support for student organizing and students' efforts to make concrete changes at the school.
Last week, more than a dozen teachers at Jordan High School submitted their resignation or
transfer request, citing administration oppression, in support of Karen Salazar being rehired
for next year.
For Free Speech Radio News, I'm Dan Fritz.
You've been listening to Free Speech Radio News.
From Eugene, Oregon, I'm Jess Burns.
Look at that.
Seven o'clock on the nose.
It's WBAI New York.
The time is seven o'clock, as we mentioned.
And once again, we're off the hook.
The program is off the hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein with you.
Yeah, I understand I said time about 14 times in that last sentence.
I'm sorry.
I'm a little bit out of it.
Greetings, Mike.
It's time for me to say hello.
Yeah, it is time for you to say hello.
And is that Redhack over there?
Yep.
How are you doing?
Hey.
We have on the other side of the room, not Kevin.
Hello.
Looks like Rob T. Firefly joined us today.
Good evening.
And down in, well, down somewhere in Pennsylvania is Bernie S.
Well, I don't know how down it is, but it's in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania.
Yeah, but it must have a name.
It does, but I'm not going to say it on the air.
Are you afraid someone's going to track you down in that godforsaken place, wherever it is?
Exactly.
That's exactly what I'm afraid of, Emmanuel.
Because you yourself are familiar with being tracked down in rural areas.
Well, no.
When was I tracked down in a rural area?
I don't remember this.
Remote area.
Bernie, are you afraid of this?
Remote area.
I've been chased by rednecks and pickup trucks in remote areas, but I didn't know who they
were, and they didn't know who I was.
There you go.
I'm not on the run, so I just have to take care of some business.
Well, you're not on the run yet, but it sounds like you're preparing to be on the run.
It sounds like Bernie's afraid of some dangerous ham operators tracking him down with all their
radio equipment.
Yeah, and they can track you down.
Those people are powerful.
They were good at it.
Yeah, definitely.
Okay.
Well, it's been a busy week.
We have all sorts of updates for people and various other news tidbits and things like
that.
We'll be taking phone calls in just a little bit.
I have a bit of a major story.
Actually, not Kevin.
I'm hoping, can you come over here for a second?
Just come over to this part of the studio.
He has to walk down a little corridor to get here.
This is not a gag.
He's really walking.
No, he is walking down here.
What I have in my hand here, would you step up to the microphone, please?
All right.
Just move your head over there.
I'm right here.
I just hit not Kevin over the head with the full program of The Last Hope.
Can you just feel like a real fool walking all the way over there just to be hit on the
head?
Did you hear it?
Do you want to hear it again?
No, I heard it.
I heard it.
Well, someone just walked into the studio.
They didn't hear it.
Let's do it again.
This is the program for The Last Hope printed out in eight and a half by 11 sheets of paper
on not Kevin's head.
It sounds like a Monty Python skit.
Well, no, but this is real.
I mean, you know, we just did this live in the studio.
Yes, this is, in fact, the schedule.
Not the schedule yet.
We're still working out the times and things like that.
But this is the list of talks that we have put together.
In fact, the exciting announcement tonight is that after the show, we will be posting
this full list with details.
Eight o'clock Eastern, sharp?
Not eight o'clock Eastern.
After the show gets posted, which is whenever Junce gets around to doing it.
He hangs out with us and, you know, there's all kinds of merrymaking and things like that.
But eventually, eventually tonight, the show will be posted.
And probably about what?
Nine o'clock, ten o'clock?
When does it get posted?
Eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock?
Whenever we stop drinking and start, like, getting back to the world.
Yeah, something like that.
And then shortly after that, certainly by tomorrow, you'll see the full range of talks
that we have.
And I got to say.
Can you share some of them now?
Well, yeah, I can share a bunch of them.
In fact, what I like to do is pass them around as long as you guys don't mess up the order
because we have a little paperclip holding it all together.
Staple wouldn't go through it.
But we have 96 talks.
And that's more.
That's a lot.
Yeah, I think that's at least 20 more than we had last time.
How are we going to fit them in just two rooms?
I don't know.
We have three rooms.
We have three rooms.
So we have a whole additional track.
We have a new track.
So we have three tracks going.
We also have the unscheduled fourth track.
And we even have special space in a different part of the hotel as well on the sixth floor.
So we have all kinds of possibilities going on.
You know what?
I'm so sick of this because I've been working on this for days and days and days.
I don't even want to see it.
So I'm just going to – here.
I'm throwing it over there.
Just try not to separate the pages.
And if you guys want to look at a particular panel or something and read about it, feel free.
Actually, I'll start with you now, Kevin,
because I'm sorry for hitting you so hard twice on the head with the program.
How do you feel?
You okay?
I feel great.
Actually, you seem a lot more coherent now than before I hit you over the head.
Yeah.
I feel like I actually can speak coherent now.
Listen to that.
He's speaking all coherent.
Coherently, it should be.
Coherent like he's speaking.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Well, good.
Good for you.
So there is this – actually, there are a couple of panels that you were instrumental
in putting together, but one of which is – is it okay to talk about this?
Oh, of course.
Okay, because it's the anonymous panel.
And I'm not sure because you're semi-anonymous here.
So I'm not sure if you want to remain anonymous.
But I think – well, we don't have the dates set yet, but I believe that's taking
place on Sunday.
We're actually going to have a panel of these anonymous – now, by anonymous, we
mean the group anonymous that we've been talking about with their fight against Scientology
and all that kind of thing.
But we have a bunch of them coming in, and they'll be giving a big talk at our conference.
A very big talk.
Yeah.
That's never happened before.
No.
This is a first.
What's never happened?
We have big talks every year.
We have big talks, but we don't have the – well, I mean, you're better off not,
Kevin, explaining what the significance of the anonymous people is, right?
Are?
Are.
I don't know.
They've been in the news a lot this year.
So I think this is pretty big just to get people who actually say they represent this
because literally tens of thousands of posts on various websites every second or something
are – they're responsible for.
I don't know.
Whatever you think of them, it represents a large group of people, right?
A very large group of people.
I mean, just recently, as in last Saturday, well over 300 of NYC Anonymous showed up in
front of the Church of Scientology and protested.
Wow.
And that's what they're protesting right now is the Church of Scientology.
But they've done all sorts of other things in the past as well, some constructive, some
not so constructive, I suppose.
But they'll be there to answer questions.
I'll bet the media will be all over this because they're going to say, oh, these
are these people, these evil people that do all kinds of silly things or something like
that.
I'm familiar with it.
The hackers get that kind of –
Attention.
That kind of image, yeah, occasionally.
So it's just one of many panels.
Any other ones that stand out?
There's the Graffiti Research Lab extravaganza taking place.
Yes.
They're making their extravagant return.
Yeah.
And that's something we recently put together as well.
A Throey Workshop.
They're going to be premiering a film at the conference as well.
We're going to have Throeys?
We will have Throeys.
Awesome.
I believe.
I'm told we will.
Maybe somebody who's at a microphone can read the – one person who doesn't have
a microphone is the person reading it.
Pick something that you want to focus on quickly.
There's too much.
Well, pick one at random.
I can't choose one.
Just pick one.
There you go.
Now read that one.
Art, activism, and computer countercultures.
Okay.
That's good.
See, that's one panel.
One of many panels.
We have two panels on food.
Okay.
Tell us about those.
One is going to be presented by Bicycle Mark.
He's going to talk about sort of the global food supply, how food gets to you.
What does that have to do with hacking?
I think he'll explain.
He won't.
What?
I won't?
I don't even have the thing in front of me.
Not Kevin has it.
Give him the thing.
Will you give him the thing?
And then I have to remember the title of his talk because it's sorted by title.
This is not going to go well.
I think it's called Hacking the Food Supply or something like that.
So, I mean, he's going to definitely tie hacking into it.
Every talk we have starts with…
And of course, there's Gweeds.
There's Gweeds.
There's Gweeds.
Yeah.
Who's going to talk also about hacking.
Bicycle Mark's talk is called Hacking the Price of Food.
Whatever.
Food supply, price of food, I don't know.
But Gweeds is actually going to cook food in the room like he did last time, I believe.
Yeah.
Last time he did.
He's going to hack the actual food once it arrives and he's going to talk about,
I guess, molecular gastronomy and how you can do…
What was that word?
Molecular what?
Gastronomy.
Gastronomy.
Yeah.
It's not a word.
It's just basically using chemicals and all sorts of scientific things to do stuff
with your food.
Okay.
And it's always a show when Gweeds talks.
Pick something else.
I should pick something else?
Well, stop flipping through.
Just pick something.
We're looking for things.
I think we're going to learn about sharing your love of technology with normal people
from the Prometheus Radio Project.
There you go.
But you see what you're doing is you're looking for specific ones that you know about already.
No, I'm not.
Well, you were flipping through it for so long.
I was just flipping at random.
Okay.
Now go to a random page and pick something else.
This is the fun.
A completely random page?
Yeah.
All right.
We have Hacking International Networks and Systems Using VoIP.
There you go.
But I don't know anything about that one because all I've read so far is the title.
Well, why don't you read the description?
Presented by DaBeeb and Jay Falcon.
Okay.
And they want us to know that there's an entire world of PSTNs out there that most people
never bother to look into.
People have a tendency to call within their area or country and never stray or wander
outside.
This talk hopes to change that perception.
There you go.
And Beeb actually is part of the TeleFreak Project.
That he is.
Yeah.
Who is also having a panel.
The TeleFreak Project also is having a panel.
And Mike, I just want to point out that you've separated the paper clip from that huge sheet.
I know.
But I'm keeping it in order.
When that gets out of order, we've lost all control.
And we have no way of knowing when all these talks are going to be.
So the paper clip is very important.
Froggy and Tiger are going to talk about how to start your own con for fun and no profit.
That's right.
They ran not a con.
They're giving a talk on how to run a conference because we sure can't do that.
We have no idea how to do it.
And we certainly don't want to talk about it because we're sick of it.
Well, okay.
I have some other news about the conference as well.
Feel free to burst in with any other.
It just keeps going on and on.
Head to Red Hat.
But make sure you attach it again with the paper clip.
I'm going to do that.
We also, a lot of our listeners have been writing in to us very concerned because they pledged for HOPE tickets.
And they obviously haven't gotten them yet.
And there's a reason for that.
We haven't gotten your names yet.
But now we have your names.
In fact, I'm holding your names in this.
No, I don't need to hit you over the head with that.
That's only three sheets.
I just want to make sure.
Yeah.
But we do have a bunch.
And what I'd like to do, I'm going to read.
And this is for your convenience.
I'm actually going to read the first name and city of every single person who pledged for tickets.
And that way, you know if you don't hear your name, that we don't have the information for you.
And that there might be a problem.
You should contact us.
OTH at 2600.com
Are these sorted by anything?
Or do you have to pay attention to the whole list?
Well, I mean, you should just recognize your name if you hear it.
But basically, I'm going to separate it into people who pledged for two tickets and people who pledged for one ticket.
All right.
So, the following people all will be getting two tickets.
They all pledged for two tickets.
And we have your pledge.
We have your address.
At least, we think we have your address.
And you should be getting something in the next week or two in the mail.
What if you don't have a mailbox?
Are you just going to cause trouble?
Is that what you're going to do?
Yeah.
Obviously, they have a mailbox.
They gave us an address.
All right.
So, it's not a problem.
It's not a strict requirement.
Let's try to get through this.
By the way, if I say you're town wrong or you're state wrong, that might be something to point out to us as well.
Because we're going to be sending to the wrong place if we don't correct that.
Again, our email address, oth2600.com
Okay.
These are the people who pledged for two tickets.
You will be getting two tickets in the mail to the Last Hope Conference.
Tom from Keensburg, New Jersey.
Duncan from Harrow Smith, Ontario.
That's in Canada.
Julie from Aurora, Colorado.
John from New York City.
Okay.
That might be a little…
Okay.
John L.
And your middle initial is P.
How's that?
From New York City.
Joseph from…
Oh, I don't even know where this is.
This doesn't have a…
It just has, I think, a zip code.
Joseph…
I don't know.
You think that's…
19136.
Joseph, if you recognize that, just verify that's your zip code.
I mean, we can figure it out.
But I don't know.
There's a whole country involved.
That could be kind of confusing.
Mike from Kansas City.
That might also be a little…
Mike P. from Kansas City.
Kansas City, Missouri.
There you go.
Oh, no.
How do you read this?
Ofumai.
O-F-U-Y-M-A-I, I think.
From Elizabeth, New Jersey.
I think that's the name.
I think you've got the point across.
Yeah.
Well, hopefully.
That might be an L.
It might be O-L-U-I.
But I still can't pronounce it.
We apologize for any mispronunciations.
Yes.
Or you should apologize.
I'm not good at mispronouncing.
Well, I'm just trying to read what's in front of me.
Joseph from Kansas City, Missouri.
Wait a minute.
We just had…
Oh, we had a Mike from Kansas City.
Okay.
Joseph from Kansas City, Missouri.
Maybe you know Mike from Kansas City, Missouri.
Dan.
Dan from Brandon, South Dakota.
Mike from Rochester, New York.
Mike I. from Rochester, New York.
Mark with a C.
Kay from Brooklyn, New York, obviously.
Peter from Guelph, Ontario in Canada.
Ian from Fredericton in the UK.
Dan from Bloomfield, New Jersey.
Lee S. from New York, New York.
Serge from Silver Spring, Maryland.
Dan from East Riverford, New Jersey.
Jonathan from Edison, New Jersey.
James from Livonia, Michigan.
Jose from Flushing, New York.
Irene from the Bronx.
David S. from Brooklyn.
And Adam from Holmdale, New Jersey.
All of those names are the people that we have for pledging for two tickets for the
last HOPE Conference in the recent BAI fundraisers.
Now I'm going to read the names of the people who pledged for one ticket.
And you'll be getting your tickets in the mail within the next couple of weeks.
Let's see what we have here.
How do you pronounce this name?
L-A-O-I-N-E.
Or whatever that is.
From the Bronx.
Thank you for your pledge.
I'm sorry I can't say your name.
I don't know how to say that.
Donald from Northport, New York.
Eric from Caledon, Ontario, I believe.
Jessica and August from Escondido, California.
Laura and Dan from Hillsborough, New Jersey.
All these people.
There are two people and they pledged for one ticket.
I don't understand that, but that's what we have.
Obviously if we've got it wrong and we're reading the list of names of people who pledged
for two instead of one, then people will write to us and tell us this hopefully.
But I think we got it right because this is what we were told.
Eugene from Philadelphia.
Jacob from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
I think the printer jammed here.
It looks like Jeff, but it's not.
It's J-A-something.
Maybe you could help us with this, whoever you are.
From Little Falls, New Jersey.
Your last initial is V, by the way.
Colin from Brooklyn.
David from Lorenzo, California.
David from New Rochelle, New York.
Fred from Toronto.
Joshua M. from Seattle.
Thomas from Eastport, New York.
Joe P. from Columbus, Ohio.
Dan from Chatham, New Jersey.
Daniel from Austin, Texas.
William from Silver Spring, Maryland.
Felicia D. from New York, New York.
Cliff from Roselle, New Jersey.
John from South Amboy, New Jersey.
Arthur from Glendale, New York.
Cliff from Brooklyn, New York.
Timothy S. from New York, New York.
Kristen from Madison, Wisconsin.
And David P. from Brooklyn, New York.
All those names we have down for one ticket.
Now if you did not hear your name, there's a couple of reasons why that might be.
We might have missed it somehow.
Or you might not have paid your pledge.
Or something.
There's all kinds of things.
But these are the people that we have.
If you heard your name, then you can calm down and not worry about anything else.
Something else I'd like to point out.
All those names.
All those names represent donations from us as well.
Think of every single one of those names and the ones times two as two admissions.
And admissions are, you know, they're up there.
And you add that up and it's a significant donation from us and from you guys for pledging as well.
And when you add in the 150 or so speakers that we have who generally get in for free,
anybody who wants to help us out by, if you can afford admission, please come and pay admission
or check out our merchandising stands or things like that because these conferences are expensive.
It really does add up.
And we're starting to panic now.
The hotel sold out.
The hotel is sold.
This is the thing.
The hotel has sold out.
You can't even get a room there anymore.
But you might be able to get a room on Expedia or Orbitz or something like that.
But get this.
That weekend, the weekend of July 18, 19, and 20 is the only weekend all summer where the hotel rate has skyrocketed to about $500 a night.
Yeah.
It sold out though.
I don't understand it.
But the thing is that's the weekend that's in demand in that hotel.
So obviously this conference is attracting quite a bit of attention.
Now we have a lot of alternative places to stay.
So you don't have to panic if you haven't found a place.
Go to our website, hope.net, and you'll see a whole list of those.
But, yeah, I just thought it was kind of weird how the price skyrocketed in certain places because it's in demand.
We didn't accidentally get scheduled up against the dog groomers this year, did we?
I hope not.
Boy, that was unfortunate, wasn't it?
Yeah, Hotel Pennsylvania, of course, being a dog-friendly hotel.
If you do have a dog, bring your dog to help as well.
No additional charge for dogs.
I mean for a small dog, I think, but that's okay.
But for a big dog, we should charge something.
Well, we can put them to work, you know, doing all kinds of errands for us, things like that.
That's true.
But, yeah, okay, so that's all the people.
And thanks again for helping the radio station because that's what that was all about, pledging to the radio station.
Rather than buying a ticket directly from us, we're all helping the radio station out.
That keeps this show going, and that's a vital part of the whole thing.
But please, if you know other people that want to come to the conference, let them know so that we actually get some paid admissions as well because these things really do add up.
They really do.
You can tell who's been looking at the books recently.
All right, RedHack, you've been perusing that list for quite some time.
You must have some talks that you've picked out.
You're still perusing?
Come on.
Still perusing.
There's so much.
Well, there's got to be something you can just pick.
Pick on that page.
Pick something right there.
Okay, now read it.
Into the microphone, please.
That's not a good one.
I mean, that's not a good one.
They're all good ones.
Who do you think you are judging the talks like that?
Not a good one.
It's a great one.
Is that my talk?
I shouldn't have said anything.
No.
All right, RedHack, you can't pick one, so we're going to move on to other things.
Take it away from him.
He's not getting anywhere.
All right.
He won't give it up.
Well, no one's going to want to give it up.
I think this one sounds interesting.
What do you mean, this one sounds interesting?
You're implying all the others don't sound interesting.
They all sound interesting, but I like this one especially.
It's called Methods of Copying High-Security Keys.
Oh, the lockpicking.
Yeah, this is in the lockpicking village.
Maybe you can speak into the microphone.
Oh, sorry.
I'll add to the experience.
So it's a workshop in the lockpicking village where they—
It's not in the lockpicking village.
It's in the room upstairs.
There's going to be a lockpicking village throughout the entire weekend.
Right.
And that lockpicking village, you'll be able to learn how to make copies of keys,
how to break into locks and things like that, not for malicious purposes,
for educational purposes.
There's a talk, actually, not to steer the boat away from this,
but we do have to move on.
But there's a talk about breaking out of handcuffs.
There is, out of high-security handcuffs.
Yeah, you skipped over that one.
I saw you skip right over that one.
But we have, I think, more lockpicking talks
and more talks about hardware than ever in this conference.
We have, I think, at least four or five different lockpicking talks, which is great.
It just goes to show how many different things there are.
All right.
So last HOPE Conference coming up.
It will be here before you know it.
And we're all busy at work.
Oh, we have a safecracking talk.
Safecracking.
That's kind of cool.
Tell us something about that.
Okay.
All I read was the title.
No, you suck at this.
I'm sorry.
But take it away from him.
Anybody wants to read a description, it's all going to be online.
Can I say what else we'll have at HOPE?
Please.
Not a talk.
You know what I'm talking about?
Not really, no.
You should know.
I sent you all these emails about it just today.
Okay.
That.
Oh, you want to talk about that?
Yeah.
Then go ahead and talk about that.
We're going to have-
Wait, before you do.
Yeah.
Let me just say that we're not responsible for people whose lives take a downward spiral
as a result of this or who find that they really can't survive without it after they
get introduced to it.
What we're trying to do is open people's eyes to something on an international scale.
And sometimes, sometimes people just can't handle that.
It's not our fault if you're not mature enough to be able to know when to stop.
All right.
With that said, what is it that we're introducing to the Americans?
For the first time ever in the United States, we're going to have this German soft drink
called Klubmatte, which is-
It's spelled club mate.
Yes, but it's not pronounced like that because they're strange over there.
Yeah, but I'm over here and I pronounce it that way.
But go ahead.
You're mispronouncing this product that we're the first ones to have.
We should be the first ones to pronounce it correctly as well.
Americans live to mispronounce things.
Anyway, the Klubmatte is this carbonated soft drink with mate, which is this sort of South
American plant in it.
And it's drunk by all the German hackers and some of the Swiss and surrounding countries
as well.
You can't be a German hacker unless you drink this stuff.
It's why I'm not a German hacker.
I've noticed.
Yeah.
That and my horrible command of German.
And so they're all addicted to this stuff.
And in the interest of sort of international friendliness, we've gone through a lot of
work to import this stuff over here.
And we hope that Americans will like it as well.
And then they won't be able to ever get it again, unfortunately.
Well, you know, we'll work on that.
Yeah.
I mean, basically, right now it's on a boat or is it about to get on a boat or something
like that?
It gets on a boat next week, I think.
All right.
So it's sitting in a dock somewhere right now.
It's in a dock in Hamburg.
I can tell you where.
Don't do that because then somebody in Hamburg will go and take it.
You can't do that.
No, Bernie's afraid of people tracking him down.
I'm afraid of people tracking this down.
You know, we all have our fears, our demons to live with.
Well, if anyone does track it down, I have some questions they can answer for me.
So this is something that's going to be available throughout the entire weekend.
And it's going to be unique.
You can't get this any place else.
There are people who actually want entire pallets of this stuff for their own personal
use.
That is how...
Which is 800 bottles.
Yeah.
That's how addicted people get to this.
And they're decent sized bottles, half liter bottles.
So that's, you know...
You could cause...
If I hit NotKevinOverTheHead with one of those, that would cause some damage.
No, no, no.
It might.
I'd probably enjoy it though because I'm addicted to Clamate.
We do have to demonstrate what these bottles sound like somehow.
Not by hitting NotKevinOverTheHead.
Well, do you have a better suggestion?
Yeah, but I'm the one with the bottle.
How about I just drink the bottle?
Okay.
Or the liquids in the bottle.
Not the actual bottle.
Now, this is not a product endorsement or anything like that.
Basically, what we're trying to do is just introduce something that no one else has introduced.
And hopefully, it'll result in some good.
Now, did you go into the details as to why is this so addictive to hackers exactly?
It has caffeine in it.
Yeah, a lot of things do.
But people who drink this tell us that it has a sort of...
You don't crash afterwards.
You don't crash.
I mean, the caffeine crash.
Yeah, caffeine crash.
You don't get it apparently from Clamate.
And why is that exactly?
I don't know.
Okay.
Well, basically, if you drink Jolt or these other things, once you stop drinking it, you have a caffeine crash.
Do you want to describe a caffeine crash to maybe some of the youngsters listening who have yet to experience their first caffeine crash?
No.
Come on.
It's one of those special times of life.
Emmanuel?
Yes, go ahead, Bernie.
I can attest to the truthfulness of that statement.
One of the CCC Congresses, for the first time, I tried Club Mate.
And the phrase on the bottle which says Club Mate or Klub Mate, you get used to it, is true.
The first time you drink it, you're like, ugh.
But then it's like, oh, all right, I have another one.
And then you have another one.
And then another one.
And then you're awake for three days.
But it's not like a buzzy kind of caffeine.
I don't drink tea or coffee, for that matter.
But this kept me alert and awake through the duration of the CCC Congress years ago.
Was that when you were dancing on the subway tracks?
Or was that something else you took?
No, that was somebody else.
That wasn't me.
Okay.
But you stay alert, and you actually can function, and you say there's no ill effects.
It's an amazing drug.
Whatever is in there, this mate.
And then after I stopped drinking it, I didn't feel any ill effects as one would probably have if they stopped drinking coffee
or some energy drinks full of caffeine and stuff like that.
But at some point, you have to catch up on sleep, right?
It's not like that just erases the need for sleep.
True, but you don't have like a withdrawal or like the post-caffeine jitters kind of thing.
It's calming and alerting at the same time.
It's kind of hard to describe, but it's worth trying, and we're not trying to sell this stuff
or try to pitch it necessarily on the air.
No, but we will be trying to sell the stuff there.
If you're at the HOOP conference and you have trouble staying awake,
which I doubt very much because there's so much interesting stuff going on,
you should just try this thing just to experience what German hackers drink.
Yeah, and interesting things will be going on 24 hours throughout the conference.
But yeah, we are human beings, and we need to slow down at some point.
We're not suggesting that people not sleep, but sometimes people are committed to not sleeping for the entire weekend.
This will make it a lot easier, and it's legal, and it's safe, at least as far as I know.
And people seem to really want this stuff.
As soon as it said on the Clubmate website that this stuff will be available in the United States,
the very next day someone noticed and was like,
can I get it in Seattle?
So people really, really want this.
Can you imagine if we got Seattle hooked on this?
Well, I don't know.
It could be like a whole new Starbucks.
Yeah, it'll drive Starbucks right out of business.
It really will.
This could be our salvation, folks, as far as the magazine business is dying,
so maybe soda distribution, that's where the future is for us.
But it's just one of many examples of things happening at the HOOP conference
which is going to make it a unique experience.
And want more information?
Again, www.hoop.net.
Still room for people to volunteer to help us out, help us run the conference.
Volunteers at hoop.net if you're interested in that.
Vendors, we have vendor tables.
We have vendor tables.
What's a vendor table typically used for?
Well, we're going to be vending this stuff, obviously.
It's used for vending.
If you want to see us selling bottles of soda and magazines and T-shirts and things like that,
then you get a vendor table and you can watch us,
or you can sell your own things, whatever they might be.
Yeah, if you have a product or service or just a project that you want people to know about,
get a table and hang out there and, you know, vend.
It's vendors at hoop.net.
Find out about rates for that and all kinds of other things.
So it's going to be a blast.
Again, all information www.hoop.net.
Okay, enough promotion of our conference,
which I hope everybody listening comes to one way or another.
Find a place to stay.
Oh, Rob T. Firefly, do you have a talk?
You're looking at the piece of paper there.
I do have one here that caught my eye.
A Hacker's View of the Freedom of Information Act,
which is something quite mysterious to me, and I can't wait to learn more about it.
And who's giving that talk?
That's given by someone called Phil Lapsley.
Okay.
Is that a familiar name?
Yeah.
Do you want to describe the talk a little bit?
Apparently, this talk will include, it will focus on the FOIA,
the Freedom of Information Act, from a hacker's perspective.
Phil submitted hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests
to various three-letter government agencies.
And in this talk, he'll give an overview of how the whole thing works,
describe the types of things you can get via FOIA,
and discuss some of the typical stumbling blocks and workarounds to them.
Okay, that's one of the nearly 100 panels that we're presenting here
at the last HOPE Conference.
Okay.
Yes, go ahead, Marnie.
I just want to point out that particular presentation at the HOPE Conference
might be of particular interest to HOPE attendees
because it's a safe bet that a good number of HOPE attendees
may have a file with one of these three-letter government agencies
and would like to see the contents of that file,
although it may be redacted with confidence by those agencies.
You know, I sent a letter like almost a year ago
to the border agency asking for my files.
I never heard back.
I sent a registered mail and everything.
Well, no doubt they have files on you now.
Well, that's one of those pitfalls that they're going to describe
how to work around at the panel discussion, perhaps.
All right, let's take a look at some of the other things going on.
We'll be taking phone calls in just a little while.
212-209-2900.
Here's a letter that we got.
This actually is addressed to you, Bernie.
Oh.
Dear Bernie S., I am in need of your professional guidance.
I have two concerns I wish to resolve.
Hang on.
It's on the other page.
I don't think I have them.
I think that's the page it didn't print.
Oh, my gosh, how embarrassing.
Oh, is this it?
Yeah, I'm sorry.
It printed in the wrong order, or I stapled it in the wrong order.
Verizon is my local and regional telephone carrier.
I have an optional service, caller ID,
and I'm paying a recurring monthly charge of $9.
I find this service useful,
but I prefer to purchase a telephone accessory slash device
that would display the inbound telephone number,
name of caller if available, time and date of the inbound call,
and most importantly, discontinue my caller ID service with Verizon.
Is there such a telephone accessory slash device available?
If so, can you provide me with the website's and or contact information?
Let's stop there and see, Bernie,
if you have an answer for that first part of the question.
The answer to the question, unfortunately, is no,
because the caller ID decoder,
you buy decoded data that Verizon sends down the phone line
between the first and second ring,
and if you don't pay Verizon for caller ID service,
that data will not be coming down the line.
So no matter what device you have,
it can't decode data that's not there.
However, there's one exception to this,
and that is if you don't subscribe to caller ID
and if there is a federal or state wiretap order issued on your phone line,
very often in that case,
the government agency will order caller ID service for your line,
and they will pay for it because they want to see who's calling you.
And this has been a tip-off to people over the years
where if they suddenly have caller ID service
where they didn't have it before and they weren't paying for it,
it's cause for concern.
Well, if you notice that you have caller ID service,
if all of a sudden you notice that your caller ID devices
are registering names and numbers,
and you call Verizon or your local phone company to have it turned off,
and they keep turning it back on,
I guess that's a real clue that somebody wants it to be on.
Well, yeah, but it might not be wise to call them
because it would tip off the hand to the,
because the particular agency that's wiretapping you
would probably get tipped off to the fact that you asked to have it turned off,
and then they may seek to surveil you and stop using other means.
But in any case, it's a good reason to worry
if you want to give caller ID service and you never asked for it.
Well, it's also a reason to rejoice maybe
if somebody got into a phone switch
and gave you permissions of all sorts of things.
Hackers used to do that all the time, get into phone switches
and give people a call waiting.
That used to be a big deal.
Why does caller ID cost $9 a month?
Because it can get away with charging anything.
Again, it's just a switch.
A phone line costs, what, like $15 a month?
It's a single letter in a computer database,
a Y instead of an N.
It's not taking any extra equipment or anything like that.
It's just sending data down a phone line.
That's all. Right, Bernie?
It really doesn't cost the local exchange carrier,
the phone company, anything to provide caller ID service.
It's built into their central office switch.
It's a standard feature when they buy the switch from Northern Telecom.
It was a big deal back in the 80s when it was being invented,
and maybe even the 90s, but now it's standard equipment.
In fact, try to get a cell phone
that doesn't have a cell phone version of caller ID.
It's part of the package.
And that raises another point.
You mentioned Verizon, and the listener mentions Verizon,
but you don't have to use Verizon as your local company.
If you use something like Vonage or some VoIP provider,
I think caller ID comes by default, right?
It's standard with the package.
If you're using a local exchange carrier like Verizon,
like an established incumbent telco, you can't get it for free.
But if you are using a VoIP service like Vonage, you're right.
You can get it, but that's not really a plain old telephone service,
POTS service.
I don't think it's what this particular listener was asking about.
Right, and it's over the Internet,
so you need to have a high-speed connection to support that,
which not everybody does.
Okay, well, how about your cable company, then?
You can do it that way, too, but you're paying a lot more.
But then you're still paying.
You're paying for the cable, Internet, and then the VoIP.
Well, I'm just saying some people use their cable company
to have local phone access, and they claim to save money,
and I think caller ID is included with that as well.
Yeah, I think so.
And I guess the day is coming when Verizon
and all the other local bell companies will just offer this as standard
because they won't have a choice.
The market will demand that.
Well, the rural area I am in right now, Emanuel in Pennsylvania,
still charges $1.50 a month for touch-tone service.
See, I heard that, and people don't believe it, but it's true.
They still charge for touch-tone service in some parts of the country.
But if you stop paying it, usually the touch-tones still work.
No, it's not true.
It's not true because a friend of mine who lives up here,
who's very technically knowledgeable, did just that.
Well, he never had it, but he's tested touch-tone phones,
he's checked the polarity and all that.
It just does not register at the switch.
Right, because that flag in the database is set to N
instead of Y.
Back in the days before there was a database,
when it was all mechanical, they couldn't tell the difference,
and it would go through.
But now that it's modern, they can turn it off.
Are you saying your friend has a rotary phone?
He has pulse dial phones, not a physically mechanical rotary,
but what they call a repertory dialer.
It's just an integrated circuit that generates the pulses.
Redhacked, are you looking down upon rotary dial phones?
No.
Because I would like nothing better than to have
just rotary dial phones throughout my house.
Who's stopping you exactly?
And a rotary dial cell phone.
And wouldn't it work anyway?
You should hook them up.
Yeah, I mean, how many people,
is there anybody in this room who has never dialed a rotary phone?
And don't be ashamed.
Okay, but I'll bet there are people listening.
And please write in, oth2600.com,
if you have never in your life put your finger in that rotary dial thing
and turned it around and had it go back.
I'd like to know, not Kevin.
For those who have never dialed with a rotary dial phone,
if you come to the HOPE Conference,
you can, as we will have rotary dial phones set up at the TeleFreak booth.
Really?
You're going to bring rotary dial phones in
just so people can experience rotary dials?
Or is there some other purpose to this?
No.
Well, that's an awful lot of trouble to go to,
just for people to rotary dial something.
I assume there's more to the project than that.
It's a cool phone. Why not?
It's a cool phone, yeah.
What will you be able to dial with your rotation?
Exactly.
Usually phones connect you to something.
Phone numbers.
Okay, there you go.
These just phone numbers anywhere or made-up phone numbers?
You can make up a phone number. You won't get anywhere, though.
What will get you somewhere?
These are the kind of conversations we have with people.
Listen, what you're saying is that you're hooking up a telephone that people can use.
Yes.
A real telephone.
A real rotary telephone.
Okay, but it's connected to a phone line,
and people will be able to call any place.
Yes, that's what I was trying to allude to,
that you can actually dial with the rotary phone and call people.
I'm glad we finally reached that conclusion.
I think it was just common sense that that's what you would do with a phone.
I don't know.
You might have just had a rotary phone for people to play with.
Yeah.
Sometimes people will just line up.
That's what I thought.
Line up to play with the rotary dial.
I don't know.
All right.
You know, we never got to the second part of this letter.
I can see it's going to be a long night if we continue like this.
Okay, thank you, Jess, for your patience in us reading this letter over the air.
The other concern Jess has is that for the past several months,
I'm going back into the first person here,
I do not believe that Verizon's claims regarding the amount of local calls being made for my telephone number is true.
Last billing cycle alone, May 13th to June 12th, Verizon claims my local calls,
133 in a day, 14 in the evening, 67 at night, a total of 214 calls,
in excess of seven calls per day for 30 consecutive days.
Is there a telephone accessory slash device available which keeps a tally
and displays outbound telephone call numbers made and their date and time?
Bernie?
Yes, yes.
They're not as, like 20 years ago, Radio Shack even sold something like this.
By hackers it's referred to as a pen register because that's the term that law enforcement agencies use
when they put in a warrant request just to get dialed numbers recorded,
not the actual content of the conversation.
But pen registers were available to the general public as long as 20 years ago.
You can still, they stopped making them years ago from Radio Shack,
but you can find them on eBay for $20 or $30.
It printed all the numbers you dialed on a piece of paper tape,
like a calculator printing tape, and it was pretty neat.
It showed all the touch tones you dialed or dialed pulses even after you dialed the number.
So if you dialed the number and then entered tones after that,
it would record all that and the date and time, and you could infer that.
Now this guy's trying to just find out whether Verizon is ripping him off
and saying that he's made more calls than he really has.
He could either find one of these devices,
and there's also some newer devices that could use the sound card,
a device that connects to your sound card with a piece of software that runs on the sound card
that decodes the number of digits in the calls and so forth.
Here's another way to do it without buying anything,
buying any products or hardware.
Verizon, because I had to resolve this for a client of mine,
you can pay Verizon to give you an itemized list of all the phone numbers you've dialed.
It's a few bucks a month.
That's ridiculous. You're paying them to tell you what they're charging you.
They don't provide itemized billing for local calls anymore.
But they do bill you for the local call.
And here's the weird thing.
It's a huge ripoff.
Did you notice in this letter that he has it day, evening, night.
People still live by these rules.
I mean, I remember that years ago, yes, evening calls,
you had to keep in mind when the evening began, when night began.
But nowadays with cell phones, people just, it's all included in your monthly plan.
How is it Verizon still has these antiquated plans?
I think that's true.
With cell phones, generally there's peak and then off peak, off peak.
I know.
I have not seen on either one of my cell phone bills a charge for a call that was not international in a long, long time.
And I think you can just guess.
Well, yeah, because they have ridiculous amounts of minutes that you'd never use.
That's true.
Well, it depends.
But they still separate them into two categories generally,
one being nights and weekends, whenever that is,
and then the other being all the rest of the time.
There's a possibility, Emanuel, that somebody has attached.
Yeah, I just called waiting.
I hate that.
Call waiting?
You have to pay extra for that in the rural areas.
You have that out there.
Okay.
They just came out with it recently, I think.
You can find out.
Perhaps this caller is having a problem where somebody unbeknownst to him has attached a telephone to his phone line
and is making calls without his permission.
Absolutely.
That's very easy to do.
It's extremely easy.
You just connect the two wires and you're done.
Yeah.
So if he pays Verizon, I don't know, it's like $9 or something,
and then it's like $2 a month after that,
he can get a complete list of all the outgoing numbers that have been dialed on his phone line.
Yeah.
And then if he sees there are a bunch of calls made when he was not home or something,
then he can report that as fraud and they can do an investigation.
But if he buys a pen register for $20, then he ends up with a cool piece of hardware.
This is true.
Yeah.
I think that's definitely better,
but I think the best is just to find another company because Verizon really needs to update its policies.
What is a pen register called by people who aren't hackers who might be selling one?
A dialed number recorder.
Okay.
Or DNR.
Or CPA 1000, right?
That's what the Radio Shack one was called?
That was the model.
If you do a search on eBay or some other online auction site for the CPA 1000.
I used to have one.
It's a memory manual.
I had one.
I lived in a house with a lot of people, and we had to basically – I kept track of the phone bill,
and I told everybody, after you make your phone call, dial a one-digit code.
Everyone had their own one-digit code, and that way you were claiming the call.
So when the phone bill came in, I would spend several hours trying to match everything.
It was ridiculous what we had to go through.
Okay.
Let's move on to another letter.
We're going to take phone calls in just a moment.
Off the hook, how reliable are landlines in a blackout?
I'm thinking of switching to VoIP, but I've heard landlines are more reliable because of the power issue.
During a blackout, have the landlines ever failed?
Verizon told me yes, but I questioned their reliability.
Signed, Jake.
Why did Verizon say that landlines fail?
They sell landlines.
Well, I'm sure they could fail in some sort of extreme circumstances, but in general, I mean,
the phone lines, at least, they work during a power outage.
A lot of VoIP providers nowadays will put with their, well, it depends, like with Cablevision anyway,
when you get a phone through the cable company, they have a backup battery that comes with the device
so that if the power goes out, the device stays powered and the cable connection stays up.
Not necessarily.
Well.
Not necessarily.
And also, you need to keep your router and your modem powered because if you don't have power, it's not going to work.
Well, the modem generally plugs directly into the phone jack, so then that gives your entire house phone.
But what I was saying is the modem will have a backup battery.
So the modem itself won't shut off.
But if you have other devices, it's always good to have a UPS in your house or office.
It's like a poor man's UPS for the modem.
At least allow you to shut down cleanly if you do have a power outage.
The caveat is that if your electricity is out because a tree hit it, it probably also hit the phone line.
And briefly, Emanuel, phone companies have large banks of batteries, 48-volt battery banks,
that maintain the voltage on your phone line so that you can make calls even if there's a power outage.
You've probably been in central offices and seen these large banks of batteries.
They're pretty impressive.
All right.
Here's one final letter we're going to read, and then we're going to take phone calls.
212-209-2900.
Dear OffTheHook,
Tonight is a very sad day for the Swedish people.
Oh, wait a minute.
This isn't a football result, is it?
I don't want to know about the game tonight.
Sweden's playing Russia, and I'm banking on Russia.
Today is a very sad day for the Swedish people.
I know it's got nothing to do with that.
A law allowing the FRA, the National Defense Radio Establishment,
to intercept the communication of all cable-bound electronic communications,
internet communication, phone conversations, crossing Swedish borders,
is being passed with an extremely small margin by the current majority of voters
from the center-right parties from the Alliance for Sweden.
Those are the four parties that the coalition government is consisted of.
The opposition, the Social Democratic Party, the Left Party, and the Green Party
all voted against the law but lost with a small margin.
There has been a large but late outburst against the law from the public,
but too many have understood too late what the law actually means.
I'm very worried about the development.
Yes, Swedish listener, that's something to worry about.
I think we see things like this happening throughout the world, don't we?
The only unusual thing about this whole situation
is that the actual police force of Sweden, if I understand correctly,
actually opposed this law, but it's still passed anyway.
Do you know why they opposed it?
No.
It seems strange. Maybe they just wanted to do it themselves.
Maybe they were concerned that when they went to put in these legal ones,
people would find all the illegal ones they'd been doing all these years.
I don't know what the rationale was, but yeah.
All right. Let's take some phone calls.
212-209-2900. The program is Off The Hook.
Write to us, othat2600.com.
Good evening. You're on Off The Hook.
Hi, I'm calling you from a rotary telephone, from a functioning rotary telephone.
Oh, there you go. Great. Thank you.
Can you dial it? Can we hear it?
Yeah, just run your finger through that.
Oh, you want me to do it? I'll just do a three.
Yeah.
Did you hear it?
Can you do a nine? Please do a nine.
Oh, wow. That's great.
I like it.
Thank you. That made my day.
Okay, we're big fans of Not Kevin, too.
Oh, there you go.
Oh, thank you.
I wasn't expecting that, but that's nice to hear.
Anything else on your mind?
No, we just enjoy the show, and I just thought I'd give you a call.
All right. Thanks.
Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.
Take care.
Rotary phones, they're out there. They're coming back. You'll see.
Good evening. You're on Off The Hook.
Speak up, please.
Hi, there. This is Gene, Pennsylvania.
Heard my name called for the ticket.
Oh, good. Was it accurate?
Yeah, the location and all that.
Did have a question, though.
Is that going to be sent out with all the rest of the stuff that was also ordered?
Oh, good point.
No, in fact, that's going to be sent out first.
If you pledge for a DVD set, it takes a very long time for us to make those,
and we're going to get started on those.
But keep in mind, it's like 80 DVDs.
And also, folks, if you're a part of that and you honestly don't want the DVDs,
let us know that, because our robot goes crazy making the things,
and we want to send it to you.
But if you don't want it, it would save us a lot of time and aggravation,
and we'll send you something else in its place.
But just let us know.
But, yes, you will be getting everything you pledged for, but the tickets first.
Okay, because it was put on my credit card, and I never received anything.
I put it in dispute.
Uh-oh.
Not that I, you know, but I called WBAI twice, and nobody's returned a phone call.
What you have to understand is that we're one radio show on the radio station.
Every hour is a different radio show.
They all have different deals going on with premiums and fundraising and things like that.
And this is nothing new.
Throughout the course of the history of this place, it's 1960,
getting premiums out to listeners has taken a long time just because of the sheer amount of it.
I can honestly say that people try their hardest.
There's a lot of volunteer efforts going on.
And especially if you pledge during this show, I can personally guarantee you will get what you pledged for.
Okay, so I'll just pay the charges and hope for the best, or what?
Yeah, please don't dispute it.
Otherwise, that would cause all kinds of confusion.
Okay, well, like I said, I try to get through to, you know, to the offices there,
and nobody's returned my phone call.
And this is about 10, 12 days so far.
Yeah, believe me, it's not because they don't want to.
It's because we are so stretched human-wise as far as getting back to everybody.
And in our particular case, you're definitely going to get what it is you pledged for.
Okay, I'll release it.
Second question first.
Was that 2600hope.net or what?
Just hope.net, www.hope.net.
Of course, he put it in there.
He was coming us up with some religious organization.
He probably put in hope.com or something.
What exactly did you type in?
Well, I gave it to somebody else.
I'm pretty sure I told him it was .net.
Yeah.
No, it's www.hope.net unless Obama took over our website again.
No.
It should work.
Okay.
Thanks very much.
Thanks for your call.
Thanks for your pledge, and we'll see you at Hope.
Let's also go to thelasthope.org.
That's right.
That works too.
Let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Oh, thank you.
Yes.
The new general manager, Tony Riddle, worked at restoring capitalism in Eastern Europe,
in Hungary, Romania, and he flew into St. Petersburg with Jimmy Carter.
He says he's against totalitarianism in Russia.
Okay.
You know, there's a machine that somehow cuts you off when you do that.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Speak up, please.
Yes.
I want to tell you that Verizon just raised the rates on all the landlines.
Oh, good for them.
That must be their way of trying to keep their customers.
I have a technical question.
I have LG Verizon Wireless LG 5200, and the thing just died on me, and I didn't back up anything.
Is there a way to fix those units?
Died in what sense?
Excuse me?
Did the battery go bad, or is the actual phone?
I changed the battery, and it just goes in the motions of starting, but it just doesn't go past that screen and shuts itself off.
You know the Verizon screen for the first 10 seconds?
Right.
It goes next.
It freezes about sometimes for 5, 10 minutes and then shuts itself off.
Have you brought it to the store?
Yeah.
They told me the port is broken, and they can't do nothing with it.
Oh, no.
Is there any place that fixes these things?
I mean, I would suggest just ask and find an online forum about these kinds of things and ask them.
There might be somebody who can do this, but obviously you're not going to get any help from Verizon.
It's kind of tough with such a complicated piece of equipment.
Phones aren't as simple as they used to be, so you can't just go to your old repair shop to get it fixed.
They've got all these microchips.
I went supposedly to a technical Verizon store where they fix these, but they don't fix it.
They just transfer information from one phone to another.
Right.
They just give you a new phone.
But, I mean, there are people who pride themselves in figuring out ways to fix things like this.
They are out there someplace.
If you ask around, they at least claim that they can do things like this, maybe on Craigslist or something like that.
At least you'll know if someone says it's possible.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
All right.
Good luck.
There's nothing worse than losing things, you know, losing data.
Back up your phone before it breaks.
That's the aggravating thing about Verizon is that they don't make it an easy way for you to back things up.
That's true.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Hello.
This is Sarif calling on behalf of the chat room or the IRC room.
Okay.
What IRC room?
The off the hook IRC room.
Oh, okay.
I don't get to visit that because I'm here all the time, but what's on your mind?
Oh, nothing.
Have you heard the one about the hacker who said he uncovered some UFO conspiracy theory or something?
Yeah, the British guy, right?
Yeah.
We've been following that for a while.
In fact, there's a story about that this week, that extraditing a Britain accused of the biggest military computer hack of all time to the U.S.
would be an abuse of proceedings as according to the law lords.
They have law lords over in England.
Is that the story you're referring to?
Yeah, that's the one I'm talking about.
So you think it's significant?
Yeah.
I mean, I just find it kind of funny that he hasn't brought up any.
He hasn't had any proof of his evidence of finding, you know, that kind of thing.
Are you using that as a BS excuse?
Yeah, I think that's one of the reasons why this story has such legs is because it has the UFO word in there.
I'd like to know more about what it is he actually saw, but I somehow doubt we ever will.
Yeah.
UFOs, they're out there.
They're out there.
If not, yeah.
Oh, they're out there, but there's all kinds of things we don't know.
Anything that's unidentified or unknown, you can bet there's a lot of because we know so little.
But whether or not it's true.
It's not that much.
It's a profound statement.
I mean, it makes sense.
Yeah.
I was going to say it's not that much he found anything about UFOs, just that, you know, a dot mil was compromised.
So they're kind of just about that.
Yeah, well, that's something also that they have evidence that was done, that dot mil sites were compromised,
and that's obviously not too hard to do.
Yeah.
And, of course, they want to keep that quiet as well.
Yeah.
That's probably what this whole case is about.
All right, thanks.
Thanks for your call.
I see you.
And say hi to everybody on the IRC channel.
I've never got a chat room calling me before.
Yeah, there's an entire chat room.
Did you hear them?
They were all in the background.
Chatting away.
All right, let's take one more call, if we can fit one more in.
Yes, good evening.
You're on off the hook.
You know what, I can't say it, but seriously, we can even tell it before you start talking.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
They gave you a what that was used?
So, basically, they gave you a phone number that somebody else had.
I think he's saying they gave him a phone number that used to be used for voicemail in some previous life of its,
and so he gets people calling his phone.
Well, isn't every phone number used for voicemail at some point if you don't answer?
It's not anymore now, but some parts of the network is still not programmed to prevent that from happening.
So, some people still call my number to their voicemail.
So, they think that you're the voicemail provider.
Is that what we're getting at here?
No, no, no.
They think they're calling their voicemail from T-Mobile, and instead they get me because now I have this number.
They're dialing a number, and it's routing to his cell phone.
Whatever special number they're calling, maybe it used to go in the background to this number,
and so he's getting these phone calls from people.
So, why don't you just get your phone number changed?
I gave it out to, like, 2,000 people already.
I mean, it's a big hassle to change again.
Well, yeah, it does sound that way, but I don't know.
It's hard to get people to not call the wrong number.
I don't know how to do that.
They're trying to program it back, I mean, to prevent anyone from getting to me by mistake,
but do you think I should sue them for this?
Well, it's your right, I guess, to do that, but I don't know where this is going to go.
Yeah, even if you win, I'm not sure that they'll be able to help you anymore.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know.
It sounds like a horror story, but you know what?
Go to the media and just at least tell them about it,
and maybe some TV station someplace will take an interest and make T-Mobile look bad.
We can do it too, I guess.
We already have.
All right, thanks for that call.
We can fit one more in.
And good evening.
You're on off the hook.
All right, all right.
I knew that was him again.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Oh, sue, sue, sue.
Yes.
Please sue.
Don't sue us, please.
No, I wouldn't sue you.
What's on your mind?
You talk too fast, though.
I've got a question.
I have a telephone that needs repair.
Okay.
It isn't my Western Electric that I'm talking on.
It's my little princess phone.
And when I push a button, the tone doesn't go.
Okay.
Your touch tones don't work, you're saying.
Yeah, the touch tone doesn't make a noise.
And I can't dial out.
Sounds like a loose wire.
Yeah, is that something I can fix?
Bernie, can he ship the phone to you and you can just rewire it?
Oh, Bernie's the expert.
He is the expert.
He's good at this kind of thing.
Yeah, I'll send it to him.
He'll love it.
It's neon.
Is that okay?
We can give you the address he's at in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania,
and I'm sure he'd be happy to do that.
Right, Bernie?
Bernie?
I'll email you.
Bernie's been struck dumb.
But, yeah, you know, it should be easy to find people that'll do that kind of thing.
I don't think it's that hard.
A temporary fix is to get a handheld DTMF dialer
that you just place over the butt side of the phone and dial from there.
You could get a new phone for, like, $10.
You could, but, you know, people are attached to their princess phones.
But the princess phone is neon.
That's right.
You can't get that.
But, you know, some kid someplace who plays with soldering irons and things like that
will be happy to fix it for you.
Go to a local, I don't know, someplace where people might.
Ham radio meeting.
There you go.
Go to a ham radio meeting, and people will crowd over themselves to fix your phone.
All right, good luck with that.
Thanks, everybody, for calling in and for writing in.
Our email address, othat2600.com.
Visit www.hope.net for the latest information.
We'll be posting the full list of talks later on tonight at www.hope.net,
so look for that and spread the word.
The Last Hope, taking place July 18, 1920.
See you next week.
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