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The time is 7 o'clock.
It's once again time for Off The Hook.
So I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving.
Now I can't make a call.
We couldn't get much worse.
But if they could, they would.
Bondedly bond for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bondedly bond.
Bondedly bond.
And very good evening to everybody.
The program is Off The Hook.
Emanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
And joined by a whole lot of people tonight.
I don't know where this large crowd came from.
But we have, in no particular order, Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
Dot Rett.
Howdy.
Jim.
Hello.
Voltaire.
Hey there.
Bernie S. down in Philadelphia.
Greetings from Philadelphia.
Looks like Red Hacked over in the wall.
Okay, go ahead, say hi to that microphone.
We have too many people.
Hello.
And we have Mike.
Go to the nearest microphone.
Hello.
Not your preferred one.
Okay, and not Kevin.
Hello.
And joining us, special guest, Alex, coming back from wherever you've been.
That's right.
Practicing law.
Practicing law.
Well, keep practicing until you get it right.
I'll try.
All right.
That's what I tell all these lawyers.
Always say they're practicing.
You're with the firm of Steptoe & Johnson, is that what I'm told?
That's right, yeah.
And when we opened our London office, that got quite a chuckle.
Steptoe & Son.
That's right.
Yeah.
I think your microphone's working.
Well, you have to talk into it, at least.
Is that right?
That's better, yeah.
How's that?
Is that better?
Yeah.
All right.
And also joining us tonight from Wiley Publishing is Carol Long.
Hi.
Carol is the publisher of The Best of 2600.
Yep.
And, boy, we've got something exciting for folks tonight.
Those of you that are, you want to adjust the microphone any louder on the air?
What's the problem with it?
I can't hear anything.
Okay.
I hear it just fine.
Okay, we have a lot of things to talk about tonight.
We have the exciting news about books and Wiley and things like that, but stay tuned.
This is also a fundraising show.
Is it really?
Yeah, it is.
It is.
Wow.
We did very well last week, and I'm pleased with the response that we got.
We made something around $2,500, I think, which is great for an hour.
Let's hope we can do something similar tonight.
The pledge line, for those of you who just want to jump in right away without even hearing anything,
by all means, call 212-209-2950.
That is our phone number for pledging.
That's what keeps this station alive.
But more on that later.
All kinds of interesting news events.
Anybody have anything in particular?
Bernie, maybe something down from Philadelphia?
I was down in the Washington, D.C. area for the past weekend for ShmooCon
and ran into a bunch of 2,600 people and a bunch of other people
and a lot of good information floating around.
Tell us more about it.
Well, let's see.
It was not as big as the Pope Conference as far as information.
There seemed to be only maybe not even half as many talks.
But there was a huge crowd there.
Not exactly the same kind of crowd that goes to Hope.
You seem to be more of a professional IT crowd, and there were a lot of corporate sponsors,
so it had that sort of corporate air to it.
There was a lot of security talks, information security talks that were interesting.
I really can't go into too much detail about it, but people go to ShmooCon.org, S-H-M-O-O-C-O-N.org.
You can read about what was talked about,
and probably within a week or two they'll have some audio and video up from the talks for people to peruse.
Interesting.
The website, is the conference online in any sense?
Well, the summaries of the talks are online now,
and they say that they will have the video and audio for them up probably in the next week or two.
Okay, great.
And it looks like the same people that did the audio-video documentation at the Pope Conference also did it for ShmooCon.
Our good friend Ted, yeah, he did an amazing job, and he's the reason why we have all those DVDs.
And on that subject, if you pledged for the DVDs last Pledge Drive and you haven't gotten them yet, they're on the way.
Believe me, there's so many DVDs that we had to process, and we don't have them this time.
So if you want them, you've got to get them some other way, but not through the Pledge Drive,
because, wow, it took us months literally to make all the DVDs that people pledged for.
But it was great, it was great.
And it's good to see that he's around recording more history at hacker conventions, security conventions, whatnot.
And hopefully there'll be more of those to come.
Any happenings coming up in the next few months?
I know there's the hacker camp in Holland, HAR.
There's a hacker camp in Washington State, tour camp.
The news with HAR, though, is that they are taking credit cards now, I understand,
and you can register as Americans without having to do bank transfers and things like that.
Without needing a foreign bank account.
I told you, the microphone is your friend.
Well, then you can't talk if you can't talk into the microphone.
Otherwise, you're just talking to me and not the people listening.
Yeah, because previously you needed to use an IBAN transfer, which is only if you have a European bank account.
Right, right.
So, does anybody have the website for HAR?
HAR2009.org.
HAR2009.org.
And HAR is spelled H-A-R, like hacking at random.
Okay.
So that's the, I guess that's the big hacker event of this year.
The tour camp one sounds kind of cool, too, because they're going to be doing that in an abandoned missile silo.
Yeah, hopefully it's abandoned.
We need to double-check that.
We don't want any misunderstandings.
That looks really neat.
I mean, any of these camps are generally pretty awesome.
And I think, is that the first time they're doing it in the States?
Yes.
It's the first time I know of, anyway.
So, yeah, all kinds of hacker events coming up, and we'll be discussing them here on this show as well as in the magazine.
Okay, we have some interesting news items.
This one is kind of cool, I guess.
U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein hopes to update President Barack Obama's $838 billion economic stimulus package
so that American ISPs can deter child pornography, copyright infringement, and other unlawful activity by way of reasonable network management.
It just never ends, does it?
Basically, Voltaire, you brought in this story, so tell us something about the importance of this.
It's an incredibly broad language that it uses, as we come to expect from the federal regulators in terms of the FCC and stuff.
So it would be kind of like what they're doing in Australia.
It would be like a countrywide firewall, which you can't really get around or apply to all ISPs.
The history of it was she tried to slip it in last night, I believe, with the Senate and House.
When they were trying to work out the differences, she tried to slip it in there.
When they were sleeping, she tried to.
This is the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, right?
And the quote is she wants it to allow for reasonable network management practices such as deterring unlawful activity, including child pornography and copyright infringement.
Now, I have to admit on the air that I totally fail to understand economics at all.
I don't understand the whole stimulus one bit.
I'll go a step further and say I have no desire to understand it, but go ahead.
But I would like for anyone to explain to me what blocking copyright infringement and child pornography, even if it worked, how that would possibly stimulate the economy.
It would stimulate her re-election campaign because everybody will say, wow, she's on the side of good.
I think that's really what this is all about.
That's what they call an earmark.
That's what's called an earmark, where they bring their pet projects into a bill that people consider extremely important, whether it really matters or not.
Yeah.
So it stimulates her re-election campaign, and then she spends more money on yard signs, and then the yard sign people.
I don't get it at all.
Well, I think maybe the one assumption that's being made is that if she's protecting copyrighted materials, then copyright owners are going to generate more fees from their use.
Yeah, which could lead to our other interesting story of the night.
Our other interesting story of the night?
Yes.
Go ahead.
That the issue with the Obama image.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, actually, I was going to get to that.
Do you want to talk about that now?
Sure, we can talk about that now.
I mean, well, I guess what is the guy's name who actually created this image?
It was Shepard Fairey?
Shepard Fairey was the artist with the poster, yes.
Yeah.
That's right.
He took this picture of Obama, and then Shepard Fairey altered it, and this has become the poster that we know of Obama with hope underneath it.
You know, it's got colors.
He's colored in his face, and the AP photo has Obama, well, just kind of looking with that glazed look over his eye, that kind of disingenuous, uber-patriotic look.
And essentially, it's a reproduction of this image, and now the AP is alleging that he has infringed upon their copyright of this image by creating this poster that has then gone all over the place.
It gets more interesting than that because the guy that took the picture says that he owns the image, not the AP.
That's the guy that took the picture.
That's right.
And what happened was the guy who used it, the street artist Shepard Fairey, he filed a lawsuit against the Associated Press, a preemptive lawsuit, because they were threatening him and trying to get him to donate to one of their organizations to make this all go away.
And I guess the big question is if you use a picture and create something like this, is that considered fair use or not?
Well, I think it's very questionable actually.
There's four elements that a court is going to look at, and I think each one of them is somewhat questionable actually.
The first one they're going to look at is essentially the nature of the image, its purpose and its character, and whether or not the image is actually transformative.
Now, I think, and I have the image with me here.
I can pass it around if nobody has seen it, but I think there's a good case for the fact that this image is transformed, although maybe a good case can be made for the fact that the image is not transformed since it's exactly Obama's face.
But it says hope in front of it.
The American flag is missing.
There's a lot more color to it.
It's a lot more colorful.
Here's my question.
Let's assume just for argument's sake that it is an image that the Associated Press owns.
How would somebody possibly be able to create something unless they went out and asked Obama to pose for them and took the picture themselves?
How else could they possibly use any kind of an image?
Mike?
The work of the government photographers is in the public domain.
But this was for the campaign, so obviously they couldn't do it until he was president.
Well, the other way that it could have happened, and I'm not suggesting that this is better.
It's probably not, is to take the photos from the campaign and get permission from them.
Yeah, but I don't know.
No, of course.
Of course.
And I think the IP is going to lose here.
Even if they win in court, they'll certainly lose in the eyes of the public.
But it's a great example of this sort of overzealous copyright protection.
The AP could not have made this poster.
The AP's job is not to make this poster.
They're losing no revenue from this poster.
They're just doing what they feel that they can do.
Rob, I know you have some feelings on this.
Yeah, I do have some feelings on this.
It just so happens that after ShmooCon, which I attended, a friend of mine took me to the National Portrait Gallery,
in which stands the original piece that Shepard Fairey made.
And one thing you don't see in the reproductions and the illustrations is the work itself is done on a collage of newsprints.
There are articles half showing through the paint.
There's textures. There's layers.
There's all kinds of stuff going on that have nothing to do with the Associated Press image.
So it's another indication that it's truly transformative.
It's truly transformative.
The image is just one component that inspired the work.
And speaking as an artist myself, I really don't see how the Associated Press can look at this current work and claim that they own it because it was inspired by a piece of theirs.
I think, as some of us are surmising, that they will not survive that kind of a claim.
I think they want to intimidate somebody into agreeing that they own it so that they'll refrain from doing things like this in the future.
Put this kind of mindset into play that, well, you can't use anything without getting all these permissions.
If you take a picture of a tree, make sure you get the tree owner's permission before you use it.
It's just getting us into this way of thinking, which is really, really unhealthy and unnatural.
And I think that's what they're banking on, and I think it blew up in their faces.
Excuse me.
I think they absolutely did.
There was actually another case—I don't know if you remember this—from August 2008.
They had to deal with the DMCA and Prince and a little baby dancing on YouTube.
Oh, I remember that.
I tried to forget it, but I do remember it.
I think it was Universal Studios.
They issued a takedown request against this particular woman who posted a video of her baby dancing to—I can't remember the name of the Prince song.
But in any event, it was in the Northern District of California, and they threw the case out, and they gave Universal Studios essentially what amounted to a spanking,
telling them, you have to consider the fair use doctrine before you institute these takedown suits.
You cannot just blanketly issue—well, these takedown requests, rather—before considering whether or not this is a real fair use of your copyrighted material.
And so now it's on appeal right now, I believe.
But the record companies are arguing that this would be too much of a burden for them to consider before issuing a takedown warning,
that this would materially affect the way that they can enforce their copyrights.
I think it's patently absurd in my opinion.
It sounds pretty patently absurd.
Voltaire.
The AP has tried stuff like this before with the ridiculous lawsuits.
A few months ago, they were trying to sue bloggers for merely quoting them.
And they ended up selling out of court because they were pretty afraid that if they had taken it into court, the AP would have lost and there would have been a precedent.
Interesting.
Bernie, your take on this.
Well, I actually happen to wear this image on my jacket since for the past several months I worked on the Obama campaign, as many listeners know.
And I keep the Obama volunteer button.
It has the image and it says volunteer under it.
And I just keep it on because I get the most interesting comments and recognition from people that normally would never have said anything to me or greeted me or whatever.
So it's just a great icebreaker.
And I can say that the image has been transformative to my life personally because it was a great experience working on the campaign and in meeting a lot of people since the campaign who I never would have had an opportunity to engage in dialogue with.
So I don't know what the definition of transformative is.
Could somebody, maybe our lawyer on the show tonight, could explain the term of art, the legal term of art transformative and what that means.
Yes, Alex, what does transformative mean?
Well, that's a good question.
It's a very, very subjective standard to be honest with you.
Courts are all over the place.
I mean it essentially has to do with how much of the original work you're using.
Are there any changes to it?
And also part of the analysis of this first element has to deal with the purpose of what you're using the image for.
Are you using it for critique?
Are you using it for parody?
Are you making some kind of commentary with it?
Now I think that's what this image doesn't have going for it to be honest with you.
It is transformative in the sense that the colors are changed.
The facial expression is exactly the same so that the core of the image isn't really transformed.
I think the outer limits of it are transformed and I don't think that there's necessarily anything that expressive about the image that isn't contained in the original.
It all has to do with I think the look Obama's giving, that kind of looking out towards the sky.
But transformative Bernie is a very, very subjective standard and courts are generally all over the place when it comes to interpreting it.
One thing I find really fascinating about this issue is Barack Obama himself is a big fan of the poster.
He sent Shepard Fairey a letter thanking him for the use of it and saying I'm privileged to be a part of your work and so on and so on.
So now that this is going on and now that he's president, is he going to take any stance on this or is he going to let the artist who helped his campaign so much twitch in the wind?
I'm sure it'll probably be inappropriate for him to weigh in on that as president but I'm sure people there have some maybe backdoor dealings going on now to make sure this guy isn't dragged through the mud.
It probably would be inappropriate for him to say something because he's head of the executive branch and this is in the courts and he shouldn't be…
I just want to say recently, just a week or two ago, I heard a very interesting interview of Shepard Fairey on a local radio station here, WHYY, it's an NPR affiliate.
They interviewed him for the better part of an hour and he went into a lot of detail about how he came upon the image and why he created it and then how the Obama campaign later contacted him and said hey, we really like this and can we use it?
It was a really interesting interview.
If you search the web for Shepard Fairey and Fresh Air, which is the name of the program he was interviewed on, it was a really good interview and it gave a lot of background about this image and what was going through the artist's mind and how he transformed that image.
Not to use the term of art but in any case, it was good background information.
Interesting.
Okay.
Another story which got my attention is actually from about a week or so ago and this actually kind of bothered me a lot actually.
It was more of a segue from the story we were reading before about Dianne Feinstein and her wishes for the clean internet and all that.
A former teacher described by parents and colleagues as caring and dedicated was sentenced last Thursday in a federal court in Long Island to six and a half years in prison for possession of child pornography.
Yeah, this guy Michael Reiner had hundreds of still and video images of children on several computers when he was arrested in September 2006.
Some of the images depicted sex acts between adults and children younger than five years old.
We've heard all this before.
Basically, U.S. District Judge Joseph Bianco rejected the defense's arguments that he received the images by accident and had tried to delete them five years ago.
I've heard those rather lame excuses before from other defendants.
True.
Many of the images were quote unquote extremely graphic.
It is all the more tragic that Mr. Reiner has betrayed his trust as a teacher.
All right.
I said he was sentenced.
Do you know what the sentence was?
Six and a half years.
Six and a half years in prison for possessing pictures that people find objectionable.
True.
But a couple of things jump out at me here.
First of all, how did they find them?
How did they investigate this guy's computer?
How did they track down what kind of files were on there?
But this is kind of a crazy way of thinking because you're sentencing somebody in the same way as if they actually are going out victimizing people simply because they either downloaded something from the internet or copied somebody's files from another computer or something like that.
I've been asking around the last few days for people to tell me what the most objectionable things they can find on the internet.
Not objectionable things I've heard about.
Things they can find readily.
And the answers I get are, well, the beheading of Daniel Pearl for one thing.
Everybody has seen that.
Everybody can get that.
There are internet sites having to do with shootings, people being shot.
There's a site for that.
There's a site for suicide.
There's a site for people jumping out windows.
There's a site for somebody who gets a sexual thrill out of stepping on hamsters while she's having sex.
I'm not making this up.
These are all real and very disturbing things.
However, none of these things will land you in prison.
And I think murder and beheadings, those are pretty serious crimes.
And I think maybe by downloading videos and copying pictures, you're creating sort of a demand for that, are you not?
Maybe Al Qaeda says, hey, that was a pretty good rating on Google.
We should do it again because it got a lot of hits and we need the publicity.
Go to rotten.com.
You'll see all kinds of disturbing images.
So it's not about how disturbing it is.
It's about is this person really a threat to society because he had objectionable pictures.
And I think we've moved into this way of thinking as a society where anything that's objectionable that we could see as a potential threat, you have to treat the person as if they've done the most horrible things in your imagination.
And nobody is willing to stand up and say this is wrong because if you do that, then you're defending it.
You're defending these heinous practices.
But what we've forgotten is that this guy just had pictures on his computer six and a half years in prison for that.
Am I the only one who feels that's crazy?
Go ahead, Dyer.
I'd have to agree.
You know, you don't necessarily have to defend it.
But, you know, at worst, these kinds of people maybe need psychiatric attention and instead they're being put in prison.
Yeah.
I mean, OK, maybe the guy's got some issues.
Maybe he's just curious, wants to see what these pictures look.
I don't know.
I'm not going to get inside his head.
But prison.
Six and a half years in prison.
Who does that help?
And this guy had a lot of people standing up for him, attending the sentencing, saying that he is a dedicated person, never been accused of doing anything bad to anybody.
Just having these pictures, that's enough.
I mean, this scares me.
I'll tell you what.
The people who are in favor of this, they don't scare me because they're just doing what they're supposed to be doing and getting people in prison and making us afraid and making us paranoid and all kinds of things like that.
The people who scare me are people like us who just let it happen because we get into the mindset that, yeah, this is right.
This is appropriate.
And before you know it, we're thinking the same way.
And everything has changed.
Red Hat.
I disagree with you, actually.
I think that.
Speak into the microphone, please.
I disagree with you, actually.
I think that the fact that this person is actively seeking these images gives – there might be thinking of other things that legitimizes maybe their thoughts.
Future crime.
Future crime.
Okay.
So future crime is here.
I think in the case where – in these kinds of victims, I think that it's –
But he had no victims is my point.
All he had were pictures.
He didn't yet.
Yeah, okay.
But that's when you send somebody for a crime, when they actually do something, not when they're thinking of doing something.
So you're saying if I went on a blog and said I'm going to go out tomorrow and I'm going to murder these 10 people or I'm going to murder 10 people, that you shouldn't arrest me for that?
Not for murder.
No.
For threatening.
There's a difference.
And he didn't even do that.
He didn't threaten anybody.
He just had pictures on his computer, which I think the crime here is violating somebody's privacy and looking on their computer.
I know that's not going to be a very popular stance in light of what was found there, but I think that's when you prove how important privacy is when it is objectionable.
Alex?
There were actually quite a few cases in the military that have to deal with the possession of child pornography.
I was a clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and I think we dealt with a lot of cases that were less morally reprehensible than somebody actively seeking this.
A lot of what happens in the military, and the reason why there are so many crimes that have to deal with child pornography, is that say you're on a ship, you're out in the Navy, and you want some pornography.
So a buddy of yours will pass you a CD full of pornography, and on that disc there may be one or two images that could quite conceivably be of minors.
Whether they are or they aren't, it's questionable.
But some of them are clear.
Some of them were unclear.
But you got this disc full of pornography.
Right.
And there were some images on that.
And you didn't actively seek them out.
But the simple fact that you possessed those images was enough for you to violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice, be court-martialed, and sent to a military prison for a number of years.
Now, how about if instead of a picture, it was a drawing?
A drawing of underage people.
Well, actually, there was a First Amendment case.
It was Free Speech Coalition v. Ashcroft.
It came out a few years ago.
That's very good how you do that.
Oh, you like that?
Yeah.
Cite the case number next time.
I'll try.
Yeah.
I think it was an 04 case or so.
But in any event, that case said that there is actually a First Amendment protection for virtual child pornography.
And then this set off a whole host of issues when it came to convicting people of child pornography because, at least in the military context, what the defense would argue on appeal was that it was the burden of the prosecution at the trial now to prove that it was actual child porn and not virtual child porn.
And so a rendering or an image, a drawing of it would be constitutionally protected.
What about a story?
A story.
Yeah.
I think that would be okay, too.
Really?
Okay.
But, I mean, not something I would particularly—
Go ahead, Redact.
Isn't it actually illegal in the U.K. now to have a drawing?
I think that there were—
It's entirely conceivable that even thinking certain things is illegal in the U.K. now.
Everything is illegal there.
Yeah.
But I just think in a case like this, I mean, I understand if it was one or two images that they might have accidentally acquired.
But if you're talking about a whole bunch, you're basically looking at someone who's involved in this community and maybe legitimizing their thoughts by the fact that this already exists.
Okay.
You use this as a way of saying, hey, let's look at this guy and see if he's doing anything bad.
And if he's not, then you don't convict him of doing something bad.
You say, okay, you know what?
You shouldn't be a teacher because you have all this on your computer.
And that's fair.
You give him counseling or something like that.
That's six and a half years in prison.
You really think that's fair?
You really think even a day in prison is fair for something like this, for having pictures on your computer?
I mean, we all know how easy—
I can go on the internet.
I told all the things I could easily download, which I think are just as, if not more, disturbing.
What if you go out and you just rent all these slasher films one after the other?
Doesn't that not indicate that you might have some kind of problem?
You might act out in a very violent way?
But, you know, that's acceptable.
And it should be acceptable because we have the right to look at all kinds of things that are out there if they're out there.
And if you don't want them to be out there, then you stop them from being out there in the first place.
That's what you really need to start regulating and changing.
I have to reiterate what I said before, which is simply that if you consider it a crime, that the punishment does fit the crime,
prison may not necessarily be the answer.
Just because someone does something you disagree with doesn't mean you have to throw them in jail.
This kind of person may need psychiatric help rather than being punished.
And, you know, so even if you find it disturbing, it doesn't mean you have to throw them in jail for six years.
It also minimizes the true villains, the true bad people who really do horrible things because they're being lumped in the same way as people who just have things on their computer.
It's different, and no one is willing to stand up and say that.
I challenge a single politician to stand up and say this is unfair.
They won't because they're afraid of not being elected.
Fortunately, I'm not running for election, so I can say these things and get all the hate mail, but I just don't think it's right.
I think this shows how we don't really want to fix the problems.
We just want to shove it away in a box and forget about it.
Yeah, forget about it.
Bernie, go ahead.
There's actually a similar law on the books signed into law by President Clinton back in 1999 called the Crush Video Bill,
which made it a criminal offense to prohibit entering a depiction of an illegal act of animal cruelty into interstate or foreign commerce for commercial gain.
That's what you're referring to in your intro to this story.
So that is already illegal under federal public law 106-152.
You can still find somebody smashing hamsters with their foot online.
Absolutely.
And if you have that picture on your website, nothing's going to happen to you or on your personal computer.
Absolutely.
Not as big of a hotbed issue, apparently.
And I don't think anything should happen to you unless you're the person smashing the hamster.
I really don't think that's right.
I tend to agree with you.
Mike.
I mean, but you can also raise cows and kill them and eat them.
You can do all kinds of things.
We clearly in the United States have a very different standard for the way we treat animals from people.
I don't think the analogy applies very much.
I'm not sure I follow, but torturing animals I don't think is right.
Is that what you're saying?
I'm just saying that we have very different standards for these sorts of things.
Well, yeah.
Go ahead, Bernie.
There's also people who are not mentally well who like to collect pictures of murder scenes and people who were victims of murder.
And there are people who are mentally well who do that as well.
Sometimes they're investigators.
Sometimes they're cops.
And sometimes they're not mentally well anyway.
Exactly.
Sometimes they're one and the same.
I don't see any difference, really, between collecting pictures of people who have been brutally murdered and pictures of child pornography.
They're both depictions of horrendous things, yet the people who collect the pictures are not the individuals who committed the outrageous offense.
Thank you.
That's all I'm saying.
And I think the point you just made is if you have a whole library filled of videos and pictures of people being executed, tortured, having their limbs chopped off, things like that, nothing's going to happen to you.
And you can use the same argument to say that that kind of thing is encouraging murder or is encouraging torture.
And, you know, we don't seem to think that that's the same pressing issue that something like this.
Objectionable as it is, we simply don't treat it the same way.
Rob?
That's what's scary about this whole thing is how hot-button the issue is.
When you could be having a discussion about free speech, about civil rights, but as soon as somebody puts the possibility of child porn into it, it's, oh, my God, think of the children.
Yes, exactly.
And it turns off your brain.
It's being used as a device to achieve other issues.
And that's very unhealthy and very scary.
And we're being manipulated.
And I don't think enough of us are speaking out because we're afraid of being lumped in with this kind of thing.
And this story just sort of slapped me across the face and said, wow, this is just so wrong.
Not Kevin.
Sir, are you proposing to censor the Internet?
Oh, no.
I think there should be no censorship whatsoever.
But I think people should realize the difference between an image and an act.
That's all.
And I think that we're making them the same.
And that's very unhealthy for everybody.
Go ahead, Alex.
Well, I think one distinction that should be made in the law is that there's a difference between possession and distribution.
Yes.
Mere possession.
Yes, I agree.
Possession is reprehensible in and of itself and may constitute a crime, but not something that should carry with it six and a half years.
But it's really none of your business either if it's on someone's personal computer.
Absolutely.
Now, distribution is something that would create a demand for this type of image, which then could lead to further creation of that image.
And in the creation is wherein the harm lies.
Right.
If you want to stamp out the harm, you have to stamp out the distribution.
Mere possession without distribution, I don't think, should be that much of a crime, kind of like possession of marijuana without any intent to distribute.
Okay.
Voltaire.
Now we really have to move on.
Back to the thinking of the children issue.
Your microphone's not working for some reason.
There you go.
All right.
So that issue has been used to justify numerous things throughout history, it seems like.
In the Middle Ages, people would say, oh, the Jews are trying to kill our children.
And then during the 60s, they would say, oh, the homosexuals are trying to convert our children.
Stuff like that.
They've been using this.
They say that today, too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's definitely a hot button that gets many people aggravated and gets them to do things they wouldn't ordinarily think are rational.
Okay.
Interesting topic.
We could spend hours on it, obviously.
And I wish we could take all kinds of feedback.
You can write to us, oth at 2600.com, with your various thoughts and feelings.
But for now, we have to do some business.
We have to get into the part of the show that is necessary for us to continue having more shows like this.
And that is raising funds to keep the station on the air.
That's right.
We're a noncommercial radio station.
You would not hear a conversation like this on any other radio station.
If you're standing up now and your fists are clenched and you maybe have already damaged your radio, well, there's a reason for that.
Because you found the conversation to be interesting.
You found it to be compelling.
You found something you cannot find on any of those other frequencies, either on AM or FM or, dare I say it, XM.
That's right.
They're all garbage compared to what you hear in this place.
And, yes, I know there's a lot of things here that you might find completely disagreeable and object to a lot that might be even on this program.
But it gets you thinking.
It gets you thinking.
And radio, as a rule, does not do that.
So that's why this place is important.
Okay.
We basically have to go on the air several times a year and ask for people's support to keep the signal pumping out from the Empire State Building.
And we're doing that now.
Our phone number is 212-209-2950.
But tonight...
Yes, Mike.
I don't...
What's the phone number?
212-209-2950.
Would you like me to write it down?
Yes, please.
Then I don't have to keep saying it.
212-209-2950.
Why don't we all write it down?
Everybody listening, please write it down.
Hand it to the person next to you.
Tell them to call somebody and just say those numbers.
They'll know what it means.
Call that number, 212-209-2950.
What if we don't have a pen?
What if you don't have a pen?
How can you survive in society if you don't have a pen?
If you don't have a pen, then just type it right into your cell phone and press send.
212-209-2950.
Let's tell...
Send.
Yeah, send.
Let's...
First of all, can someone go down to Talley and make sure we have volunteers?
Because last time we went down there, there were no volunteers.
Can somebody, one of you 50 people, just walk down there and see if anybody is there?
And once we know that for sure, then we're going to tell you what we have to offer tonight.
And the reason I'm waiting before we do that is because this might get so many phone calls
that the whole central office might actually be knocked out of service.
That happens sometimes.
When we offer these premiums that are really, really good,
the phone company calls us later and complains saying, you know,
Emanuel, why don't you let us know in advance next time so that we can add extra capacity to the telephone network
and this won't happen again?
Because lives are at stake, you know.
People need to pick up the phone and dial the cops or something like that.
And here you are with these amazing premiums and every single dial tone is taken.
It's just not cool.
So we got to, first of all, make sure we have volunteers.
And I think the phone network will be able to take these, the demand.
Go ahead, Rob.
We're shifting new satellites into geosynchronous orbit as we speak.
Yeah.
And Mike's on his way back now.
I see him all the way down the hallway.
It takes a long time for people to get here.
And once we know that we have volunteers, we can start talking about what we're offering tonight.
Yes, Mike, do we have volunteers?
You know, you could just nod or something.
Not enough.
Not enough?
Okay.
So why don't some of the people go down, some of our people go down.
This adds to it because now you'll get to talk to some of us if you call in.
And I'd say about three or four people.
Why don't you guys draw straws or something like that?
Obviously, people who are going to stay here and talk about the thing we're offering tonight.
Yes, they should stay.
Okay.
What we are offering tonight, 212-209-2950 is our phone number.
Yes, you should go too.
You should stay.
Maybe you can come back and you can go.
Figure it out amongst yourselves.
Don't make me be the hall monitor here.
We have something that is similar to what we offered last year.
Similar but very, very different.
We have a brand-new edition.
You might have remembered that Carol Long from Wiley is in the studio tonight.
And that is because we're announcing a brand-new edition of the Best of 2600 book that has just come out.
And this is a much-improved, bigger version with all kinds of extra features and bells and whistles and things like that.
And what we are offering for a pledge of $125 is your own autographed,
autographed by as many people from off the hook as we can find together in one room,
copy of this book.
Each one has its own individual serial number.
It's limited edition.
And, Carol, why don't you tell us some of the extra things that are in this particular edition?
I can.
One of the, I think, key things about this edition is what we call packaging.
And the packaging is a hardcover book with a paper jacket.
But this is just not any paper jacket.
No.
This is just a beautiful, metallic, gray-toned image of some of one of the very favorite,
favorite pieces of equipment of all time for off-the-hook listeners.
And, of course, that would be a payphone.
Not just a payphone, an authentic bell fortress phone.
Yes.
And it's such a cool image.
You guys at Wiley devised this, and it just really, really looks cool.
And there's a special number that's on it, in fact, but we won't go into that.
So, yeah, you have this amazing jacket, which was not on the original edition.
In addition to that, you have a fold-out color poster that has every single cover of every single edition of 2600,
ever since we started having covers.
And that just can't be found anywhere.
That's the most incredible thing.
That must be a big poster.
It folds out from the book, yeah.
I mean, the covers aren't the same size as they were when the magazine came out.
Obviously, that would be ridiculous, but it's definitely something to put on your wall or your door or something like that.
It really, really looks cool.
And it's perforated.
Yeah.
So, you know, it isn't like tearing something out of a magazine.
Right.
This is all made for putting up on your wall, putting up on your bulletin board.
And one of the other value-adds, as we call it in publishing, is a CD with, you know, how we have best of 2600, you know, the articles, The Hacker Odyssey.
But here on the CD, we have the best of Off the Hook.
Off the Hook is the radio show you're listening to right now.
So, you will get a bunch of shows included with the book on a CD.
That's included as part of it.
Exactly.
You'll get the color poster.
You'll get a bunch of additional pages.
You'll get the jacket, the extra jacket.
Yes.
And you'll get a personalized autograph.
I mean, it's really cool and it's something that is not going to be around very long.
I can tell you that right now.
212-209-2950.
We're only offering it for this particular program.
So, that means only the next 20 minutes that's going to be offered.
We're trying every single week of this fundraiser to offer something different.
And this week, that's what we're offering.
$125.
We take credit cards of all sorts.
And in addition to that, of course, you'll get the Off the Hook T-shirt, which anybody pledging $25 and above will get as well.
212-209-2950.
Wiley has done a tremendous job putting this book together and getting it out there and just really helping us to realize how cool what we do is and has been over the last few decades.
The Best of 2600 covers 25 years of hacker publishing.
And there are all kinds of fascinating stories in there about telephone networks of the past and computer systems, security issues, civil rights issues, things involving Bernie S., in his case, and Kevin Mitnick.
Things that are still pertinent today.
Things that still are very fascinating and interesting to read about.
And it's all in one huge book.
The book is how many pages?
It's over 900 pages now.
It's over 900 pages now.
With this new edition.
With the new edition.
Because we have a little bit more additional in front matter, and obviously we have the value adds.
I think there's a single page when you open the book that has kind of a cool box at the bottom where you've got your number for the book.
Like when you buy a print or something, it might say 231 of slash 500.
So we've got that type of thing there.
I don't know if you want me to tell the Microsoft story.
Yeah.
Let me just tell people that I signed a bunch of these today over at Wiley, and it was a lot of fun doing that.
But I noticed that there are all these serial numbers.
I was looking for number 2600.
Couldn't quite find.
It came close sometimes.
But, yeah, it's a very limited edition.
There aren't a whole lot of these that are going to be available, and having people from off the hook sign them I think is a pretty cool motivating factor as well.
But the most important thing, apart from the book, apart from how cool it all is and the amazing stories and tutorials you'll get, the important thing is it's a donation from Wiley to help this radio station so that we can continue doing things like this.
That's the number one reason why you should be calling.
212-209-2950.
We have two calls on the line, but there should really be five calls on the line.
I assume we have five volunteers.
Yeah.
A bunch of us just went down there.
So help make those people busy, and please support the station at the same time.
Because if this place were not here, I don't think this book would be here.
I don't think a lot of what we do would be possible because you need that way of getting to the people.
You need that way of reaching out and hearing something back.
And BAI has always been there for us.
We need to be there for them.
So please help us out.
Help this radio station.
Help Off the Hook and Freedom of Speech in general.
212-209-2950.
I'm going to ask each of you to appeal to people out there because now we're down to one call.
Obviously, somebody just pledged, and now they've hung up.
But we need more calls to come in.
And I think somebody here has the magical ability to get more calls to come in, and it's not me at the moment.
Go ahead, Alex.
Well, I think people should remember how much WBAI means to them.
And perhaps you even have this as one of the value adds to the book in the Off the Hook episodes.
But back in 2001 when there was this attempted corporate takeover, I think all the listeners really got together.
We were on the air that one fateful evening when the police came in.
They arrested seven or eight people.
There were about 300 protesters outside.
And I think back then the station really meant a lot to people.
That was the pre-September 11th world.
And I think it should even mean more to you today.
I mean WBAI has a lot of value.
There's a lot of value adds to it.
You get a lot for $120 a year.
$125 actually.
$125, I'm sorry.
$120 is not going to get you the book.
$125.
You've got to cut it.
We have to be strict about these things.
212-209-2950.
Well, I didn't get any calls from that little spiel there.
That's terrible.
Oh, there's a call.
Okay.
I already got one.
Now Red Hat, it's your turn.
Let's see if you can get one.
All right.
There is another one, but that wasn't from you.
I think people really need to remember that this is the only place where you can hear different viewpoints in New York City.
It's in the middle of the dial.
Generally, radio these days is not even produced where it's aired.
You've got DJ Farms out somewhere where they're creating these radio stations.
And then the data is sent to the local radio station and broadcast that way.
You don't have people local.
You don't have a way to call in really, express your own opinion.
So, really, the fact that this station exists and allows people to do that, not only us in having a radio show,
but also you in being able to interact with not only our show, but every show on this station.
No, no.
Don't just call for us.
Call for the entire station to keep it existing.
Where should people call?
212-209-2950.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's good.
But the call hasn't come in yet.
I'm sure somebody was convinced by what you just said.
We'll call in any second now.
212-209-2950.
Rob T. Firefly, go ahead.
Yeah.
I think it's very important to realize that this station is a very precious thing.
This could not happen today the way this station was created.
No.
It was a one in a billion shot.
It was a series of coincidences that got an eclectic bunch of people who wanted to say something different on their own radio station.
And we've been keeping up that tradition for how long now?
Since 1960.
This radio station was originally a commercial radio station.
It was donated to Pacifica back in 1960.
And that would not happen today.
You would not get a full power radio station on top of the Empire State Building reaching all throughout the tri-state area.
That just is impossible.
What this license is worth is simply astounding.
That's why we need to preserve this, especially in these economic times where things are bad and we know things are bad.
And it's bad on everybody.
I hear donations are down 20% across the board for non-commercial radio in general.
So this is going to hit us pretty hard.
It's especially important to give a call to 212-209-2950.
And we're trying to make it as easy as possible by giving you really cool things that will make you feel better about this.
But the thing that will make you really feel good is calling and hearing the happiness on the other side of the phone.
Remember that you're not buying the book.
You're buying the radio station, essentially.
You're keeping us on the air.
Just because WBAI has been on the air since 1960 doesn't mean it always will be.
Exactly.
Without listeners supporting it, just like any other listener-supported non-commercial radio or TV, we can't exist.
Don't take it for granted.
Don't take it for granted.
212-209-2950.
Again, 125 gets you the autographed limited edition, collector's edition of The Best of 2600.
900 pages of all kinds of cool stuff.
And that just came out, that special edition.
$25 and above gets you the off-the-hook t-shirt.
Not Kevin.
I think the point Redbird—not Redbird, wow, RedHacked—just brought up that without your support, the station would not exist.
I mean, just think about that if one day you turned on 99.5 and it was just playing rap music or Christian rock and it was just drone and drone after drone.
It's really—
And we're not putting down those things.
No, of course not.
Well, maybe Christian—no, okay, go ahead.
I have my own opinions on these things, but yeah.
It's very important to note that this station is one of the few stations in the country where not only can you get programming that you become engaged in, it's actually worth listening to, but you have the opportunity to call up and give your own opinion.
And that is something so rare.
Yes, yes.
Because we care.
We want to hear your opinion.
It matters.
It steers us in a particular direction.
And it's the dialogue.
The dialogue is what's important.
All those other stations, they don't care about the dialogue.
They don't care about what you have to say.
They just want to sell their products.
And while we have to do these annoying pitches every now and then and get people to pledge money and keep the place on the air, we're doing it because it's necessary.
Otherwise, we go off the air.
We're not doing it to make a profit.
We're not doing it to sell the latest brand of soap.
But if you go to any other station, whether it's progressive rock, whether it's classical music, whether it's rap music or R&B or Christian music, it's all to sell a product of one sort or another.
That's really what it boils down to.
They don't really care.
And you can find out by seeing how many times they open up the phones to the listeners and have them call in.
If you don't see that on a radio station, they don't care.
And we do this as much as we possibly can.
All right.
Three calls on the line.
Good job now, Kevin.
I want to ask Bernie down in Philadelphia if he has something to add.
Oh, do I ever.
When I first saw the regular copy of this book, I was blown away.
It literally has a quarter of a century, 25 years of hacker history.
And just flipping through it brought back a rush of memories that most of our listeners could remember and relate to and be reminded of the trends we've seen over the past quarter century with communications, technologies, before the Internet, telephone networks, radio communications, data communications.
It's really important for people to be able to look back to see where we've been, all the controversies with various technologies and its implications on our society and the laws trying to regulate it and all that kind of stuff and people's thought processes and how they came up with ideas.
And you begin to see trends looking back over the past quarter century to see where we've been and then also to see where we're going with these sort of common themes of like, well, if there's this sort of situation going on in society, people will figure out ways around it.
And that's just sort of the hacker mindset.
So this is an amazing opportunity to get the special collector's edition of The Best of 2600, which I think Carol pointed out is like 900 pages of information.
I think listeners who call in and pledge $125 for this book to support WBAI also get a unique T-shirt, the off the hook T-shirt, which is not available in any store.
It's a package deal.
Please call 212-209-2950.
You're really supporting an amazing resource in WBAI, probably the only radio station in the country that would have the intestinal fortitude to put a show like this on the air, to keep it on the air for how long now, Emanuel?
The first show was in 1988.
We just had our 20th anniversary.
And boy, I'll tell you, the history we've been through over the years on this radio program, it mirrors that of the magazine.
And you can support both of those.
You can support the radio station and you can read all about what 2600 has been through since 1984 when it first started coming out by pledging to 212-209-2950.
$125 gets you a copy of the collector's edition of the book, The Best of 2600.
We have three calls on the line, four calls on the line.
Again, this offer only holds for another nine minutes.
So you got to call now, 212-209-2950.
Five calls.
Good.
Let's see some activity down there in the tally room because, really, this is a good deal.
I am not kidding here.
This is something that is so good we're only offering it once this one week.
Now, Carol, you made mention of a Microsoft story, and we only have a few minutes.
Go ahead.
And I think really to underscore the reach that Off the Hook has is a story from last night in Cambridge at Microsoft's New England Research and Development Headquarters, which was Microsoft offered the site for what's called Tech Tuesday, which 200 people attended.
It's sponsored, held by the Massachusetts Leadership Technology Council.
We raffled off one copy of this beautiful collector's edition, and then we polled the room, and we polled the room for how they knew 2600.
And a third of the room knew 2600 through the radio show and the quarterly, both of those.
So it really underscores the fact that one really complements the other.
There's no question that the print media and the audio media really make a huge impact in getting the word out, and it's so important.
Now, there was somebody who won the raffle.
Somebody who won the raffle, and apparently he had started to leave the room.
Didn't think he could win anything.
Didn't think he could win anything.
And someone, a complete stranger, went running after him, told him that he had won the collector's edition.
And I am telling you, this guy ran back as if perhaps it was a small lottery winning, and he was so thrilled to have it.
And, of course, the rest of the room wanted to know why we only had one copy to raffle off.
And, of course, as Emanuel has said, we've just come out with this.
So it's going to be hitting your favorite bookseller.
It got a bit contentious when they found out there was only one copy, I believe.
In fact, we tried to raffle off a couple of other books, and they generally accepted it.
But believe me, they did.
It was very grudging.
They weren't as happy at all as they were with the collector's edition.
This is your opportunity then, folks, to not be in that situation where you can't get a copy of it.
Because by calling now and supporting the radio station, you're doing so many good things.
You're getting the book.
You're helping the radio station.
And you're making a lot of people feel really good tonight, people in the tally room, people here in the radio station.
But you only have about five minutes.
So please give that call now.
And tell other people, if you know other people who would like this book, it's only available for a few more minutes.
212-209-2950.
Now, Alex, I know you had something else.
Just generally going on about the reach of WBAI and Pacifica, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, Emanuel,
but wasn't it WBAI that first broadcast George Carlin's seven dirty words?
Yeah.
In fact, we got into a bit of trouble about that and led to a whole Supreme Court thing.
That's right.
One of the most widely cited Supreme Court cases ever, FCC versus Pacifica.
There's an ID somewhere in our archives of George Carlin saying, guys, I'm really sorry about that.
And, boy, he was one of the greatest.
He really was.
And I think if you appreciate George Carlin, that's the spirit of this place.
The kinds of things he says, the kinds of ideas he has and his rebellious nature, that's what we stand for.
And you won't always hear your rebellious nature.
You won't always hear the things that you agree with.
But that's part of rebellion.
You hear different things.
You judge them on their own merits.
You listen to the things you like.
Sometimes you listen to the things you don't like and get outraged.
And you know why you're getting outraged.
That's part of the whole dialogue thing.
But you can only take part in it at a radio station like this.
Not one that's just playing music from, did I say music?
Well, either music or music.
It doesn't matter anymore.
Coming from a computer.
It's all pre-programmed.
It's all garbage.
It's not any human.
Humans aren't involved in the process anymore.
It's really, really sad.
Here there are always humans.
And, yeah, humans can be contentious and there can be all kinds of arguing going back and forth.
That's part of the process.
212-209-2950.
Go ahead, Alex.
And also correct me if I'm wrong, but I think WBAI, even within the Pacifica Network, is fairly unique.
Some of our other sister stations, like the one in D.C., I think doesn't really take phone calls, doesn't really have personal programming.
I think they play primarily jazz.
Is that correct?
Well, yeah.
I don't know what the other stations do.
I really just know this station.
If you appreciate personal programming, if you appreciate taking telephone calls, if you embody the George Carlin seven dirty words like our station does,
then I think you should call 212-209-2950, support 2600, support WBAI, support us, keep us here.
Let's keep the station going another 48 years, 49 years.
Yes, please.
We're at the end of our show, but we'll take phone calls the next couple of minutes.
But, again, finally, the last time we're going to say this, pledge of $125, you'll get a copy of the brand-new collector's edition with a personalized serial number and signature.
It's from everybody here at Off The Hook.
Of the best of 2600, over 900 pages of all kinds of data and information, color poster, a CD, all sorts of neat stuff.
And for pledge of 25 and above, you'll get the Off The Hook T-shirt.
But you've got to call now, 212-209-2950.
Carol Long, I want to thank you so much for coming by from Wiley.
You're very welcome.
I want to thank people at Wiley for all their support and help in getting this project done.
And we'll be back again next week with all kinds of other fun things.
Stay tuned for The Personal Computer Show.
Remember, 212-209-2950.
Good night.
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All righty.
Hey, cat.