Our Washington DC editor is Leanne Caldwell. Our headlines editors are Nell
Abram and Jess Burns. Our tech team at KPFA in Berkeley today includes Rose
Katopci and Oscar Hernandez. From Pacifica Station KPFK in Los Angeles, I'm
Aura Bogado.
And it's just about seven o'clock you're listening to radio station WBAI New York.
Time for Off The Hook.
I cut myself while shaving. Now I can't make a cut. We couldn't get much worse. But if they could, they would.
Bundledly boned for the best, expect the worst. I hope that's understood. Bundledly boned.
Bundledly boned.
And a very good evening to everybody. The program is Off The Hook. Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
Joined tonight by the out-of-breath Red Hect. Hello. Just got here off the train, eh? Well, the train wasn't running, so I got here on my two legs.
Ran down the tracks, and I warned you, it's not safe. But getting to the show is a priority and we recognize that, so it's worth any price.
Rob T. Firefly, welcome. Good evening. Jim. Hello. And Voltaire. Present. Mike. Thank you. Mike. Hi. And Bernie S. down there in Philadelphia.
Greetings from Philadelphia. Gus is in the tally room. Hi, Gus, all the way down the hallway. Hi. Who did that? All right, we're going to... That's actually pretty good.
Yeah, this is pretty good. We're going to appeal to our listeners one last time. This is it. This is the last night of the fundraiser for Off The Hook.
And for those of you who want to pledge and show your support to this particular radio show on this particular radio station, this is an excellent opportunity to do so.
And I should point out that we're doing well. Overall, the fundraiser has been doing really well. It's the first time, I think, in years that we have done this well.
So it says a lot about where we're going with the station. It says a lot of how the listeners are supporting us.
And please help us reach the goal because, you know, we haven't made the goal the last bunch of marathons.
This time, we're actually going to make the goal because we're at $707,000 total. That's a lot of money, but our goal is $800,000.
So we have a few more days to get there. And it's not like they're arbitrary goals. They actually have costs here.
We have expenses. Yeah, we've got to pay rent. We've got to pay the transmitter bills and all that kind of thing.
Yeah, I think usually we do pretty well compared to the other stations. But now that the other shows are doing well, we have to catch up.
It sounds like a lot of money. I work for another community radio station, and basically we try to raise something like $30,000.
And here we're raising $800,000. So it might sound like, oh, you're throwing money away. No, it doesn't work that way.
In New York City, and you have an office building as opposed to a school that you rent space from, and your transmitter is on top of the Empire State Building.
Believe me, $800,000 does not last very long.
The Empire State Building alone is a lot of money, and there's really no other choice. It's the tallest building.
If you're in a different building, then you'll get blocked by it.
Absolutely, absolutely. So it's essential. We're right here in the middle of the commercial band, 99.5. It's great.
So 212-209-2950, that's our telephone number. And we've got some really special, momentous things to give away tonight.
And the way we do things, we basically have a special premium each week, and each week it's something completely different.
And this particular week, we have something we have not offered in a long, long time. Years, in fact.
And it's something that I don't think we're going to be offering again on this particular radio program.
I don't know, maybe years from now, but it's something that, because we believe so much in this place,
we're willing to basically take everything that we do at 2600 and donate it to the station,
so that the station can benefit from your listener generosity, from our hard work,
from basically this sense that things are actually changing, that we're on the right track, finally getting things done.
It's a new feeling here at the station I have not seen in a very long time.
Maybe not since 2001, when we had that nasty business with people trying to take over the station,
you know, coming from different places.
I'll go back into the archives, you can hear for yourself how that turned out.
But what I'm feeling now is generally a lot more positive.
A lot of people sort of gathering together and joining forces and realizing that, hey, radio, our kind of radio, is going to flourish.
Yeah, commercial radio, not so much.
Commercial radio, people don't really need to hear the top 40 songs all that much
when they have all kinds of other ways of hearing music.
But alternative talk and thoughts, yeah, there's a market for that, especially these days.
212-209-2950, that's our telephone number.
I was just going to say, you should take your phone and just start dialing 212-209-2950
so that you will be ready to press the send button when you hear what the premium is.
Okay, well, let's get into the premiums right now.
If premiums are the reason you're calling, and I can understand why they would be,
but even if we had no premiums, I hope you would call.
I hope you would to keep this place going.
Well, there's always the premium of the radio station and the show itself,
which we don't mention nearly enough because it's really the best part.
And that premium is made possible by people like you who've been calling since 1960.
Not incessantly, but, you know, since 1960.
We've been a non-commercial station that has appealed to listeners.
In fact, we're the first station in the country to ever ask listeners for funds.
How about that? We started it.
You might hate us for that, but, yeah, we did start the whole listener-supported thing.
And it works. It really does.
Okay, for a $50 pledge, we are offering the last five years of what it is that we do.
We put out 2600 Magazine, the Hacker Quarterly.
Yeah, it's, you know, ever since 1984, 2600 has been coming out.
And our show started in 1988 when the magazine was a mere four years old.
And we've been publishing ever since, since 1984.
And what we're offering right now for a pledge of $50 is something that's worth a lot more than that.
Because each of the back-issue years goes for $25.
So what's five times 25? Who does math here?
$125.
$125.
But those five years of back-issues, which is 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, and 2004,
they're yours for a pledge of $50.
So that's a fraction of the cost.
And it gets better. It gets better.
For a $100 pledge, what do you think you get?
The last 10 years.
The last 10 years of 2600 Magazine.
That's a lot of reading material.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
And that's normally $250.
We're offering it for $100 tonight.
So we're basically donating this and giving it away at a much reduced price
to hopefully get people out there to call a last-minute blitz, so to say,
of people calling in and pledging and getting something in addition to the radio station
in exchange for that.
And I really hope to see those phone lines light up.
212-209-2950.
You know, no one's calling in so far.
Now, I know people read the magazine.
I know people listen to the radio show.
These two things are combining.
Okay, there's one more level.
That's right, one more level.
A $200 pledge will get you a 2600 lifetime subscription,
which is normally $260.
That's right, normally $260.
But in addition to that, we're going to throw in two years of back issues on top of that.
So add another $50 to that, and you have a $310 value that we're offering for $200.
Now, a lifetime subscription, that basically means until either we perish or you perish,
you'll be getting 2600 Magazine in the mail to whatever address you tell us to send it to.
212-209-2950.
So you have three pledge levels, 50, 100, and 200, all with the 2600 theme.
Now, I don't know why I expected the phone thing maybe to overload.
Maybe it has overloaded, which is why it seems like there are no calls coming in.
Emanuel?
Yes, Bernie?
Perhaps the listeners aren't aware that 2600 Magazine is an amazing source of information.
I mean, each quarterly issue is about, what is it, like 70 pages of really interesting…
I think it's like 76 or 70.
Yeah, something like that, 70-plus.
Yeah, and there's no advertising in this magazine at all.
Just like WBAI, there is no advertising in 2600.
It's all pure information, and really detailed information, too.
The kind of stories that we cover on this show, we can't really cover in great detail.
But in 2600 Magazine, articles are written in great technical detail,
and even lines of source code, and phone numbers to call,
and URLs that we really can't give out over the air because they're too long, whatever.
There's just really fascinating articles in this, and it's an amazing resource
to anybody who'd like to listen to this show.
Because for, as you pointed out, since 1984,
we've pretty much been the premier magazine for the hacker community and for the telecom community.
You might be able to actually hear the phones ringing.
I decided to turn up the audio.
I usually don't like this because I think it's a little bit distracting.
It's very distracting.
It is a little, isn't it?
But for some reason, other hosts don't seem to have as much of a distraction issue that I have.
I don't know. Do you find that annoying?
I find it more tactile.
Oh, I have it up too loud? Is that what it is?
What? People are making all kinds of gestures.
Look, I don't know how to work the thing.
212-209-2950 is the number.
If you call it, you can hear yourself make annoying noises.
Old-fashioned bells.
And, you know, the thing is, if you're into old-fashioned bells,
hopefully you're not just calling to make them ring.
But that's what we're into too.
That's what the magazine is all about.
We've talked about the phone company since way back in the beginning,
when divestiture was first started.
But things are changing constantly, things in the computer world,
things in the consumer world, things in the telephone world.
It's a different world than when we started.
Even the last 10 years, you'll see an incredible difference
in what has happened technological-wise.
You can see that firsthand by getting 10 years' worth of 2600
delivered to your door.
If you call 212-209-2950, pledge $100, you'll get 10 years.
$50, you'll get 5 years.
$200, you'll get a lifetime.
What that means is every issue from now on until the end,
whatever that is defined as,
and the last two years of back issues.
That's a $360 value.
Is that?
Yeah.
No, wait.
I'm sorry, $310 value.
That is for the pledge of $200.
We take Visa.
We take MasterCard.
Everybody who pledges over $25 also gets an off-the-hook T-shirt.
So you're getting all kinds of really cool things here.
But like Mike said, it's the radio station.
That's the important thing.
This is something worth preserving.
Am I right?
I think so.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Go ahead, Voltaire.
Emmanuel?
Voltaire first, then Bernie.
Yeah.
If you go to the level starting at, I think, $25,
you'll also get the WBAI membership,
which is something that I think is really important,
especially in these times that WBAI is really changing,
especially for the better right now.
Absolutely.
Now, you know, I should also point out,
this actually has happened to a couple of people.
People have publicly stood on soapboxes
or proclaimed over the internet that they want to support the radio station,
and they have been contacted by other people who say,
please only pledge the bare minimum so that you get a vote
and can shift the station to a different direction
that we want to direct the station in.
And, you know, I don't like that tactic,
no matter what direction you want to point the station in.
First of all, we do have that ability.
We do have that power.
The radio station works.
Like you said, you get a vote with that minimal pledge.
But you should be pledging as much as you possibly can
in order to make it so that we can actually pay the bills
and not just survive but flourish.
And I think it's kind of tacky to do things like that,
to say that we just want to gain control
and then, you know, we'll do things our way.
No, it's more democratic than that.
It's so tacky they might as well be putting the phone down effect all the way up.
Yeah, might as well put it all the way up.
Now, 212-209-2950, we have three calls on the line.
Yes, go ahead, Mike.
I want to return to a point that Bernie has made earlier.
Bernie is next.
He's in queue.
I'm going to return, and then he can maybe say whatever he wants.
And that point is that if you call 212-209-2950,
pledge $50, $100, $200 to get these premiums,
you get the magazine, which is commercial-free,
and you get the radio program, which is also commercial-free.
I don't know where else you can get that much commercial-free content
for really any price.
I mean, there are people who spend $100, $200 a month on their cable bill,
and that cable bill still comes with advertisements.
That's right, yeah.
You buy a newspaper, you buy a magazine, that still comes with all kinds of ads,
all kinds of things just screaming at you.
So it's really crazy that these pledges and no advertising revenue are enough
to keep us on the air.
But it's true that we keep our expenses as low as we can.
Given we're in New York City, we can only go so far.
But your pledges are what keep us on the air.
There are no commercials either on the radio or in the magazine,
and that much content without the influence of advertisers
is just something you can't get anywhere else, 212-209-2950.
An important point here that needs to be stressed is that we have hundreds of people
literally who work in this place, and the vast, vast majority of them are volunteers.
Don't get a penny.
There are people down in the tally room right now who are volunteering their time.
People doing all kinds of radio production here are volunteering their time
just to bring alternative voices out there.
We're volunteering our time.
Nobody here gets paid.
Any radio station has to pay an engineer to keep the station on the air,
and people who are here maybe 15, 16 hours a day doing important jobs
like programming the station and basically doing all kinds of things
that you absolutely have to have done, bookkeeping and various other things like that.
Yes, you have to pay, but nobody is making a fortune here at all.
They're barely getting by.
People who do get paid, and there are very few of those.
So every penny that you pledge to this place is basically keeping the station going itself.
It's not padding anybody's expense accounts
or any of that nonsense you usually see in most places that ask for money.
You can tell that we're not padding anyone's expense account.
Look at the telephone machine that we have.
Yes, look at that. Our listeners can't look at that.
Bernie, you've been waiting patiently. What was on your mind?
I just wanted to point out that, as Mike just mentioned,
this is an awful lot of content you get on this radio station, not just off the hook,
but there's a lot of other really interesting programs on this radio station
that you pledge will help support.
Obviously, if you pledge during the show, it really shows station management
that off the hook really has dedicated listeners,
but I'm the only show on this station.
There's a lot of other good programs that segue nicely into and out of.
All right, Bernie, I'm going to challenge you. Name another good program.
Well, I just wanted to point out that along with all that commercial-free programming
and commercial-free content and the T-shirt,
just for $50, the five years of back issues,
that's like 1,500 printed pages in a really nice magazine you're getting.
For the $100 pledge, which includes the T-shirt and 10 years of back issues,
that's like 3,000 pages of really fascinating hacker and other information.
So I encourage our listeners to get out their blue boxers and call...
Oh, no, you didn't.
Oh, my God. You just MF'd the... Oh, wow.
Do you want to explain to the folks what you just did there?
Because that could be illegal in some places, Bernie, what you just did.
Well, you know, some of our listeners are in other countries where...
Oh, no, you didn't do it again. Oh, my God.
Okay, what are those magical tones, which some people might remember?
Well, I just wanted to point out that those MF tones, which have been used in the past...
Let me just say that's not an adjective that we're using when we say that.
MF means... Well, actually, it is in a sense, but MF stands for multi-frequency.
Am I correct on that?
Yes, although some company security people might have used another acronym for MF, but...
Well, they usually follow that with our name or hackers or something like that, but never mind.
That was actually the MF tones that I just played, including the KP prefix and the ST suffix.
That was 209. That was area code 215. I'm sorry, 212, 209, 2950.
That was the MF tones I played.
And I imagine there's quite a few listeners who just heard that,
and those tones were music to their ears,
because that's an example of the kind of innovation that hackers and phone freaks over the years
have taken advantage of to explore technology in ways that it wasn't intended to be explored.
So you asked me about some of the other programs that are on WBAI that I like to listen to.
For instance, right after Off the Hook is the Personal Computer Show.
And there's some guys that do that show who've been involved with the computer scene since the 70s
who really know their stuff really well.
In fact, we get a lot of calls on this station, on this show,
that are really intended for the next show because people are waiting for the Personal Computer Show.
It's a great show.
On Friday mornings, there's a great media analysis program called CounterSpin.
It's from 10 to 10.30 on Fridays.
It does a lot of the critical media analysis that we also do here on Off the Hook.
Now, we kind of focus on the types of stories related to technology and personal privacy and so forth
that the media is not covering well, and we try to expand on that like CounterSpin does.
But it's a really good program to listen to.
Mike, you've been involved with Amy Goodman's program, Democracy Now.
Maybe you could tell the listeners about that show.
Sure.
Well, Democracy Now, as probably many of our listeners already know, is on every morning here on WBAI.
It's a daily independent news hour that really –
one of the things that Democracy Now does that I think is pretty unique among daily news programs
is that they have interview segments with notable people as well as people you may not have heard of
who are affected by the news that last for 20, 30, 40 minutes
and therefore are able to just go in depth in a way that most of the news is not able to do
with their 30-second sound bites.
And you get that program and just so many more programs here on WBAI, 212-209-2950.
I mean, I can almost guarantee if you turn on WBAI just two random times sometime in the next week,
at least one of those times you will hear something fascinating that you wouldn't hear anywhere else.
It may not be something you agree with, but it will be fascinating and you will not hear it anywhere else.
I've been doing that a lot actually lately.
And I got to say I'm very impressed with some of the things I've been hearing over the airwaves.
Just the – we have an incredibly professional sound many times.
I can't say all the time we have a professional sound, but many times we do
and many times I am just absolutely riveted to the radio listening to various things.
Have you ever listened to Exploration with Michio Kaku earlier in the afternoon on Wednesdays?
That is an incredible show all about science and physics and space and things like that.
It's just you don't hear that anywhere else.
You don't hear that.
You don't hear shows like Golden Age of Radio which is on on Sundays, old-time radio.
I'm a sucker for old-time radio.
I love listening to things from the 1930s and 40s.
And that's just an adventure every time I turn that on or Liquid Sound Lounge on Saturdays.
So you just hear really good music and sometimes music is what you need to hear.
It's all something that speaks to you at some point.
Emanuel?
Yes, go ahead, Bernie.
I wasn't even scratching the surface of the programs on WBA-IFM that are really interesting
and would be interesting to the listeners of Off the Hook.
There's another program called Law and Disorder that covers the legal issues
around the erosion of civil liberties and the increasing police state.
We do that on Off the Hook, but that's a whole show dedicated just to that topic.
On Saturdays, like from 10-30 to 11, there's a program called On the Count.
It's about the criminal justice and prison system.
We cover those issues, too, because a lot of times technology is used in the prison system.
And anything to do with controlling people, using technology, we're interested in covering.
And you can also hear that in detail in the criminal justice and prison report.
intervene does the expert witness program that covers some of the stuff that our government is up to covertly.
There's a lot of other programs on the station, but it's really important to know
that you're not going to hear any of this kind of material on any commercial radio station.
Absolutely.
Even something like I was driving around Saturday night, late Saturday night,
and I was listening to a program we have called Soul Central Station.
And I can't tell you how rare it is that you hear good soul music on the radio anymore.
I mean, you'd think that's something that would not be too hard to find,
but you know what?
It's impossible to find.
And not only to hear good music, but to hear someone who's enthusiastic about it,
to hear somebody who's educated about what they're playing.
That's an example of some of the things that we do here at this radio station.
We have all different kinds of musical genres.
We have a terrific jazz series that's on Monday nights.
One of the programs that really excited me was a program of Spanish music that's on.
It's rock and roll, Spanish rock and roll.
It's on Sunday nights.
It's called La Nueva Alternativa.
And that's an incredible program that I think it's on 11 p.m. on Sunday nights.
We have so many diverse programs, so many different things you can listen to.
That's why your pledge makes so much of a difference.
It keeps all this going, not just us.
We're offering all kinds of things tonight for off the hook.
But your pledge goes for the radio station itself and keeps us going.
I mentioned we were up to $707,000.
We need to make it to $800,000 by the time the marathon is over,
which I believe is over the weekend.
We need you to call 212-209-2950.
We're up to $400 for this hour.
Okay, you know, that's good, but it's not good enough.
We need to get about $2,000 this hour, and we need your help to do that.
212-209-2950.
We have three pledge levels, 50, 100, and 200,
with all kinds of cool 2,600 paraphernalia for you.
Five years of back issues for $50.
It's an incredible bargain because they usually go for 125.
Ten years for $100, and a lifetime for 200.
When we're not torturing our listeners, do we ever play country music?
Well, you know, it's interesting you should say that
because we did play country music last week,
and we did that to sort of prove a point
that in fact this place, this frequency,
could easily, easily be turned over at any point to a commercial entity.
Basically, this kind of frequency in the middle of the FM dial
is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
I'm not exaggerating, am I?
Bernie, was I right?
About hundreds of millions of dollars?
It could well be, even though the commercial radio
is in bigger trouble than listener-supported radio,
those stations still sell for ungodly amounts of money.
And, you know, the powers that be at Pacifica,
it's very possible if this station doesn't get
the financial support it needs from listeners
that Pacifica has to reallocate its resources.
And one of the resources in the Pacific network is WBAI.
Now, I'm sure that Pacifica would not like to relinquish this station
in order to keep the network alive, but it's very possible.
There's been a shakeup at this station recently
because we're really trying to keep the station on the air.
But it's really important that listeners want to support
the kind of information you hear on this radio station,
non-commercial, hard-hitting information,
you're not going to hear on any commercial station,
to call 212-209-2950.
We're going to give you a lot of really great premium gifts
for thanking you for supporting this station.
Up to $450, 212-209-2950.
And, Bernie, you mentioned a shakeup.
I want to make sure that people get the right idea here.
Yeah, things do change.
New people running things, new programs being put on the air,
that is essential.
You have to do things like that.
You have to move, you have to change,
you have to try new things.
Everything that's happening here right now
is happening through process.
It's happening exactly the way it's supposed to happen.
Not everybody's going to be happy with it.
I'm not happy with everything that's happening either,
but that's part of the whole process,
which you can become a part of.
If you don't like the way we're going,
and a lot of people said they didn't like the way we were going,
you can help change that.
That's what's happening.
We're changing, we're doing different things,
and you're voting now with your dollars.
We're doing better, this fundraiser,
than we've done in a long, long time.
That, my friends, is a turning point.
Please help us.
We're up to 450 now for the hour.
Again, we need to make it to about 2,000,
so please call up 212-209-2950.
Again, we have several different pledge levels.
$200 gets you a lifetime subscription to 2600 Magazine.
That's from now until whenever we stop or whenever you stop,
whichever comes first,
plus two years of the most recent back issues.
For a pledge of $100, you get the last 10 years of back issues,
and for a pledge of $50,
you'll get the last five years of back issues.
An incredible deal,
because they sell for much more than that,
and they do sell.
People read magazines still.
Don't let what naysayers tell you stick in your mind,
because people are reading.
I see it all the time.
212-209-2950.
And by the way, you know,
Emanuel and 2600 donate these issues.
They don't come out of your pledge dollars.
And we ship them, too.
We ship them ourselves.
That's true.
So if you think that's kind of unfair,
and you think that it's not really enough money
that we're asking for these things,
you could certainly pledge more money than we're asking
by calling 212-209-2950
and show your support,
keep the station on the air even more,
and maybe reduce the amount of time we have to spend.
Can I just point something out about the phones ringing, too, by the way?
I just learned this.
Not all the phones make sound,
because we were having a bunch of lights light up,
but they didn't ring,
and you just heard that other phone ring.
Some of them ring.
Some of them don't.
So don't let the absence of sound
make you think that people aren't calling in.
We have three calls on the line right now.
We have room for more.
We have volunteers down there,
people taking calls and taking your pledge.
It's a great thing to do.
Try it out.
212-209-2950.
Yes, Redhack?
I was going to say,
I'm going to go that way.
There's enough people there,
so I'm going to go sit there.
Go charging down the hallway, yes,
and help them out
and give them a good pep talk there.
All right, 212-209-2950.
If you call, you might even speak to Redhack,
or you might speak to Gus.
You might speak to one of our other Tally volunteers.
Wait, Gus isn't in the studio?
No, you noticed that, huh?
She's down the hallway.
The other Tally volunteers are really nice as well.
It's always fun to talk to them after the show,
and you can talk to them during the show.
Well, don't talk to them too much
because they do have a job to do,
and they have to get through it.
It's a hard job, but they're doing a great job.
212-209-2950.
One major distinguishing feature of this station
is that if you turn on your soul music program,
you will hear people presenting it
that are passionate about soul music.
When you turn on a news program,
you're hearing people not just reading off a teleprompter,
or anything like that.
They know the issues.
They will tell you how things are
and why they're like that.
They have this show, which is a hacker show,
and it's populated by hackers.
Every single minute of airtime of this station
is put there by someone whose heart and soul
is behind what they're doing.
Nothing is just generated to fill time.
Everything's there for a reason.
Speaking of heart and soul,
you ever hear the program,
Everything Old is New Again?
It's on Sunday nights.
Basically, I don't know how many of you listen to
show tunes, cabaret interviews, things like that.
That's what David Kenney, every Sunday, presents.
Oftentimes, I'm driving around.
I just happen to tune that in.
I never have heard anybody so enthusiastic
about what he does,
about the kind of music that he's playing,
and just basically the whole feeling,
the whole sense of it all.
That kind of spirit typifies
what every producer here feels.
We're all passionate about something.
In our particular case,
we're passionate about technology and social issues
and hacker events and things like that.
But everybody here has their thing.
If you just tune around a little bit
and explore and listen at other times,
you'll hear that same passion manifested
in all sorts of different ways,
whether it be Morris Orthodox Radio Crusade,
which is on Tuesday nights at midnight,
one of my favorite programs,
followed by Weaponry,
which is a program all about weapons,
which you wouldn't think would be something
that would air on a station like this,
but it does, and it's fascinating.
I was just going to say,
people should know the Morris Orthodox Radio Crusade
has nothing to do with Morris people,
Orthodox religion, or crusades.
Well, I'm sure they talk about it occasionally
because they talk about everything at some point.
They steer that ship around
to basically all kinds of stops
and take all kinds of phone calls as well.
All right, our phone lines are empty at the moment,
so we want to see some more calls.
We're up to 550,
so we're more than a quarter of the way to our goal,
which is 2,000 for this hour.
Please show your support.
It must mean something to you if you're listening,
and we're trying to give you as much
as we possibly can in exchange,
and you have our promise
because we're doing all the shipping ourselves.
I know we've been a little slow with some premiums,
but everybody gets their premiums in the end,
and we've improved the system tremendously
so that we hope to have these premiums to you
much quicker than ever before.
Give us a call, 212-209-2950.
We take Visa, we take MasterCard,
we take all kinds of cool things like that.
We take Amex as well.
We take Amex.
We might even take Discover.
I don't know.
Give it a try.
If you're one of those five people in the world
with a Discover card, give us a call.
See what happens.
I have a Discover card,
and we have two calls on the line.
Thank you, people, for calling in.
Please keep those calls coming
because it makes all the difference.
This is the last week we're going to be doing this.
Four calls on the line.
Great.
Consider this a vote for non-commercial radio,
for something different,
for, I guess, a vote against the commercial crap
that's out there.
All you do is turn around on your FM dial,
your AM dial.
You'll hear all kinds of repetition.
You'll hear the same thing over and over again.
I know we're asking you to do the same thing
over and over again,
but the ideas you hear when we're not asking for money
are unique and different.
I'm sorry, Bernie.
Go ahead.
I just wanted to point out
Rob had a really good observation
that all the producers on WBAI you hear,
I don't think any or very few of them,
get paid a dime.
For the passionate programming
they put on the air for your enjoyment.
None of us get paid for doing this.
In fact, several of us on the show
actually put a lot of money out of our own pockets,
yourself more than anyone, Emanuel,
to make this show happen
so people can be informed
about stuff they're interested in.
Well, Bernie, not to disagree with you too much,
but did you not donate a hard ticket
to take the hackers at random last week
to this show?
Yeah, I donated...
That's a good chunk of change there.
I mean, that was hundreds of dollars
out of my pocket
to donate to this station
along with Nick Farr,
who generously donated
the Hackers on a Plane transportation
to the HAAR conference.
And that was an amazing package.
It was one of the most amazing packages
we ever offered.
Yeah, $1,000 for the radio station right there.
People are putting their money
where their mouths are, or is.
Yeah, but the important thing is
people are actually stepping forward,
more so now than I've seen in a very long time.
And I would really like for Off the Hook
to be at the forefront of all that.
And you can help make that possible
by joining the three people on the phone right now,
calling 212-209-2950,
taking advantage of the special offer
we only have available for another half hour
of basically five years of back issues
of the magazine.
That's four issues per year.
I guess that's 20 issues
for a pledge of $50.
That's a great deal.
You're not going to find that anywhere,
even at the Dayton Hamvention.
We didn't sell them for that low.
And we sell them for a lot more,
and we will continue to sell them
for more than that.
$25 per year is what we sell them for.
We're offering it to you,
five years for a pledge of $50.
Or even better than that,
a pledge of $100 will get you 10 years.
That's a $250 value right there,
along with the Off the Hook t-shirt.
Or $200 pledge,
lifetime subscription of $2,600,
plus two years of back issues.
It's an incredible deal.
212-209-2950.
What would you say to listeners that say,
oh, I already got all my dosage of hacker history
from the Best of 2600?
Well, yeah, interesting point,
because we did talk about the Best of 2600,
the book that we put out,
which is a huge book
filled with all kinds of material.
But big as that is,
it barely scratched the surface.
And you know something else?
Every single one of our issues
has something in it
that did not make it to the book,
namely the letters section.
We have more letters to our magazine
than I think any other magazine ever publishes.
And we always have very interesting points of view
and all kinds of back-and-forth dialogue.
And people love to read this.
Maybe their favorite part of the magazine.
And that's something that you get.
You get if you get the back issues.
212-209-2950.
Yes, go ahead, Bernie.
I just said,
the letters section is one of my favorite,
as it is for you.
And you write a lot of replies.
You write the replies to these letters.
Yeah, well, I have to edit them also.
I don't know if it's necessarily my favorite part,
because it takes me a good week or two
just to go through them all, every issue.
Very entertaining.
Some of the questions and observations
and complaints
and just other stuff that people write in
to 2600 Magazine.
And you publish these letters,
and you get very entertaining responses.
And it's just a very entertaining section
of the magazine,
not to at all diminish the rest of the content.
I mean, there's like 70-some pages every quarter.
If you pledge right now
$50, you get five years
of the most recent back issues of 2600.
That's like 1,500 pages.
And it's a really nice, small form factor.
You can carry it anywhere with you.
You don't need a battery to run it or anything.
It's just paper magazines
do have a place in our society.
For $100, you can get 10 years of back issues.
That's over 3,000 pages of information.
And for $200, you get a lifetime subscription
to 2600 Magazine,
as long as you or we are alive.
For $260, that's a really great value
because now you have to get two years
of back issues with that.
And the Off the Hook t-shirt
for anybody who pledges $25 or more.
Please call 212-209-2950 to support this station.
Okay, if we see two more calls come in,
we're going to get into some stories.
We have some interesting stories for you tonight.
And we do this every week.
We talk about all kinds of things going on in the world
having to do with computers and technology
and privacy and consumer issues and hackers
and things like that.
Where else would you ever find anything like that?
Had we not been here since 1988 doing this,
many of the things we've talked about
might never have gotten out to the world.
And so many people listen to this program
and basically they meet up with us in various places
and they say, wow, you know,
I've been listening to this show for 10 years
or five years or 15 years.
And I've learned so much.
Well, if you're one of those people
or if you're tuning in for the first time tonight
and you want to see this continue,
by all means, give a call now.
212-209-2950.
Take advantage of these amazing offers.
Again, two more calls coming in.
We'll get to some stories.
Now, Volter, I know you had a story
about how you got involved,
how this sort of changed your outlook on things.
How did it start for you?
Yeah, definitely.
I started listening to the show,
I guess like three years ago when I was in ninth grade.
And I was never really into politics
or anything beyond technology.
But when I started listening to,
I started subscribing to this as a podcast.
And right before that,
you already had the last few minutes
or the last few seconds of free speech radio news.
So I started,
I remember hearing some interesting stories
and I started subscribing to that as well.
And after hearing that,
I realized how interesting politics could be
and how like much social injustice there was in the world.
So I started like tuning into WBAI on a regular basis.
Wow.
Wait, did you start with free speech radio news
or did you start with Off the Hook as a podcast?
Off the Hook.
Off the Hook.
And that led you to free speech radio news.
And then from there, other programs as well.
From there, I started tuning into BAI like all the time.
Wow.
And yeah, I started-
In high school, that's incredible
that somebody would get turned on to all that kind of thing.
Yeah, it also got me like really involved in,
it helped me like discover my own high school,
even though this was like a few miles away.
I joined the Human Rights Club,
which is like something
that I'd never be interested in like just a year before.
And I also organized with a bunch of religious leaders.
I organized the anti-war rally in my city of New Rochelle.
And we had like 300 people attend,
which I thought was really good.
What do you think makes it unique about a radio station
as opposed to just a website or something?
I mean, everybody has the ability
to say something on the internet now.
Things have changed,
but I think there's something still special
about a radio station, right?
Well, I think the most important thing for us
is that we have the production studios
that you wouldn't get anywhere else.
Like we're not a bunch of people
talking into a laptop microphone.
We're people with like,
it's definitely not a professional studio.
Nothing wrong with laptop microphones.
I love laptop microphones, but yeah,
you raise a valid point.
It's like, it's a good place
to filter the highest quality stuff.
It's high quality, but it's still volunteer.
So.
Yeah, here you do learn,
and this is where I learned a lot about radio.
I worked in radio before at my college station,
but you learn a lot about production quality
and about being fair and open-minded
and talking to listeners and just learning yourself.
That's what this place is all about.
That's what it's been about since 1960.
And I'm proud to be a part of it.
I think I've never been prouder
and I'm really looking forward to the future now
because it looks like the future is bright
and we're up to 1150 now.
So that's great.
We're past the halfway mark.
We just need a few more calls at 212-209-2950
to reach our goal for tonight.
I'd be very happy to do that.
And it'll be one of the more momentous fundraisers
that I can remember at this place.
Rob.
Yeah, and that's another thing.
There's versus laptops and podcasts and things
which have their place and they're great,
but an actual radio station is run by people,
at least this one is,
is run by people passionate about radio.
Everything on the schedule,
which is put together by these people
is there for a reason.
It's there because somebody thinks it has value.
Okay, we have people to thank
and then we're going to read some stories.
We want to thank those people for calling in.
Go ahead, Mike, you start.
We'll start by thanking A-Team who lives in Florida.
And we would like to thank Terrence
who lives in Highland Park, New Jersey.
Michael from Chicago.
We want to thank Sydney from Montclair for his pledge.
I've got some names here too.
Sorry, I'm having trouble.
There's people doing some crazy dance
in the performance studio.
They're waving their hands up in the air.
It's just typical of the kinds of things going on.
Don't wave back.
Being polite.
No.
It's just, oh boy, this place is amazing.
Okay, we have,
I want to thank Christian from Cambridge in the UK.
That's right.
Now we have listeners overseas.
We didn't have that in the early years.
Now we have that
and we have people who can listen to our old shows too.
And I want to thank Michael from Astoria
for his generous pledge as well.
Do we have other people?
I have some disappointing news
for our Discover card holding listeners.
But we don't take Discover.
No.
Oh, how about that.
So don't bother calling in.
All right.
But American Express, Visa and MasterCard,
we take 212-209-2950 is our phone number.
And we always get these people
who don't want us to say even their first names on the air
and we thank them anyway.
Did we just do that?
No, no, no.
We thank them, but anonymously.
All right.
I thought maybe they handed us sheets.
No, no, no.
Sometimes they hand us the sheets that say
do not read our name
and I don't know why they do that.
Okay.
Again, our phone lines are open.
So if you want to call up and help us reach our goal,
we are at 1150,
but that's still pretty far away from our goal.
We only have 20 minutes left.
Okay, let's go over some stories
and hopefully that will prompt people to call in.
A contraband cell phone
planted by law enforcement and corrections officials
in Baltimore's Supermax Prison
was used to record inmate conversations
uncovering multiple crimes,
including a home invasion plot that resulted in a killing.
Yeah.
Cell phones are routinely smuggled into prisons
where they're used to pass the time,
continue illegal operations and intimidate witnesses.
Governor Martin O'Malley recently asked for permission
to test signal jamming technology
to make the devices useless.
But in the meantime,
local and federal law enforcement
are trying to turn them into tools.
So while they're trying to block the cell phones from being used,
what they're doing now
is they're sending cell phones in and saying,
okay, inmates use the cell phones,
get some crimes going
and then we'll get you for the crimes.
What do you think about that?
Law enforcement tactics.
It wouldn't be the first time
that law enforcement has smuggled contraband into prisons.
But in this case,
they're actually doing it for the purposes of law enforcement.
And it's really intriguing
that the contraband cell phones
are just sort of being covertly brought into prisons
with prisoners thinking
that they're going to be able to get away
with crimes from using a cell phone in prison.
And then these phones are wiretapped.
So any prisoners who are listening to this show,
and I know there are prisoners who listen to this show
in both state and federal prisons,
if you come across a cell phone in prison,
be aware that it could be wiretapped by law enforcement
and have been planted there for that reason.
And of course, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley
basically wants to start jamming the cell phone signals eventually
after they finish catching more criminals by fooling them.
The governor's goal is to stop criminal conduct
from behind prison walls, says his press secretary.
It's a problem in Maryland.
The state has been innovative
in finding ways to detect and seize cell phones,
but keeping them out of prisoners' hands
is proving difficult.
Now, federal law and FCC rules
make cell phone jamming devices illegal,
except for feds.
The military uses such devices
to neutralize improvised explosive devices
in Iraq and other war zones.
Unauthorized jamming,
which I believe we've done on the air.
Did we not do that on the air?
We actually tested a jammer on the air
that can carry fines of up to $11,000 a day,
and the commission actively enforces the ban.
Okay, you know what?
We didn't actually do that.
We just were kidding about doing that,
but we demonstrated what it might be like
if we did do something like that, yeah.
We'll just leave it at that.
We're up to 1,450.
Okay, great.
We're only 550 away from our goal.
212-209-2950.
We have one call on the line.
Please call up.
Pledge 50 for five years of 2,600 back issues,
100 for 10 years of 2,600 back issues,
and 200 for a lifetime subscription to 2,600,
the hacker quarterly.
And you also get two years of free back issues
along with that.
Great deal.
Here's another story.
The NYPD has crushed a sophisticated identity theft ring
that wrecked the credit of 6,000 victims
and bilked banks out of $15 million in bogus charges.
Now, the way that reads,
it bilked banks out of bogus charges,
which means that banks were trying to charge
$15 million in bogus charges,
and these criminals bilked them out of it, right?
Am I reading it incorrectly?
Yes.
That's the daily news for you.
The banks aren't bilked on the bogus charges,
because that's what I hear Wall Street is like.
Yeah.
It's pretty much just bogus charges everywhere you go.
And, yeah.
And this is the kind of show that will talk to you
about that straightforwardly
and tell you where the bogus charges
are really coming from.
Anyway, this scam stretched from New York to,
guess where?
Nigeria.
It was one of the largest operations of its kind.
It's just every sentence got alliteration in it.
Dismantled by the NYPD.
Now, the thieves somehow managed to get their hands
on thousands of credit cards legitimately issued
in the victims' names,
but intercepted them before they arrived
at the proper destination.
Now, they then called the credit card companies
using a legal device called a spoof card
to disguise their voice and phone number
to activate the credit cards.
From a law enforcement perspective,
such cards are anything but a spoof,
said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown
in the soundbite of the week.
Once the companies fell for the ruse,
the suspects used the cards for cash advances
or to buy luxury items
or sometimes just basic necessities,
depending on what they needed at the moment.
But I want to talk about this spoof card thing
because I've played with this before,
but I wanted to demonstrate it on the air.
So I actually went and I activated a spoof card
right before the show.
And what I'd like to do is,
I'm not sure how this is going to work
because I'm going to call the station from the station
and that might result in some confusion.
So let's get a dial tone and I'll call spoof card,
enter my code and call the station
and see if I can talk to myself using a spoofed voice.
And if that doesn't work,
we'll try it from a cell phone.
What?
Yeah, see, it gets kind of complicated,
but we're going to try it.
It's the kind of thing we do here at the BAI.
212-209-2950.
If you support this kind of thing,
please give us a call.
Dial tone.
All right, there's our dial tone.
We're going to call the number now.
Dial tone.
All right, now we're calling spoof card.
Welcome.
Please enter your PIN number.
Okay, let's do that.
Dial tone.
Oh, I didn't know the,
it comes across like that.
Okay, I'm going to give my PIN code out over the air.
Dial tone.
There.
To place a call, press 1.
To listen to your recorded calls, press 2.
To add minutes to your card, press 3.
For customer service, press 0.
All right, let's place a call.
Please enter your destination number
followed by the pound sign.
Okay.
Now please enter the number you wish to display on caller ID
followed by the pound sign.
Isn't that great?
Okay, so I'm going to, of course,
put in the White House phone number.
To use your normal voice, press 1.
To change your voice to sound like a woman, press 2.
To change your voice to sound like a man, press 3.
To hear a sample of what your voice...
What does it mean to change my voice to sound like a man?
What are you saying?
What do I sound like?
All right, I'm going to press 3.
To record this call, press 1 now.
That's a good feature right there.
Let's press 1.
Okay, and now I believe we're getting a phone call.
Will I be able to pick this up?
Let's try it and see what happens.
I don't know why it's showing up over there, but...
Hello, can you hear me?
There's some feedback.
I sound kind of evil there.
What I'm going to have to do is call back using a cell phone.
Actually, what I can also do is maybe play this back.
I'm going to hang up.
Actually, how do I hang up?
I guess I press that, and then I press...
Okay, so I've hung up now.
To play the call, press 1.
To listen to your recorded calls, press 2.
Let's try that.
To play all recordings, press 1.
To play all recordings starting from a specific date, press 2.
You have one recording saved.
May 27th at 747 p.m.
There's some feedback.
Can you hear me?
I sound kind of evil there.
What I'm going to have to do is call back using a cell phone.
Actually, what I can also do is maybe play this back.
I'm going to hang up.
Okay, it doesn't sound very good, does it?
There's a reason, Emmanuel.
To repeat this recording, press 1.
I'm going to hang up on him.
Okay, goodbye.
I can call him with my cell phone, and then you'll hear an evil voice a lot easier.
Go ahead, Bernie.
I was going to say, you've got the latency of the cell phone system,
and that's why there's all that crazy echo, which made it hard to hear.
But these spoof cards are readily available.
You can just do a web search for a spoof card,
and you can buy these things fairly inexpensively
and make your caller ID info appear as any number you want on your call party.
There's a lot of controversy about this.
Some people are using it for illegal purposes.
Some are using it for fun and games like we are.
But the technology exists,
and if people are just aware that this technology exists,
they can just be cognizant of it.
We're making people aware that if you see a caller ID number on your phone
on your caller ID box, it doesn't necessarily mean that's who's calling you.
It could be a telemarketer trying to hide their number,
or it could be a criminal, or it could just be somebody playing a joke on you.
To give you an example of the kinds of information that you can get in 2600 Magazine,
if you take advantage of the offer that we have tonight at 212-209-2950,
we have an article that basically details the risk of this kind of a thing.
What many people do, many people have their cell phone voicemail.
They have the password disabled if you call from your cell phone.
What that means is that if you are able to fake out the caller ID
and somehow call your voicemail number with your phone number showing up,
you can get into someone else's voicemail very, very easily.
We detail the risk of that and why it's a bad idea
and how you can protect against that sort of thing.
It's basically what educated people do by default, but sometimes we forget.
Okay, now Mike's going to call us now as a woman.
Let's see if we can get him.
Mike, are you there?
Hello, how are you?
Is that really you, Mike?
It could be, or it could be an imposter.
I don't know. I don't think he sounds very much like a woman.
Mike, why don't you issue a demand for where to leave the money
so that we get the merchandise that we want to have returned to us?
You should leave the money with WBAI by calling 212-209-2950.
Well, that sure sounds like a threat to me.
Okay, it's gotten the phones ringing.
I'll say that. We have three calls on the line.
Mike, maybe you wish to threaten us some more.
I mean, well, the threat is simple, that if people don't pledge,
if we don't make our goals, we'll go off the air.
That sounds like the worst threat I could possibly make.
I'm chilled. I'm chilled just hearing that threat being made.
But, Mike, what I'd like you to do, can you call us back as a man?
I want to hear what it sounds like that way.
I think it might even sound more evil.
Can you do that?
All right, why don't you hang up on me?
I will hang up on you.
I'm going to hang up on this threatening voice right now.
Okay, you know what? I think I might have hung up.
Barney, you're still there, right?
I'm still here.
Okay, good. I didn't hang up on you.
Voltaire, yes?
Oh, no, I was going to say that how do we know that Mike
isn't really just breathing out of a helium tank?
We don't know that, which is why I asked him to call back as a man
because nobody can imitate that voice with a balloon.
Okay, we have two calls on the line.
We're still at 1,450.
I don't know if that means that we haven't yet caught up to tally,
to add up all the numbers that we have.
Again, our goal is 2,000 for the hour,
and we need people to call up 212-209-2950
and pledge either $50 for five years or 2,600 back issues
where you'll find out all kinds of amazing secrets of the phone
and hacker and computer world,
or $100 for 10 years of back issues.
It's a great deal.
It's a fraction of the normal cost,
but more importantly, you're supporting the radio station,
keeping us alive, keeping us strong,
keeping us moving into the 21st century.
$200, you'll get a lifetime subscription to the magazine
plus two years of back issues.
And, Mike, do we have your threatening voice on the air right now?
Are your money or your life?
Oh, yeah, that's much better.
That's much better.
Why don't you demand that we make payment now?
I like that.
Tell us more about what we won't get
if we don't do something that you want us to do right now.
It's pretty backwards.
If you don't call,
then you will not get the off-the-hook T-shirt.
Certainly you will not get that.
You won't pledge at least $25.
If you don't pledge at least $50,
you won't get the five years of back issues.
And if you don't pledge $100,
you won't get the 10 years of back issues.
Well, okay, Mike.
Okay, Evil Mike.
Now, if I don't want any of that to happen,
I mean, if I do want that to happen,
if I want to help support the radio station,
what do I do?
How do I make this all go away,
all this evilness?
Okay, you know what?
I think you need to speak slower
because I think you'll sound a lot more threatening
if you speak slower.
Give out that phone number one more time
in a real commanding type voice.
Okay.
Well, Mike, I hope we haven't gotten you too angry
because you certainly sound threatening to us.
But that's Mike's voice as heard through a spoof card
with a fake phone number and a fake voice.
Just one of the many examples of fun things
you can do with technology
and hopefully a way of getting people to call in as well.
212-209-2950.
Any final words, Evil Mike?
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
We'll make sure we do that.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mike.
Three calls on the line.
I don't know if that's enough to appease him.
Mike, you're back in real life now.
And boy, that was fun.
Yes.
I don't know what it sounded like.
I just heard myself talking.
You're going to find out what it sounded like.
It sounded pretty threatening.
So it's a boon to kidnappers
and to people who want their voices
to be mangled beyond recognition.
The interesting thing about this spoof card
is I believe it's the same company that's running the,
I can't remember the name of it,
but the controversial service to break through caller ID blocks.
Yeah, isn't that something?
They have another service
to basically defeat what they're doing with this service.
Yes.
So they're playing both sides of the equation.
Yeah, you know, that's what people do.
But we're going to talk about it no matter what they do.
So we'll get the word out.
All right.
We have two calls on the line right now.
We're at 1550.
I don't know.
We only have about five, four minutes left.
So let's have a last minute blitz here.
212, 209, 2950.
These are the last moments of the fundraiser for Off the Hook.
Again, for a pledge of only $50,
you'll get five full years of back issues of 2600 Magazine
for a pledge of $100,
10 years of back issues of 2600 Magazine.
It's a phenomenal deal.
It's a donation from 2600.
It's something that we're crazy to do,
but we love this place and we're doing it anyway.
And hopefully you love this place enough to call in
and pledge and take advantage of that,
make everybody happy.
Pledge of $200,
get you a lifetime subscription forever and ever
until we either stop or you cease to be.
And you also get two of the more recent years of back issues.
212, 209, 2950.
We need to hear from you now.
This is it.
We're coming down to the wire.
This radio station is starting to get back on its feet.
We're doing well.
This is a very successful fundraiser
and hopefully the first step in many
where we basically show what we can do with your help.
212, 209, 2950.
Why not be a part of that success?
212, 209, 2950.
We're so used to not succeeding here at this radio station
that when we are succeeding,
I think people would want to be a part of it.
I wouldn't say we're used to not succeeding.
I mean, we have succeeded in the past,
but I just get this spirit now that, you know,
it's not negative.
It's positive.
There are good things ahead
and these good things are going to involve our listeners.
So I'm really looking forward to that.
Looking forward to taking that ride
with as many of you as possible.
Please be a part of it.
Again, one more time.
212, 209, 2950.
Three pledge levels, at least.
As many pledge levels as you want, really.
One call on the line.
We have room for about four or five more.
Please add your voice.
We're up to $1,900.
We're only 100 away from the goal.
You can be that person.
One person calling in and pledging.
$100 brings us to the goal.
212, 209, 2950.
Thanks so much to everybody.
We'll see you next week.
Good night.
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