out?
Well, they cut out stuff about people with names, that sort of stuff,
rather than technical details.
But I thought it was kind of silly for Reagan to sign an executive order
classifying a book that there are already tens of thousands of copies of.
Kind of like the DCSS thing, where DCSS is already out all over the place.
So what's the point?
And in that spirit, Bernie, if you could bring your copy of the book up here,
and we could maybe laboriously go through and compare with the current copies,
and come up with the text that was deleted, and read it on the air,
I just wonder how many people will get angry at us by doing that.
Actually, I think somebody has already done that laborious part.
Okay, good, good.
I'll try to look that up, and maybe we could read a couple of those excerpts.
Yeah, I think it's our responsibility to always make ourselves
the sacrificial lambs to stand up against this kind of nonsense.
So, yeah.
Well, if you want to get a hint about what the NSA is about,
check out Nightline at 11 o'clock tonight, not to plug ABC or anything.
Well, just to correct you, Nightline goes on, I believe, at 11.35.
You know, you're right. It is 11.35, or 11.30, after the evening news.
Thank you for correcting me.
No problem. I just know what's going on on TV, even though I never watch it.
Yeah, so anyway, did you hear about the video store that was raided overseas in Sweden?
For selling American DVDs?
Can you believe this?
That's a heinous crime. I mean, these people should be put up for life.
Well, this is the next step that we were worried about with the whole DECSS nonsense,
that one day somebody would get in trouble actually for having something from a different region.
Now, let me read you what we printed on the 2600 site about this last week.
A front-page article in the Swedish Daily Metro had a very interesting article about a raid
which took place at video stores in Gothenburg and Stockholm,
and apparently the only reason this raid took place was because the store was selling Region 1 DVDs,
in other words, imported DVDs.
As you may know, the MPAA, among other entities, has helped to create artificial barriers
that prevent DVDs from being played in different parts of the world.
It's called region coding, and this is what programs like DECSS managed to defeat,
and it's one of the real reasons the MPAA went so crazy over the release of DECSS.
Being able to force people to buy DVDs on whatever terms the industry decrees
makes it a lot easier to really rake in the dough and control distribution
in ways that were previously unimaginable.
Now they apparently intend to get tough on anyone who tries to bypass this barrier,
even if there was absolutely no piracy or illegal activity involved.
It's pretty unbelievable, because they're really...
Basically the person was selling imported films.
It has been done for as long as I can remember in Europe.
The only difference was that there was an actual barrier as far as the PAL NTSC differences,
but here the only barriers are artificial, and apparently they really intend to crack down on people.
Here's a translation of the article which appeared on June 27th in a Swedish newspaper.
Headline, hundreds of illegal DVDs seized by Swedish police.
Dated Gutenberg, hundreds of illegal DVDs, illegal DVDs,
were seized when the police enforcement officer carried out a civil search
on the TV Spellborsen store located in the Femin building yesterday.
The films are all so-called region 1 DVDs, and, ready Bernie?
Reserved for the American market and therefore forbidden for retail sale in Europe.
Forbidden American ideas.
The raid was part of a coordinated action against the retail chain's location in central Stockholm,
where a similar raid netted several hundred DVD films.
In all, around 500 DVDs were seized with an estimated market value of approximately
150,000 Swedish kronor, or 15,000 US dollars.
And there was a previous case, apparently, that none of us ever heard of before,
where approximately the same number of seized DVDs,
the same retailer was sentenced to a fine of approximately 500,000 Swedish kronor,
which is 50,000 US dollars.
Ow!
So this is unbelievable.
If you took that press release, Emanuel, and instead of where it said DVDs,
you just put the word drugs, it would sound identical to a lot of these drug bust press releases
you hear from police departments.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And one of our readers wrote in and said,
Is it illegal to sell imported beer as well?
And you're going to have to ask yourself,
just what is it that they're going to control next?
Well, what they're going to control next, obviously,
probably a lot of our listeners, including yourself and myself,
enjoy buying import records.
Well, not records anymore.
Import CDs.
You know, music from other countries.
And when they change the CD format to have some sort of encryption like DVDs do,
you won't be able to buy import music anymore.
That's right.
That's absolutely right.
And you'll be fined if you sell imported music.
Unbelievable.
Now, here's a couple of other quick stories,
just to show you the cultural differences between our country and the rest of the world.
In the Swedish case, I think the cultural differences are getting to be remarkably similar.
This is in England.
A computer student who sparked an international investigation
after he hacked into high-profile websites has been sentenced to psychiatric care.
Raphael Gray from West Wales caused mayhem
by accessing the details of 23,000 Internet shoppers in five countries
and posting some of them onto websites.
A judge at Swansea Crown Court said he had displayed a sense of humor
by sending Viagra tablets to Microsoft boss Bill Gates,
using a stolen number and publishing what he said was the billionaire's own number.
But Judge Gareth Davies said that many people had suffered as a result of his actions.
He caused great expense and inconvenience,
running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
It is fortunate no one took advantage of the information you put on the net.
Your motivation was also to boost your self-esteem
and maybe you were being naive rather than malicious.
He made an order that Gray should undergo three years of psychiatric treatment
after hearing evidence that he was suffering from a mental condition
which needed medical treatment rather than incarceration.
Smiling after the trial, Gray said he did not regret what he had done,
but the way he had done it.
He claimed the scam was to expose security weaknesses in Internet shopping.
I would do it all again, but another time,
I would choose to ensure that I acted legally, he said.
Now it's interesting here because,
imagine that case taking place in the United States
and imagine what they would do to somebody like that here.
They would probably send them away for a good five to ten years
and think that they solved the problem.
Sure. Well, and then recently, I think it was a few weeks ago,
that Israeli hacker who had hacked into some American defense computer system,
who their own president or prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said,
hey, he's a smart kid.
He was finally sentenced to probation in Israel,
but if that kid had been in the U.S., a young guy,
he would have done many years in prison for hacking into a computer
that had classified information, that sort of thing.
So I'm thinking, perhaps it's time for American hackers
to request political asylum in Israel and other countries
that don't send hackers away for many years in prison
for a crime that does not harm any individual.
Yeah, well, I'd like to believe that,
but I think somehow if this guy was Palestinian over there
and he did the same thing, he wouldn't be looking at probation.
Absolutely.
That's just my personal feeling on that.
But yeah, I think we do have something that we can learn
by ways of treating hackers or just people who are mischievous
or figure things out or say things that other people don't like them to say
or various things like that.
Let's quickly go through some mail
and then we'll take some phone calls.
212-209-2900 is our phone number.
A lot of response to the Reagan death watch from last week,
and as you know, he did not die on July 4th,
so that means we have Ronald Reagan for another year.
That's assuming that the whatever you want to call it,
curse or whatever, the people elected in years ending in zero holds true,
that curse being that you either die in office or you die on July 4th,
and it's held true for every single president ever elected
in a year ending in zero from the very beginning,
and Ronald Reagan is the first person that has not so far fallen victim to it,
but we'll have to see what happens.
The story is yet unwritten.
Anyway, this piece of mail,
the reason that Monroe didn't die in office
is that the curse was put on the presidency by Tecumseh in the 1830s,
therefore 1840 was the first year where the curse was enacted.
This curse was laid upon the president by Tecumseh,
a Native American chief who wanted revenge against the U.S.
for their treatment of the Indians.
He also was responsible for causing the Mississippi
to reverse its flow for a few moments.
It's a pretty good trick.
Current theory says that seismic activity caused the river
to reverse its flow for only a few moments,
but it still started to flow in the opposite direction
and caused flooding all over the river.
Many say that Reagan broke the curse,
but many others believe he was brain-dead before he got into office,
so he doesn't count.
I don't know.
That mail came from Jason.
But here's the thing.
I believe it's a curse that that guy put upon United States presidents.
It's kind of a strange curse.
I mean, you're an angry Indian chief,
and you say, okay, I'm really going to get you
by making presidents that are elected in years ending in zero die in office.
I don't know.
I just think somehow you could have made it a little bit more forceful than that,
like maybe have all the presidents die in office or something.
I don't know.
Remember, the Secret Service is listening to this program, Emanuel.
Yeah, well, that's great.
Maybe they can make their own cassette copy this time.
But the point is that, you know,
if you're an Indian chief making curses back in the 1800s,
I just think they might phrase it a little bit differently.
But regardless, regardless,
it's more than just this thing that supposedly the Indian chief did.
The coincidence is that those who were not affected by that particular curse
or whatever died on the most significant day in our nation's history, July 4th.
I think that's pretty unbelievable right there.
Okay, more letters.
I just thought I'd take the time to let you guys know what a service you are doing to the community,
not to mention the country.
I know it must be tough fighting the legal battles
and everything 2600 is up to these days,
but you aren't showing any signs of wear.
Last Tuesday's show was truly top-notch.
I don't know how you've managed to keep your sense of humor
through the crap you've had to do,
but keep up the good work, man.
Fellow broadcaster Joe Average.
And I want to thank you, Joe Average, for that nice letter.
And for the many people who send us letters that inspire us to keep going,
because, yeah, it does matter.
We read every last one of them.
I'm in Michigan.
BBC is still coming in very nicely on AT&T's digital cable.
I don't know if it means anything,
but I thought I would just let you know.
Well, okay, that came from William,
and William, that wasn't really the point.
The point was that BBC ceased its shortwave broadcasting.
Yeah, I know that some people get BBC America on digital cable.
Some people get BBC broadcasts on American public radio, international, whatever.
Small bites.
What's that?
Very small bites.
Right, exactly.
But the point is they stopped their broadcasting on shortwave,
and by doing that robbed a lot of people of 24-hour access to the BBC
and lots of things that are not aired anywhere else,
including the FM broadcasts.
So hopefully one day they'll reconsider
and not let those frequencies fall into the hands of religious zealots or something,
and shortwave can still be saved for people that really appreciate what is being heard over it.
Okay, more letters.
This is from Cyberfreak.
I love your show.
I was wondering if I could get some hacking sites or some groups that I could contact.
Okay.
You know, everybody asks us this.
Everybody writes in and wants to know how to get some hacking sites or contact people,
and, you know, it doesn't quite work that way.
People want an easy way to get places.
They just want to get, you know, road directions to a particular location
where they can all of a sudden have all the knowledge.
The knowledge is something that accumulates over years, many years,
and you accumulate it by simply communicating with other people via such things as IRC
or going to conferences and meeting people
and actually talking about interesting things and learning what it's all about
and playing with computer systems, playing with phone systems,
experimenting and sharing your results with other people.
You know, I noticed and I was reading or hearing actually a history of IRC yesterday,
and I realized how much it's grown over the years.
Just 10 years ago, there were something like 1,000 people using IRC, not very many at all.
Now it's like probably over 100,000.
It's amazing how quickly the things have grown,
and by doing so, so many other people have gotten involved,
so many other people want to be part of this world,
and not all of them have the patience to actually learn along the way.
They just want to get to the part where, you know, people point to them and say,
Hey, you're an elite hacker. You can do anything.
We saw this in the MTV documentary, and I put that in quotes.
We see this in mass media all the time where basically they write the story
and then they look for a couple of people to pose and look like they're from MTV
or something like that and fit the bill that they want to create.
It's not like that. It never was like that.
But now that you have all these thousands of people wanting to be part of the hacker world,
it's getting a lot harder.
It's getting a lot harder to actually guide people in the right direction.
It's kind of frustrating sometimes.
I guess we're a victim of our own success as far as doing something interesting
and getting people into it.
But, you know, it takes a lot of work.
It takes a lot of laborious, boring work late at night figuring things out
and doing something for the first time.
That's what hacking really is.
DIY. Do it yourself.
And tell somebody about it when you do it, you know?
Absolutely.
Knowledge should not be kept secret or held as ransom or anything like that.
It's not about how elite you are.
It's not about what you can do with your name.
That's something that really is a turnoff as far as I'm concerned.
All right.
So hopefully that answers that person's question.
Hello, long-time reader, listener of Off the Hook.
One question.
I'm doing a public access TV program.
We are constantly defending a lot of issues that are raised on your site, radio program, and mag.
Can I reference your articles on our program?
Always mention the source, of course.
And the program is called Tech Week TV.
Yes, and, of course, we've always given permission for people to use our stuff,
our magazine stuff, our radio stuff.
Just give permission and, I mean, give credit and more the merrier.
You know, let people in on it.
Definitely.
I don't know if you've heard about the craziness that is happening in New Jersey,
but Verizon is now making it mandatory that you dial a 10-digit telephone number every time you want to call someone,
even if it's local.
If I want to call next door, I need to dial 10 digits.
They didn't make the one mandatory.
How thoughtful of them.
They are doing this as well for implementing several new area codes to make room for 24 million new numbers.
Verizon has screwed us again.
How am I going to be able to explain to my 4-year-old sister many years from now that things were once different,
you only had to dial 7 digits, it was easy to remember people's numbers?
Just another reason why Verizon sucks.
And that comes from Enigma Bomb.
And not only that, but I just found out...
He's going to have to explain to his little sister in a few years why she has to dial more than 10 digits,
because in a few years they're going to have to increase the phone numbers even further.
Probably.
But the thing that happened in Connecticut this week was that the payphone rates had a slight increase.
Actually, I think it's going to start tomorrow.
They went from either $0.25 or $0.35, not sure which, but they are now $0.50.
That's right.
Can you imagine $0.50 just for a local call now?
Especially when you can call long distance for $0.05 a minute.
You can call overseas for $0.10 a minute.
But if you want to call the payphone next to this one for 10 seconds, it's going to cost you $0.50.
But here's the thing.
They say that to make up for this, they're going to make it unlimited time.
Unlimited time on a payphone.
Now, the way it was presented on the radio made it sound like you could call anywhere unlimited,
but I suspect, I strongly suspect it's only to a very limited local region,
and that anywhere outside that region, which is probably more than 10 miles away,
you'll have to continue to pay by the minute.
But I'd like to hear from some people in the SNET territory that might be able to tell us more about that.
And there was also reports that rates might be going up in New York by the end of the year from $0.25 to $0.35
because payphones are being used so much less now, and they have to make money somehow.
It's been $0.35 here in Philadelphia for quite a while, and we have to dial all 10 digits down here as well.
You don't have to dial the 1, right?
You don't have to. It's optional.
But you do have to dial 10 digits regardless.
Okay. Well, let's take some phone calls now.
212-209-2900 is our telephone number.
And once again, the switchboard is acting strange.
It used to be every time I said the phone number, it would be completely filled up,
and now there's only like a couple of lines.
I don't know if that's... Someone has to explain this to me.
Someone's calling in to explain this to me.
Are you cut off? Are you transferred someplace?
You know, do you never get picked up on?
I don't know. Okay.
Some are starting to light up now.
212-209-2900, if you're in a different part of the country,
a different part of the world, rather, country code 1.
While the lines are filling up, just to remind people,
all the premiums have gone out for the last two marathons.
So if you have not gotten it, you'll get it really, really soon,
or it might be coming in several packages.
The Jell-O will be out for CDs from the fall fundraiser.
We are just waiting for them to be delivered to us.
And as soon as they get delivered, which should be this week sometime,
they're going straight out to you.
You'll be completely caught up by the end of this week.
And we're sorry for all the delays,
but everything seems to be working just fine right now.
Oh, and there's one person.
This is kind of weird.
Apparently, the computer system here at BAI can't handle international addresses,
and since our show is heard overseas, sometimes people call in and pledge.
So we got this one address for a person that just says international address,
and there's nothing else but that, and obviously that's not going to work.
So the person's first name is Brad, and that's all I'm going to give out.
And if that person is listening, please contact us and give us your last name,
and if it matches the last name of the person who pledged,
we'll believe you when you tell us your address, and we'll send you what you are owed.
And that's probably a lot quicker than trying to figure out what your address is on this end.
All right, let's take some phone calls.
212-209-2900.
Good evening. You're on the air.
What a strange noise that is.
I think this is verification right here
There's something not right with our phone system. Listen to that.
You hearing that, Bernie?
Sounds like somebody's in a motorboat.
Doesn't it?
That's unbelievable.
Sounds like a 30-horsepower outboard.
Yeah.
Well, if anyone out there understands what that's all about, please give us a call.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Yeah, hello.
How are you doing?
All right. I just wanted to say, when I lost my union job,
and my unemployment ran out and the union wouldn't help me,
I had to go stand on the corner with the so-called illegal Mexicans to get work.
Most of them are not Mexican to start with.
Most of them are from El Salvador and other countries in Central America.
So, so much for stereotyping.
You're right. Nobody else wants those jobs.
A lot of them are hard labor.
Two shovelfuls and most of the people out there would fall down.
That's true.
Right. And that would be the end of it.
So I just wanted to point out, you know, that it's just stereotyping all the way down the line,
and they're just going to have to let it happen.
What was it like standing with those people?
Well, you know, I got work pretty quickly.
I'm bilingual, and the fact that I spoke both languages,
the people never gave me a hard time.
They didn't try to push me off the corner or anything like that.
I was right there, and I got work, and it paid me anywhere from $80 to $120 a day.
Cash money off the books.
Not a bad deal.
Not a bad deal when you have nothing.
That's right. That's right. Absolutely.
And also, if anybody needs some bucks, go on out there.
Yeah, I guess anybody can stand on the corner and get work.
That's right.
But how many people are willing to do that?
That's right. It works.
The Dunkin' Donuts people were complaining that their clients were getting nervous and everything
because when a car or van pulls in there, they swarm it.
They swarm the car asking for work.
They don't want to do anything bad to the people.
They're just looking for a day's work.
But really, the people who are looking for the work buy more donuts and coffee than the clients.
So I don't know why the Dunkin' Donuts people were complaining, but they were.
People from the Bronx go out there to Long Island to get the work, and Queens and all over.
They'll take trains and buses to do it.
Wow.
That's the situation out there.
There are a lot of highly paid jobs for highly skilled people
and low-paying jobs for people with nothing, and there's not much in between.
And the middle is shrinking more and more as the days go on.
I just think it's always a good thing to encourage people to pursue a dream of some sort
and try to make their lives better.
I just don't see how this is hurting the people in that area at all
who are getting people to do jobs that they won't do themselves.
The language really offends me.
Yeah, yeah. I agree completely, all the way down the line.
All the way down the line.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Thanks. Thanks for calling.
Okay. Take care. Bye.
212-209-2900 is our phone number.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Speak up, please.
Hello?
Yes, go ahead.
Yeah, have I reached off the hook?
Yes, you're on the air right now.
Okay, I had kind of a greep about...
Hello?
Yeah, you've got to turn down whatever it is you're listening to.
It sounds like you're listening on a computer.
Okay, I kind of have a little greep about AT&T phones.
Uh-huh.
And...
Okay, you've got to turn that down.
You're going to get very confused if you don't.
Okay.
All right.
So, I just bought a new AT&T phone, and I was listening to your previous show.
Uh-huh.
And you were talking about how if you hang up too fast
and then try to dial again, it'll automatically activate flash.
You're talking about the three-way that local phone companies have put on various lines.
Yes.
And if you try to hang up the phone, like normally you push phone to talk and to turn it off to,
it automatically uses flash.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's kind of messed up.
Yeah, it is.
And you'll get charged for making a three-way call then, and it's 75 cents each call,
which, yeah, it's highway robbery is what it is.
Yeah.
No question about it.
It's what they do.
And that previous thing you were talking about where you could pay 50 cents
and use the pay phone for as long as you wanted.
Uh-huh.
Couldn't you go to some remote location and use maybe like a laptop?
I was thinking just that, that, yeah, you could sort of hook it up
and have your own little connection there for all time.
I think as long as you don't cut the yellow or red wire, it won't activate the alarm.
Uh-huh.
Well, you know, someone should try that and see what kind of results they get,
maybe with an acoustic modem or something.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thanks for your call.
No problem.
Take care.
I've got a new phone.
Bernie, you don't have a GSM phone, do you?
No, I have a CDMA phone from Sprint PCS, unfortunately.
Sprint PCS, yeah.
I don't know all about them.
The phone is good, but their network is really getting terrible.
All right.
That much I know.
But this GSM phone is a new Motorola TimePort,
which is really, really hard to get in this country,
the reason being that it's something known as tri-band,
three bands, 800, I'm sorry, 900, 1800, and 1900 megahertz.
Now, I believe the 1900 is used in this country
and the 900 and 1800 is used everywhere else.
And it's really very cool because it enables you to travel any place
and be able to use your phone.
The thing is, though, it advertises as being able to have 35 or so languages on it
that you can switch to.
And the first thing I noticed when I turned the thing on,
I started looking, as in the manual, for the language selection,
and it just wasn't there.
There was no language selection.
So I called Motorola to find out what's wrong with the phone.
How come I can't get language selection?
They said, well, you know, sometimes in rare instances,
the local company shuts that off.
My local company in this case would be VoiceStream.
And so I called VoiceStream and asked them,
hey, did you turn off this feature for language selection?
They said proudly, yes, we do not offer that service
because there is no interest in anything other than English.
And I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
You serve New York and there's no interest in anything but English, eh?
I didn't know.
See, this is a technology that uses a SIM card.
I did not know that they could just turn off that feature.
But what I'm trying to find out,
maybe somebody can help with this who might have used a phone like this,
does this feature work overseas if they turn it off here?
That's what I'm wondering.
When I go overseas, will I be able to use languages there?
Because it's a really handy thing.
And also another thing that I noticed with this phone is that with GSM phones,
they always show you the name of the provider that you're using.
For instance, if I took this thing out to California,
instead of saying vStream on it, it would say PacBell
or some other company if I was going to some other part of the country.
When I was out there last time, it said vStream Roaming,
even though it was PacBell.
It never told me the name of the company.
What I'm wondering is if there is a way to change that back
so you can see the name of the company you're using.
I'm told in Europe and overseas you do see the name of the company you're using
because you have a choice there.
You have like four different companies you could be using,
so you do need to see it.
But I'm not sure if there's a way to change that.
So if anyone is familiar with that particular phone, the P7389 from Motorola,
I'd sure like to know.
You can email us at oth2600.com.
We have time for a couple more phone calls, so let's go right to it.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Speak up, please.
Hi.
First time calling.
I'm sorry.
I'm a bit nervous.
I just wanted to bring to your attention, if you hadn't heard of it,
that was just talked about on ZDNet and a couple other places on the net.
Okay.
Tell us about it.
Well, it's a tiny chip, about half a millimeter cube,
generates a 128-bit number.
It just sends it out on a 2.45 gigahertz band.
And basically you could incorporate it into anything, even a document,
track it over the Internet, incorporate it into a web page, a database.
You could track anything, you name it, people.
You could just insert it under their skin.
I mean, there's a lot of possibilities with this chip.
Yeah.
I've been reading about Motorola is trying to perfect a technology like that, too,
where it's a smart – they call it smart tags.
What they want to do is they want to try to do away with barcodes,
which, you know, you have to position the barcode over the laser scanner
just at an angle so it reads.
With these smart tags, you can have a whole case of items
and have an RF scanner scan all the tags that are in the box
without even having to open the box.
And they could apply these things to all things.
What were you saying?
How would they put this on a web page?
Well, no, it's just that, you know, all of these items,
everything is going to have its own unique 128-bit number.
So, you know, you could have a database, you know,
that's accessible through a web page or accessible through any means.
There's a lot of possibilities in that.
I see.
So far, what's preventing these from being used is cost.
It's a lot cheaper to print a barcode with just ink onto a piece of cardboard
or paper or plastic than an electronic circuit.
So it's going to be a while before we see anything like that.
But, yeah, I think in the future, when the cost gets down,
you're going to see smart tags on a lot of retail items
and on other things just to track movement and track products
and track all kinds of things.
What is the obsession with tracking everything?
I mean, you know, tracking.
I'm always wanting to know where people are and what they're doing
and where you've been.
And I'm saying this as I'm looking at a video monitor.
Oh, it's driving me crazy.
Have you heard about the car rental companies now are starting to find people?
Oh, yes, yes, the Connecticut case.
Yeah.
So this guy had a car, and he rented it,
and apparently he was fined every time the speedometer went over a certain amount.
I'm not sure what the amount was, if it was $60 or $70 or $80.
I think it's kind of irrelevant.
But the point is that every time it went over a certain amount,
he was just fined $150.
And, I mean, yeah, you could say, well, they have the right to protect their interests.
But come on, how scary is this going to get
where they're monitoring what you're doing at all times?
You really want to live in a society where you're responsible for every single thing you do,
no matter how minor, you know,
and it comes back to haunt you in all kinds of different ways?
It's pretty frightening.
All right.
We have time for about one more phone call, I think.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hey, guys.
What's up?
Good evening.
I want to tell you a little bit about those cameras down in Tampa.
Okay.
I had the opportunity to go to the Super Bowl this season past,
and the cameras that are in Ybor City were working at the Super Bowl.
Right, right.
Those are the same ones, right?
Right.
But the point is that the press release just came out a couple of weeks ago
saying that it has just gone active.
Not true.
Well, they used it at the Super Bowl, right?
No, not at the stadium.
In Ybor City, which is like the party place.
Uh-huh.
And I was walking down the street, and I noticed that the cameras were moving.
Really?
Which means that somebody was on the other end with a joystick.
So they were using this six months ago?
Yes.
So I stopped, and I was asking a cop that was standing on the street,
and he says, yeah, this is a new system that we've installed, and we're testing it.
And it's going to be something that we're going to use.
So immediately I thought about, you know, being the conspiracy theorist that I am,
you know, the databases that get created, tracking, all the things that we talk about.
Right.
So I just thought that was really interesting.
And now that the press release comes out six months later, you know,
when this thing has been in use for a lengthy period of time before that.
Wow.
That's pretty sobering news,
and you have to wonder how many other places are doing something similar to that,
and it's just in testing mode.
Thanks for the info.
Bernie, we're pretty much out of time,
so I want to thank you for being part of the show once again.
Hey, thank you.
And maybe we'll hear from you next week or in the weeks ahead while I'm wandering around Europe
someplace figuring out where to go next.
It should be interesting because we'll be doing shows from all over the place,
and I'll be sure to fill people in on just what's going on from various places.
So next week Isaac should be back.
And until then, I guess, stay awake.
Send us any interesting news that you might have.
And we're reachable at othat2600.com
or by mail off the hook here at WBAI, 120 Wall Street, New York, New York, 10005.
This is Manuel Goldstein.
Good night.
Oh, I am just a student, sir, and only one to learn.
But it's hard to read through the rising smoke from the books that you like to burn.
So I'd like to make a promise and I'd like to make a vow
that when I've got something to say, sir, I'm going to say it now.
Oh, you've given me a number and you've taken off my name
to get around this campus while you almost need a plane.
And you're supporting Chiang Kai-shek while I'm supporting Mao.
So when I've got something to say, sir, I'm going to say it now.
I wish that you'd make up your mind, I wish that you'd decide
that I should live as freely as those who live outside
because we all still are entitled to the rights to be endowed.
And when I've got something to say, sir, I'm going to say it now.
Oh, you'd like to be my father, you'd like to be my dad
and give me kisses when I'm good and spank me when I'm bad.
But since I left my parents, I've forgotten how to bow.
So when I've got something to say, sir, I'm going to say it now.