The Cinema Arts Center of Huntington, New York invites you to their annual African-American
Film Festival, Friday, April 28th through Thursday, May 4th.
The theme of this year's festival is Faces of Change, as film artists inspire others
to transform their communities and bring about change across the world.
Feature films include Chisholm 72, Mandalay, Sisters-in-Law, Brother to Brother, Street
Fight, The Boys of Baraka, Herbie Hancock's Possibilities, and of course, Faces of Change.
There'll also be special guest speakers throughout the festival.
For more information, call 631-423-7611.
That's 631-423-7611.
And you're listening to radio station WBAI New York.
It's just about 7 o'clock, and you know what that means.
It means this machine's not going to work.
It means it's time for Off the Hook.
It means it's time for Off the Hook.
It means it's time for Off the Hook.
And good evening to everybody.
The program is Off the Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you tonight, joined by Bernie S. in Philadelphia.
Good evening from Philadelphia.
Got you first this time.
Yeah.
Jim over here in New York.
Hello.
And we've got Mike.
Hi.
And Redbird.
Good evening.
Arseny.
Hi.
Walter.
Hey.
And Seraf joins us this week.
Hello.
So we have all kinds of fun things to talk about tonight, interesting news developments.
Actually, I don't know if you guys heard this.
You might have heard me talking about it, but very good news.
BBC World has now come to the New York metropolitan area.
I imagine quite a few of you in this particular room might be affected.
You guys have cable vision?
No?
Time Warner.
Time Warner?
Yeah.
Arseny?
No, I have DirecTV and Dish Network.
Walter, how about you?
And I have...
Well, I know you don't have it.
You're in Pennsylvania.
Well, no, I have Comcast here in Philadelphia, but I am able to catch the snippets of BBC
World on the evenings on WHYY.
Yeah, you know what?
It's not the same thing.
I agree.
I want it 24-7.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, 24-7.
I've already called Comcast and said, I want my BBC World 24-7.
And now you can point to Cablevision, who are carrying it on channel 104 of all their
systems, in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
And I have to say, it's probably because listeners out there were bitching and moaning about it,
which is what we need you to do sometimes, to bitch and moan about things, so that we
can improve our lot.
And what we have from this, we have a different perspective, a different perspective of the
world, and that's always a good thing.
So congratulations to Cablevision people.
Maybe we can get it on Time Warner now and other places.
What do you get on the 24-hour feed that you don't get from the snippets that they play
on, for example, WHYY?
Well, you get all sorts of documentaries about all kinds of world events.
You get an online show called Click.
It used to be called Click Online.
You get a documentary program called Reporters, where reporters all over the world take you
to different interesting places and show you what it's like to gather news stories.
You get Hard Talk, which is one of the best programs ever, where they just kind of broil
somebody over an open flame and ask them all these questions for a half hour without stopping.
And we're talking about world leaders.
We're talking about famous people.
We're talking about activists.
We're talking about anybody that is a mover or shaker in the world today.
They're brought onto that program, and they can't leave.
I always wonder why people choose to go on shows like that.
I don't know.
I think a lot of the Americans go on those shows because they don't know what they are
because they've never seen them, because they're not aired in this country.
But they'll have an American leader on there, and they'll be relentless with the questions.
How can you honestly expect people to believe the things that you're saying?
They'll ask questions like that.
You cannot get away with that in this country.
I mean, yeah, you're allowed to say these things, but nobody ever does.
So it's the same thing as if it were forbidden.
Manuel?
Yes.
At the same time, while we can celebrate the BBC World as being rebroadcast here or simulcast
here in the U.S. in some limited markets, at the same time, just a week ago, there was
an article in the Wall Street Journal that said the BBC has reviewed its strategy for
the past year on broadcasting and decided that, I'm going to quote it here, it said
that after a year-long review of its strategy, the BBC, the world's biggest and best-known
public broadcaster, said it plans to put more resources into its already large Internet
presence and no longer regards itself primarily as a producer of television and radio.
And I just wanted to say that it's a sad day when the BBC says its future in broadcasting
or radio broadcasting is limited, because since 1922, the BBC has brought a fairly balanced
view of world events to listeners around the world on shortwave and other mediums, and
it has drastically cut back its broadcasts on mediums other than the Internet over the
past few years, specifically on shortwave, which it no longer broadcasts in North America.
It doesn't mean you can't hear it in North America. You just have to pick up feeds to
other countries in North America. You can still hear it on shortwave in North America,
but you have to try harder.
You have to be lucky, yeah.
Yeah, it's not a good development. I think shortwave, unlike the Internet medium, doesn't
involve intermediaries or middlemen that have to bring that content to you. Radio, as we
all know, as a radio show, is a unique medium in that it's directly from the transmitter
to the recipient without anybody in the middle who can interfere with that content delivery.
Well, I wonder, when they're saying that they don't see themselves as, I guess, having as
much of a future in broadcasting, are they perhaps also saying that broadcasting itself
may not have that much of a future?
Well, I don't know. They just said they no longer regard themselves primarily as a producer
of television and radio. And I think for the past three or four years, they've been shifting
their eggs into the whole Internet theme as a way to get their content out. And I think
that's a mistake. I don't think they should. Obviously, they don't think you should omit
the Internet. But I think that actual broadcasting, where there's no one in the middle that can
shut off the content between the transmitter and the recipient, I don't think that should
be ignored. I think that's a valuable, whether it's television or radio, I think it's a valuable
medium where you can't have intermediaries shutting off that content.
Well, I think that basically it's all summed up in the second paragraph of this Wall Street
Journal story we're looking at. The London-based BBC, founded in 1922, said it plans to offer
a service on its website similar in some respects to MySpace.com.
Oh, no.
I mean, my God, this is the BBC. That's the most embarrassing statement I think they've
made in decades, that they actually want to do something, anything similar to MySpace.com.
For God's sake, people, you're the BBC. Act like it.
Unfortunately, MySpace is very popular, so that's where that's coming from.
Well, all sorts of things are popular, but it doesn't mean you have to do them.
I think Alastair Cook, who brought us for many decades his wonderful and beautiful narratives
called A Letter from America on shortwave, he's probably rolling over to his grave right
now. He's passed away last year, and anyone who's been lucky enough to hear his narratives
over the years has really come to know America in a different perspective.
I'm sure some of those recordings are online.
Oh, yeah, definitely. Incidentally, I don't think he's rolling over in his grave, because
didn't somebody steal his bones?
It's more like that. It's just almost insulting to his legacy.
I encourage any listeners who are not familiar with Alastair Cook's narratives on his Letter
from America piece. It was available, I think, daily or weekly from the BBC.
It was a weekly thing, and it lasted for about maybe 20, 25 minutes of him just pontificating
on various things happening in the news that week, and it was always fascinating to listen
to. Many a time, I stayed in my car listening long after I should have gotten out, just
to hear how it all ended.
Okay, interesting developments there.
This is something that we got mailed to us 100,000 times, but I guess it's kind of funny.
A case of electronic vandalism mocking the Prime Minister of Canada has left a media
company red-faced after a hacker tampered with advertising signs on Toronto commuter
trains to read, Stephen Harper eats babies.
Stephen Harper, of course, is the Prime Minister, and I'm reading the story from the Toronto
Globe and Mail, so when they describe that as what a hacker does, they're the ones saying
that, not me, so I'm just reading the story here.
We can debate this, though.
GO Transit officials promised to block further insults on its trains.
Yeah, no more insulting on the trains.
A digital security expert said the proliferation of electronic signs that are programmed with
internet connections makes this kind of digital tampering as easy as buying a 2395 gadget,
and more of it should be expected.
The note first popped up on Thursday on one of two narrow scrolling signs that are installed
in each of the rail system's 395 cars.
Why is this?
This is the same thing that happened in New York City back in 1997.
Why is this a story?
Why is it making so many headlines?
Someone simply walked up to one of these things with a remote control unit and reprogrammed it.
No computer hacking, nothing more nefarious than someone simply pointing something at
something else, typing in a few words, and being on their way.
Was that it, or was it internet controlled?
I didn't get that.
The comment by the person who was quoted there in that story manual is really oxymoronic,
if I could form a phrase, and the access to these signs typically has nothing to do with
the internet.
It has to do with their infrared programming capability, which can be done with, as the
guy does refer to, a 2395 device that can be used to, if you find out who made this
and find out, look up on a website, usually there's a keyboard you can buy that sends
infrared commands to the display, and typically that's what people use to hack these signs,
not an internet connection.
So this guy's comment is really oxymoronic.
Well, there are a couple of really super moronic things in here, too.
They give an explanation, which is fairly accurate, I think.
Normally, the advertisements and community notices slated for the signs, which carry
using light-emitting diodes, LEDs, are transferred from a computer to a handheld device called
a loader.
No internet involved.
The computer, though, might be able to transfer the actual message.
Trained staff then take the loaders to each sign on board and transmit the messages using
wireless technology.
The loaders can transmit from as far away as four meters, and the only reason they do
that is so they don't have to keep retyping the same message over and over again.
Now, company officials figure that the hacker got his or her hands on a loader, which can
be purchased online for as little as $23.95.
And if somebody up in Toronto tells us who makes these signs, as Bernie said, the name
of it will be written on there.
According to the Toronto Star, these devices can even be bought at Sam's Club.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, but if we know—
So there's no need to go online at all.
If we know the name of the company, we can tell you exactly where these can be gotten.
It's very easy to prevent, too.
You simply cover up the—well, then, of course, they can't program it either.
Well, you know what they could do?
This is a radical thought.
They could put a password on these things, because guess what?
The GO Transit sign system does not require a password according to the president of executive
advertising, and they own and operate about 800 signs along the commuter routes.
Now, I got a copy of a memo from Exclusive Advertising that basically says this.
It's dated May 1st, regarding Stephen Harper LED message.
Exclusive Advertising has received reports of an LED message being displayed on the trains
stating that Stephen Harper eats babies.
We—in all caps, too, by the way.
We would like to take the opportunity to advise the public that these ads are the result of
a hacker who has unlawfully tampered with the LED sign boards displayed in the GO trains.
This message was in no way authorized by executive advertising or GO Transit and is not condoned.
We have taken measures to rectify this matter and are in the process of enhancing security
in an effort to eliminate tampering of the LED displays.
Read, install a password.
I don't know.
It's more than installing a password.
They're having special software couriered from the United States.
Yeah, software that supports passwords.
Well, it's special.
Let me finish with the memo here.
We would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to bring this matter to our attention.
They must have been deluged with phone calls.
I would ask that anyone with information on the person or persons responsible for this
malicious act to contact us immediately so that we can pursue legal action.
We sincerely apologize for this unfortunate situation and thank everyone for their patience
while the matter is resolved.
Signed, Greg Donohue, President.
My God.
I mean, this is the equivalent of graffiti.
Someone simply tampered with a sign.
Get on with your lives.
Do some software installation if it's that important to you.
And get on with it.
Well, I was going to say that I read something similar and the system did have passwords
except this very intelligent individual bypassed the system.
This is what happened.
He saw a sign like a road sign that had LEDs and he went up to it curiously and he noticed
that the panel that controls it was open, the keypad, and it said enter password.
So he looked up and the password was written in black sharpie on the keypad and he typed
it in and then changed the message.
And he did this to a number of signs and they all had the password written right on them.
Oh, that's your human interaction there.
Just one bit of clarification.
There's this guy, Jerry Nichols, who's one of the most offended people apparently.
He wants us to know that he worked with Stephen Harper for five years and never once did he
in that time actually eat a baby.
Well, that's good to know.
It's good to know.
One of the problems is a lot of these devices don't have password functionality because
it's assumed that you have to be there and you have to actually have the device capable
of programming it, not, you know, not overlooking the fact that you can just purchase one of
these programmers.
Well, it's a pretty big fact to overlook.
But let me finish with the news story here because there's a couple other fun facts that
aren't really true.
Well, this guy says there's actually a whole slew of ways to hack into these signs, which
I guess is probably somewhat true.
The LED signs vary in terms of technology, but if the device were connected to the Internet,
it would require only that a hacker determine the sign's Internet protocol address by scanning
millions of computers, a simple task for hackers.
But you don't connect signs on trains to the Internet.
It would be much more trouble than it's worth.
If you're a moron, you might try that.
Well, OK.
Then they would need a default name and password for the system.
Well, then I guess you do need a name and password, even though it's a default.
Many manufactured products use default passwords because the manufacturers still don't think
someone could easily hack in.
Nevertheless, this expert said this is what hackers do every day.
And here's a thing that really annoys me.
For example, in Europe, hackers have used Internet technology to get into the overhead
lights inside office buildings, darkening or illuminating windows to mimic computer
games such as Tetris, which asks players to rotate and then stack falling shapes.
Other systems that are connected to the Internet include traffic lights and power grids.
Now, in that same paragraph, they've implied that people who play with the office lights
like the blinking lights project are also playing with traffic lights and power grids.
They don't even bother to say that that project over in Germany was done in cooperation
with the owners of the building.
Good Lord.
And it's not even like they used the stock lights in there.
They had spotlights that they installed specifically for this purpose.
I think they had nice little white shades or something that they shine the lights onto.
Well, all the signs have been shut down.
They don't say anything right now.
It's incredible how something so trivial, just a little prank, turns into something
where people are freaking themselves out that the power grid and traffic lights and all
kinds of anarchy is on the way.
And I've got to say, Emanuel, that the allegation that this is like graffiti is not even close
to the truth.
Graffiti generally involves having to scrub off particles off of some surface, whatever.
This doesn't damage or put any particles on anything.
Somebody can just easily reprogram a sign and it's all done with.
There's no damage or defacement of anything.
So it's just the stupidity of the company that operates the signs, whoever that is,
to duly protect it from the most rudimentary programming that is the reason for this.
Not someone who would willfully damage anything.
I hope that our friends in Germany are listening, especially anyone involved with blinkin' lights.
Please, contact the Toronto Globe and Mail and ask them to print a retraction and correction.
Because they've impugned your morality and your criminality, your lack of criminality,
by implying that blinkin' lights was a hack, was an illegal hack and an illegal act.
They haven't mentioned Chaos Computer Club by name, but certainly anybody who has looked into this
will see something.
They'll see, oh, blinkin' lights, illegal, so therefore it must be something bad.
And that's just not fair.
Okay, moving on.
Interesting developments.
Suffolk County, New York, out on Long Island, is planning a wireless system to provide free access
to the Internet to the 1.5 million residents who live throughout its 900 square miles.
It would be one of the largest government-sponsored wireless networks in the nation.
The system would allow anyone to use computers and PDA devices with wireless capabilities
anywhere in the county.
It would also be available to visitors, businesses, government agencies, institutions, and groups.
County officials hope to start installation of this next year.
According to County Executive Steve Levy, people could connect to the Internet any time, any place.
A private company selected by the county would build the system at no cost to taxpayers
and finance it by selling Internet advertising or by charging a fee for connections with a faster speed.
I thought this was an incredible story.
And then later on in the week, Rhode Island announced that they are seeking to become the first entire state
to offer a wireless broadband network from border to border.
It costs $20 million to do this.
Now the question I have is, is this even possible to be able to get wireless connectivity
to an entire state or an entire county?
The thing that gets me is, that I know of, this hasn't even been done successfully in a small city
to completely cover it, where the infrastructure is there,
where you can put access points on buildings all over the place that already have Internet connectivity
and get it to actually work throughout the whole city.
In a county like Suffolk County, where there's a lot of spread out space
and places that I'm sure Internet connectivity doesn't even exist,
I don't even think this is at all reasonable.
There are places on Long Island we can't get phone service, I mean wireless phone service.
They've pretty much gotten the wired phones to everybody now,
but electricity is pretty much covered.
But yeah, how can they manage Wi-Fi if they can't manage digital cell phones?
Now there are technologies other than Wi-Fi.
The so-called WiMAX and some of the technologies that the mobile phone carriers are offering
that do have the possibility to enable Internet access over large swaths of territory.
And these articles are never very clear on what sort of technologies exactly
Rhode Island or Suffolk County is planning to use.
But it seems pretty clear that Wi-Fi wouldn't work.
Well, $20 million for an entire state seems like a very low price to me.
That's a good deal.
WiMAX or whatever.
Do you think this is going to happen?
Philadelphia is planning on spending at least $10 million,
and I'm sure that will go over budget several times,
just to outfit its tiny geographical coverage area.
The city of Philadelphia alone is going to cost well over $10 million.
So I don't know how you can cover the entire state of Suffolk County
or for that matter the whole state of Rhode Island for $20 million.
It's totally unrealistic.
Wi-Fi is just not the technology that can do that in rural areas.
And the technologies that Mike had mentioned,
like EVDO and so forth that Verizon and Sprint PCS use
to bring reasonable speed Internet access to mobile devices, is not free.
It's very expensive.
And there's no way that a city or a state is going to offer that for free
or at a tiny cost to its citizens.
So we're saying we're skeptical of this, right?
To say the least.
But if it were possible, it would be a good thing, right?
It could be done.
But you've got too many vested interests here
that are interested in milking the public.
It's just no way that a statewide Internet access is going to be offered for free.
I would like that to be the case,
but I'm trying to be pragmatic here and say it isn't going to happen.
Yeah, it's nice.
But the other thing is, why?
It's such a privacy issue because they can track you.
But it's like, what is the benefit, really?
Why would everyone want this?
Because I could plant myself in the middle of the interstate
and the media and just check my email if I wanted to.
I mean, you could listen to Internet radio in your car.
I think that would be really, really cool.
That would be cool. That would be great.
But I mean, aside from that...
I think there's a lot of benefits.
I think this could really be beneficial,
especially for those who aren't necessarily able to afford it otherwise.
But just the practicality of it.
And like you said, there's not even cell phone coverage all over Suffolk County.
And to expect that a Part 15 service is going to be able to cover the entire county
is just not realistic.
What's the benefit to Suffolk County as a government to provide this to people?
It takes attention off various scandals that are taking place right now.
Right. What do they have to gain from this?
I smell a 25% tax.
Well, now, it's interesting because you might have heard in that story
that there was a possibility of charging money for higher speeds.
And that kind of brings us into this whole discussion of net neutrality.
In fact, a listener wrote in asking us to talk about this.
Reports I've heard, say Larry H., say,
losing net neutrality will all but destroy the freewheeling nature of the Internet.
Do you agree? If so, what can we do to preserve it?
Now, of course, net neutrality is basically something that we've gotten used to.
We haven't really talked about it until we actually are starting to fear
that it might not be around much longer.
Answer the second question.
Okay, answer the second question.
Why don't you explain what net neutrality is?
Well, the question was, what can we do?
I'll answer that afterwards.
The question was, what can we do to preserve it?
And the answer seems to be, like, move to France.
But the net neutrality is this notion, which we have on the Internet.
It's part of the Internet.
It's sort of all data is treated more or less equally.
If I'm sending a file over to a manual, or if I'm getting it from AOL,
it's all the Internet.
It's all just bits.
I may have different access speeds,
but no content has any sort of priority over any other content.
What a lot of the telecoms are realizing is,
hey, we can make more money by charging AOL sort of premium access
to our subscribers so that content from the big providers
will be prioritized over that from the smaller providers
with the sort of inevitable effect
that some of this content from the smaller providers
will not get delivered at all,
or will be so slow as to be useless, or what have you.
And this hasn't really been done,
this sort of prioritizing by willingness to pay.
And so these companies are trying to start it,
and there's proposals in Congress
which don't seem to be going anywhere very quickly
to make it illegal.
This kind of prioritizing illegal.
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah, because all data should be treated equally.
Emmanuel?
Yes.
An analogy just came to my mind.
It'd be like if there was a three- or four-lane highway,
just for non-technical listeners.
If there's like a three- or four-lane highway,
a toll highway, like a turnpike or something,
where you paid one fee for one lane,
and then you paid increasingly higher fees
to use the other lanes.
So you couldn't pass anybody unless you paid an extra fee
until you had to really pay a lot of money
to be in the leftmost lane.
That would be a good analogy
to what some of these Internet service providers
like Verizon are trying to pull off.
So basically people will be going really slow
and paying less and polluting even more.
Well, paying what they're paying now,
but having to pay several times that or a lot more
just to do what they've been used to doing,
which is just pass the slow vehicle,
which isn't done really with your knowledge
when you're on the Internet.
Packets sort of get to you in due time
and in a reasonable amount of speed.
But if your packets are tagged by your Internet service provider
as being not worthy of being delivered to you
at a reasonable speed,
then you're going to be in a slow lane.
One way that I see this really affecting the Internet
and changing the whole way that competition works
and stifling the kind of innovation
and healthy competition
that's gotten us the good things
that we've gotten out of the Internet so far.
If you have something like, say, Google Video,
which is pretty dominant right now
mainly because it's put out by Google
and people are aware of it and lured towards it.
Let's say I come up with a better video service
than Google Video.
People might never even see it
because Google Video is owned by Google
and Google has the kind of money
and the ISPs that you and I use every day
to deliver that content quickly.
I come along, I make a better product.
It may be a better product, but it won't matter
because it will load so slowly.
It's like, to draw another parallel,
distribution of music.
If you have a record contract in the old system,
you were heard.
If you didn't, nobody knew who you were,
even if you were great.
And another, I think, realistic viewpoint on this stuff is,
if you have a voice-over provider like Verizon
and if they implement the infrastructure
to flag different types of packets
as having priority over others,
they can very easily flag
some types of voice-over IP traffic
as being less priority
and basically render a lot of the VOIP technology
that we use now to make Internet phone calls useless.
One other important thing, I think,
to realize about this
is that the technology to do this
really already exists and is in place.
And it's used in many other places
for perfectly good reasons.
But it is not currently in use
for this kind of application.
And so one thing to think about
is that if the ISPs do decide
to go ahead with a plan like this,
there are no big technical hurdles
to overcome.
It's merely a matter of implementing the policy.
The best analogy I heard
is imagine a library like the Library of Congress
where you don't actually go to the stacks.
You have to order it through a desk.
Currently,
you can order anything you want
and the librarian, so-called,
will get it for you.
Under this system, certain things
will be delayed.
You'll have to wait longer.
It may be because of content
or it may be simply for non-payment.
But the point is, you'll never really know.
Whereas now, you can get anything you want
and there's no censorship
or even evidence of censorship.
Whereas in the other way,
you may say it's for monetary reasons,
they didn't pay for access,
but you'll never, never know.
And even for certain applications,
it can become the point where
the application is completely useless
such as Voice over IP,
which depends on UDP packets
getting there right away.
And one of the saddest things
about all of this, too,
is that the people who want
to put this in place,
which are the ISPs who serve
nobody's losing any money.
They just smell a new revenue source
and they're willing to screw all of their end users
out of their proper internet experience
just to find another revenue stream.
Some things never change.
Okay, this story,
you might have heard this about this
most dangerous computer hacker in the world.
No, it's not Kevin Mitnick anymore.
Alleged hacker Gary McKinnon
has accused the United States
of using a hammer to squash a net.
And that's in front of his May 10th extradition hearing.
He said to the media,
what I did was just unauthorized access.
I'm pissed off that six months
community service has turned out to be
60 years in a foreign jail.
McKinnon claimed that there is
often an overreaction in cases of hacking
that do not match the level of the supposed crime.
I did not do any damage.
Basically,
I just was looking
in military systems and things like that.
It's just like when Matthew Bevin
was arrested in 1995.
They called him the biggest threat
to national security since Hitler.
What a load of rubbish.
I've only seen a few cases
where the reaction has been
in good ratio to the crime
such as the Citibank case.
I believe that was the case
involving Russians many years ago
who were actually stealing money.
That was the theft in,
well, he explains it now,
and he rates his chances at 50-50.
I'm worried.
I know I have got a big fight on my hands.
While his case has been going on,
McKinnon has questioned the whole
extradition procedure America is using.
The new extradition treaty,
which isn't ratified by the U.S. Senate yet,
is a one-ended treaty.
It's also retrospective,
which is against international treaty laws.
It's also meant to be a fast track
for combating terrorism,
but it's being used for people like me,
and the U.S. administration
is completely misusing the law.
What do you think, Bernie?
Sounds familiar, huh?
It does sound familiar.
Not just in my own case,
but I found that the feds
typically try to stretch things
a stretch of a stretch of a stretch
to accomplish their goals.
In this case,
it sounds like the Patriot Act
and some other legislation
are being used to apply serious issues
like extraditing someone from another country
into your jurisdiction
for something that's a relatively minor offense,
like exposing some poor security
on a military computer server
or something like that.
On the topic of courts in the U.S.,
I just want to interject here today
that it was interesting
that today a jury
had the courage
to find someone
not sentenceable
to death
in this country.
I'm not going to make any judgments
about what he did
or intended to do,
but I think it's interesting
that a jury had the courage
to actually find someone,
spare someone's life
and not sentence them to death
for something they intended to do.
Well, it's one way to really annoy
a potential suicide bomber
is to make him live
for the rest of his life behind bars.
When he says retrospective,
shouldn't that be retroactive?
Secondly, what country is he in?
And thirdly, what did he do?
Continuing, he's in England
or the U.K., I believe.
Interesting story.
He was looking
into UFOs.
There's a whole story
behind what he was actually looking for.
What he says
about his chances
after the May 10th hearing,
obviously he has a 50-50 chance
in his eyes.
His biggest fear is that the U.S.
feels it can hold people
in Guantanamo Bay
who aren't even accused
of attacking the U.S.
I won't stand a chance
in hell if I get extradited
because I will probably
come under military order number one.
This means a secret military tribunal
with a military lawyer,
no rights of appeal,
According to McKinnon,
the top military brass claims
that it's where he's been
and what he's seen
that poses the threat.
McKinnon has always asserted
that he was hacking
to discover the truth
about UFOs,
and while he's a free man,
he is happy to discuss
his findings.
I was looking for
suppressed technology
He claims that he found secret files
on the Johnson Space Center's systems
including unprocessed and unfiltered
photos in a proprietary NASA image format.
He describes a cigar-shaped object
surrounded by domes
which looked like it was made
from a single piece of metal
without any seams.
I wish he had copied it.
Maybe he did.
You seem to be skeptical
of this too.
Just a little bit.
Maybe he was looking for UFOs.
People are always looking for all kinds of things.
He sounds pretty crazy.
Just because he's looking for UFOs,
he sounds crazy, huh?
That's not a reason to send him to Guantanamo Bay.
Imagine if
you believe
that something like that exists
and it's in this computer
and you know how to get in.
Aren't you just a little bit tempted
to see what's actually there?
The issue here is whether or not
Of course, people will say,
well, he invaded the privacy of the military
so obviously he has to be strung up for that.
Well, that clearly will not be
the legal argument used
because there's no real privacy rights
of any sort in the United States.
Yeah, but the military and the government
seem to have a lot of protection.
They have secrecy.
The public should actually be
outraged at this because
the security on these military systems
were so easy to defeat.
They're not doing what it takes to protect
these servers.
There's a difference too between privacy
and secrecy. Individuals have privacy.
The government has secrecy.
Good point.
This is more reason for them to just give him a job there.
Well, we're assuming that
he does have some semblance of sanity
and that's what he was in fact doing
and it wasn't something else.
But it's an interesting story.
I do see remnants of Bernie S
and Kevin Mitnick and FiberOptic
in the exaggeration that I
perceive here as to what this guy
could possibly have done.
If the system is secure, he shouldn't be able to get into it
at all and somehow I doubt
that he was as much of a threat as they seem
to be making out.
Okay, we're going to take phone calls.
212-209-2900.
That's our phone number. First, a couple of listener
letters.
Actually, Bernie, this is something you
sent to us concerning
we were talking about BBC World before.
You mentioned that they
regularly warn
viewers that the following piece
contains pictures of flash photography.
What did you
make out of all that?
Yeah, it was very strange.
Last week, I was watching a piece on BBC World
about Berlusconi
not resigning.
Well, he finally did.
There was
a video clip
of Berlusconi walking through a crowd of people
taking pictures near flashes.
The announcer warned that the
piece contained
flash images,
flash photography. The following pictures contained
flash photography. It sounded like
a standard message warning they had
to give. I'm like, what is that all about?
I looked it up online on BBC websites.
Just do a
web search for BBC
and flash photography
and you'll probably find a piece that says
flashing images.
In order to comply with BBC editorial guidelines
on the use of flashing images,
all recorded programs will need to pass a
technical review before being accepted
for broadcast. At that review,
all programs will be tested using a
flash and pattern analyzer device
calibrated to register the
OFCOM
O-F-C-O-M, an acronym,
recognized standard of safe
levels for those suffering from photosensitive
epilepsy, PSE.
The editorial justification for including
a noncompliant sequence of flashing images
will only be used in the most
exceptional of circumstances and
only after a mandatory referral to the
commissioning editor. It is not
possible just to issue a warning
that a program contains strobe lighting or
flash photography, etc. So it is essential
that all programs are fully compliant
with our flashing images guidelines.
That's a
mouthful, but it's really interesting. It makes
me wonder why U.S. television
media outlets don't offer any warnings
or screenings that potentially aren't
harmful video. I think we get enough warnings
as it is. Just that stupid TVPG
thing that shows up in the left-hand corner
that gets bigger and bigger every year, that's enough.
What happens when they air something
live? Because oftentimes,
this is an event where there's lots of cameras
flashing, which means it's an important event and
oftentimes would be carried live. What happens if
you happen to be in the area? Are they
going to warn you
in person? Just
I don't know. It seems
to me like the future is digital removal
of flash. Yeah, maybe there's
some kind of filter you could install on your
TV set for that. I don't know. All sorts
of people have all sorts of problems with all
sorts of things, and I think to warn the
entire public about every single possibility
is a little bit excessive, and
these people should probably take it into their own
hands to be careful about this sort of stuff. You
wouldn't say that if you had photosensitive
epilepsy. I was going to say,
does this mean we have to get rid of the welcome
epileptics flashing sign for hope?
Yeah, Jim.
We do. Anyway, some more
email here that people have sent to us.
OTH at 2600.com.
I did an experiment with my work access
RFID card this week. I wrapped it in a few
layers of aluminum foil and tested
it on the door access receiver.
I had to hold the card a bit closer,
maybe an inch instead of the usual two inches,
but it opened the door just fine.
Tin foil may shield RFID
some, but it doesn't block it.
This is Brian Florian from Palm Springs,
California. An effective way
to block RFID is by putting it in one of
those static shielding bags, and in fact,
I don't know if this is still true, but when I
got my first easy pass a bunch of years back,
they actually gave it to you with one of those bags
so that you could put it in the bag if you didn't
want to use it. So you wouldn't be charged
every time you come near one of the toolbooths, right?
The power of the transmitter
of the RFID detector actually
falls off as one over R squared, and so
there's a lot more power required
at two inches away than there is at one
inches away, and you
don't realize that, but it's just one of
those things. So it's doing
a significant amount to shield the RFID.
It's just that when you get one inch
away from the transmitter, you have a significantly
higher amount of RF energy
than you do at two inches away.
Okay, another letter. I don't know
where else to send this email, so hopefully Off the Hook can help me
out. I'm looking to register for the Hope conference,
but I want to know, is there an age limit?
I'm 16. Can I still attend? No.
Yes. Who said no?
Who said no? I was denied from
attending Linux World because I was 16
once. Linux World does that. It sucks.
Corporate conferences do things like that. We do not.
You can be 10.
As long as you can walk and carry
however much money we're asking you to spend
to get in,
then you're more than welcome. It's really not
cool when they do that sort of thing. No. Because there's
no threat involved by having
someone young there. Well, they don't trust
young people. Seems pretty obvious.
We've had this discussion before on this
program, and it's definitely an issue.
If you have CRT-induced epilepsy,
you might want to think twice about coming.
Well, we're not going to do the thing Jim said.
That was not accurate.
Those of us who don't trust any
people really can't make special rules
for young people. Well, they won't be going to Hope.
Yeah. Speaking of Hope, we have another
Hope meeting at the 2600 meeting
this Friday in New York City, so
feel free to come on by. It's at the
Citigroup Center between the hours of 5 and
8 p.m. in the
lobby area. We have all kinds of security,
and now we have cops watching us as well.
Not our security. Other security.
Not our security, no.
Although we do have our security people there.
If you want to be part of the
Hope security team, come on by,
because we're always looking for a few good
people.
Again, 5 to 8 p.m., Citigroup Center.
Talking about the Hope conference coming up this
July. July 21, 22, and 23.
More information, www.hope.net.
Dear
OffTheHook, I wanted to share a recent
cell phone experience with you. I live
in British Columbia. I have been with Fido
for nearly two years. I recently
decided to switch to Rogers in order to get
the employee pricing plan. I currently
work at The Source, which is what RadioShack
turned into here in Canada.
When I went to the local Fido store to cancel
my phone, I was told they could not do it
and had to phone a number.
So I did. They were closed for the week.
I phoned back the next week, already
mad, only to be told that
I could not cancel my contract since
the account was not in my name. I was
under 19 at the time of purchase, so it went into my
father's name. When I put my father on
the phone, the Fido agent refused to cancel
the contract. The reason he gave was that he thought
the two of us were scamming the company
and we should go to a Fido store.
You can see where this will lead me.
The issue has yet to be resolved. I'm going
to try it again tomorrow, signed Jacob
from British Columbia. My God!
Yeah, that's quite a story.
So some things aren't different in Canada.
No, in fact, some things are even
more crazy. For instance, they
have a prime minister who doesn't beat babies.
That has yet to be
actually resolved.
Interesting
story from one of our listeners
locally. I'm a student at Stuyvesant High
School in Manhattan. Today, we received the attached
letter. Basically, we and
every other New York City public school are now subject to
random searches in which they go through all
our belongings and have the right to take MP3
players, cell phones, and basically anything
else they feel like taking. Under
the guise of protecting our security,
our rights are being violated. I listen
to your show and numerous other RSS syndicated
shows on my MP3 player every morning
on the way to school and on the way home as well.
I don't want this taken away. I'd be grateful
if you talked about this on the air because it needs
all the attention it can get. Your fan
and fellow hacker, Sam. Sam, thanks for
writing. The letter basically
goes like this. It's from Stanley
Teitel, the principal of Stuyvesant
High School. Dear parents, we are
committed to provide a safe, secure
learning environment for all students
in our school. The New York City
Police Department has assisted us in achieving this
goal in implementing a coordinated approach
to school safety. As part of the safety
initiative for New York City schools, Mayor Bloomberg
has announced that on some days, students
will be asked to go through metal scanning machines
like the kind used to screen airline
passengers for the purpose of detecting weapons.
These scanning devices deployed by
the NYPD will identify not only weapons
but other objects that are never
permitted in our building and will help
us to keep everyone safe in our school.
The scanning machines will not
be at our school every day, but students must be
prepared every day to successfully
pass through scanners.
Students must have their school photo ID
and or program card ready
and visible before entering the building.
Student backpacks as well as all metal objects
keys, belts, coins, jewelry,
etc. will go through the scanner.
So if a student places all metal objects
in their backpack before reaching the scanner, this will
help the line to move quickly.
My God, what has happened to schools? There's lines to get into schools?
It's like an airport? Students who are
not properly prepared for
scanning may be required to go through a second
handheld scan that will delay their
arrival to their first class.
Oh my God, this goes
on and on. These days, we
often hear that added security measures are a sign
of the times. In our school, however, I see this
additional security resource as a sign
that placing students and staff in a potentially
unsafe situation is unacceptable.
We must all commit to ensuring the
safety of everyone in our community.
Wow, how the times
have changed. This is like a typical
example
of the police or whoever is responsible
for this overstepping their bounds
because originally it was for weapons and stuff
like that. Well, I could understand that
in some parts.
If you're a student and you actually have
to be afraid that a classmate has
a weapon or something that may or may not
be used on you, it may
be understandable, but then to
confiscate stuff like portable media players
and other electronic devices is
really, really ridiculous. There's absolutely
no reason for it.
I just want to say, go peg
legs.
Well,
like Emmanuel,
I'm of the age where the most
serious thing you could take to school electronically
was your transistor
radio, but
in those days
you could carry it in, but you could
not carry it with you. You had to put it
in your locker.
I hate to disagree with the
prevailing trend here,
but you're underage or close
to underage. The school is not a
democracy. If they tell you you can't
bring it in, don't bring it in.
Yeah, but it's stupid.
Which is stupid? That's the point I'm
trying to make here. Which part is stupid?
Well, I mean, why are MP3
players not allowed when you're
walking to school or walking back from school?
That's what I say. Why not be, you should be allowed
to put it in your locker if you have a locker.
Well, you can't get into the locker without going through the metal detector.
Kind of stupid. It's very stupid.
Whereas cell phones, the
argument is that they're a disruption.
If they ring,
if they don't ring, they can be used for
cheating, and they
tell you you're not supposed to carry
them. The counter argument from students
and parents is, what if there's another
9-11 and whatever?
Well, hello. Like I said
before, Emanuel and I are from the transistor radio
era. They still
have pay phones.
There are plenty of them around Stuyvesant. I know
where it is. West Chamber Street.
You can always
use a pay phone. Yeah, but you see, you can use these
sign-of-the-times arguments
to basically push any
agenda. Okay, sign-of-the-times.
We now have Columbines and people shooting up schools
all the time. Okay, so that means people
should have cell phones on them in case they're
in a hostage situation somewhere so they can call out
and to
keep our kids safe, let's make sure
they have cell phones. To keep our kids safe,
let's make sure they can listen to music and
calm their nerves.
Let them have satellite phones. That's better because
in a 9-11 situation,
every cell tower
nearby is going to collapse when they
hijack 500 panes and
blow up the building. What if it's space aliens? Then they're going to
shoot out the satellites. Well, carry both
or even better, have quarters
for the pay phones.
This has gone on enough. You know, if only one person
had a satellite phone on the Island
of Lost, that show would never have even
gotten off the ground.
Just something to point out.
Well, it's fiction. I'd like to point out that
they wrote it so that no one had a satellite phone.
It's based on fact. It's not based on fact.
Will you stop? Look it up.
Alright, we're going to take phone calls. 212-209-2900
is our phone number. Again,
write to us, othat2600.com.
Our snail mail address, off the hook,
care of WBAI 120
Wall Street.
10th floor. Oh, I'm sorry.
You can have the first city
name. New York.
1-0-0-0-5
I'm sorry, it's the first time I ever messed it up.
Okay, we'll take the phone calls
as soon as they start pouring in.
Messing it up is defined as giving the correct address.
Yeah. Okay.
Just wanted to make sure I understood.
Yeah.
A couple other letters. Obviously,
we have a whole bunch coming in, and we do like to
read as many as we can.
But you know what? I think we should
take phone calls, because we have a lot of those.
We only have a few minutes left. Let's go over here.
Good evening. You're on the air.
I noticed there are a lot of people being removed
at restaurants. That's because you used them
too much, and they don't like you hanging around.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Hopefully he hasn't called us 25 times tonight.
Good evening. You're on the air. Hey, everyone.
How are you doing? I just want to speak really quickly
about the metal detectors in the school. Go ahead.
I actually went to...
Last I've been in school was like 1994,
and they were doing that back then.
I don't think it's much of a
big difference now.
Well, okay. It's been 10 years then,
or 12 years, or 15 years.
Who knows?
I think what it is is... I mean, you know,
I don't want to pull a race card or anything, but
exactly where is this Stuyvesant High School?
Is it like a predominantly
white school?
What's your theory?
It's not really a theory.
It's just that it's actually been around
more where the inner-city kids would go
to school. It's been the norm,
like I said, for about 10 years.
I think that now people are...
Well, students are yelling and screaming now because it's
actually hitting other schools now,
like maybe private schools and other...
Well, Stuyvesant is
one of the upper schools
of the city. It's the one everyone tries to get into.
But I see this
as a city-wide thing.
This is happening everywhere, and yeah, maybe it happened in some
places first. The color is correct
in that in a lot of schools
in sort of the outer boroughs,
which is equivalent to the inner city.
I never understood that term.
They've had these for a long time.
Yeah, it's been implicated
for as long as I can remember.
Stuyvesant is actually located near
the former World Trade Center in Manhattan,
and it's a specialized school for
science and math students that you need
to take a test to get into.
Isn't Stuyvesant predominantly non-white,
ironically?
I wouldn't know right now.
Oh, that's true, yeah.
Well, anyway,
why are we unprotected when we go
into malls? I went to a
shopping mall the other day, and you know, nobody
checked me for weapons. I could have been
carrying a whole arsenal of weapons.
I could have been carrying all kinds of
cell phones and MP3 players, too, but that's beside the point.
Do we
not care about the people in malls? Our children go to
malls, you know. Do we not care about our kids when
they're in malls? Malls are only a couple stories
high, so the odds of you toppling it...
So are schools. Well, let me finish. The odds of you
toppling it over are slim. Malls
also tend to have large expanses
inside so people can run away.
So the odds of you killing a large amount
of people with one suicide belt
are also very slim.
You need something like nerve gas.
I don't think there's been many
suicide bombers in schools. I think they're
more concerned with people carrying weapons of various
sorts. Right, but malls are big. People can run
away. You're not going to kill a lot of them.
Suicide bombers are in malls. What are you talking about?
Where? In Israel. They have suicide
bombers in malls. Well, they're years ahead
of us. Well...
Let's try to take another phone call. Good evening.
You're on the air.
Go ahead. Oh, wow.
I got on. Yes, go ahead.
Yeah, I just... I'm calling from Montreal.
Oh, cool. Montreal. Yeah, and
I just want to say I have proof
that Stephen Harper does, in fact,
eat babies. Well, this is what we've been looking for.
Make sure to send that to us.
Yeah, also about the school
thing. I don't know. I remember 10 years
being in school... 10 years ago being in high
school, and they'd
keep us in the classrooms, and police would
come. We couldn't come into the hallways.
And they'd come with dogs to sniff
for marijuana and various
sort of illegal things also.
So I don't think this is necessarily
a new thing.
Yeah, and definitely
I'd be careful saying that you can go
into a mall carrying, you know,
whatever, because just, you
know, as maybe tomorrow,
as early as tomorrow, maybe
they'll go all crazy in America,
and they'll be searching you there, too.
Well, do you think nobody has ever thought of this
before? I mean, it's so
simple to do these things. I've got news
for people. You can blow things up. You can kill people.
You can shoot people. It's very easy to do.
And when I went to school, it wasn't, you know,
an incredibly long time ago. I guess it was
long enough ago. You were able to just
walk into the building and walk out. You could
walk into the building even if you didn't go to school there
and people didn't freak out.
What's changed? What's happened
to us? I'm very interested
in receiving the proof that Stephen Harper
eats babies. Yes, you know where to send that.
Send that to the
dropbox in the place by the thing. Could be a
different Stephen Harper.
No, not likely. Not likely. Let's see if we can take another one.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Thanks for taking my call, gentlemen.
No problem. It was my pleasure.
Could you answer the question?
Back in 2001,
was it and is it now possible
to make a cellular phone
call from an airplane
30,000, 25,000 feet?
I'll leave Bernie to answer this call.
Go ahead, Bernie.
It's spotty. You might
succeed that high.
It's unlikely you're going to get a call through
at that altitude, but it's possible.
It really depends on a lot of variables.
Propagation, whether
you're sitting on a window
side of the plane where it's close
to a city that has a large population
and a lot of cell sites. The 9-11
people on flight 93 and so
forth that made phone calls, they were
at a decent altitude, probably like 20,000 feet,
and they were able to make calls, supposedly.
You just have to try it and find out.
Actually, if you saw the movie
recently that just came out about
that flight, they were all making
phone calls on the air phones, not actually
their cell phones.
One more call really quick. Good evening.
You're on the air.
Go ahead. Make it quick.
Real quick, I heard last week
that there was a place in Colorado
that a guy had bought
a strobe light that was triggering
all the traffic lights. Did you hear anything about that?
We reported on this. It was a guy who
basically wanted to get to work faster, so he made
all the lights green for himself.
I think he only got a $25 fine for this.
It's a pretty silly technology
that's very easy to
apparently defeat. The thing is called
an Opticon, so you may want to do a search
for that. Okay, we are out of time.
I want to thank everybody for calling in.
Remind people the meetings are taking place
all around the world this Friday, and
the HOPE Coordination Meeting taking place here
in New York at the Citigroup Center between 5 and 8pm.
www.hope.net
for more information.
We're going to do something that we did
last week, too.
The reason we're playing the same song as yesterday
off the wall is because so many people
reacted to our playing of it there.
This is something new from Neil Young,
which hopefully will become something
akin to an anthem.
We'll see.
Have a good night. See you next week.
Turning our country into
war
Confusing all
the power
that we gave him
Shipping
all our money
out the door
Who's the man
who hired
all the criminals
The White House
shadows who hide behind
closed doors
They bend the facts
to fit with
their new story
Of why we
had to send our
men to war
Let's
impeach the President
for spying
on citizens
inside
their own homes
Breaking
every law
in the country
Tapping
our computers
and telephones
What if al-Qaeda
blew up the valley
Would New Orleans
have been safer
that way
Sheltered by our
government's protection
Or has someone
just got home
that day
All I can tell you is
that Osama Bin Laden is a prime suspect
So I don't know where he is
You know, I just don't spend
that much time on him
I want justice
dead or alive
To the 100% needs
of protects terrorists
including members of the
op-ed
I know I didn't say
I'll shoot between September
the 11th and September 7th
War is my last choice
Or to smoke them out
and bring them on
You think Patriot Act
constitutional guarantees are in place
The wiretap requires
a court order
Saddam Hussein has got
weapons of mass destruction
Although we have not found
trials of weapons of mass destruction
And it is true that much of the
intelligence turned out to be wrong
No one can now doubt
the word of America
Now let's impeach the president
for hijacking
our religion
and using it to get elected
Dividing our country
into colors
And still leaving
black people
neglected
The big guy
he's cracking down
on steroids
Since he sold
his old baseball team
There's lots of people
looking at
big trouble
But of course
our president
is clean