lands in Erbil, Iraq.
And of course, you can always go online and find it, too.
And we'll give you the exact website right after this.
And that website is www.fsrn.org to hear the free speech radio news for today and other
days as well.
This is Off The Hook.
And a good evening to everybody, the program is Off The Hook, Emmanuel Goldstein here with
you tonight, joined by Mike and Jim.
A happy evacuation day to our listeners.
No, no.
What is today?
No.
What do you mean evacuation day?
What are we evacuating?
Who are we evacuating?
No, Thanksgiving is evacuation day.
Oh.
Well, maybe somewhere else.
Top of the evening to you.
All right.
Well, you know.
When the British left New York.
Actually, you know, I was in Canada and it was St. Patrick's Day on Sunday in Montreal.
There was a parade and everybody was happy and all kinds of festivities going on.
But for some reason, St. Patrick's Day is today in New York.
So I guess by FCC regulations, we have to celebrate it, right?
Top of the evening to you.
All right.
I didn't say that, Mike.
We are?
Yes.
You are too.
You have to say it.
Well, then I guess I'll just be thrown out.
All right.
FCC commissioners are on the way.
And Nish is here too.
Just ran in the door.
How are you doing?
Hi.
Okay.
Well, on this special event, which really isn't that special around here anyway, we
have all kinds of news updates as always, listener email and listener phone calls a
bit later on.
Now, Mike, you have a very interesting story.
By the way, we tried to reach Bernie S., but telecommunications are down between us and
his phone.
I don't know why.
It must be the snow.
It must be the snow because we know Sprint can't handle snowy conditions as well as
rainy conditions.
Could be the beer.
Could be all kinds of things, I guess.
But let's not worry about that too much.
Mike, what do you have?
The government is taking the first steps towards a targeted military draft of Americans
with special skills in computers and foreign languages.
What does that mean?
It means that the Selective Service System is setting up some procedures and policies
to draft people who know about languages and about computers in case Congress asks them
to.
You know, I signed up for the Selective Service Board.
So you're going to be doing the drafting?
No, I am not.
I don't think I can do this.
I really don't.
Apparently, it would involve me going to Chicago and being trained by Selective Service people.
Now, the way this works is to join the Selective Service Board, you have to have no military
affiliation whatsoever, which is fine.
I don't.
And then you have to kind of be part of this group of people in your community that selects
who gets to go and who has to stay home and not be part of the war.
Now, of course, we don't have the draft right now, but that could change, you know, with
a bad dream from George W.
They give you strict guidelines on who to choose, right?
Very strict, yes.
And I don't think they approve of spying, like me reporting on the radio just what goes
on at their meetings.
I think, you know, it might be sort of like joining the Masons or something like that,
where you think, you know, you think you're doing the right thing, and then all of a sudden
you find yourself surrounded by them, and the next thing you know, you're being shot
in the head.
I was going to say, possibly the same outcome in your case.
Uh-huh.
So, you know, if anyone out there is on a board of directors or whatever for the Selective
Service, and you don't feel intimidated, please leak us as much information as possible.
You know how to do it, othat2600.com.
So, Mike, tell us more about this.
It basically means the special skill thing.
Right.
Well, Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, has said that he's not going to ask Congress
to authorize such a draft.
But the Selective Service system just likes to be prepared.
Uh-huh.
The agency, it says in the article, already has in place a special system to register
and draft health care personnel ages 20 to 44 in more than 60 specialties if necessary
in a crisis.
And according to someone who works for the Selective Service system, the agency is going
to expand the system to be able to rapidly register and draft computer specialists and
linguists should the need ever arise.
But he has stressed that the agency has received no request from the Pentagon to do so.
Well, no.
It would be untimely for them to receive requests at this point.
Once they actually institute the system, then the Pentagon can start asking once the next
crisis starts.
Well, yeah.
You've got to do things in order.
Mm-hmm.
All right.
That's something we should keep our eyes on.
And that's, I guess, people with technical abilities should be very concerned about that,
right?
I'm concerned.
All right.
You have technical abilities, so, yeah, you should.
Well, maybe I shouldn't say on the radio that I have technical abilities, but...
Well, let's see.
What else is going on in the world?
I'm trying to keep it to this kind of subject.
Well, I saw something on television earlier today that was kind of disturbing.
The New York City police apparently are preparing for 1,000 arrests a day during the Republican
Convention.
1,000?
1,000 a day.
That's what they're preparing for.
And they let that slip because there's a protest happening this Saturday in New York City to
celebrate the one-year anniversary of the war.
And what they're going to do, I guess, is practice the new beating techniques that they've
learned, whatever it is that the cops do in their spare time.
And they're getting ready for August and September, which is when the Republican Convention is
taking place, right across the street from where the HOPE Conference is taking place
a month and a half earlier in July.
So if you really want to see what it's going to look like before it happens, come to the
conference and maybe linger around and become part of the, well, whatever activity goes
on in that area.
1,000 arrests a day?
1,000 arrests a day.
1,000 arrests a day.
Are they saying 1,000 people are going to commit crimes or they're just going to arrest
1,000 random people?
I think they just, that's what they quoted, is to arrest 1,000 people.
Is that 1,000 over what the current amount is?
No, the current level is about 300.
I've seen this article.
Okay.
That was my next question.
I think it's, I saw this on New York once.
I'll look on their website and see if there's anything interesting.
I actually have the paper article with me and can get it in 30 seconds.
That says 1,000 a day?
Yeah.
Go for it, Jim.
Run like the wind.
Go.
I'm talking about something else.
Where would you leave it, though?
I mean, you should bring everything in here.
I'm going to the side of the room.
I see.
All right.
Clever.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, let's stick on this subject for a second and move over to Oregon, where this story
just came out involving anti-terrorism.
Let's not unwrap it right next to the microphone.
Anti-terrorism bills.
In Oregon, they're planning a bill that would jail street-blocking protesters for at least
25 years.
What?
Yeah.
Wow.
A thinly-veiled effort to discourage anti-war demonstrations, critics say.
This comes from a site called PrisonPlanet.com.
The bill has met strong opposition, but lawmakers still expect a debate on the definition of
terrorism and the value of free speech before a vote by the state Senate Judiciary Committee,
whose chairman, Republican Senator John Minnis, wrote the proposed legislation.
It's Senate Bill 742.
It identifies a terrorist as a person who plans or participates in an act that is intended
by at least one of its participants to disrupt business, transportation, schools, government,
or a free assembly.
This sounds like...
Any sit-in.
Yeah, pretty much.
This sounds like a specialized version of conspiracy to me.
You know, I can't really say that this is a realistic story here, because I don't think
anybody thinks that this kind of thing is going to actually pass or be very enthusiastically
received.
I don't think...
Yeah, these days especially, you know, when something happens that makes people put aside
their concerns, you might see this become reality.
That comes from Reuters, by the way, that story.
All right, what do you have, Jim?
Well, this was...
I know it because it's right next to our favorite story on Alan J. Munn, AJM.cc.
But anyway, it's from the March...
AJM.cc is the site we were talking about in the last couple of weeks?
The site we keep talking about that they plan to crack down even more on because he lists
undercover cops, has photos, addresses, names.
But it's been around for years, and when Channel 5 just alluded to it without even saying anything
about it, that's when people started, like us, people started to...
Exactly.
Okay.
Well, anyway, this is from the March 10, 2004 Daily News.
That's a Wednesday.
Headline, Morgi sees an arresting convention.
It's relatively short.
I'll read most of it.
Street protests from the Republican National Convention could spur as many as 1,000 arrests
a day, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said.
Quote, we know the Republican Convention will bring significantly increased arrests, he
said at a city council hearing.
The NYPD anticipates that we could have up to 1,000 arrests a day, three times our normal
volume, unquote.
Morgenthau said he'll need more prosecutors.
State court officials are planning to triple the number of judges for arrangement during
the convention, up from the normal four.
Tripling would obviously make it 12, ladies and gentlemen.
Morgenthau's comments came as a pitch to the council to restore planned cuts to his office.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly acknowledged convention security costs could climb to 65
million, far higher than previous estimates.
He told the council the NYPD's convention costs include special training for 6,000 officers,
new surveillance cameras, 300 scooters for officers, and barricades capable of stopping
trucks.
The federal government has agreed to provide the city with 25 million for security costs.
That's that.
Let me get this straight.
They're buying new scooters for this?
No, no, no.
It says the feds are going to give 25 million to the city, and costs could climb to 65 million.
So the other 40 million dollars are being paid by New York City taxpayers who don't
want this stupid convention anyway?
Well, supposedly it'll bring more money into the city.
I bet you I don't see a dollar of that.
Who gets the scooters is what I'm trying to get to here.
Apparently the NYPD will have the scooters, but they could be renting them.
But do they get to keep, I mean, they're getting scooters out of this deal.
That's not clear at all from the story.
Alright, I just think they should be distributed evenly.
Alright, well that's something to look forward to.
And obviously as that gets closer, it's going to get more and more intense.
And we'll be reporting on that here, as well as many other shows on this radio station.
Now, this is also kind of disturbing.
This happened on Friday.
Apparently the Justice Department wants to significantly expand the government's ability
to monitor online traffic.
We've all known that for a while.
They're now proposing that providers of high-speed internet service should be forced to grant
secure access for FBI wiretaps and other electronic surveillance.
And they want consumers to foot the bill.
That's right, law enforcement agencies have been increasingly concerned that fast-growing telephone service
over the internet could be a way for terrorists and criminals to speak and evade surveillance.
But the petition also moves beyond internet telephony, leading several technology experts
and privacy advocates to warn that many types of online communication,
including instant messaging and visits to websites, could be covered.
That's right.
The proposal by the Justice Department, the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Administration
could require extensive retooling of existing broadband networks
and could impose significant costs, according to experts.
Privacy advocates also argue there are not enough safeguards to prevent the government
from intercepting data from innocent users.
Can you imagine that?
Every instant message that you get and receive could be monitored?
The one thing about this is, doesn't simple encryption just bypass this?
Yeah, but then you make that illegal and you're all set.
The new, like, now AOL's instant messenger comes with encryption built in.
How good is the encryption?
I haven't tried it myself.
I'm going to say, if it's built in, I doubt it works.
And it probably puts a virus in your machine, too.
All right.
Anyway, Justice Department lawyers argue in a 75-page FCC petition
that Internet, broadband, and online telephone providers should be treated the same
as traditional telephone companies, which are required by law to provide access
for wiretaps and other monitoring of voice communications.
The law enforcement agencies complain that many providers do not comply
with existing wiretap rules and that rapidly changing technology
is limiting the government's ability to track terrorists and other threats.
Come on, guys.
I mean, Osama bin Laden is there using his laptop,
communicating with instant messaging through his operatives all around the world.
How do we track this?
How do we track the system?
How do we protect our people?
We've pointed this out before, but I just love how they say terrorists and other threats
because they're going to use this system on, like, one terrorist
and hundreds and hundreds of people who are committing minor drug crimes.
And they kind of lump them all in there.
Yeah, and the Patriot Act, of course, has been used to get all kinds of people like that
and very few in the career of terrorism.
This guy James Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology down in D.C.,
has a really good quote here.
The breadth of what they are asking for is a little breathtaking, he said.
The question is, how deeply should the government be able to control the design of the Internet?
If you want to bring the economy to a halt,
put the FBI in charge of deploying new Internet and communications services.
Well, it's scary. It really is.
Now, Jeffrey Citrin, who is chief executive of Internet phone provider Vonage, Inc.
Does anybody use Vonage?
They're the ones where you can get area codes from different cities as your local number?
Mm-hmm.
All over the Internet?
Well, he said the FBI is overreaching.
He said that he and other providers cooperate fully with law enforcement
and that if the FBI has ongoing concerns, it should strive to change the law governing wiretaps.
Well, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, known as CALEA, was enacted in 1994.
It requires telecommunications companies to rewire their networks
so police could have access for wiretaps and other surveillance measures.
But law enforcement officials and privacy advocates have argued fiercely in recent years
as to what extent the law should apply to such newer generation technologies,
such as Internet telephone and broadband services.
The justice proposal asserts that CALEA was intended to protect the capacity of law enforcement
to carry out authorized surveillance in the face of technological change.
And CALEA contains no exemption for telephony services provided through broadband access.
But, of course, this opens up a whole world of difficulty
when you start applying these things over the Internet.
You have to pretty much have complete control, which I guess wouldn't be a bad thing in their eyes.
Jim, you look perplexed.
I'm not perplexed. I'm just, I don't know, sad and disappointed,
waiting to see what other shoe, and then what other shoe, and then what other shoe falls.
Well, I think a whole shoe store is falling.
We'd better be around to witness the effects.
All right, speaking of sadness, though, I was sad to see this letter from Verizon.
Apparently, they've discontinued their service known as voice dialing.
Voice dialing slash easy dialing is what they call it.
They sent me a letter saying,
our records indicate you subscribe to our voice dialing, easy dialing calling service,
which enables you to make calls by speaking the name of the person or place you want to reach.
This is to inform you that this service is being grandfathered
because the manufacturer has discontinued the support and hardware needed for it.
Nice thing to do, huh?
Discontinue it.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait.
It's being grandfathered even though they've discontinued support and hardware?
Well, here's the thing.
Okay, I've got this service.
It's not being supported anymore.
There won't be any upgrades to it.
There won't be anything like that, you know.
And, oh, good God.
So, I've got this service that I guess was supposed to be a cutting edge.
Yeah.
Where'd you get that green hat, Red Hacker?
I was about to say the hat to the big one came in.
I'm not going to, yeah.
Yeah.
You just come in from outdoors?
I came in from celebrating St. Patrick's Day.
You're not even Irish.
Well, yeah.
All right.
You do look green, though.
Yeah.
Okay, well, let's continue with this story here.
As a current subscriber, you can continue to enjoy your Voice Dialing Easy Dialing service.
You know, to be honest, I've never really enjoyed it.
It's been more of an ordeal than anything else.
But I'm going to hold on to it like grim death because, you know,
it's probably a lot easier for them to just disconnect everybody and do something else.
Anyway, I have to maintain the service at my current address without interruption.
So, I pay one bill late and get disconnected.
That's it.
It's all over.
So, Voice Dialing is no more.
I use Voice Dialing on my cell phone all the time, and it's kind of cool.
Well, that's done in hardware on your phone.
Yeah.
Maybe that's why it works better.
Yeah.
It's not sent over the network.
All right.
Let's read some listener email.
Then we can take some listener phone calls.
This person wanted to know what—we were talking about acronyms a few weeks ago.
This person wanted to know what GSM stood for.
Anybody have any ideas?
Something French.
Something French.
Red Hat, you don't?
I'd say global something, but—
Global something?
You just need one more word now, and it begins with an M.
Global something messaging?
I have no idea.
That's not bad.
That's not bad.
Was I close?
No, it's totally wrong, but it wasn't bad considering the state you look like you're in.
Well, yeah.
All right.
This person writes in, Jeff from someplace, writes in to tell us that the original GSM acronym was Group Special Mobile.
I thought the acronym game was fun on your last show, and you're right.
Anyone can Google it, but it just ruins the fun.
Actually, that is originally what it stood for, but the original French name was later changed to Global System for Mobile Communications,
but the original GSM acronym stuck.
I got global right.
Yeah, and that was back in 1987 all that happened, so a little bit of education there.
This person writes in with some technical information for us regarding the cable box router thing with the NAT disabled issue.
It is possible to disable NAT from the cable provider, but it's possible to get around this.
I'm not going to get into a step-by-step method on how to bypass this, but I will give people a direction if they want to do some research on their own.
It's pretty tough to bypass, but you can use a Linux box as a router.
Set up one subnet per station.
ARP proxy on each subnet, and SQUID proxy on for each.
Disable X forwarded for, and there's no possible way to tell what machines are behind it for normal HTTP use.
Make sense?
Yes.
Okay, good.
You're not too far gone.
I don't know how that will work for SSH or other protocols, but I'm sure someone can try it.
The client machines won't have a 192.10.0.0 inside address.
It'll be on the same subnet as the IP of the router modem from the cable company.
That is, if you get 216.94.200.100, the internal boxes will be something like 216.94.200.102.103, etc.,
and the Linux router will be .101 or whatever.
I hope that gives people a direction to look, and if the gods dump a couple of hours of free time on me,
I'll be sure to do a full how-to write-up for the next magazine, signed Sean.
Sean, thank you very much.
It's good to have information like that pouring in, and by all means.
That would be a good and popular article.
It would be, and if anybody wants to send us an article, articles at 2600.com.
What else do we have here?
The latest off-the-hook on March 10th, we were talking about electronic voting machines
and whether there was a paper trail or not.
I recently voted in the California primary, first-time voting,
and they used machines that seemed to be LCD monitors with touch capabilities.
After I was done, I looked back and saw that there was a long roll of paper being printed out by the machines.
At the time, I thought it was a record of the votes, but it could have been just a list confirming that the people voted.
I didn't ask or go back to check it out.
On a slightly unrelated note, someone on the show said the machine they used was hard to read.
This one was quite easy to read, but I had to press pretty hard to get my vote to register.
Also, there was a screen at the end that, if you didn't vote for everything, made it difficult to finish voting.
And on yet another semi-related note, they made me sign a paper,
and then they programmed the card on a little machine with my name, I guess, and stuff.
It had five or six receptor things on the bottom.
They put the card into the voting machine to start it.
I'm curious what information the cards hold and what else they could be used for.
Anyway, I just started downloading your show.
I love every minute of it.
I figured I'd send you my two cents.
Signed, Chris M.
Thanks very much, Chris.
If Chris is interested, he should stay tuned,
because the personal computer show following us has a special guest,
an expert, someone who's testified before Congress on electronic voting.
Okay.
This person writes in,
and have even had the pleasure of hearing you read an e-mail of mine to the masses.
Well, guess what?
We're doing it again.
Number two.
Every couple of weeks or so, I get ambitious and search for the name of the off-the-hook theme song.
Thus far, failure has been the only result.
That's not the name.
I've now resigned myself to the fact that perhaps the Internet isn't a fully-fledged knowledge replacement yet,
so I beseech you.
What is the theme track?
What's it called?
Well, actually, signed James from Ottawa,
that's actually not entirely true.
If you go to Google and you type off-the-hook theme, put it inside quotes,
you'll get links to some of our shows where we answer that question.
Now, we're not going to be bastards about it and not answer it here,
but we just want to tell people for future reference,
that's how you find the answer.
I guess, you know, people will ask us that question in the future now, too.
The answer is Big Audio Dynamite from...
Well, it's not from an album.
It's from the flipside of the single.
The song is called Much Worse.
The lead singer is Don Letts.
Who was involved with the guys we're hearing right now underneath us,
known as Dread Zone?
I was waiting to ask.
Yeah.
A lot of good material there.
Of course, you can't get it in the United States.
You have to go to some overseas site to find these CDs.
Why is that?
I don't know.
I don't know.
But sticking with music, this person wrote in to...
named Jackal wrote in to say,
I can't believe you guys played the Electric Hellfire Club in Off the Hook.
I just did a double-take and made sure that you were actually playing it.
You guys rock so much more now because of that.
Well, gee whiz, we didn't think it was possible.
But, yeah, I guess we do rock so much more.
Electric Hellfire Club is one of my favorites.
There are so many bands out there that try to do the satanic worship thing,
but if you want it done right,
you've got to listen to Electric Hellfire Club, okay,
because it's the real thing.
Hi, I live in Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh.
It's still Verizon, so I have two phone numbers for you.
And these phone numbers don't belong to anybody.
I just don't know if they'll actually work.
I don't believe it's a Verizon phone number,
but if you dial 1-724-555-1140,
that's how you can get your phone number read back to you.
I'm sure you can just change your local area code
and maybe even dial 1-800, though I haven't tried it.
Why didn't you try it?
What, are you afraid to try it?
Come on, try it.
You could have tried it.
I could have tried it.
Yeah, I can try it now, I guess.
But the point is, you know, if someone's going to write a letter,
they should try it and then tell us what happens.
I mean, how hard is it to dial, like, an 800 number?
Anyway, the first number, 555-1140,
and the second one is 555-1180.
Yeah, and they give you all kinds of information on that number.
Okay, let's try it.
Let's first try it going to 724.
Let's first get a dial tone.
All right, and we'll try 724, 555-1140.
Now, this could be blocked from our PBX because it's 555, which is evil.
All right, that's a special code we have to enter,
which I have now entered.
Yeah, see, it's blocked.
It's blocked.
Let's try it locally.
Maybe it'll work locally.
You didn't dial an area code.
You don't have to dial an area code.
City listings, please.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Did I reach your information?
Yes, you did.
Oh, I thought I reached the number to tell me what my phone number is.
You don't have that information, do you?
Well, I could do a listing if you give me the city and then your name.
If it's in our database, I could try to find it that way.
Well, I know my name, but that's not where I'm calling from.
I'm just calling from an office.
I'm trying to find out what the phone number is of the phone I'm calling from.
Oh, okay, yeah.
I have no idea how to do that.
So you don't know where I'm coming from, do you?
I got a number here, 212-209-2800.
Oh, wow, you do know.
Okay, that is the number.
Okay, great.
Well, now I know where I am then.
Okay.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Why did I say what?
Why did she say no first?
I don't know, but directory assistance operators can tell you your phone number now.
Well, that's interesting because generally directory assistance gets you a recording that says what city, please.
That's right, that was a human being, too.
How did I get a human being just now?
Try the other number given by our correspondent.
That was a nice piece of social engineering.
At first she was refusing to help you, and then you seemed to be –
I charmed her, didn't I?
Well, actually, I thought you were acting helpless, but okay.
Well, that's the thing.
You know, I guess if you dial 411, you get James Earl Jones, and if you dial that number, maybe you get a human.
I don't know.
We'll try the 5551180 number.
You've just leaked the fact that James Earl Jones is not human.
What, that wasn't well-known?
I thought that was well-known.
This version is way from creation.
City and listings, please.
I'm sorry, what company did I reach?
This is directory assistance.
For which phone company?
AT&T.
AT&T.
Oh, I see.
I dialed 5551180.
Is that your number?
I'm not sure, sir.
Okay, because usually when I dial 411, I get Verizon.
I'm just wondering how I got AT&T.
I'm not sure, sir.
Okay.
Sorry.
All right.
Thanks anyway.
You're welcome, sir.
Bye-bye.
She wasn't very nice, was she?
Should have asked her where she was.
Okay, I can make another call, I guess.
But, you know, these information calls are mounting up.
I don't want to make too many.
We'll make some from other phones, I guess.
The first one sounded Canadian, although I'm not sure.
Uh-huh.
And the second one was Southern, for sure.
So, okay, so dialing 55511401180 gets you a long-distance company.
Do we use AT&T?
Well, hold on.
I can find that out pretty easily by dialing 1-700-555-4141.
Oh, I hope that's not blocked.
That would be nasty if that was blocked because that doesn't cost anything.
Thank you for choosing Quest Communications.
There you go.
Queue 7.
We use Quest.
We don't use AT&T.
Thank you for choosing Quest Communications.
All right.
We heard you.
Get out of there.
Let's try one other thing.
There's a number to dial for regional, to find out what your regional company is.
And I think that's just 700-1212.
Is that what it is?
Only one way to find out.
Yeah.
You know, I totally forget what the number is.
I think I know.
It's 700-
It might be that.
I might be completely wrong.
I might need some help from a listener here.
Well, it's ringing.
For the regional phone company.
We're sorry.
We're sorry.
Your call cannot be completed as dialed.
Please check the number and dial again or call your operator to help you.
This is a recording.
Okay.
We don't know what company that came from.
Let me try one other number and then I'm going to give up on this.
We're sorry.
Your call cannot be completed as dialed.
Okay.
I don't know what our regional company is.
We may never know.
But we did find out some interesting things here.
Thanks very much, Al, for sending in that letter that got us started and all that.
That's amazing.
You know, you can still play with phones.
It's a lot of fun and it's usually harmless.
Mostly.
Not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but passing this link along from Cryptome,
one of our favorite sites, www.cryptome.org.
That's spelled C-R-Y-P-T-O-M-E.
This is really something.
If anybody has a Nextel phone.
Anybody have a Nextel phone?
Not here.
Okay.
But a lot of people do because I hear them.
Apparently.
You know, it's amazing.
Nextel phones, just when you think cell phones can't get any more annoying,
now you hear both sides of the conversation on the guy sitting next to you on the train.
You know?
It's like sitting next to a cop or something where they're having a long conversation about all kinds of things.
The good thing about it, though, is that you write down all the information that they pass back and forth.
And then by the time you get off the train, you know this person's entire life.
You know their phone numbers, their wife's name, their kids, their dog's name, everything.
And, you know, you might just leave and say, see you later, George, or whatever.
That's how I got my yacht.
Freak the guy out a little bit.
Anyway, so this is something that was posted on Cryptome.
It's an alert from Nextel.
This is what it says on Cryptome.
The cell phone is being demonized, like the Internet, for being able to track and threaten users.
In the message below, the two addictions are conjoined.
Easy privacy invasion of the two are based on inherent insecurity,
resulting from service providers devising technology for their own purposes, not that of protecting users.
As if nothing can be done to prevent cell phone insecurity,
and that it is always the drug users' fault, never the drug makers' and pushers',
abiding national security requirements to assure access to the system,
sweet privacy protection, a feature of worldwide, etc., etc.
All right.
It goes on a bit more, but we're going to get into the actual thing here.
Nextel alert.
Be advised that yesterday we learned a very disturbing feature about our Nextels.
This actually comes from a Yahoo Group's list known as TSCM-L.
An SFPD, I guess San Francisco Police Department, undercover officer,
who was doing some buys in one of our cases, was compromised for the following reason.
He provided the crook with his Nextel cell phone as a UC contact number.
What's a UC contact number?
Undercover.
Undercover.
Okay, fine.
He changed his voicemail and left a message using his UC name, matching his UC cover, his undercover cover.
Okay.
The crook called the number, and when it rang over to voicemail, he pushed option one.
Option one identifies the owner slash operator of the phone.
If you recall, when you first activated your Nextel,
you had to call in and leave your name or something like that on a Nextel recording.
Anyway, that original voice recording is in everyone's Nextel memory and can easily be accessed.
In our case, the crook got the UC's real name and entered it into Google.
Within minutes, the crook learned that the UC was an SFPD officer who was involved in an officer's shooting.
No, he was an officer involved in a shooting several years ago.
The incident made the paper, and it's forever memorialized on the Internet.
It probably took all of five minutes to figure this out,
and that's without the help of that guy from Queens that lists all the cops.
Well, not necessarily.
Maybe that was the site on the Internet that listed the guy's name.
Maybe.
Maybe.
I guess it's possible.
You see?
You see what happens now?
Boy, a UC was uncovered.
As a side note, I entered my name in Google last night, and it immediately gave links to, among other things, DEA Watch.
Evaluations are posted, the results of every road race I have run, as well as my wife's alumni records,
church newsletters that get posted on their website, etc.
Yeah, try it.
Put your name in Google and see what happens.
Anyway, DEA Tech took the time to figure out how to disable this function on our Nextels.
I advise anyone who does UC work to do the same.
He sent it to a few people in the division who do UC work, but you all should be advised of the same.
I have a feeling I'm not supposed to be reading this.
This is for undercover cops, but I'm reading it anyway,
because I figure people out there might want to go undercover themselves.
Call your cell phone number.
Once your voicemail kicks in, press pound one.
This will verify if your name is recorded from the initial activation.
If this is the case, do the following.
Call your voicemail and enter your code as if retrieving your message.
Hit option number four, personal options.
Hit option number four, personal preferences.
Then hit delete key three to delete name.
Now, you know, this is not a fault of Nextel.
I'm sorry.
This is the fault of the idiot that tried to be undercover after recording his name on his phone.
This isn't a requirement.
They make it sound like a Nextel phone doesn't work unless you have the real name of the person that...
Well, it said that they had to record it upon activation.
I suppose it could not say anything.
When you call your voicemail, that's the first thing it says, record your name.
But if you're an undercover cop and you're going to use that phone number, you don't leave your real name.
You shouldn't be using your normal cell phone for undercover work anyway.
Well, yeah, but assuming that they got this cell phone for that purpose, okay, then don't use your real name.
I mean, that's not a Nextel issue.
That's a dumb cop issue.
I'm sorry.
For the record, this issue applies to other cell phone providers also.
Absolutely.
It sure does.
Now, here's something else.
The same writer writes in.
This is from Scott, by the way.
Thanks, Scott, for all this information.
A caller from a few weeks ago was asking about ANI numbers.
If you call a cell phone with Sprint service and press 2 after dropping it to voicemail, you'll be read back the number from where you're calling.
Do you know that?
We should try it.
Let's try it.
I'm going to call you, Mike, because you have a Sprint phone, don't you?
You're not going to call me on the air.
Yeah, man.
I'm not going to call your number on the air, but I'm going to call your phone on the air.
I can do that.
I don't want to talk to you.
Well, no, you won't have to talk to me.
That's the point.
You're not supposed to.
Turn your phone off.
That way it won't ring.
Let's see what happens.
I'm going to press 2, and that should tell me what my phone number is.
I imagine this only works with people that have numeric paging.
Let's see.
Very nice ring, Mike.
You did turn the phone off, didn't you?
Well, that's why it's ringing.
It's not ringing here, though, is it?
It's just ringing.
I'm just going to press pound.
Maybe it didn't work because I'm calling from the AI phone system and it doesn't recognize it or something.
I don't know.
But it didn't work.
It didn't work.
Try it from another phone later, I guess, or if anybody wants to try it now, feel free.
Anyway, this person claims this is similar to the suggestion someone gave about calling a cell phone and looking at the caller ID to get the number,
except you don't need physical access to the cell phone.
I've heard it work.
I've heard it work on T-Mobile, actually, where it reads back your number.
I think it's based on caller ID, not ANI, though.
You know what?
You might be right about that, which explains something because I don't think BAI sends caller ID, but it does send ANI.
Okay.
So for those people who don't know what we're talking about, basically, caller ID is what you can block with STAR 67,
and not everybody has the ability to send that out, especially behind a PBX.
However, ANI is something that when you call an 800 number, for instance, that gets reflected as the number that is being called from.
That cannot be blocked.
They almost always see your phone number.
And when we dialed that 555 number before, I have a feeling ANI was passed and not caller ID.
Because when BAI calls me and I have caller ID, I never see the phone number.
I only see unavailable.
All right.
So that could explain that.
So that may very well work.
We'll just have to try it from a real phone.
Someone else sent in a link to Krypton, wanting us to know about their eyeballing series.
If you go to www...
Actually, you don't need the three Ws.
Just krypton.org, C-R-Y-P-T-O-M-E dot org slash eyeball dot H-T-M.
And you'll see all kinds of things.
The NSA, Navy Communications Stations, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.
All kinds of pictures.
Aerial photography.
It's amazing.
It goes on for five pages.
You guys want to look it over and see if you see anything of interest?
Maybe we can visit it on the computer over here.
Our phone number, 212-209-2900.
And I guess we'll be happy to take your phone calls.
Right after this one story.
From a Danish listener, known as Christian from Copenhagen.
I have a small comment regarding your talk about the finger payment in Piggly Wiggly, I think is what it was, the story.
He said, crazy name in the store chain.
Yeah, it is a crazy name.
I wrote an article in 2002 about biometric systems and faking.
When it was announced that a lot of European flight companies like SAS, Scandinavian Airlines, would begin working on implementing biometric techniques in their ports.
I came across a Japanese scientist by the name of Tsutomu Matsumoto.
Another Tsutomu.
Not Tsutomu Shimomura, Tsutomu Matsumoto.
I'm not making a film about him, I promise.
If you go to www....
It says dash here, I don't think it's dash.
I think it's .nlab.jks.ynu.ac.jp.sutomu.html.
Anyway, you'll see that there.
He explained how it was possible to cheat and succeed 8 out of 10 times with this fake fingerprint identification.
He copy molded a finger with gelatin, with a print from a system approved person.
This simple method made him capable of bypassing 11 well-known fingerprint systems.
Then he had an object with a fingerprint on, it's a different method, which was scanned and printed on a transparent film.
This was used to mold another gelatin finger.
The same 11 known systems could be cheated 8 out of 10 times.
It's that simple.
The methods only require skills and fine molding techniques and nothing else.
The fingerprint method should be the most banal of all biometric techniques.
More advanced fingerprint techniques also check for parameters such as temperature, pulse, color profiling.
But I'm not sure if this will be included in your cheeky wiki store or whatever the name is.
Probably not.
So you can really defeat those guys at wiggly whatever.
If nobody notices that you're wearing gelatin on your fingers.
They don't look.
Go ahead.
The city of Aliso Viejo in California wants you to know that dihydrogen monoxide can cause medical problems in humans and even destroy property.
Officials of the South Orange County City were embarrassed to learn Friday, however, that they had tripped over an internet hoax about dihydrogen monoxide, also known as water, in an effort to be environmentally correct.
A proposed law that was scheduled to go before the city council next week would have banned foam cups and containers at events requiring city permits, presumably because dihydrogen monoxide, that dangerous chemical, was used in their preparation.
How did they do this?
Seriously, how did they fall for this?
It's embarrassing, says city manager David J. Norman.
We had a paralegal who did bad research.
This goes beyond bad research.
This is like creating bad research.
What did they find?
Where did they find this?
One website.
I don't know if this is the website they saw, but one important website where you can learn about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide is dhmo.org.
Is that a real site?
That's a real website, and you can learn all about dihydrogen monoxide.
But didn't the hoax information come from some sixth grader or something like that?
Well, it's taken a life of its own, I guess.
I think that's where they went to get the research in the first place, was some kind of a joke that some kid did.
And when you have governmental people doing research on the web, and they're getting their notes from some sixth grader writing an essay that's a joke, you have to wonder how much other research is being tainted in this way.
Here's the flaws.
It's a flaw in education.
I mean, those of us in this room all knew this immediately.
We've either seen the site or, more likely, I can say for three of us at least, we know from taking chemistry in at least high school that dihydrogen monoxide is water.
But the thing is, this is a relatively common occurrence.
People are confronted with something, and they don't realize what it is.
There was a case about six years ago on the Long Island Expressway where there was a spill of a dangerous chemical that got swept up by guys in hazmat suits.
The chemical was...
What do you think?
It turned out to be rust.
So that would be what? Ferrous oxide.
And the specks on ferrous oxide under OSHA, you know, this stuff can combine with the aluminum to cause explosions.
Yeah, okay, it's a big ingredient in thermite.
But the point is, in its normal state, it's nothing.
Same thing with dihydrogen monoxide.
Yes, you can have dihydrogen monoxide poisoning.
Drink 30 gallons. You'll die.
Wow, that's sobering news, and I'm sure we'll have to take action.
212-209-2900 is our phone number.
Let's hear from our listeners.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Hello.
How you doing?
Hi.
This is about, again, privacy.
If I remember correctly, there was an announcement by TiVo that the Janet Jackson halftime event was the most watched segment they'd ever seen.
You're talking about TiVo?
Yeah.
Okay.
And, you know, to put it up immediately, the question is, do they know not just what programs you watch, but how often and which sections of them you watch?
They know the aggregate data, but they don't know what each individual has.
Well, that's what they claim.
I mean, how hard would it be for them to actually keep that information?
It wouldn't be hard, unless they're breaking their privacy statement.
Because, among other things, I believe you have to have it hooked up undirectedly, so to speak, to some phone line.
Yeah, that's how the information is transmitted to them.
However, there are systems that are being installed that actually use a satellite uplink now to send information.
Downlink, I guess.
No, uplink to send it to the satellite.
So unplugging it from a phone line may not necessarily protect you in the future.
Well, you'd have to have satellite service, wouldn't you?
That's what we're talking about, satellite service of that.
For cable, yeah, that's different.
Because you have the cable running into your house, that can be used to go both ways, too.
And the other aspect, of course, is if, like many other things that are starting to happen,
that the software in your consumer appliance can be updated remotely,
that doesn't mean that at some point in the future, or if they get a court order from the federal government or something,
they can't download something to your TiVo box to, let us say, monitor you more closely.
They can.
I mean, what exactly the federal government is going to do with your TV viewing habits is unclear,
but it's not something that can be proven to be impossible.
It depends on what else it's hooked up to, too.
You know, if you have one of these automated houses, computerized houses,
and you have a home net with maybe some cameras to show, like, who's at the front door, or maybe a couple cameras.
If you're Bill Gates, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it's getting a lot cheaper all the time.
He was on the bleeding edge for that.
There are at least three or four consumer magazines on home automation,
and people want to not only keep up with the Joneses, but to bid and raise on them.
Well, that's what it's all about, is being the first on your block to get something.
But in this particular case, you might be the first to be watched in ways no one has ever thought of being watched before.
But it's an interesting point for me to be concerned about.
Thanks for that call.
In terms of, I mean, the government wanting to know what you're watching,
it could have some, for them, in their eyes, it could have some applications.
I mean, they want to know what you're checking out in the library.
You could be possibly watching too much heavy metal.
Maybe that will make you violent.
Well, how about this?
You know those little two-letter codes that you have in describing programs, violence, sexual content?
You know there's one for rape.
There was one for rape.
Now, supposing you program your TiVo to only record programs that have rape scenes in them.
I'm not, you know, this is something that somebody could do.
Now, don't you think that the local police, in searching for some kind of sex criminal,
might be interested in that information to help track down somebody?
I could definitely see that happening.
It seems to me that it's much more likely to be used once they have a suspect to try and get dirt on that person,
rather than looking through everyone in, say, upper Manhattan that is interested in rape.
Either way, the data is being saved somehow.
If you have some sort of database of it, it wouldn't be too difficult to figure out,
I mean, by looking at everyone who, you can narrow down the search quite a bit.
This assumes, of course, that rapists have TiVos, which I don't know if that's true.
Well, you know, these days a lot of people are getting that kind of technology.
I don't know.
And what people are failing to take into account is that televisions are turning into two-way devices.
People think that it's just like looking at something over the air.
It's not. It's different. It's totally different.
Also, related to that, the person mentioned the Janet Jackson case,
and, of course, all the paranoia from broadcasters that has resulted because of that.
It's going beyond that.
The overreaction is simply unbelievable.
I found out through somebody, I won't give any more information,
that Showtime, which is going to be broadcasting a Britney Spears concert live,
Showtime is a premium service.
Do you know they've installed delays in case she does something?
Showtime, a premium service that has nudity and four-letter words,
they are worried, even though they don't fall under the FCC at all,
they're worried about a backlash.
This is what you're seeing.
Even the networks that people pay for this kind of thing,
they're worried about that kind of backlash.
I don't want to take up a lot of time because it is somewhat off-topic,
though incredibly important,
but the main thrust of people opposing the FCC
and standing up for free speech rights tend to be supporters of Howard Stern.
So if you have Internet access, I think the site is freestern.com.
It may be something else, but just do a search.
I think you said it backwards.
I think you could say Howard Stern supporters tend to be people that do that,
but I don't think anybody that stands up to the FCC
is going to be a Howard Stern supporter.
I think that's kind of enriching it a bit.
The current crop who are standing up against the Janet Jackson backlash
tend to overlap highly with Howard Stern supporters, I would think.
In that particular, yeah, okay,
it does make them Howard Stern supporters in and of themselves.
They agree on something.
Okay, but Howard Stern, let me rephrase it.
The next high-profile target seems to be Howard Stern.
All right, fine. We'll get into this more later.
So look it up on the net and stand up.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Oh, we offended that person.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Yes, I have a cell phone story to tell.
We know you do, and you always tell it.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Go ahead.
Oh, hi.
How are you doing?
Yeah, this is incredibly important.
I think I have figured out why you like snow so much.
Okay, why do I like snow so much?
I think it's either because you have a car
and don't have to walk all the time through the snow.
I like walking through the snow, though.
I walked through the snow today, but go ahead.
Well, okay, then it's the second reason.
Which is?
Then it's because you're submissive.
I'm submissive?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What does that have to do with snow?
It's like you've been off on submitting
and to other people's rules and to the weather.
Okay, well, that's a fascinating analysis there.
I don't know.
Here's the counterexample.
Maybe that's true for Eric, but A, I don't have a car,
and B, I've, well, we don't go into my personal life,
but I'm just the opposite.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Hello?
Yes, go ahead.
Hi there.
On the number identification story,
when you call in to find out what number you're calling from,
did you guys mention 958?
Well, 958 is what we talked about a few weeks ago,
and that's the standard in New York City
and surrounding areas, 958, three-digit code.
Sometimes you have to pad it out with more numbers,
especially from COCOTS and things like that.
That usually tells you directly from the central office
what your phone number is.
There are all kinds of other numbers, too, though.
Yeah, when I was a kid, there used to be a dial-back number.
You'd dial it, a three-digit number, you'd hang up,
and then the phone would ring a minute later.
You usually have to dial the three digits
plus the last four of your phone number and then hang up.
That's usually how it worked.
Okay, great. Thanks a lot.
All right.
Bye.
212-209-2900, and good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello, Emanuel?
I'm sorry?
Emanuel?
You're on the air.
Okay, hi.
I wasn't sure, because you hung up on me quite a few times,
Emanuel, in the past few weeks.
I've hung up on you?
You have no idea.
That's why I was asking you first.
That was the reason, what's his name,
Ripple really targeted you?
I'm only joking. I'm sorry.
Okay, I guess.
What's on your mind?
Okay, I just want to add to what you briefly said
about your credit card.
Anything, by the way, even if a guy asked you
to offer you extra credit and looked at your credit,
it would be counted against you.
And AT&T signs for American Telephone and Telegraph Company,
and also I want to talk to you about fake money,
because last two weeks ago I had a $100 bill.
It was so good, because I really had a good experience with money.
It's counterfeit money?
Yes.
It was so good, it really paid me,
and I'm really good at this stuff,
because I used to work in a bank,
and I used to handle money almost 15 years,
and I can even feel the money,
I can tell right away if it's fake or not.
But it was so good, and when I went to the bank,
I didn't know what I know,
and I took it to a deposit in the bank,
and the bank says, no, it's fake,
and they took it from me,
and they said, we're going to give you a certificate
so you can deduct it from your income tax.
I think that was funny.
So that's all you got was the certificate.
You didn't get the $100 or anything like that.
No, no, no, no, no.
They gave me a certificate,
and then you know what?
The IRS says, no, we don't do that.
Oh, really?
So I lost $100, and I was really, I'm really good at stuff.
It's the same as a crime loss.
Yes.
And by the way, another thing about the swipe cards,
because I found some guys in Brooklyn,
they actually broke the code, some hackers,
for the subway cards.
For metro cards?
The metro card.
They broke it,
and they actually can put any amount of money they want.
They tried to send me this card,
what's it called?
A signature card.
Someone sent it to me for, this is $25.
I did not buy it, because I would have just, you know...
I would like to just investigate and see if something like that actually exists.
Are you sure?
Oh, I don't know.
You don't know until you actually see it.
No, no.
I've seen the guys,
and they actually got even, you know,
they were standing by the turnstile
and let everybody in, charging my dollar.
I think that was funny.
Yeah, that's a common ploy.
So how did, I'm kind of curious,
how did the bank know that it was,
what about the counterfeit bill let them tell that it was?
I mean, if you were able to...
Okay, they exposed it to some kind of light.
Oh, okay.
Because, believe it or not,
I saw the watermark.
Wow.
It felt so good, the paper itself,
the ink was perfect.
It could be a really good scam on the part of the bank.
I saw the watermark.
I saw the, what else do you want me to say?
I mean, I literally look at the watermark
and I see this secret mark on the right-hand side.
I saw it.
What I'm wondering here is,
what recourse do you have as a consumer
if the bank says,
no, this is counterfeit and we're taking it from you,
and you say, no, it's not, this is real.
Is there some sort of court where it gets proven if it's real or not?
No, you can't do nothing.
That's what it sounds like.
It's like a mafia.
You really cannot do anything.
You just take the money and give me this certificate,
which you want to redeem it with the IRS.
Well, at least you have the certificate now.
You can sort of put that on your wall or something.
Well, I called up the IRS.
They said, we don't care about that.
No, this is wrong.
Well, if anyone has a certificate like that,
send it to us.
We care.
Thanks for that call.
Go ahead.
Can I mention one quick thing about the MetroCards?
Someone actually, I don't remember the name,
but someone wrote a thesis about,
they basically reverse-engineered the MetroCard
and analyzed how it worked and what was written on it.
So it's out there.
It's on the Internet.
I'm sure people can find it.
And I'm sure someone could create something to write.
I'm sure you'll bring in the URL next week.
I'll try.
They should tell the MTA,
because apparently the MTA doesn't know how MetroCards work.
No.
There's a private company that does it all.
Cubic in San Diego.
Let's take one more phone call, then we're out of here.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi, am I on the air?
Yes, you are.
If you are, go ahead and make it fast.
Yeah, you actually can reverse-engineer MetroCards.
I lived in Japan for a little while.
And in Koyoyogi Park,
there were various immigrants of various stripes and colors
who would actually sell ten for the price of one.
They could just make them.
Well, you're talking about the Japanese system.
Well, I'm just saying that you can reverse-engineer them and make them.
I don't know about New York,
but I'm just saying that this happened years ago,
so who knows what's happened by now here in the United States.
Okay.
One thing I can tell you, though, is if it does happen,
you'll hear about it here on Off the Hook.
Thanks for that phone call, and we're out of here for this week.
We'll be back again next week.
Our address, othat2600.com.
And I guess if you want to write to us by paper,
Off the Hook, care of WPAI, 120 Wall Street, New York, New York.
1-0-0-0-5.
All right.
Thank you, Jim.
Thank you so much.
Stay tuned for the Personal Computer Show.
See you next week.
[♪ music playing ♪
We have all the time in the world
Time enough for life to unfold
All the precious things life has in store
And we got all the love in the world
And as time goes by you will find
We need nothing more
And every step of the way
You'll find us
With the cares of the world
The happiness
Yeah, we got all the time in the world
And as time goes by you will find
We need nothing more
And every step of the way
You'll find us
With the cares of the world
[♪ music playing ♪
And every step of the way
You'll find us
With the cares of the world
Behind us
Yeah, we got all the time in the world
Mothers are weeping
Lovers are all alone
Mothers are praying
Bring the troops home now!
Saturday, March 20th, on the one-year anniversary of the Iraq War,
a global day of action to say,
Bring the troops home and end the occupation from Iraq to Palestine and everywhere.
Stop the attacks on civil rights and civil liberties.
Money for jobs and schools, not war.
A united, massive demonstration starts at 12 noon at 23rd Street in Madison Avenue.
Call United for Peace and Justice at 212-868-5545.
Or the Answer Coalition at 212-633-6646.
Volunteers are urgently needed.
Pick up posters, stickers, and leaflets.
Join us on the streets March 20th to say,
Bring the troops home now!
[♪ music playing ♪
All the soldiers that have died
Are trying to get home.
All right.
Hey, that's excellent.
That is excellent.
We need to bring the soldiers home.
Right?
You're listening to WBAI.