Patients across the developing world are hoping Novartis withdraws their case.
If they don't, then the Indian court will have a judgment in another two months.
For FSRN, from New Delhi in India, this is Vinod Kejaws.
Free Speech Radio News is a work-or-run collective.
Today's newscast was produced by Tina Ghesi and Mel Abram, sitting in for Monica Lopez.
Our Washington editor is Leanne Caldwell, Headlines editor is Shannon Young.
Our technical production team at KPFA in Berkeley includes Antonio Ortiz and Eric Klein.
You can listen to this newscast in its entirety online at www.fsrn.org.
And this is radio station WBAI in New York.
We're at 7-0-1, time for another exciting edition of Off the Hook.
And a
very good evening to everybody.
This program is Off the Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
Boy, we've got a lot of people here tonight.
I don't know what the occasion is.
We all sort of came together at the same time.
Let's start over, Jim, over there in the far corner.
Hello.
Lynn, visiting us from down south.
Hello.
And we have Redbird.
Good evening.
Mike.
Hi.
Arseny.
Hello.
Not Kevin on the other side of the room.
Hello.
Mitch Altman.
You're here.
Howdy.
Inventor of the TV began.
And Anthony S. joining us from Philadelphia.
Greetings from Philadelphia.
Unbelievable.
There's no way we can all have a good amount of time tonight with this many people around.
But let me just point out at the outset, we're not on next week, so we're going to have to
try and cram in as much as possible this week.
Let me start by saying, issuing my appreciation, my congratulations, my utter thanks to our
friendly neighbors to the north.
Those would be the Canadians.
Do you know what's going to happen in Canada on Thursday?
Anyone want to guess?
It's going to snow.
It's going to snow?
Well, maybe.
Yeah.
That could happen too.
But two anti-terror measures adopted as part of Canada's response to September 11th will
expire Thursday after opposition lawmakers agreed they were an unnecessary infringement
on civil liberties.
Wow.
Wow.
Isn't that something?
Canada's showing us the way once again.
These measures empowered authorities to arrest and detain suspects for three days without
charge.
And three days, that's nothing.
They don't even have a Guantanamo Bay.
They send people, what, to St. John's or something.
I don't know where they send them.
To compel individuals with knowledge of terrorist activity to testify before a judge, neither
has ever been applied.
The prime minister, Stephen Harper, who is a conservative, wanted to extend them three
years, but his minority government needed the opposition's support.
This is how it works in democratic societies.
The motion was defeated 159 to 124 in the House of Commons yesterday after all three
opposition parties voted against it.
These two provisions especially have done nothing to fight against terrorism, have not
been helpful, and have continued to create some risk for civil liberties.
So again, thank you, Canada.
Maybe someday we'll follow your lead.
Back at home, though, it's business as usual because all kinds of fun things are happening
here.
Did you see this?
This has to do with the RNC.
The Republican convention took place in 2004.
We talked a couple of weeks ago about how a judge is forcing the NYPD to give out documents
they consider to be secret, too sensitive to reveal to the public because, well, they
might be embarrassing.
They might help terrorists or God knows what.
Well, the first of these documents has started to be released, and guess what?
We're involved.
Yes.
We're right there in the middle of it all.
Listen to this.
This was published in Newsday the other day.
It's clear from recently released police documents that the NYPD was preparing for
the 2004 Republican National Convention as if the world were about to end.
One document called for a doomsday plan to deal with more than 5,000 arrests.
Now there were even suspicions that a man called Shapeshifter was in town to wreak havoc.
We know him.
Shapeshifter.
That's our layout artist at 2600.
Isn't this amazing?
A look at how police viewed Shapeshifter and other activists like him provides a window
into the NYPD's concerns and preparations for the convention, which ended with more
than 1,800 arrests, accusations that officers lost their cool, and a barrage of litigation
that is likely to shape how future demonstrations are policed.
And of course, I was one of the people caught up in their web.
Now Shapeshifter, for the record, is Terrence McGuckin.
He's a layout artist for 2600, a computer hacker's quarterly.
He came across the NYPD's radar after police conferred with their Philadelphia counterparts
about the Republican convention held in Philadelphia back in 2000.
As you recall, he was arrested in 2000 in Philadelphia.
Now back then, he was 19 years old.
He was arrested by Philadelphia police on misdemeanor charges and held on $500,000 bail,
half a million dollars bail.
His offense?
Using his cell phone as an instrument of crime, apparently to encourage other protesters to
block an intersection in front of the convention center.
This is heavy duty stuff here.
Now the case, as you might imagine by now, wasn't what it was made out to be.
A trial judge listened to the prosecution, then threw out most of the charges.
Actually they threw out all the charges.
A lot of this article is kind of inaccurate, so they make it seem like he pleaded guilty
to something, but he didn't.
In fact, he sued the city and he won.
They also make it sound like he's counting his money.
He donated all the money to nonprofit organizations.
But anyway, on the weekend of July 9th, 2004, Shapeshifter slipped into the Hotel Pennsylvania.
Make it seem like-
Wait.
He slipped in?
I knew we should have put up a sign that said wet floor.
No, he didn't slip because of the wet floor.
Because we were holding a conference there that weekend.
We would have let him in.
Yeah, yeah.
We did let him in.
We let him in.
Apparently he still managed to sneak in from Penn Station across the street.
Unreal.
So yeah, he slipped into the Hotel Pennsylvania right across 7th Avenue from Madison Square
Garden.
One of the reasons we don't want them to tear it down, because it's really convenient, where
the convention would be held in less than two months, the Republican convention.
Our convention was being held right then.
That was Hope No. 6.
And he spoke at two panels, Mischief and Mayhem at the RNC, and RNC's Scavenger Hunt, which
are part of a hacker's conference, which is unnamed in this article, probably for the
best.
It goes into details about various kind of pranks that he talks about, but they're nothing
but pranks.
Nothing but pranks.
But they're treating it like it's some horrible bit of terrorism.
There was a two-page memorandum passed around the NYPD about his speech.
It was circulated two days later among the highest ranks of the NYPD.
And it's really, this set the tone.
This set the tone for the entire reaction of the NYPD during the Republican convention.
I expected, I expected some interesting things to come out of these documents that are being
uncovered.
I didn't expect something hitting so close to home so quickly.
You know, it sort of makes me feel good that our city is so safe that the top people in
the New York Police Department have nothing better to worry about than Terrence giving
a speech at our conference.
And people like us, the ones sitting in this room right now, we're the major threat.
You haven't seen yours.
You know, it probably hadn't been released yet.
Uh-huh.
Well, I'm sure there'll be memos about me for 2008.
When's 2008 being held?
I have no idea.
Oh, we have to go, wherever it is.
It's being held in Minnesota somewhere.
Now, listen to this.
Some of the concern, according to sources, was generated by the simple fact that Shapeshifter
had spoken right across the street from the Garden, almost as if the conference had been
held at that hotel to taunt police.
Well, guys, let me fill you in on something.
Our first conference was held at that hotel in 1994, before any of you even dreamed of
bringing Republicans to New York City to have a convention in Madison Square Garden.
So there, we were here first.
You guys can stay out of town, as far as I'm concerned.
Shows you how good their intelligence gathering is, isn't it?
Oh, boy.
Go to Newsday.com or amnewyork.com and look for the story on NYPD and Doomsday.
One of the funny comments that he had in that article was how easy it is to spot the cops
at these conferences.
I mean, they always speak out.
I mean, they stick out like a sore thumb.
Let me see what he said.
That was actually very funny.
You got to find that quote.
Yeah.
Okay.
Last line.
Last line.
Well, basically, Shapeshifter took part in the RNC protest, but avoided any legal trouble.
He was unaware that his speech had prompted such concern, although he suspected as much
when he looked out at the audience in the Hotel Pennsylvania and quickly made those
who didn't fit in.
I could easily pick out the undercover police officers in the room, he says.
They were so obvious, they were wearing Grateful Dead shirts.
And no doubt baseball caps, too.
They always do that.
Okay.
Continuing with fun stuff in the United States.
Get this.
Brian Tanner was sitting in his Acura Integra recently outside the Palmer Library in Anchorage.
That's Alaska, part of our country.
So I guess the lunacy spreads over there.
He was playing online games when a police officer pulled up behind him.
The officer asked him what he was doing.
21-year-old Tanner said that he was using the library's wireless internet connection.
He was then told that his activity constituted theft of services.
Why?
Because the library was closed and they left their wireless connection open.
So apparently using it when they're closed is tantamount to stealing their services.
Now they confiscated his laptop in order to inspect what he may have been downloading.
They haven't looked inside the computer yet because they realize they need a warrant for
that.
They don't have one yet.
Alaska state troopers have chased him off a few times at other locations, they say.
Basically this guy has a device on his key chain, probably makes him into a terrorist
too, that sniffs out wireless networks.
When he finds one, he parks in the neighborhood, uses his $800 Dell laptop to hop onto the
web, but then worried neighbors summon the troopers who tell him to park in a public
place.
This is what people are worried about these days.
Now I went to the public library because I go there during the day, Tanner said, and
though the library was closed, its wireless was up and running.
Now he says he's upset that he hasn't gotten his computer back yet.
The police have told him he won't get it back until the case is concluded.
Now the library system manager, Gene Novosad, said the wireless connection is normally shut
off when the library is closed.
But the library was waiting on a technician to install a timer and the connection was
left on after hours for several days.
Those technicians.
They need to install a timer, turn the damn thing off and you leave the office, what's
the big deal?
Unplug it.
Or leave it on.
Or leave it on, what's the harm?
The key chain device that they were mentioning, by the way, is like a $20 thing that you can
buy at, you know, CompUSA or any other computer-related store.
Are we helping terrorists again?
You know, what worries me most about this is I go to the library and get books.
And I've read those books when the library is closed.
Oh no, no, no, don't do that.
Are they going to get me for that?
Well, yeah.
Oh!
Well, if you're stupid enough to tell somebody you're reading the books when the library
is closed.
No, I don't read.
I can't read.
Of course.
Stay illiterate.
Stay safe.
So in this particular case, this is what, who said this, the, who's Ramali, hang on.
He's the police lieutenant.
Police lieutenant, there he is, okay.
He said, in this particular case, you know he's feeding off something that we know the
city of Palmyra pays for and there are requirements to use it.
So they're treating him like he's feeding off something and making them spend money
when they leave it on.
And it doesn't cost them any money.
It doesn't cost them a thing.
It doesn't cost them any more money than it cost them already.
Exactly.
Well, they're spending all this money on the technician to install a timer.
They could just save their money.
It sounds to me like they're irritated with this guy because he's always going around,
you know, sitting in the parking lot and it's annoying them and then they're, so therefore
they're going to figure out some way to run him off.
The excuse that they use for taking his laptop is also pretty invalid because if they had
a competent network staff, they'd be able to very, very easily, by the way, log everything
that he was doing and know exactly what he was doing online without needing the laptop
at all.
But on a wireless network, what if he's using encryption?
Well, he could be using encryption too, but they would see where the traffic's going at
least, unless he was using like onion routers or something like that, but.
Yeah, he could do that.
He could route through all kinds of proxies and things.
Again, we're helping the terrorists.
I'm sorry.
Right.
Well, in that case, he would probably be competent enough to use encryption on his machine as
well, so.
In that case, they could get a warrant.
Mm-hmm.
Well, either way, Tanner's internet usage has been curtailed.
He's got a home computer, but his parents don't let him on the web after 9 p.m.
He can use the rest of the internet, just not the web.
How old is he?
21.
But he can go out and use it after 9 p.m.?
This is so weird.
He's also a moderator on an online gaming site, ConquerClub.com, where he plays a game
similar to the board game Risk.
That's another suspicious.
I think the game he's playing in real life is a lot worse.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
So that's some of the fun that's happening here.
Also, this is fun.
A former Suffolk police officer charged with hacking into his ex-girlfriend's online dating
service account and setting up dates with several strange men was sentenced to no jail
time and no probation because he is enlisting in military service.
You guys hear about this story?
No.
It just goes to show what you can get away with when you're a cop or going into the military.
Michael Valentine was charged in April with 197 counts that included stalking, computer
tampering, and aggravated harassment.
He pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor charges of unauthorized use of a computer.
Now he said, they said, the prosecutor said, he sought revenge against a former girlfriend
by logging onto her Match.com account, assuming her identity, and contacting 70 men.
Some even showed up at the woman's house for dates.
Now this guy was a cop in Suffolk's 6th precinct since 2002.
Now in court he said he was deeply remorseful.
I do understand my actions didn't instill fear, and I'm extremely sorry for that.
Prosecutors agreed to a sentence of a conditional discharge similar to unsupervised probation
because Valentine said he intends to join the military and learn how to do this kind
of thing right.
Get away with it.
If he does not enlist within the next nine months, he will be sentenced to three years'
probation.
He's previously served as a lieutenant in the army, serving in Bosnia, Iraq, and Panama.
He resigned from the police after his arrest.
And the judge said to him, I've had the face of evil in my courtroom right in front of
me.
You don't fit in that category.
What do you think, Bernie?
Is that safe?
Was that fair?
I wonder why she broke up with this guy.
It's not the face of evil.
But I'm just happy that he'll be representing our armed forces overseas to some foreign
country someplace.
High standards.
Do you think a civilian would have gotten anything close to that kind of treatment?
No.
No?
No.
Okay.
I was waiting for Bernie to say something, but I think that if he hadn't been a police
officer, he would be on the other side of a jail cell right now for at least six months.
Then I guess the advice we can offer at this point is become a police officer first before
you start doing things like this, and then if you get caught, resign and join the military
and you'll be scot-free.
But then you'd have to wear Grateful Dead shirts to a hacker conference for the rest
of your life.
Yeah, there's that.
All right.
Yes, Jim?
Yeah, I got an article here.
Generally the way that people make money through hacking is they hack into someone's accounts
and transfer it.
Well, there's a corporation—
That's not hacking.
I know that.
That's criminal behavior.
Are you the Daily News here?
That's the worst definition of hacking I've ever heard.
No, this is the New York Times, actually.
All right.
But anyway, there's a company based in Hong Kong but with offices in London that's doing
it the old-fashioned way, a company called Blue Bottle broke into the computers of various
corporations and looked for upcoming press releases and then acted on the information
in them by buying options.
The SEC is withholding some $12 million that they made trading in Symantec by reading the
press release two days before it was issued.
Who is dumb enough to store press releases on a computer that has anything at all to
do with the internet?
Let's see.
Symantec, BJ's Wholesale Club, and three others not named.
So they write the press releases for the future and they store them online—
For several days at least.
It's kind of easier said than done, though, to not store them on a machine that's not
internet accessible.
I mean, most computers these days are and they quickly become unuseful if they're not.
Yeah, but you protect them.
You put them in some place where people can't get to them.
No, that's true.
You have to—
What we've learned is that an effective way of protecting them seems not to be to buy
Symantec software.
Yeah, I would say so.
Yes, go ahead, Bernie.
This makes me recall a story probably six or seven years ago where, I believe it was
in the New York Times, was caught—were exposed to writing obituaries of people that hadn't
died yet, famous people like the Pope and politicians and so forth, who were probably—whose
days were numbered, but they knew they wouldn't have time—to get the scoop, they wanted
to write the obituary first and get it out there.
And somehow someone exposed these through hacking into a server that apparently had
been connected to the internet.
And they were rather embarrassing stories.
I'm not sure if it was in the New York Times.
Does anyone recall?
I think it might have been CNN or something.
It was both, actually.
It was—
Really?
CNN picked it up immediately afterwards.
It was in the New York Times.
Some staffer at the Times hit the wrong button.
Bob Hope died seven years before he really died, and it was mentioned by Senator Connie
Mack from Florida on the floor of the Senate.
I think the Pope also was in there.
Possibly.
Who's doing that?
Who's beeping like that?
No one.
It's just a British ambulance.
Uh-huh.
Redbird, whatever that device is, throw it away.
Okay, speaking of weird devices, garage door openers in Quantico, Virginia, suddenly are
not working anymore.
Apparently neighbors of the Marine base down there have been reduced to living a horrible
life after a strong radio signal coming from the facility began neutralizing the remote
control openers.
They can't get in or out anymore.
Haven't we covered—this happened—
This happened before.
You're right.
It happened in Colorado.
But it didn't happen there.
And it happened in Canada?
No.
No.
What happened before is that the controls went haywire.
The doors opened and closed by themselves.
This is a case—this is different.
This is the doors not opening.
Well, residents had to spend hundreds of dollars on new systems, and apparently what happened
was last fall residents around an Air Force facility in Colorado Springs—yeah, this
is last fall—saw their garage door remote stop working when the 21st Space—21st Space
Wing?
Yes.
What are those, astronauts?
No.
Space Wing?
All right.
They began testing a frequency for use during homeland security emergencies or threats two
years ago.
Testing of a similar system in Fort Detrick in Maryland resulted in similar problems,
and apparently something similar is now happening in Virginia as well.
And I guess there's nothing you can do about that.
The frequency is between 138—it's pretty big, actually, according to this—the military
hauls a portion of the radio spectrum from 138 to 450 megahertz.
No, that's not true.
That's not true.
That's a big portion.
No, they—there's a whole bunch of other stuff in there.
Yeah, it's fragmented, but that's not—they don't own everything between those two frequencies.
Okay.
Anyway, that part was borrowed by remote control manufacturers, so it seems they're the ones
at fault here.
So they borrowed that frequency, a couple of frequencies, with the understanding that
the signal be weak enough to be overridden by the military.
They operate under Part 15, which is required to accept any interference that it may be
prone to.
And there's nothing that consumers can do about it.
It's just part of—
Well, it's a question of responsibility.
Now, if you buy a device that must accept any interference, and you're not made painfully
aware that this thing might become no good just if somebody turns on a switch—
You are.
If you read the tiny print on the back of the device, yeah, maybe, but it should be
in a lot bigger print.
And I think it's up to the manufacturer to replace these things.
No, they can't do anything about it.
The manufacturer has no control over it.
They can send new devices to the consumers who bought what are now defective devices.
But all they're doing is they're switching from one Part 15 frequency to another Part
15 frequency.
Okay, but that's fine.
I'm just saying, why penalize the consumers for this when they had no control over the
situation?
They're not the ones who selected the frequency.
There's no unlicensed spectrum that you can use that's not prone to that.
It's just not.
There's no way to do that.
Okay, but that's a risk that you take if you're a manufacturer of this equipment.
I'm saying the consumers just want their garage doors to open.
They should not be the ones having to play these FCC games of who has what frequency.
Neither the consumer nor the manufacturer have any control over that.
There's nothing the manufacturer—
The manufacturer makes up their mind what frequency they're going to use.
They have a very limited selection, though, and they all fall under the same category
as far as the law goes.
There's no spectrum that's specifically set aside that's coast-to-coast, 100% from interference
that is for garage door openers, wireless networks.
For example, I mean, if your wireless network doesn't work because your neighbor is on their
wireless network, then that's too bad.
But also—
Or microwave ovens.
Microwave ovens.
Or you happen to live next to somebody like me who has a ham radio license and transmits
on the 2.4 gig band, and then everybody wonders why their wireless network doesn't work.
I think it should be made painfully obvious to the consumer, these are the risks you run
if you operate on this particular frequency.
This is what might interfere with you.
These are the people who hold the licenses and might turn them on.
But they are.
They are made aware of that.
I challenge you to show me a package that will tell the consumer that specific information.
They'll just say something vague like, must accept all interference.
Who knows what that means?
Right.
Yeah, that's all it says.
Yeah.
I want to be able to pick the frequencies.
I'll say 152, I don't want that one.
I want 450 instead.
I want that choice.
I don't think we're given that choice.
And this marketing is being done in the case of cordless phones.
As Lynn said, the cordless phones and the Wi-Fi operate on the same frequency a lot of
the time.
So you're getting cordless phones that are marketed as, this one won't break your Wi-Fi.
So this is marketing that can be done.
It's just not, except in that specific case, as far as I know.
Yeah, that's good.
This phone happens to have the same frequency as the Coast Guard.
We're offering it at 20% cost of normal phones if you want to take the risk of having boats
coming across your phone one day.
There is.
The only thing that I've seen that's like that is there's a wireless device that was
sold maybe 2002, 2003, an access point on 5.2 gigahertz, which is the 802.11a band.
And in the documentation it says that this device shares spectrum with the satellite
service.
You may, in fact, receive interference.
You're not allowed to use this outside a building.
At that time you weren't allowed to use it outside a building.
The type stuff has changed.
Now there's actually something coming along that's going to be even more of a problem.
There's some military stuff that's going to interfere with it as well.
So if you advertise it that way, a year later they may change what it is, and then you're
getting interference from the Army instead of the satellite service.
You can go online and actually download spectrum charts, and they show you the entire RF frequency
of the spectrum.
Not if you're someone's grandmother living in Queens who only has a rotary dial phone
and no internet.
You would not know what to do with the information anyway in that case.
But you can look this all up.
You can see who the primary, the secondary, the tertiary, and all the way down, who has
privileges on that band and who you may be prone to having to accept interference from.
I suggest the manufacturers look at those sites and make it clear what risks the consumers
are running by buying their products.
I have no idea what you just said.
I didn't understand a word of it.
But I do know that when I went to the phone store and one said, this phone doesn't interfere
with Wi-Fi in plain English, I and lots of other people can understand that.
That's true.
Lynn, you're up here from the south, and you have some information on, I guess, a transit
system that's changing down there.
Yeah.
In Atlanta, Georgia, we are a little behind the times in this, but not everything else,
hopefully.
We're moving from tokens.
Yes, we're still using metal tokens.
They still have tokens, what, in Boston?
Yeah, some places.
Philadelphia.
Philadelphia has tokens?
Yeah.
And we had a mag stripe system for the monthly passes, or weekly passes before.
And we had these lovely little tokens.
Some of them were copper.
Drop it on the table.
Let's hear what it sounds like.
Oh, yeah.
That's good.
That's good.
I like that.
Nice.
Nice.
And now we have a single use, or not single use, four week.
You put money in the machine, or actually, for the moment, you can put the tokens in
the machine, and it will load fares onto a paper RFID card.
Okay.
Now, you're holding a paper card there, and you're claiming that there's an RFID antenna
in that card.
You can actually see it.
These things are really cool, but they don't look like they can last very long.
No.
This is the short-term card, the breeze card.
Hold it up to the light.
Okay.
Those listeners with the video option can now see.
You can actually see the antenna coil in there, and where it connects to the chip.
It's pretty transparent.
Look at that.
Now, they also have a, quote, hard card, and that is coded to your credit card, and or
you can put cash into it, or you can ... I guess you don't have to have a credit card,
but they have to give them an address to mail it to.
Then you can load that with cash or credit card at the machines.
All right.
So, this RFID card that you're holding now, the paper one, that's just good for what?
Four weeks, I think.
Four weeks.
How does it work as you go into the turnstile?
There's a little thing that says, tap here.
How close do you have to be to it?
Do you have to actually touch it?
I actually bought it at the airport, and I don't really ride MARTA very much, so I bought
it just to have it.
You generally have to be within a couple of inches of the reader, but there's actually
a serial number on the back, and I don't know if that corresponds to anything that's actually
on the chip, but that would be interesting to find out.
I don't have access to an RFID reader right now.
Are there any tracking concerns here?
Absolutely.
I mean, RFID especially is prone to that sort of thing, especially if it's linked to your
credit card, if you're purchasing one of the hard cards, I guess.
There's probably another name for that.
The soft card, or what do you call this one?
The Breeze, it says.
The Breeze card.
The Breeze?
Okay, fine.
The Breeze.
That's not linked to a credit card, right?
No.
It's just cash.
You put it in.
I guess the only thing they would be able to tell is where you put the cash in and where
you got on.
By the way, the tracking concerns aren't that much more in-depth than what we have here
with the MetroCard.
It's just that these have the ability to be read wirelessly.
Now, let me put this back in my ... RFID wallet?
RFID-proof wallet.
Thank you.
Just so that we know.
Oh, good.
Okay.
Offered as a premium here on WBAI, if you were lucky enough to pledge.
That's where I got it.
Awesome.
Wow.
Okay, you don't have a hard card, though?
Not yet.
Okay.
I've got to order it.
So you are going to do this?
You're going to take the plunge?
Yeah.
I have these tokens.
I have more of these tokens at home.
What I'm going to do ... I gave you guys some of them.
What I'm going to do with the rest of them is I'm going to keep some, and then the rest
of them I'm going to put on a card, or get several more of these other cards and kind
of look at it and see what's going on with them.
Well, I mean, you're a privacy advocate.
In fact, you were telling me a story before about a hotel you had a problem with because
of something they were asking.
I'm curious how many people have had the same.
Yeah.
I've never had this happen.
I travel quite a bit.
So when I say I've never had this happen, I mean, I check into and out of a lot of hotels
for work.
And last night when I went to check into a hotel in Manhattan ...
A hotel that will remain anonymous.
The hotel that will remain anonymous, particularly because they were nice enough not to charge
me the no-show charge.
Thank you very much.
Well, you showed up.
Well, I showed up.
Well, they were going to charge me the no-show charge because they said I did not actually
check in.
How can they charge you no-show when you're there in front of them?
Well, let's put it this way.
I got to talk to the general manager this morning.
Now I'm not going to be charged.
So in any event, they wanted to make a Xerox copy of my driver's license and keep it on
file to check in.
And I'm not giving you my driver's license.
I'll show you my driver's license.
You can read the information off of the driver's license.
You're not making a Xerox copy of my driver's license.
Unless I'm working for you and you need it for an I-9 audit or whatever the heck they
call that stuff.
They have no legitimate reason to make.
They have no reason.
All they said was that it's for security purposes, quote-unquote, because they're so close to
the...
Okay, so because they're so close to a building.
Very important to New Yorkers.
Hopefully they're in a building.
I mean, what do you mean they're so close to a building?
They're close to Empire State Building.
Okay.
So they want your license in case you decide to blow it up or something?
I don't know.
If you blow it up, your license is going to be blown up too.
But the Hotel Pennsylvania also asked to see the license.
They didn't ask to Xerox it.
That's very...
From my experience traveling, that is very normal for them to verify your ID when you
check in.
And it may be more prevalent because I'm a member of all these...
There are little rewards programs.
When they see that, they know who I am already.
So maybe they don't ask me for it.
But I'd be curious to find out how many other people have experienced this in New York or
other places that they're doing this.
Mike.
Now, you said you're happy to show them your ID, but not to let them take a photocopy of
it?
Yeah.
You know they get all the information when they look at it.
They could even put a little camera there if they were really determined to cause you
trouble.
Or many times you write out the information yourself.
One of the pieces on the form is driver's license number.
What's the difference?
I think the difference is you'd have to be a very talented person for the amount of time
that you show...
You'd have to be a very exceptional individual for the amount of time that is reasonable
to show somebody your ID to verify that you are who you say you are versus writing all
the information down or memorizing it.
Now, granted, if you have a photographic memory and there are a very few, very lucky people
out there who have that, then yeah, you're going to get a lot more information.
But your average desk clerk at a hotel, nothing wrong with desk clerks at hotels, but your
average one is not going to have a photographic memory.
So I mean, I understand their need to verify that you are who you say you are, mainly because
of the credit card, that you're not committing credit card fraud, but making a Xerox copy
of your license...
I still don't buy that though.
I mean, the credit card companies have ways to deal with that that don't involve checking
ID.
Exactly, yeah.
You can't do those all the time without verifying ID and there's no reason for a hotel to have
to know that you are...
But here's one point that we seem to be missing.
It's not required that you have a driver's license.
So what happens if you don't?
Well, and that's a good point because I offered them several other forms of identification
and they only wanted to take the driver's license.
Now maybe if I'd had a passport, they would have taken that.
I actually would have probably been less worried about them Xeroxing my passport because it
doesn't have my address and all that other stuff on it.
But that's what they wanted because the other IDs did not have my address on there.
Interesting.
Well...
And there are very few situations that I could think of where I would be willing to risk
not being able to stay at the hotel just to see what they would do eventually if I said
I don't have a driver's license.
So it's kind of hard to tell.
Well, Lynn, you risked a lot by refusing to give them the information.
Well, let's put it this way.
Before I walked out, I had already gotten another reservation somewhere else.
Good.
So I...
And you made it clear that they didn't want your driver's license.
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay, good.
Well, congratulations.
The next three people in line did not give their driver's license.
Because of you.
Yeah.
You see, this is how it works.
This is how you start a movement.
All right.
No more giving out our information to people that have no business.
You hear about this story?
In the EU, they want to make it a criminal offense to violate copyright or other sorts
of intellectual property.
This is the...
The EU just recently decided that it could make criminal law at all.
Previously, it had been left up to the individual member states.
And apparently, the first thing on their agenda is criminalizing copyright infringement.
That's the first thing?
It's the first thing on their agenda.
Okay.
What's so interesting about this is that two of the members of the European Parliament
who are for this proposal have on their own websites, unlicensed images.
Interesting.
What are the images of?
So this guy, whose name I'm not going to pronounce, Manders is his last name, has a webpage explaining
how copyright infringement hurts people.
And to demonstrate this, he has a picture of a Rolex watch because Rolex watches are
counterfeited and Rolex Corporation is not happy with this.
But he did not license the Rolex watch.
There's a trademark infringement.
He's assuming Rolex supports his movement when they may not.
There's all kinds of issues with this image and he could be locked up if his own bill
passes.
Wow.
Well, that's kind of cool.
The other guy is Klaus Heiner Leine, who I don't know where he's from.
He speaks German.
And he's got a webpage where you can read about him personally.
And he wanted some images on his webpage so it wasn't all text.
So there's a camera and a lectern and a map where you can learn things.
But these images are application icons from Apple OS X, which presumably he did not ask
Apple for permission to use.
Great.
Well, progress marches on in the EU.
Just in passing, I think I've unfortunately misplaced this article.
But in certain countries of the EU, notably Germany, there are moves afoot to pass laws
that would prohibit people from having anonymous accounts on the internet, including Gmail
or Hotmail and accounts at any ISP.
Oh, good luck with that.
Well, there's a groundswell in the politicians.
Well, they're always trying to do things like that, but it never really seems to get off
the ground.
How would they possibly enforce that?
Apparently, you wouldn't be able to sign in any place unless, except for a government
internet cafe of some sort, you'd have to show ID and you'd have to register the username
that you're using.
Well, that works very well in a dictatorship where everything is controlled.
But you know, they're a little bit ahead of themselves.
They haven't gotten to that stage yet.
So wouldn't that mean Gmail and Hotmail all have to agree to their terms?
Not necessarily.
They would probably put some sort of filter on to keep them from being used if they don't
agree or put financial pressure on them.
Well, what's interesting is that Google and Microsoft, which owns Hotmail, both have large
business interests in Europe.
So they could actually be affected by this, even though they're both American companies.
We know that they will play ball, as has been evidenced in China.
They'll do whatever it takes to get that business.
And they have much more business in Europe than they do in China, at least for now.
Still very early.
It's just a few handfuls of legislators who have just barely proposed legislation.
But still, nip it in the bud where it's easier.
Yeah.
We have a lot of listeners in the European community.
So please, guys, get it together and keep it from happening.
Well, it's easy to say that, right?
But we haven't been able to get it together in this country.
Well, that's because we're here doing the radio show.
We don't have time.
But the people listening are the ones who can affect change, and hopefully the people
out there in Europe are listening.
Mitch, welcome to New York.
You're from the Bay Area.
And what have you been doing?
You've been putting batteries in TV-B-Gons?
Yeah.
I've been replacing thousands of TV-B-Gons with dead batteries, with the help of a couple
people in this room.
Nice.
That's more than iPod does.
Yeah.
Well, I like taking responsibility for my mistakes.
I wouldn't say that anything having to do with the TV-B-Gon has been a mistake.
It's brought joy to many people.
You run into people on the street who are very happy that the TV-B-Gon exists.
Tell us something about what's in the future for TV-B-Gon.
Well, I'm working on version three, and that'll be out at an undisclosed time this year.
In the meantime, I've been making some high-powered TV-B-Gons that work about 100 yards.
So these stores that have large screens facing the sidewalk, I can just turn them off from
across the street.
Wow.
I have to test that out later on tonight.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No problem.
I'm down for that.
What's the range of a normal TV-B-Gon right now?
Depending on the TV, 20 to 50 feet.
Sony's are the best.
They don't even know it, but they turn off very easily.
So wait.
You've gone from 20 to 50 feet, and this, what do you want to call this one, this professional
model hits 100 yards?
TV-B-Gon Pro, yeah.
Wow.
That's unbelievable.
Does it turn anything else off?
Pacemakers or anything?
Most pacemakers aren't remotely controllable from TVs.
Let's hope they're not remotely controllable for anything.
Unless Cheney's around.
Bernie, you were down there too, weren't you?
Yes.
It was quite a gathering of a dozen people in Wall, New Jersey.
And we had a great time.
Thanks, Mitch.
We set up an assembly line, and it was a good chance to hang out and hack TV-B-Gons.
Wow.
Any adventures afterwards involving shutting off massive amounts of television sets?
No.
We went to a really nice vegetarian restaurant afterwards, which thankfully did not have
a television in it.
So no, we didn't turn off any TVs, but we could have, we could have sought them out
if we wanted to.
Well, that sounds really exciting.
All the things you could have done.
Okay.
Well, we'll be roaming the streets of New York turning off TV sets later on.
So actually, Mitch, with this kind of thing, this might actually work going into people's
homes, right?
As you're walking down a street in suburbia, you could just be hitting this super TV-B-Gon
on and off, and people's TV sets would be turning on and off inside their homes.
They'd have no idea where it was coming from, right?
Yeah.
It will go through glass quite easily.
In fact, last time I was visiting Philadelphia, me and Bernie were walking around and found
this lovely young couple, arm in arm, in front of a TV set.
Their heads, the back of their heads were facing us, and the TV was also facing us.
And we'd turn off the TV because we really couldn't help it, I'm sorry.
But not even two blinks, the guy just turned the TV back on.
So of course, we turned it right off.
And he turned it right on.
And after about the fifth time, he went up to the TV and looked kind of puzzled.
We finally get to see what he looks like.
It was kind of nice.
I was in a bar-like place in New York a couple of weeks ago.
A bar-like place?
Well, it was, I guess it was a bar, but it also had food.
I don't know.
They had TV sets on every conceivable wall.
Yeah, why did they do that?
I don't know.
Nobody was watching them, and it was just annoying.
And so I was able, this is the first time this ever happened, I pointed at one of them
and I turned it off.
It was a big screen in front of me.
And somehow the TV set in back of me had also turned off.
It sort of bounced off the first one.
Oh yeah, it's light.
So it's invisible light, you can't see it.
But like a flashlight, if you point it at a wall, it might light up the wall behind
you a little bit.
So the same with the pulsing infrared light, it can, the TV behind you can see it and turn
off.
Well, I was delighted that that happened.
Saved me a step.
And then I got the third one, so the entire room was now TV-free.
And then the waitress came in and conferred with a few people, and then they rummaged
around the back room, found this big remote that looked like it was from the 1970s, and
spent the next 10 minutes trying to figure out how to turn all the sets back on.
And eventually they got it, and of course I turned them all back off again.
And I found, maybe you can give me some philosophical information here, after that happens, they
give up.
They don't try it again.
They realize it's a losing proposition, and they just go about their business and pretend
the TV sets were never there.
Yeah, yeah.
It's really strange, because in public places, with the exception of some place like a sports
bar where people actually do go out to watch TV, but in general, people don't go out of
their homes to watch TV.
So when you turn off the TV, people don't even notice, and the only people that tend
to notice are the employees who feel, for some reason, obliged to turn them back on,
but they don't know why.
So when you turn them off again, they tend to give up.
And you know, I was nice.
When I left, I turned them all back on, because the TV begun also can turn TV sets on, because
the frequency is often the same.
Yeah, the button for power is on or off, like any other remote.
And I think they figured it out as I was leaving that I was behind it all.
But they weren't angry, because everything was okay in the end.
I just had modified the environment to suit my needs.
Yeah, they'll associate the good feeling with the TV off with your presence, and then it
being back on, they'll feel kind of weird after you leave.
It's my hope that when I see me coming, they'll turn the sets off in advance and turn them
on when I leave.
Bernie?
I just wanted to make a brief, unrelated announcement to our listeners who would probably be interested
in something similar, and that is monitoring the radio spectrum.
There's a gathering every year in the middle of March, and it's next Thursday, Friday,
and Saturday.
That is March 8th, 9th, and 10th.
It's the annual Winterfest, and it's hundreds of listeners to the shortwave and VHF and
UHF and satellite spectrum.
And I think people who are on the show have attended this.
Haven't you, Redbird, attended this event before?
Yeah, it was pretty fun.
You meet some interesting characters down there.
But there's loads of interesting RF stuff going on.
So if you're into radio...
If you're monitoring the radio spectrum in all its glory, stuff that you may not be intended
to or supposed to be listening to, check out swlfest.com, a non-commercial event.
It's just a good group of people and worth attending.
It's about a half an hour north of Philadelphia.
That's swlfest.com?
Yep.
Yes.
Okay.
Jim?
And I have one quick free announcement.
There's a total eclipse of the moon this Saturday.
I don't know the exact time.
It's within an hour of sunset.
So just get off your ducks and watch the sky.
What's the website for the moon?
Moon.org?
I have no idea.
But...
Jim, be prepared.
I've told you this before.
If you're going to make an announcement about something...
Go to Google or any major search engine and do a search for moon, total eclipse, March
3rd.
All right.
If any of our listeners have the website for the moon, please let us know, and we'll pass
that on as well.
I thought it was .moon.
I'm sorry.
No, they didn't get that top-level domain.
Our email address, othat2600.com.
We'd love to hear from you.
Here's a couple of smatterings of listener input.
And of course, we'll be taking phone calls 202-209-2900.
So start making those phone calls now, and we'll go right to the phones.
This letter from Michael over at Homeland Stupidity.
Back about 10 or 11 years ago, there was a company called DigiCash out of the Netherlands,
which had a totally anonymous digital cash system.
They were a bit ahead of the time, unfortunately, and their idea faded into the dark corners
of the few people's minds who remember it.
So one of the things this company did before DigiCash was to build an anonymous road tolling
system, which actually got deployed in Texas.
It used similar technology to the DigiCash clients that we all played with back around
that time.
I don't know if that system is still in operation, and the company has all but disappeared, but
it's definitely possible to build an anonymous tolling slash congestion charging system.
We were discussing this a few weeks ago.
On that note, I'd love to see DigiCash resurrected.
We desperately need it now more than ever.
And unlike 1996, today virtually everyone has a device in their pocket capable of handling
it.
Their cell phone or a PDA.
What do you think?
I think it's easier said than done, mostly because of a lot of the federal regulations
regarding cash flow and stuff like that.
But it was done in the past.
DigiCash existed.
It was also before 9-11 and all these insane laws that we have now.
So it's a really nice concept, but to implement it would probably be a lot more difficult
than it seems.
Does that mean we shouldn't try?
No.
I think we should try.
All right.
Well, hopefully somebody out there will.
We'll get involved, too.
Here's another letter.
Dear guys, I was wondering if you knew of any sites that offer reverse phone number
lookup services for free.
I've been getting a lot of calls from various numbers.
I'm wondering who is calling me.
Their number shows up on my caller ID without a name.
All the sites I found, you had to pay for the information, so I was wondering if you
knew of any free sites.
Derek from Buffalo.
Jim?
A number of the lookup sites also offer reverse lookup, Verizon, Super Pages.
I think Verizon is Super Pages now.
I don't think you can...
It used to.
It used to not be.
I know that much.
Yeah.
Anything along that?
I think this is a cell phone calling them, though, because either that or it's something
from a PBX because there's no name.
Usually a caller ID, you have a name of some sort if a number shows up.
It's almost impossible to get that name.
Give them a private phone or similar service number because that will record the number
even if it is blocked in many cases.
You can find out pretty easily, too, if it's a cell phone block or a company of some sort
by calling a couple of numbers up and down, seeing if they're cell phones or a company
in that particular range.
Other than that, though, it can be difficult if the person is hiding.
Use e-mail and ditch mail.
Yeah.
E-mail and ditch mail.
Our friends over at e-mail.com.
It worked great for me.
I had somebody calling me with an 800 number and I put a disconnect tone as the custom
message and they tried about two more times, and then after that, no more calls.
A lot of automated systems will do that, too.
They'll just take you off the list if they hear certain things.
Really?
Yeah.
Interesting.
Kevin?
You could also social engineer an operator to do a CNA for you.
Tell us what all that means.
Customer name and address.
We used to use that way back in the 80s.
The CNA number in Albany, we used to call to get reverse phone number lookups that way,
but how would you do it today?
Well, basically, you have to social engineer the operator to thinking you're a tech in
the field and you need to check a line.
And that works?
It does.
It also works with Domino's.
What, the pizza place?
Yes.
All right.
Well, we've brought them up a number of times as victims of social engineering.
They probably have a lot less training in the...
They do.
All you do is call them up and say, can you check the address for me for this number and
make sure it's right?
And they will give you the address.
Wow.
No problem.
Whoa.
And who says Domino's is no good for anything?
Okay.
All right.
We're at 209-2900.
We have a bunch of phone calls.
Let's see who's out there.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Hello.
Hi.
What's on your mind?
I thought you're going to have a lot of fun with that turn off the TV gizmo.
If you work in cahoots and an unarmed person goes up to the bartender and asks him to turn
off the TV and he'll refuse, and then you do a little hocus pocus thing with your hands
like a magician.
At the same time, your friend is pressing his button.
When you say unarmed, you mean unarmed with a TV-B-Gone.
Correct.
Okay.
Good.
Yeah.
And then they'll think you're a wizard of some sort and they won't mess with you anymore.
Correct.
That's good.
I like that idea.
That's cool.
What do you think?
Yeah.
I've never done that myself, but someone wrote a very amusing article about using TV-B-Gone
during the Super Bowl and a few people did for the World Cup.
And people have emailed me saying that they've gone in and orchestrated, sort of choreographed
a thing where each person in every corner of the bar had their own TV with a TV-B-Gone
pointed at it and the appointed moment they all went blank.
Wow.
Of course, you could have TV-B-Gone wars where someone else comes in and their aim is to
turn the TV on and they're standing next to you and they sort of go back and forth.
Yeah.
So there are a whole bunch of people who claim to be TV-B-On people and other people who
claim to be TV-B-Gone people, but it's really just guerrilla street theater.
Okay.
212-209-2900.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
I was wondering if you guys podcast the show.
Do we podcast the show?
Mike, I think you're the person to answer this.
Yes, we do.
Okay.
So all the information...
Sir, you really don't know if we podcast the show because I think that's been publicized
quite a bit.
Can I go to iTunes or where can I go to actually podcast?
Yeah.
We're on iTunes.
How would somebody do this?
As somebody who's always on the air during the show, I never get a chance to do it myself.
You could go to iTunes.
You could also go to our website, which is 2600.com and click the Off the Hook and there
will be a link to our feed, which will work.
Okay.
But it is at iTunes as well?
Yeah.
Yeah.
In May, go to RadioFreeNY.com.
You might like that podcast.
Okay.
We'll try that.
I hope that wasn't just a whole big thing to get a free plug for that site, but who
cares.
212-209-2900.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Music.
Very nice, but I hear enough of that every day.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Hello, guys.
How are you?
Good.
How are you?
Okay.
Listen.
I'm a Hamlin.
I'm calling tonight to give you an interesting site that you can listen to all over repeatedly.
Do you want it?
Sure.
It's wb2hww.com and it's a 440 repeater in the New York City area.
If you go there, you can listen to repeaters.
It's got all kinds of links and everything.
I know that.
I know that, repeater.
Are you a repeater?
I'm a repeater.
I'm a repeater.
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Well, no.
I think that was something they were proposing, and that's not going to happen.
And I think you can use a ham radio in a car, right?
Isn't that something else?
Technically, you still can.
Yes.
Technically, you still can.
Once a state, they want to do away with it.
They say even if you change a channel on your radio, they consider it breaking the law.
Yeah.
They had something like that.
House Bill 5 in Georgia was going to make it illegal, and I contacted my representative,
and he said the bill's not going anywhere, and that he would call me.
He had my name and number, and he would call me next time when it comes up and get my input
before the bill goes in.
And you'll try to get it in.
Lynn, you're affecting legislation everywhere.
You're preventing the hotels from getting our licenses.
You're keeping-
That's the plan.
... legislation from passing down there.
That's great.
Listen-
It's trying to control people's lives.
That's certainly true.
That's the theme.
And their TVs.
That's the theme of our program, I guess.
Thanks so very much for calling in.
Good luck.
Thanks for being here.
7-3.
7-3.
And that's your secret code of-
Yeah.
All right.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Oh, dear.
Don't tell.
Didn't we used to conduct this show in English?
It's not convenient anymore.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Hi.
How you doing?
Good.
How are you?
Good.
Hey, I just wanted to say, you guys were talking about ridiculous needs for photo ID.
I registered a domain name through registerfly.com a couple years ago, and what happened is
they split up through, and what they were doing is they were reselling domains through
a company called Enums, and they ended up splitting up.
And so I got an email one day saying that I have to click this link to transfer my domain
name, and I made sure it was legitimate because at first I thought it was a scam, and I checked
it all out, and yeah, this company sort of split up.
So the problem is I was, for one of my two domain names, I was using a service called
ProtectFly, which just hides your address and your email address and stuff like that
so you don't get spammed or, you know, just so you can hide, you know, so it's not public
information.
Okay.
Your phone number's not out there.
You have to wrap this up really quickly.
So what happened?
Well, anyway, they wanted me to verify my account with this Enums because it never got
my email for the second domain name.
And they asked me for, this is how they wanted me to verify my name.
I was talking to them through email, and they asked me to send a screenshot from RegisterFly.com
proving that I owned the domain name, and they wanted me to scan and send them in a
photo ID.
Oh, brilliant.
Yes, even though I'm not on, you know, I'm not in front of them in person, so they could
just scan anyone's photo ID.
Of course.
You could have Osama Bin Laden's face there.
It gives you an indication of the intelligence level that we're dealing with.
Thanks for that info.
We're going to have to cut it short at that point, though, because we are out of time.
I want to thank everybody for listening and for calling in, and remind people, we're not
on next week.
We'll be on again in two weeks.
2600 meetings are coming up this Friday.
Personal Computer Show is coming up next, and we'll see you in a couple of weeks, oth2600.com.
Have a good night.
There's no song for the singer, no words for the tune.
There's a mess in the message and a man on the moon.
There's no plan in the planet, it's all gone berserk.
There's a milk bottle shorty, and the traffic lights don't work.
Lie down and be counted, don't take any more.
Lie down and be counted, what are we standing for?
But there's hope for the couple who strove in the park.
There's nuclear power to light up the dark.
There's national health and ice in the fridge.
And the occasional cow on a motorway bridge.
There's extended credit on easier terms.
There's something to kill, oh no, household germs.
There's sofas and armchairs and washing machines.
Stars on Sunday, fish fingers and beans.
Lie down and be counted, don't take any more.
Lie down and be counted, what are we standing for?
There's no song for the singer, no words for the tune.
There's a mess in the message and a man on the moon.
There's no plan in the planet, it's all gone berserk.
There's an airplane shorty, and the traffic lights still don't work.
Lie down and be counted, don't take any more.
Lie down and be counted, what are we standing for?
Lie down and be counted, don't take any more.
The mayor proclaimed it Paul Krasner Day?
Not the mayor, a higher power.
Dick Cheney?
No, the CCCP.
The Christmas coup comedy players proclaimed it Paul Krasner Day.
Well, why?
Because Paul Krasner will perform with the CCCP at the Puffin Room on February 28th at 7.30pm to benefit WBAI.
With Janet Coleman, David Dozer, John McDonough, Mark Kehoe, Moogie Klingman, Marshall Efron and Alphabetty Olson?
Yes, with Bob Fass, Bernard White and special guest star Paul Krasner, inventor of Yippie, publisher of The Realist and defense witness for the Chicago 7 on LSD.
Wow, the great Paul Krasner.
And 10-year-old Madden McDonough as little Amy Goodman?
Shockin' awesome.
Let us know you are coming to the Puffin Room?
In SoHo at 435 Broom Street on February 28th at 7.30pm.
By calling the Arts Department at 212-209-2840.
Hooray for Paul Krasner Day!
Yippie!
Yeah, yippie!