life appropriate responses to the third anniversary of 9-11 and the broader
question of what communities can do when political leaders appropriate issues for
their own purposes that's Thursday March 25th from 7 to 9 p.m. at the CUNY
Graduate Center 365 5th Avenue at 34th Street admission is free for more
information call 2 1 2 8 1 7 8 2 1 5 that's 2 1 2 8 1 7 8 2 1 5 and at 7
o'clock on the nose you'll sing to WBAI in New York it's time once again for
off the hook
this version this version is way from creation
and again to everybody the program is off the hook man you're listening here
with you on this Wednesday evening you know part of the beauty of radio is that
people on the air have people listening have actually have no idea what's really
going on and boy we had fun tonight didn't we the power is out here at 120
Wall Street for some reason I knew there was trouble and I saw the Con Ed trucks
downstairs you know there was trouble beforehand at least we're not getting
electrocuted walking down the sidewalk you know maybe later for that well we
were not allowed on the sidewalk that's right we had to walk in the street and
then then as if that wasn't enough fun we had to climb all the way up to the
radio station ten flights up and there's people panting and huffing all the way
up and down the stairs I don't understand down the stairs but people
are getting out of breath going downstairs too I saw them boy it's it's
quite a workout isn't it Mike it's lots of fun Jim got here several hours early
yeah and that's how you you learned about it earlier I figured it was a good
idea to you know I kind of I'm kind of sad that you broke the surprise to me I
mean it would have been so much fun for me to arrive and realize then that I had
to climb I was I was ready for it I was in training all afternoon for this yeah
redhack is on his way here he doesn't yet know oh that's good that he has to
climb ten flights of stairs to get to the station but you know what it's worth
it WBA is the kind of radio that you climb ten flights for your time is so
taken up with everything with all you do is as publisher editor yeah you know
I'm so distracted I wouldn't even notice I was climbing ten foot but the point is
the reason I called you is that your time is so taken up that you would have
gotten here at 659 and expected the elevator to the same bus every day the
same people on it it's it's remarkably predictable and always get here at the
same moment which is late well yeah but it's you know it wouldn't made a
difference let's put it that way okay well you know what this is it feels
wrong what we're doing feels wrong we have light in the studio everybody else
is dark how about some solidarity here I don't know we won't be able to we will
never have this opportunity again and think when redhat comes to the door to
find an entirely blackened studio wait a minute let me get my flashlight we have
two lights here let's let's let's let's kill them all right and I'll try to read
these stories somehow and we'll get Bernie s on the phone too maybe he can
read stories don't unplug it just turn it off because we'll never figure out
where the plug is all right now we're going to get a dial tone here and
thank you thanks for t-dub we have a method of dialing now that we don't hear
the tones over the air so we'll be able to call Bernie s his number I can't see
the magic button anymore okay that's fine I can do it I can do it without the
flashlight and now we're dialing his number of course the only light in the
in the rest of the station was previously that which leaked out from
the studio so now they're in the dark too oh yeah now I have to enter the
secret code I'm not sure this is a good idea really now this light in the
hallway it keeps flashing on and off every couple of seconds but you know
what if you're not prepared if you don't have flashlights how will you be
prepared for when when the terrorists strike next this this my friends can be
a drill we're here in the dark oh they're being funny next door there oh
hey how you doing oh hey we have Jeff and Red Hector both the row out of
breath Bernie are you on the phone did you make it okay yeah Bernie you don't
sound out of breath at all all right well no I've just been through five
countries but I'm not out of breath well we've just been through ten flights so I
think I think we win yeah the powers out the powers out here in the building for
some reason we're doing the show in darkness out of solidarity because this
is the only room with with lights but not anymore who is pedaling the generator
I don't know well I don't know where the power is coming from but I thought that
Jeff might be a bike riding a bicycle generator it just goes to show how how
easily it can all you know come crashing down you know just one Con Ed crew
that's enough to do it Jeff how you doing I'm uh I'm gonna live the 10
flights yeah 10 flights that's just the beginning the end of it it took me two
hours we sat in the tunnel on a bus for two hours on it has a long reach how did
they affect that you've got me I just started out in the tunnel in the tunnel
I and I was in Bergen County 430 I get on a bus 637 we land at the Port
Authority even the driver was amazed he said I never seen a tank of this long
Bernie yeah now you've been overseas are you gonna try and tell us that you've
been through something oh well yeah Leslie and I went through a lot but we
didn't have to run up ten flights of stairs uh-huh well the day is young the
day is young well we're fine we're dark by choice that's a big flashlight are
you allowed to have candles there uh yeah let's light up some candles that
that sounds like fun no this this is I think a good test to show that no matter
what no matter what adversity we have to face we will come through it shining
because we have the telephone still and we well we can we can always talk with
our voices actually Jim I think I will borrow your flashlight just to see I
told you well I mean you know come on let's be reasonable I print them out in
Braille I should have done that I have a little something to share as well go
ahead well I didn't mean to shine that directly in your eyes that's okay I had
to make some flights this week and of course I'd chose the bad weather to do
it you were traveling to yes okay I was out in Indianapolis I remember last year
was San Diego mm-hmm this year is Indianapolis and they're very different
places but much much different so one city a year that's what you're doing
pretty much I don't want to overdo it all right Fort Worth next year maybe no
actually next year is Baltimore Baltimore in Portland okay
with Portland Oregon okay I'm sorry one of the things that because of the number
of flights that were canceled and rerouting and new planes I wound up with
a bunch of boarding passes so many that when I came home I thought well I must
have enough to get home you can board any plane you want exactly I went
through the wrong terminal first went through their security with a path
boarding pass dated the 16th of of this month okay got through no problem no
problem no problem and then realized I'm supposed to be somewhere else went back
over there you know not knowing pulled out the same boarding pass so there's a
blue mark up here where the one guy makes his little check uh-huh this guy
circled this area by the time I got to the gate and the guy says well where's
your thing I said here he takes it uh-huh puts it under the machine and
says oh this is no good I said oh well I said well it was good enough to get
through to security checkpoints he said you're kidding I said no look and I
showed him the marks and he said ah and they evacuated terminal huh no no but
this is what TSA today TSA today that's a good feature I think I would think we
should publish a zine yeah oh they're attacked I didn't see you over there
sorry well no I just had to shine it on his face okay go ahead you're gonna turn
the lights on Mike fine fine but let it be known that you folded first I could
have done the whole show right it's known redhack get catch your breath man
yeah I'm catching it I was unexpected I I had a pretty uneventful trip here
that's why we get to the show half an hour early well so that we can catch our
breath after we go right all right all right lights are back on in in this
studio but not in the rest of the studio I feel like you know part of the
privileged upper class here it's the only time in my life I guess I'll ever
feel that I want to say I stayed with him every step of the way it's true you
got him up the stairs in you all right good for you he did pull a handed head
at the end but I was I was right but that was when we got to 10 he kept
running up to 11 and 12 no no he does things like that I know I don't like
spinal tap yeah all right Bernie tell us something about your trip what were you
doing out of the country well Laszlo and I went to cover the
CBIT conference which is the world's largest information technology and
telecommunications conference in the world and there were it was a massive
event there were 600,000 attendees wait wait wait wait stop stop 600,000
attendees did you just say 600,000 attendees at this conference they have
an entire city in Hanover Germany a city within a city it's called Expo
City and is any conference that big ever anywhere I've never heard of something I
mean Dayton Hamvention is huge that's 50,000 people right nothing that's like
a fly spec compared to the CBIT conference well if you imagine the
Jacob Javits Center that building of that size multiply that by 25 buildings
with roads and and lakes in between them and train stations coming in and
out of it it's incredibly are you sure you're not counting the population as
well this is just for the event alone 600,000 attendees and there's a lot of
interesting technologies there do they charge money for this thing oh yeah well
last one I went as journalist so of course there's no charge for that okay
well there's probably about ten of those but as far as the actual attendees what
is it what did it cost to get in you know there's a question I think just for
average individuals to come I think it was 50 50 euro 50 euros okay Mike you're
the math person can you multiply 50 times 600,000 and find out how much
money these guys made a lot I came up with the same answer
that is something they did have significantly greater expenses
no I would imagine with 300,000 600,000 attendees let's cut the attendees and
one of the interesting things is there were a pavilions from different
countries there and I saw something you'd never see it at a conference in
the United States and that was the pavilions from countries such as Iran
and Jordan and Syria which I guess are on the list of terrorist nations u.s.
described terrorist nation and all these pavilions had interesting
technologies they were demonstrating those countries I just want to say you
know if any of our listeners are listening from terrorist countries and
you're on the official terrorist list we will let you into five fifth help for
free well we will I mean good but at least we can do not we're not endorsing
we're just endorsing the citizens who happen to live in unfortunate
terroristic regimes and figure they could use a break
well there's a break from having to go through the whole infest system coming
into this country you have to be checked every which way even Laszlo was
scrutinized but came into the country a few hours ago he was pulled aside and
put into a room with a with a bunch of foreigners and asked why you know a
bunch of questions including oh why why didn't you fly to JFK why did you fly
into Newark instead of JFK and what kind of question is that well that that's
what Laszlo said but they eventually let him go but he said he felt really
shaken up by the whole experience but then he said Bernie you're the one
supposed to get stopped by security how come you weren't and I was with my
background security guards that I hope he told them that you're the suspicious
one they should be talking to you not him I hope you say that but I was leaving
Amsterdam today at a connecting flight from from us see where were we were so
many places we left Copenhagen this morning and that flew into Amsterdam and
got a connecting flight to Newark but departing from Amsterdam they went
through my carry-on bag and found my my frequency counter which is a an opto
electronic spout very good unit that Jeff has as well and they were very
suspicious about this device it took them about 10 or 15 minutes to to decide
that it was not something dangerous and they turned it on and it started beeping
and that kind of startled them and then then the guy looking at it brought put
his two-way radio to his lips to call for assistance to help him identify the
device and as soon as he heat up the microphone on his handheld radio the
frequency counter beep you've used my frequency counter you know what it's
like something it beeps and shows the clashes and things and he like looked at
it twice like what's going on what's going on you've activated it and in the
process he inadvertently handed me the frequency that he was using to
communicate with his other security people so that was logged into the
frequency counter and by the way the the Dutch security people are using
frequency of 43.250 megahertz and I after I got back from the after I
explained to them what it was and and they were okay with that I got back in
the plane and got my scanner out of my pocket and punched that frequency in and then
listened to the Dutch security you know scrutinize other people of course it
was in Dutch and I couldn't understand what they were saying but it was still a
fun experience. Did you tell the guy that when he turned on his radio that that's
what he was doing is capturing his frequency? Yes as a matter of fact he
asked what it was and I told him it's a radio test equipment and and he said
well how does it work I said well did you hear that beep when you just used
your radio he said yeah and I said well that frequency there is the
transmit frequency that you just transmitted on and he said oh and he
didn't mind that you had that information no no he didn't he didn't
seem to quite comprehend everything it was just something new to him but
eventually he was I think it was just concerned that it wasn't because it one
of these devices looks very much like you'd see it like in the movies you see
a bomb it's usually some black box with a with a visual display on it and
blinking lights and beeps and all that right so and we have black box with
wires and you know if people watch too many Hollywood movies think that's what
a bomb looks like so um they you know they were just concerned for that reason
but I showed them you know what it was and how it worked and they were okay
with it then I don't know if I would have the same level of understanding in
this country but the Dutch were okay they're pretty open to technology there
so it was good. Well you took that piece of technology out of this country in the
first place didn't you? That's true and I brought it back so there you go. All right.
But there was so much other interesting thing to this conference one of the
things that struck me most was there were an awful lot of people walking around
with the Bluetooth earpieces in their ears these are these what the new
wireless communications per-range wireless communications so there's
always people walking around looking like Lieutenant Nakura from Star Trek
with this just this thing sticking out of their ear with no wire which
communicates with their cell phone and something that was really intriguing is
there were a lot of demonstrations of new voice over IP technologies
specifically wireless phones like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi phones they use
voice over IP and these just look just like regular cell phones except it uses
Wi-Fi and voice over IP so you can just take one of these phones to some
hotspot and have a voice over IP conversation with anyone else that has
a voice over IP phone so that was kind of interesting. Pretty neat. Is there a
website people can find out more about this conference with 600,000 attendees?
Go to cbit.de that's c-e-b-i-t dot d-e-d-e meaning for Germany and you
will find all kinds of information the conference is going on a couple more
days but it's a I don't know if any of our US listeners will be able to get there in time but it's
every year in Hanover Germany it's the only place where they can hold an event
of that size so it was quite intriguing and the Fraunhofer Institute was there
with the people that non-profit organization in Germany that
invented the mp3 technology they were demonstrating all kinds of interesting
new applications of technology and my favorite one was something that would
they had a camera that would sample your facial expressions you would you
would sort of read some script and it would sample your facial expressions in
your voice and then you could using some algorithms it could sort of emulate
your voice and your facial expressions and basically make you could make
someone you could get you can create a video of someone saying something that
they never said using their own facial expressions and they had they had
samples of George W Bush in a computer and we're making him say all sorts of
interesting things like maybe the truth or something did he try well that would
be really a stretch to get him it would be but there's all kinds of it we spent
three days walking all day long looking at those everything there and we still
couldn't see it all so well I recommend anybody who's interested in any aspect
of computers electronics telecommunications if they can make it to
the CBIT conference next year it's well worth it because it's just it's just an
awesome amount of technology on display well maybe next year we'll get a million
people there if we promote it on this show in two years we'll have the entire
population of the world converge on Hanover Germany well entire population
Germany maybe okay last night last night I joined up with some 20 some off the
hook listeners in Christiania Oh Christiania one of my favorite places
uh-huh they actually listen to us in in that commune they do Wow
they could be listening right now and they probably are if they listen to it
they listen to it every week they said it's a Andreas and trolls and Daniel we
had a few beers with them in a in a little nice little hut there in
Christiania which for listeners who don't know is a sort of a community
that's part of Copenhagen but back in the 70s a bunch of just radicals and
people who just wanted to live differently decided to take over some
old army barracks and quite a bit of land actually and they've pretty much
managed to put their own community together community together over the
past few decades and everything works they have you know their own
telecommunications electricity and and food and restaurants and it's not it's
not you know the government of Christiania the government of Copenhagen
has just sort of taken a hands-off approach until very recently when last
week 60 people were arrested in a massive raid you're kidding and no it
was a huge a huge raid but one of the taxi cab drivers was telling us about
this and then and Christiania people telling us about his Andreas told
studies said their their government is increasingly right-wing and restrictive
and oppressive and arrested 60 people who are still in jail for apparently
selling a mild you know everybody's like competing with each other it's
like a marketplace there's signs everywhere say just say no to hard drugs
of course and and you know they in fact they will physically remove anyone from
Christiania people who live in Christiania will physically remove
anyone who is selling or using hard drugs mm-hmm yeah I mean it's just a bad
thing it's it's an interesting mix of two cultures too because in Denmark rules
are very important rules about everything you don't cross against the
light people are constantly reminding you to follow the rules this place
obviously doesn't follow the rules but it comes in to play with another Danish
custom of tolerance so they tolerate these people who aren't following the
rules and therefore they get to coexist so the people are still living there no
one was evicted all the people arrested apparently a bulldozer came through and
and put you know all those along that area called Pusher Street where there's
all those stands people selling things a bulldozer came through and mowed them
all over really yes so those those stands are those vendor stands are no
longer there they were mowed over by bulldozer last week that's that's pretty
disturbing because that's it sounds like the place itself is in danger now so but
but apparently there's some developers who are trying to take control of that
property and build high-rise condos on the great that's just what we need I'm
not quite sure I caught it so they sell hash but they're they don't they don't
let people sell anything more yeah no hard drugs no cocaine no heroin things
like that but you know other things are not that big a deal Mike you've been
there too haven't you yes fun place isn't it it's an interesting place yeah
I mean if you even tried that in this country it would be destroyed in about
five minutes well it's it you can't by definition try because what makes the
place interesting is that it's long-lasting and that it's grown right
whereas you know any one person selling drugs on the street in New York would be
you know thrown into Rikers Island for a long long time I don't give the
impression that that's the main thing that they do there they I mean that's
just one of the side things it's a big thing it's it's one of the things they
sell many things it just happens to be one of the things they sell CDs as well
you know it's a large community it's experimental it's just interesting to
see that people have managed to put a working community together that's
separate from the Danish government and they have their own social services in
there and their own trash collection and all those sorts of things they've all
managed to do this on their own as a as an offshoot of Copenhagen and that it
was that was what I found most intriguing it was just an experimental
community that works maybe their electricity distribution works almost as
well as Con Ed's yeah I'm not sure how they up Con Ed radio I keep hearing like
your Con Ed radio I'm hearing something I think Mike here's it too you're
hearing Con Ed radio I'm hearing something I'm not hearing any where is
Bernie physically located at the moment oh I'm hearing something from from the
phone oh is that through yeah yeah Bernie is currently heading south on the New
Jersey Turnpike in an airport limousine van taking me back to Philadelphia and
that driver has a two-way radio does he not and he does you probably heard that
in the background that's what I'm actually a next tell a next telephone oh
god those things are so annoying but I have one I have one other very important
piece of information from CBIT there was an awful lot of companies
they're demonstrating a new biometric identification technologies
fingerprint recognition iris recognition facial geometry all those
sorts of things and a lot of companies that displaying RFID technologies and a
lot of our interest or listeners were interested in RFID chips that sort of
thing well I found a company that was showing off their RFID chip technology
and I was looking at their brochure I showed a picture of a of a nondescript
passport with an RFID chip in it and I said what countries are still are using
RFID chips in their passports and he said well oh the woman actually she
said that the time the title government of Thailand is using RF are there our
RFID chips and their passwords passports now and I said what about the u.s. they
said she said well we're in negotiations with the US government now and we expect
to have our they expect if they're supposed to have RFID chips and US
passports starting next year so that's a very scary development in my mind yeah
I guess maybe it's good idea to renew your passport now so you get another
eight years that's what I was that's just what I was thinking so if you get
your passport renewed before too far next year it won't be instantly
recognizable just by walking these things the way these RFID chips work in
a time in the Thai passports and it's apparently the similar technology in the
US passports it's a coil of wire that's about two inches by three inches in a
rectangle with many many turns maybe fifty or so turns of wire in a two by
three roughly a two by three rectangle and then there's a little chip that's
connected to the two ends of the wire and energy is imposed onto the coil by
radio emitting devices that emit a digital signal the chip picks up through
this antenna and there's enough energy induced into the coil for the chip to
reflect back it's identity it's unique identification code so um if you could
just if you had a passport that had one of these devices in it as you will if
you get a passport in the US next year apparently if you can just walk past
any place that has one of these transponders and it will know who you
are so I imagine that people will start wanting to wrap their US
passports in tinfoil or some other shielding Bernie what happens if you if
you play around with that little thing in there if you start bending it in
different directions or if you accidentally put it in the microwave
well that too obviously but I mean I'm just saying if you access it or either
remove it or just you know do different things to it what could you what kind of
effect could you have well then you're convicted of passport tamper obviously
that but that's one thing I'm sure it's a crime to tamper with a passport but um
I don't know I guess if you disabled it they could they could just say well I
guess it broke and I would certainly not try too carefully to avoid damaging
the RFID chip in my passport you never know no do you know anything about the
range of of the detectors they're looking from what I saw demonstrated it
looks like the range is a maybe 10 to 20 feet depending on the how they have the
on the coil uh-huh interesting I tell you driving to shut up by the way it's
very annoying okay let's let's go over a couple of while Bernie's being driven in
first-class style there let's go over a couple of news stories that have been
hitting the press this week and then I'll take some phone calls in a little
bit this is something I think will concern anybody with a cell phone do you
know that cell phone directory assistance is about to start that's
right this is a story that is not too many places but basically this year
they're expecting the cellular phone industry is expected to launch a
wireless directory assistance service that seeks to include more than 70% of
the nation's 156 million cellular numbers in a database that's almost one
for every half person isn't it Wow while wireless numbers will not be
published in a book anyone dialing 411 directory assistance on any phone will
be able to get almost any wireless number the so-called directory could be
available by the end of the year the wireless industry is saying that five
five of the six of the wireless carriers are part of this whole deal the change
would vastly alter a peculiarity of modern communications wireless calling
may be taking the place of traditional phone service but its numbers remain a
mostly private affair many people are within reach at all times through all
manner of communication the search for each other's contact information becomes
more and more difficult as many email addresses and most wireless numbers have
gone unlisted and remain largely private it turns out it turns out also that you
may have already agreed to be listed in a phone book regardless of you know what
you want many service agreements include clauses under a section labeled privacy
that allow the cellular company to use their name and number in a directory
some like T-Mobile's contract say that the customer may be charged a fee to
keep their number unlisted when a consumer signs his wireless contract he
agrees in essence to be included in the directory so check your contract there
if you didn't throw it out and you may find you agreed to be part of this AT&T
wireless is contract also says it could charge a fee for inclusion in directory
listings or to be unlisted or unpublished so they're gonna charge you
no matter what those who wish to remove their consent may notify us in writing
they say at an address provided in a different section of the contract and
Nextel's contract is similar Verizon wireless customers also sign contracts
to give the company permission to list their name and number but Verizon says
it will not include its 36 million subscribers in a directory we take our
position very seriously to protect our customers and the use of their service
said John Johnson of Verizon wireless spokesman we think it ought to be left
up to the individual customer to have a wireless number published we have no
plans to make our customers wireless numbers available but other companies I
guess are gonna be different I'm fine with this if it's an option I mean some
people might want their you know their wireless numbers to be in the phone book
but what I really don't get is this I don't understand it with wired phones
either is this a non-publication fee I mean can you imagine if this concept
were you know expanded to other areas if you write a book money not to print
write a book you have to pay for it to not to be published I mean that this
could revolutionize all kinds of things certainly true certainly true and you
know what's what's interesting though is that there's going to be a period of
time however short it may be a week a month a year where all kinds of private
numbers for senators and and and you know celebrities of all sorts are gonna
be listed in some director because they didn't know to unlist themselves that's
gonna be a fun period what's also interesting is that you don't you don't
necessarily have to sign a contract that says that you allow your cellular
carrier to publish your name and number in a directory because what what these
carriers seem to do from my experience is that if you sign your contract they'll
change they'll change things in that contract and just send you some fine
print thing with your bill saying oh we've made all these extra changes I
don't know how many people read those things but basically the contracts they
may they're subject to change whenever we feel like it okay well that's
something to be concerned with if you have a cell phone check into that this
story which we missed last week which I think is pretty interesting that moved
in the Associated Press an ambitious effort to create a central terrorist
suspect database for use by all US federal and local officials has been
struggling for months because of challenges as mundane as merging
Microsoft spreadsheets and as sensitive as protecting people's privacy Attorney
General John Ashcroft said in September that the terrorist screening center
one-stop shopping every federal terrorist screener is working off the
same page will be operational by last December 1st there are federal agencies
that keep lists of terrorist suspects in Microsoft Excel well yeah you know what
else are you gonna use something open-source basically Texas
representative Jim Turner the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security
Committee is skeptical that this is gonna get done in a timely fashion said
the database's completion is way overdue the critical linchpin of
identifying terrorists has yet to be put in place in a functional way he said you
need a place where local state and federal law enforcement personnel can
have access real-time to a terrorist watch list two years is too long
Senator Joe Lieberman the panel's senior Democrat criticized the labor-intensive
and obviously risk-prone work of checking airplane flight manifests
against a dozen current terrorist watch lists as was reportedly the case during
the Christmas high alert right now it's still a very cumbersome and time
consuming process now when completed this database is supposed to show to
allow any government official from a customs agent at an airport to a state
trooper looking for speeders to check the name of someone they have screened
or stopped if the name is on the watch list the official can then call a phone
number for further information the outcomes will vary at a point of entry
the person in question could be turned away at a traffic stop the police
officer may make a notation of where the person was for more serious situations
where the check name matches that of a known terrorist the official may detain
the person and wait for a member of the federal joint terrorism task force to
arrive how many of them are floating around well for now for now about a
dozen databases from nine agencies are being massaged and merged I guess that's
the that's what they call it officials are studying whether to use the State
Department's tip-off watch list as the basic architecture you guys know about
the tip-off watch list from the State Department let's look into that FBI
director Robert Mueller has compared combining the information to lining up
the colors on a Rubik's Cube something he has yet to achieve he said it all
right I can't do that yeah but you're not director of the FBI that's true some
of the problems are quite mundane one law enforcement official speaking on
condition of anonymity so you know it's gonna be something good said a tricky
problem is sorting out what is a duplicate and what criteria should be
used to develop the list given all the available information why would you want
to be identified saying something like that that wasn't really I think once you
had the information put together you could see what's a duplicate by what's
next to each other once you've sorted it yeah yeah that's true well one issue is
that a lot of these people have non names that are not traditionally written
in the Latin alphabet so there's multiple spelling well that's something
that Elizabeth Rinskov Parker former general counsel for the CIA and NSA said
she said the methods used by intelligence and law enforcement who are
the main contributors to the database are different intelligence tries to
gather as much information as possible while law enforcement assembles evidence
fit for a prosecution but she says it's hard to decipher Chinese names they all
sound the same she said that right here look it over yourself last line that's
that's the kind of mentality going into these things what's Fox News well no I
should from the Associated Press I just printed it from Fox News because it's
the only one I had a printer friendly version okay let's look at some listener
mail and you can write us listen to mail OTH at 2600.com or you can send us
listener mail off the hook care of W you ready Jim okay off the hook care of WBA
I 120 Wall Street where the lights are out New York New York 1 0 0 0 5 did I
mention we're on the 10th floor yes we are okay 10 flights up yeah I don't
think the mailman's gonna carry the lights are still out by the way our
lights are on but everybody else in the studio is just bumping into each other
and cussing and things like that and the whole building to not just us yes when
you got here were you able to get just come down the street and walk in or do
you have to go I had to walk all the way around on the FDR Drive they made me
climb up onto the where the traffic was come down again and and and go in the
building sign in you still have to sign in even though you can't see what you're
signing and and you didn't sign in I'll go right back downstairs and sign in he
was very understanding we have to have our lists we must keep our lists Oh
Emanuel yes your transportation and when I had a very interesting experience the
other day we were on a train from Hamburg Germany to Copenhagen and we
were told that we would have to get off the train and get onto a ferry but not
in that order oh you took the train from Hamburg to
Copenhagen yeah that's a great train isn't it it was amazing this train pulled
into the ferry mm-hmm this three-car train drives into the ferry the ferry
opens up the mouth opens the train drives into the boat and drives off and
no it sails off with the train inside the boat you mean the boat yeah the
train inside but you got it right and the interesting thing is the the train
gets there last and leaves first which is kind of cool yeah and not only that
I don't if you notice this but but while probably because they're speaking Danish
and German you probably didn't notice it but while you're on the boat the train
calls everybody back it takes over the PA system of the boat and says all train
passengers come back because we're gonna leave soon yeah we heard that yeah they
did they did in English as well it's amazing you know Penn Station to work at
all train tracks just come right into the into the boat mm-hmm it was amazing
and then as we were getting off we could see engineers making sure that the
tracks were lining up where the work meshes between the boat and the and the
ground again it was it was awesome okay we have a lot of mail to catch up on a
lot of response to last week's show where we made some phone calls these
guys wrote in the automated recording that you heard halfway through the show
that said we're sorry your call cannot be completed as dial please check number
and dial again or call your operator to help you this is a recording that's
exactly what it said it's a standard voice reply on Nortel DMS 100 central
office switches this seems to be a specific voice recording for a u.s. phone
provider as the same woman's voice is used on the Bell Canada network but with
a small change instead of or call your operator to help you the Bell Canada DMS
100 switches say if you need assistance dial your operator how's that for a
tentativeness yeah that's from El Nerto Toronto 2600
thanks very much for writing in another 2600 or another Canadian the clone
writes in from from Alberta that we're sorry your call cannot be completed as
dialed recording you heard in the last off the hook used to be used by Telus
court before I changed his name Ed tell Edmonton telephone and AGT Alberta
government telephone which eventually became tell us was one of the first and
only companies to use that sip special information tone doody-doo and that
specific recording hope this helps anyone know of other companies that use
that recording I never found others that do well obviously we did because so we
weren't calling Canada more we got that how would we know I don't know I don't
know dear off the hook I enjoy your show I wanted to tell people how they can
avoid junk email and telemarketers do not sign up for services like free credit
reports once you give them your social security number they use that to send
you junk mail and make phone calls and I guess track you forever I don't know how
they would make phone calls or send you email or send you junk mail probably
when you give me your address and phone number example if you have good credit
you will be getting spam from banks and credit card companies for your business
also if Amtrak asks for ID from you to get a ticket refuse and ask for a
supervisor I remember about six years ago I was going from New York City to
Washington I wanted to pay in cash when the clerk asked to see a driver's
license I asked why she said we are just seeing if you are a missing person or a
fugitive I gave the license and she took info from it about a month later I was
getting junk mail in the mail and telemarketing calls from different
travel clubs and the like that's Jeff from Jackson Heights well Jeff you know
six years ago it was a different world I don't know you can try refusing but I'm
not sure if that's gonna work I'm gonna say that that was coincidence speaking
of ID but let me just tell you one little trick to get around the ID thing
if you go to a machine and buy your ticket from the machine they don't ask
for ID they will ask you to sign your ticket for some reason I'm sorry but
they know you are from the credit card at the machine well they know who your
credit card says you are they don't know who you are okay I'm gonna been a stolen
credit card could be stolen credit card all kinds of possibilities but you know
they're not looking for photo ID and in that particular situation yes Jim
but the card the ticket is still linked to your identity when you when you
purchase from the machine with a credit card that's true that is true this leads
in nicely to an important case before the Supreme Court which is covered at a
website www.h-i-i-b-e-l.com guy in Nevada was arrested essentially for not
showing ID there's more to the story too much to get in now but it's worth
taking a look at if you have any concerns about this in the United States
do you're off the hook here's a little piece of information I thought you might
find interesting I went to my local books a thousand who wants to guess
where books a thousand is nobody Midwest way west Bernie any any guess never heard
of all right there in Tennessee that's a bookstore chain in Tennessee and they
carry 2600 I went in to get the winter issue about three weeks ago when I
approached the cashier with cash she informed me that the magazine could only
be purchased with a credit card what that's news to me I told her I don't
even own a credit card I mean what you think this is a train ticket and I bought
many books from there before without conflict I had another book in my hand
and asked about it she informed me I could pay cash for that book but not the
magazine I wound up paying for both with a debit card while in Alabama I was
telling my brother-in-law who is also an avid listener of off the hook of this
experience we decided to purchase another issue at his local books a
thousand I guess they have in Alabama to first of all the teller maybe they call
them tellers down there I don't know scan the book scared stared at her
screen for a moment and asked what the book was about she then flipped through
the pages a few times while staring back and forth at her screen she never rang
the book up by its barcode I assume he means 2600 when he says book instead she
manually typed the price and rang it up as a newspaper now the problem with that
is many bookstores we don't get the credit for the sale when they do things
that way when they don't put in the UPC code it just goes to some random thing
and some bookstores like Barnes & Noble for a time would charge us a fee for
that so we'd actually lose money every time that happened well I just I just
found this to be a bit odd I was wondering if any other listeners readers
have had similar experiences perhaps this chain of stores should hire logical
human creatures instead of empty wastebaskets armed with scanners thanks
from Darryl for that bit of information they're obviously in league with some
sort of agency that's compiling another terrorist Excel sheet oh maybe so maybe
so but you know people have to know where to stand up for their rights and
having somebody ask what something is about I mean maybe they're curious you
have to also not be too hostile to people just being friendly but if someone
says you can't buy this with cash that's obviously just wrong yeah all right
that's to see the manager at that point yeah but the fact that something like
this happened at two books a thousand I guess we need you know a fleet of people
to go into these stores wherever they are and and find out if that's true and
you know get back to us let us know what happens I have to say that's not a very
good name for a bookstore I mean books a thousand most bookstores I think carry
more than a thousand books well maybe it's the cost of them well maybe these
are very tiny bookstores I don't know the thousand is in quotes to every time
it's mentioned I don't know if it's like that regular on their billboards or
whatever okay this person writes in with a follow-up perhaps you recall my
my email where I requested your help in regards to a dial-up charge over $800 I
wrote Verizon asked him to reconsider these charges since the dial-up number
was placed in my computer without my knowledge or approval this I think was
the person with the grandkids after a week of no reply I called and they
agreed to reduce the bill by 50% I insisted that the phone number was
placed in my computer without my knowledge or approval and I was not
paying for these charges I was then told I would have to resolve the problem with
a supervisor who would call me later after a week of no reply I called once
again and was told that I had agreed to a 50% reduction I vehemently objected to
this inaccuracy and told them flatly that they could start legal procedures
as I was not going to pay at that point they agreed to drop all charges which
came out to be a whopping 1250 when the March charges were included I want to
thank you so much for your help and direction without which this never would
have happened I'm making a contribution to WBAI as a token of appreciation thank
you very much thank you for that and if you've ever saved money as a result of
things you've heard on this show consider doing something similar during
the next fundraiser or take us out to dinner that would be nice too we do have
expensive taste I should warn people well you do I don't back in January you
had a fundraiser that if you pledged a certain amount you got a DVD with had
which had all the off-the-hook shows on one DVD DVD are is it available on the
website yet it will be very soon probably within the next week I was just
going over some of them myself testing them out and they're great they really
are every edition of off-the-hook from 1988 to 2003 and if you've pledged for
that you will be getting it soon as well so don't fret and that's really kind of
a cool thing and the freedom downtime DVDs almost done to believe me it's it's
it's been an incredible project from start to finish and I'd be so happy when
it's over this person writes in to tell us that the next Wednesday that has a
February 29th when off-the-hook might be on is 19 I'm sorry 19 2012 and he
hopes that we'll still be kicking Harley from Tennessee well that's good to know
you know what we had a February 29 show in 2000 totally forgot about that so we
do it might be it for a while but they might move us to another day again
that's interesting three February 29th in a row or Wednesday no mm mm
you're right you're right and and it's 2012 not 2008 that he wrote in about but
still yes this person writes in to say that I listen to your archives before I
go to work in the morning as I find it gets me ready for the crap that normally
happens at work anyway I have to say the funniest thing I ever heard an
off-the-hook was when rebel called in threatening to call back on the 10th
anniversary oh yes we have some good times don't we we certainly do keep up
the good news by the way the three or four major mobile phone carriers we call
them that here in Australia as opposed to cell phones don't charge the cell
phone users for incoming calls I get the impression in New York and the USA
generally it's not the case isn't the case unless you have some kind of a plan
we are GSM here in Oz can easily switch between carriers just by swapping the SIM
card he also wants to know when we're going to go down to Australia well I
guess you know we have to do that once you guys have a conference have a bunch
of conference is a long flight yeah but once you're there you stay like the
farthest place away from here isn't it on this planet yeah so I've been there
I've stayed for three weeks and it was it's the world's best-kept secret the
only reason I'm back is because they found me and then got me on the plane
did you go to Melbourne that's where this writer is from I know I was up at
the Gold Coast Sydney manly it was but well okay well you know maybe we can
make a tour of it if there's a bunch of hacker events going on in Australia we'd
certainly my sister is about to move there I'm looking to antagonize her
permanently we can go there and sounds like you already have she's moving to
Australia well no it's it's for it's for love but I was I figured we could stay
on her her floor that would probably do it I would never have you know it's
really tempting yeah okay well let's take some phone calls two one two two
zero nine two nine hundred Bernie have you arrived home yet are you lost with
the little I'm still going through Philadelphia in a van full of other
other passengers oh it's a van I thought it was a stretch like I don't have
speaking of Australia I don't think it would be such a stretch to have you know
a condom there's a lot of interesting things happening there there I know the
people who developed Samba one of the open-source projects it basically
writing Windows sharing for Linux that they're down there I remember when they
came to Linux world 2001 they made like they had reverse-engineered Tevo down
there they put an Ethernet card into it set up a whole thing to share and all
the region free DVD players in Australia I mean it's it's it's there's a lot of
the only thing is Australia is the same size as this country approximately and
they only have 5% of our population I wouldn't mind really the same size
pretty much Wow that's all right look that way on the map hopefully we'll see
some Australians coming over to a fifth help in July and maybe we can some ideas
for something out there do that we're gonna let them in for free to they're
not a terrorist regime I know but they've come a long way well we'll talk
about it all right two one two two zero nine two nine hundred let's take a phone
call good evening you're on the air yeah I'm Bernie I have a story to tell
for you Bernie you and I know it at the at the conference good evening you're on
the air we just have so much time all right even that was more interesting
though good evening you're on the air how you doing Emmanuel this is Winston
Smith calling Winston Smith wow you did it last how are you pretty good pretty
good what's up listen I have two phone lines in my apartment two landlines one
I hardly if ever use it because it's a Sony microcrescent answering
machine hasn't worked in years so I basically use the other line but I kept
the other line in case I want to hook a modem up to it eventually I'm with
Verizon on that phone line actually on both but they're two separate names and
my phone bills usually a five dollars five something just for the line charge
I just got a bill just now from AT&T for some twenty something dollars for that
same exact phone line and I have no idea I didn't change my service Verizon
didn't merge with AT&T as far as I know what's your long-distance company do you
know I really don't know because I haven't made any long-distance calls on
probably AT&T and you know what they do they did this to me a few years ago they
they billed me just for the service even though I wasn't using it and they billed
me separately from from my Bell Atlantic bill and so I basically challenged him
and said what are you gonna do cut off my service I'm not using your service
yeah and they just kept sending the bill and after a while the bill stopped
growing and then the bill just got turned over to some collection agency
and then that went away and I haven't heard anything since yeah I'm gonna have
to deal with that I guess the best way to do it is the club going to the back
surgery tomorrow so I'm really not into calling and dealing with them but do you
suggest I just call them and challenge this and say listen I don't know what's
going on here I mean whenever I have made long-distance calls and this is
years ago so I don't even remember what long-distance service I have on it well
all you have to do is dial 1-700-555-4141 it's a free call they'll tell you what
your long-distance company is okay and you know that that and free regional
company 700 I mean I could also call Verizon and ask them what's going on
yeah they might not be helpful though something that involves a different
company okay can't swear that they'll be helpful okay but that way at least you
know who your company is yeah I would have loved to talk to you about cellular
phones but I had this just pop up and I just wanted to hear I love you guys show
have a good one thanks for the surgery yeah good luck all right let's take my
phone call 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 900 and good evening you're on the air yeah hi how
are you I was actually listening to the today to Clark's testimony and he said
that I guess after he you know does all his book selling that he thought the
highest priority for security now is information security on the internet
what do you guys think about that or did you did you hear him say that I heard
that a bunch of times a little scary yeah a little bit okay I don't know why
why we're getting feedback all of a sudden try bring it up again okay that's
better can you hear me yeah okay yeah he said that that cyber security I believe
is something that is very important well you know I'm glad he said that
instead of cyber terrorism you know what does he mean by cyber security what is
what does that mean I would hope he means keeping sensitive information off
the net and and not vulnerable like it tends to be rather than then persecuting
people for figuring things like that out I seriously doubt that he knows what he
means by cyber security so for us to know what he means is you know kind of a
stretch right I hope it doesn't mean like closing down websites and saying
like one website is good or another website is bad or something like that I
don't think so this is a guy who left the Bush administration so maybe he'll
have a more you know interesting view as far as more enlightened view yeah okay
thanks thanks for your call and good evening you're on the air go ahead hey I
just wanted to let you guys know that you do have to pay to have your phone
number unlisted yes we know that for okay for regular Verizon right and now
what was the name of that book you guys were talking about earlier which book
were we talking about well now you have to pay by credit card the magazine
magazine and thousand yeah that's something that's going on down in
Tennessee and Alabama which we're going to look into some more but believe me
you can you can buy it with whatever kind of you know payment you want money
you know cash or a credit card or or whatnot all right of course everyone's
always concerned that they're gonna be put on a list but you know if if if
everybody just challenges that and gets put on the list well I mean who knows
they had they had the whole libraries you know having certain books that were
terrorist material and they wanted to look through that so maybe they decided
2600 but people people respond to that and that's the point if enough people
enough people challenge it it becomes completely meaningless all right as
someone on the list it's not that bad yeah it's not that bad you meet a lot of
people good evening you're on the air yeah I have a story all right that was
that's enough rebel good evening you're on the air at last peace and blessings
off the hook crew my brother lived in Australia for a while he loves it yeah
he's a runaway but anyway listen my nephew and his fiancee entered a contest
at a radio station up in Westchester oh this is Rashida from the BX by the way
and the contest was I guess they had a couple hundred applicants and they were
of the five finalists and it's less as of last Tuesday the way that you win
with the five finalists that they would have to vote through the internet so
when the contest jumps off the 430 voting and is ending today the couple
that's in first place had 600 votes like damn and now all the other four couples
they're in the range of at this point from 700 maybe to 300 votes and this
couple has 2,000 votes so my brother is saying that they probably have some
program called zone out that you can block because it's supposed to be one
vote per family or one vote per computer so it's he said they have some kind of
program where you could block out the I was ITC number IP address IP address on
and then you can just sit at that computer and just hit it with the votes
all night long but it's just so weird that this first place couple is like
1,500 points in front of everybody else well I don't know about 1,500 if they
were 2 million ahead yeah I would say that there's probably some sort of
skullduggery going on 1,500 is doable by somebody hitting a button over and over
okay but what she's talking about is is that right apparently it's not an email
campaign it's it's a click from a site sort of thing and apparently she
suspects that the radio station has something that essentially once one IP
address has voted that IP address cannot vote again but Jim listen to this a cup
for people that I know went to enter their first vote and they were told you
voted you've already voted you cannot vote again so those four people that I
know couldn't even vote the first time so people are calling radio are they
were they were they doing it through something like AOL um no they were just
doing it to I don't think it could be a DSL or a cable modem or something like
that that shares IPs that's entirely possible listen we don't have any more
time to talk about this we're out of time in fact but thanks for that call
Bernie did you arrive home okay good luck thank you and we'll see you we'll
see you again soon some of us are gonna be at the icon convention this this
weekend at Stony Brook go to www.iconsf.org for more information on that
Emanuel Goldstein for off the hook and the crew have yourselves a good night
see you next week
murder is a crime
unless it was done
by a police man
or an aristocrat
oh no you're right
and number two
you have the right
to food my man
for burning a corpse
you don't mind a little
investigation
humiliation
and if you cross your fingers
we have no intention
no you're right
these are your rights
hey say what
the news media reported that President Bush personally approved New York as the
site of this year's Republican Convention on Thursday March 25th at
7 p.m. the accountability campaign and the CUNY Graduate Center present shock
and awe a town hall forum on the symbolism and strategy of bringing the
convention to New York City some notable New Yorkers including Sam
Waterston Janine Garofalo Mark Green Bill Perkins Adele Walty and Ariana
Huffington will reflect on the use of symbolism in political life appropriate
responses to the third anniversary of 9-11 and the broader question of what
communities can do when political leaders appropriate issues for their own
purposes that's Thursday March 25th from 7 to 9 p.m. at the CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street admission is free for more information
call 212-817-8215 that's 212-817-8215