A lecture and discussion about the global movement against austerity.
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speaking to you on Free Speech Radio, WBAI 99.5 on your radio dial.
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And the time is seven o'clock, and you are listening to WBAI New York.
It's time once again for Off The Hook.
And good evening to everybody.
The program is Off The Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you, joined tonight by Mike.
Hello.
Voltaire.
Hi.
Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
Kyle.
Hello, hello, I'm here.
Jim.
Hi.
And Bernie S. down in Philadelphia.
Greetings from Philadelphia.
Well, it's been...
Actually, this happened more than a week ago.
We didn't have time to discuss it last week, but I believe Kyle made reference to it,
the fact that a particular phone company is taking over another phone company.
We've all seen this before, phone companies constantly swallowing up their so-called
competition and turning back into monopolies.
Wait, there's more than one phone company?
Well, not for long, apparently.
The most recent one is AT&T supposedly swallowing up T-Mobile and creating, I guess, just one
GSM company in the United States because that'd be so much easier for us to keep track of.
And I'm a T-Mobile customer, Kyle, you're an AT&T customer, and you've had no end of
ribbing as far as saying that your company is taking over my company.
But, you know, the whole thing seems to be a waste because there's two different networks.
They have antennas on the same poles in many places.
And this is seen as something that's really bad for the consumer.
But what I thought was particularly amazing is some of the news coverage I've been hearing
about this, it focuses on Sprint Nextel.
Yeah, that's the CDMA company, the Sprint Nextel.
And they're upset about this.
And to me, it's kind of hard to take a company seriously when they have dual names in their
own name, and they're upset at a merger.
So Sprint Nextel is upset that AT&T is going to be taking over T-Mobile.
And they're urging the government to go and block this, maybe even have a class action
lawsuit of some sort.
Who knows?
But the thing that upsets me about this is that everyone's talking about Sprint Nextel
and their reaction to it, and whether or not people will sign on and support what Sprint
Nextel is doing.
It's not about Sprint Nextel.
The only thing they care about is the fact that they're going to have some serious competition,
and they won't make as much money as if there wasn't a huge GSM company, as opposed to two
moderately sized GSM companies competing against them.
I want to know who's standing up for the actual consumer, not another company that's protecting
its profits.
But where's the voice for the consumers?
I have not heard that.
Lots of media reform groups like Free Press have done a really good job at it.
Yeah, where are they?
I don't see them.
They're not getting the press.
They're not speaking loudly enough.
I think that's always the problem, is that people don't speak loudly enough about this.
But maybe more importantly, and Bernie, I think you can probably speak to this,
why is this deal bad for consumers?
I think whenever you have fewer companies providing a similar product, you're going
to have less competition.
I've never been a T-Mobile customer, but you have, and they have some particularly
innovative plans.
They seem to be a little more adventurous as far as picking more innovative handsets,
and they're the only mobile carrier I know of that gives you a rebate.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I've read this to be true.
If you fulfill your contractual service obligation, they actually lower your monthly price because
then you're no longer paying to subsidize.
They're no longer paying to subsidize the phone that you bought at a subsidized price.
I think all the carriers should adopt that, but I think all these innovative policies
that T-Mobile has are going to go out the window once AT&T absorbs them into the amoeba
they are.
Well, another thing about that particular deal, I've been a T-Mobile customer since,
well, actually, I haven't been a T-Mobile customer since the 90s.
It started out with OmniPoint, which was America's first GSM company, and they were based in
New Jersey.
Then they were taken over by a company known as VoiceStream, and then VoiceStream turned
into T-Mobile, and now apparently T-Mobile is going to turn right back into AT&T.
But it's interesting because whenever I do call them, I don't have a contract with
them, so I'm not quite sure what that's like to have a contract with them.
I try to avoid these things, but whenever I do call them, there's an audible gasp on
the phone when they realize how long I've been a customer and how early on in the game
I got involved.
I think, Bernie, you get the same thing because you're a legacy Sprint customer, are you
not?
Yes, I was one of the first Sprint PCS subscribers in Philadelphia almost 15 years ago.
And they also sort of gasp when I call them with a complaint, and I'm like, I've been
a customer of yours for a decade and a half.
Are you going to do something for me here?
So yeah, it's pretty unusual these days.
And I guess, does it show up on your record when you call T-Mobile that you've been a
customer through their predecessors?
Well, I know I get flashing red text by default when I call a phone company.
This might be something else in addition that just says I've been there for a very long
time.
But it's irrelevant to most people how long you've been a customer.
The question is, are you going to get fair service?
Are you going to be under some form of regulation?
And here's the thing about wireless communications.
And correct me if I'm wrong, there is no real regulation by government entities on them,
is there?
The FCC doesn't regulate mobile carriers as common carriers like they do telephone local
exchange carriers like Verizon.
Now, you don't want to confuse Verizon with Verizon Wireless.
Likewise, you don't want to confuse AT&T with AT&T Wireless.
They're distinctly different entities.
They are, but they are run by the same people in the end, are they not?
I mean, I know they compete with each other somehow, all these different companies do
that, but they are owned by the same people.
They're actually separate corporate entities.
They have the same damn name, AT&T.
Verizon, come on.
Verizon Wireless is only partly owned by Verizon.
Oh, boy.
They're also owned by Vodafone and probably someone else as well.
I mean, I have a feeling that it's all just one guy sitting in a room somewhere.
But there's a very complicated legal structure, and they all own bits and little pieces of
each other.
Let's take a quick history lesson here from a site called Techno...
I can't say this, Technologizer?
Yeah, Technologizer, I think is how you're supposed to say that.
Okay, that's better.
Technologizer.
Yeah, okay.
And that rolls off the tongue easier.
Here's a brief history of some of the things that have happened in phone companies over
the years.
Let's start in 1982.
In January, AT&T ends a long-running antitrust suit by the US Department of Justice by agreeing
to break itself up into a national long-distance carrier and seven baby bells.
The breakup is scheduled to happen in 1984.
Who here can name the seven baby bells?
Anyone?
Hands?
Nobody in the studio is daring to do it.
Bernie, how about you?
You want to try?
The baby bells.
There was Pacific Telesis.
There was Bell Atlantic.
There was Bell South.
There was...
Now, Mountain Bell was not one of them, was it?
No, Mountain Bell was one of the local companies.
Right, right, right.
Much like New York Telephone was a local company.
There was 9X, who I used to work for.
Okay.
In fact, you have a t-shirt that you wore at the first hub called X9X.
Yeah, a bunch of us employees that we make using the 9X logo, we made it say X9X.
What else?
I think I only got about half of them.
Kyle?
Southwestern Bell and US West.
What about Ameritech?
Yep.
Okay, I lost track.
We should be writing these down.
There's Pacific Telesis.
How do you say that?
All right.
There was Southwestern Bell.
There was Ameritech, 9X, Bell Atlantic, Bell South.
But that's only six.
Where's the seventh one?
Is it Illinois?
You said Ameritech, didn't you?
Yeah, you added Ameritech.
I did say Ameritech.
But I think Ameritech predates the original breakup.
No, no, no.
Really?
I remember that was one of the crazy names they came up with.
Yeah.
Bell South, Southwestern Bell.
I think that's...
Oh, US West, that was it.
The other one was US West.
Okay, so that's seven.
Yeah, okay.
Moving on.
So we had those seven companies and AT&T providing long distance.
Wasn't AT&T called American Bell for a little bit of time?
Yes.
Whatever happened to that?
It was sort of an interim name they used.
And there was a big fight over whether they would...
One of the things they didn't want to let go of AT&T was the Bell logo.
They wanted to keep using that.
And then I think eventually they told the Justice Department they'd be willing to give
up the Bell logo and they just called themselves AT&T.
That was during a period where they just were holding on tooth and nail to the Bell logo,
you know, that picture of the bell, which TAP Magazine infamously pictured with a crack in it.
So yeah, for like a year or two they were American Bell.
Oh, you know, I'm such an idiot that on the page I'm looking at all seven
of the companies are listed right there with their logos and everything.
Yeah, there they are.
Well, we got them right at least.
Wow.
And of course, 9x, we've had discussions about this.
What 9x stood for?
Does anybody here in the studio know what 9x actually stood for?
N-Y-N-E-X?
I know, Bernie, you know.
You do know, right?
I know.
I'll keep my mouth shut.
Keep your mouth shut.
I think Carl's going to give it a shot.
Go ahead.
New York, New England Exchange.
No, but you got the New York, New England right.
Oh, man.
Anybody care to guess what the X stood for?
Executioners?
Very close, Rob.
Very close.
But no.
Bernie, would you like to enlighten us?
Gee, you know, now I...
I assumed you knew this.
Oh my goodness.
I used to know this when I worked for them, but now I forget.
But it was...
All right.
I'll give you a hint.
It's rather poetic.
You're going to have to fill us in.
All right.
The X stood for the unknown.
That's it.
The future.
What?
The future unknown.
And I guess in 9x's case, the unknown was how long they were going to stay 9x.
And they turned into Ballantyke.
Then they turned into Verizon.
And the saga just keeps going on.
Wait, then what was the difference between New York Telephone and 9x?
Ah, New York Telephone predated 9x.
Actually, New York Telephone was a 9x company.
9x kind of took over the whole Northeast.
And then eventually, New York Telephone and New England Telephone,
they all just became known collectively as 9x.
So that's what happened there.
You know, it was my idea, and I still think it's a good idea,
that the country should break up into regions based on the Bell operating companies.
So we would live in 9x, OK?
And we'd get New York City.
We'd get Boston.
OK, we'd get Buffalo.
And Bernie, you'd be in Bell Atlantic.
You'd be Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., I believe.
The old CMP Telephone.
And then...
Beacon and Potomac.
Yeah.
And then, you know, other parts of the country.
Ameritech, the Midwest.
They'd get their own region, their own laws, their own way of doing things.
I just think it would work better, you know?
We'd have 9x high-speed rail.
Think of that.
That'd be kind of cool.
So I would have to say to someone, I'm from New York, New England,
and X stands for I don't know what.
You don't have to explain it every time.
Did you explain why we're called America when there's only one country
and two continents called America?
No.
There's no point in doing that.
I usually say the states when I'm overseas.
The states of what?
The states.
There are all kinds of states.
Yeah, but only some of them are the states.
You think that we have a stranglehold on the word states?
Yes.
Lots of countries have states, you know?
No, most of them have provinces.
All right.
We haven't even gotten to 1984 yet.
In 1984, 2600 Magazine begins publishing.
That's nice of them to say that.
And the breakup takes place.
AT&T's old local phone companies become Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, Bell South, 9x,
Pacific Telesis, you know, I never did pronounce that right.
Southwestern Bell and US West.
GTE, an independent phone company with roots going back to 1918,
spins off its GTE Sprint division and merges it with US Telecom,
which has roots going back to 1899.
The merged company begins offering long distance service in competition
with AT&T under the name Sprint, which incidentally stands for?
No, no, no.
Don't, don't, don't tell us, Bernie.
I know you know this, but anyone here testing those studio people?
Wow.
Running really fast, but not for very long.
You guys need to study your telephony history.
And fortunately, there are courses ongoing in various hacker spaces around the world.
Well, we're getting one right now tonight.
What, a hacker space?
Of course.
Oh, a lesson.
Yes.
Yeah.
I'm schooling everyone.
I know that.
Okay, Bernie, tell us what it stands for.
I want to give our listeners a clue.
The, uh, it was owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company,
and railroads had something that most, uh, entities did not have, which was rights of way.
Where are you going to run the lines?
But they had the rights of way along their railroad tracks going for, you know,
through state, from state to state to state.
So in addition to trains, you could run wires.
Exactly.
They actually, initially they had, they just, they ran just their own switching,
uh, wires for the, for the trains, train signaling.
Um, and they, they thought, hey, we could, uh,
we could use these wires and offer a competitive long distance service.
Uh, Southern Pacific Railroad, uh, intelligent, uh, uh,
Southern Pacific, wait, Southern Pacific Railroad, intelligent, uh, telecommunications.
That's very close.
I'll give it to you.
Southern Pacific Railroad, intelligent network of telecommunications.
They really tried hard to make it spell sprint.
I can tell, but it, uh, it works.
And, and, and the story you tell is true.
At least they're all words.
They are words.
At least they're not making up words.
Um, now MCI was, was another company and they had their roots back in the 1960s.
And, uh, Bernard, do you remember what MCI originally, how they started?
It was Microwave Communications Incorporated.
Right.
They, they, they basically communicated with microwaves, but they
communicated only between a couple of places.
Yeah.
It was just between, actually, wherever it was, I think it was like Chicago and some
other places, wherever it was, it was really expensive to make two calls between two,
between two cities.
And they thought, Hey, we can bypass it by the bypass AT&T and offer a lower rate to
our customers.
Um, there were no competitive long distance providers.
They were like the first one.
Right.
And, uh, so they set up basically a microwave link.
They set up towers and they beamed the signals via microwave.
Now AT&T did that too.
They use microwave to, uh, these big cornucopia horns you used to see up on, on
towers, um, shooting, you know, usually in the four gigahertz.
Uh.
Yeah.
You see them on, on the interstate everywhere.
Yeah, you still do going out Pennsylvania on our way to the Dayton hampage.
And you still see a few of them standing, but anyway, it's all underground fiber
optic now for the most part.
But, um, yeah, they set up this fiber optic, or not fiber optic, they set up this
microwave link between two cities that were, it would just turn out to be expensive to
call between these two cities.
I think it was Cleveland and Chicago.
I think you're right.
And apparently a lot of people like to talk between those two cities.
So a company actually was formed called MCI in the sixties just for that purpose.
AT&T sued them mercilessly because they viewed that as really bad.
It was a famous, I think it went all the way to the Supreme court that they were
allowed to do that.
And once MCI succeeded, uh, all these other companies like Sprint jumped into
the marketplace.
All right.
So now you have 1984, uh, Sprint, uh, has, has come into being competing with, uh,
with AT&T for long distance wireless phone company fleet call is, is founded.
Uh, and, uh, does anybody know what it changed its name to in 1993?
Bernie.
I think they wanted to get away from the whole Anima thing.
Yeah.
It wasn't doing much for, for customers.
No, no, no clue.
Fleet.
All right.
They, they changed their name to next tell.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
And then, uh, SBC, uh, Southern, uh, uh, Southwestern bell at SPC, a Southwestern
bell.
Uh, they acquired cellular one, which was the cellular business of Metro media.
Now we moved to 1988 Pacific Northwest.
Cellular is founded.
Uh, it later changes its name to anyone.
Wow.
That's a good thing.
This isn't jeopardy because it would be an embarrassment, uh, voice stream.
Yes.
Voice stream.
And of course, voice stream later took over OmniPoint.
Um, now also in 1988, AT&T acquired wireless pioneer McCaw cellular, uh, joint
owner with Southwestern bell of the cellular one brand name and began using the AT&T name
rather than cellular one, but Southwestern bell continue to use a cellular one name.
And that is so complicated and convoluted.
Uh, Pacific Telesis spins off its wireless services into a company called air touch.
Southwestern bell changes its name to SBC.
And in the first major reversal of the bell breakup bell Atlantic acquired nine X.
And that was the end of nine X.
Um, then, uh, SBC acquired, uh, Pacific, uh, Telesis.
You know, did this all happen in 1988?
Because, uh, that's the last year that was listed on this, uh, on this piece of paper
here.
So I think, I think we're still at 1998, uh, Worldcom along this is company with roots
dating to 1983 acquired MCI, which went back to 1963 and they formed MCI Worldcom.
Uh, SBC then continued to acquire things.
They acquired Ameritech, uh, air touch merged with Vodafone of the UK to form Vodafone air
touch.
And, you know, I think, oh, I'm sorry.
The numbers, they moved them to the right of the graphic.
Okay.
So, um, yeah.
All right.
We're up to 1994 was when AT&T acquired, uh, Macar Cellular and, uh, um, Pacific Telesis,
um, created air touch 1995 Southwestern bell changes name to SBC.
1996 was when Bell Atlantic acquired 9X, uh, 97 SBC acquiring Pacific Telesis Worldcom
starting 1999 SBC acquired Ameritech and, um, Amer, um, air touch merged with Vodafone
of the UK to form Vodafone air touch.
We're up to 2000 now, uh, Quest founded in 1996 acquired US West Vodafone air touch and
Bell Atlantic formed a joint venture called Verizon wireless.
Is there like an animation of like Pac-Man eating each other or something?
There should be somebody should make this.
I really, it's very hard to follow.
Well, uh, yeah, unfortunately there won't be any more questions after we go through
this, but also in 2000, Bell Atlantic merged with GTE to form Verizon.
Yeah.
2001 SBC and Bell South combined their wireless business into a company called.
Bernie?
Singular.
Very good.
Yes.
Uh, spelled with a C, um, and then 2002 AT&T, which.
Have been trying to turn itself into a long distance wireless cable mega conglomerate
spun off its wireless business to form AT&T wireless services, German telecommunication
giant, Deutsche Telekom, which had acquired voice stream in 2001 changed the U S operations
name to T-Mobile, uh, 2003.
Why max provider clear wire is founded.
And after a massive accounting scandal, Worldcom changed its name to MCI 2004 singular acquired
AT&T wireless, uh, quest, which had offered its own wireless service, uh, sells off its
assets and became a reseller for sprint.
Uh, in 2008, it switched to Verizon wireless.
It continues to offer landline service, but, uh, it's no longer listed in this list for
some reason.
Uh, in, uh, 2005 sprint bought Nextel to form sprint.
Nextel SBC acquired AT&T and adopted its name.
Verizon acquired MCI 2006 AT&T acquired Bell South and renamed the latter's singular
wire service to a wireless service, rather to AT&T, uh, 2008 sprint Nextel's wireless
broadband unit.
I don't know how to pronounce this X O H M.
How do you pronounce that?
What's that?
I think they pronounce the zone.
Okay.
Merges with clear wire, giving sprint 54% ownership of the combined company.
A clear wire is still in business.
Uh, 2011 AT&T agreed to buy T-Mobile U S from Deutsche Telekom and a deal expected to close
next year.
And again, that's all from a technologizer.com.
Nice, a little, um, history that was put on that website actually shows a lot of the old
logos.
It does.
It does.
And I should say, Harry McCrack, McCracken wrote this and it's, uh, it's really, uh,
1982 to 2011, a history of phone companies.
It's, it's scary.
It really is.
And, um, yeah, I think, I think it's not good that, um, that we're getting less choice.
Yeah, it's, it's like following a soap opera that's been going on for 50 years and you
just start watching it.
But, um, it's, it's really interesting though, how it was important enough for them to break
all this up 30, 30 odd years ago.
And, uh, and that's when these companies were basically just controlling telephone
communications and, uh, maybe a couple other things here and there, but still basically
telephone companies.
Now that all these little companies have gone through all these, uh, sort of changes in
puberties and what have you, um, they're, they're controlling so much more.
They're, you know, major, major telecom, uh, giants.
And they're being absorbed back into each other again.
And is it, is it not important now for some reason to make sure they stay apart?
Yeah, it's, uh, it's more important now.
It is.
I think it is.
Uh, anyway, that's our, that's our look at, um, uh, telecommunication giants for, uh,
for this week.
Um, now over in Japan, there've been a couple of stories about this, uh, that have, uh,
moved in various, uh, wire services about people, uh, resorting to old means of communication
to keep informed, uh, in a technology crazed nation where many people were glued to cell
phones, accustomed to the internet's nearly instantaneous access to information, uh, being
cut off has, uh, been disorienting and frightening.
Uh, local governments in the hardest hit areas, desperate to reach residents with important
emergency information have reached into the past for more tried and true means of communication,
including radios, newspapers, even human messengers.
When cell phones went down, there was paralysis and panics at the head of emergency communications
at Miyako's city hall, where the tsunami filled the first floor with foul smelling mud.
Everyone was running around asking what happened to the nuclear plant?
What happened to our town?
And throughout the country, people have turned to low tech alternatives in their sometimes
frantic search for news of loved ones and quake affected areas.
They've posted notices on bulletin boards, recorded tearful pleas on television.
Um, when, uh, Tokyo's cell phone service was restored, much of Miyako remained cut off
from cell phones and the internet.
Uh, so, uh, they had to, uh, resort to, uh, to radio as the most reliable medium to get
information to survivors scattered over a wide area.
Uh, within a week of the earthquake, a group of residents got permission from the city
to create a small emergency radio station, Miyako Disaster FM, which began broadcasting
last Tuesday from what had been an unused room in a building run by the National Farm
Cooperative.
They equipped it with a few microphones and a folding table and a transmitter whose signals
reach up to nine miles.
It's amazing that, uh, low power FM again is proving to be the savior as far as reaching
people and letting people know what the latest news is.
And yeah, I guess really quickly, our technology falls apart when, uh, when things like this
happen and you need those old fashioned means of communication.
Tried and true.
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, so think about that when, uh, when you listen to the radio that, uh, it's all about
local, uh, local communications.
I think it's interesting that, um, in light of what we were just talking about, uh, with
cell phones, which are essentially regulated like toys almost, it's not a utility the way
like landline services were, and there's no guarantee that it's going to work quite the
way a landline is guaranteed as a utility.
So it's in an emergency, all that stuff goes down and, and people are sort of wondering,
you know, how they're going to communicate and they're left with really, they're sort
of left out, out to dry or, you know, with no resources and they pay for that service.
They, they pay for their service to not work when, when they really need it.
And, uh, like what we were talking about, um, with, uh, our, our friend in Japan, Stuart,
yes, he, uh, he was talking about just data working and, and like SMS wasn't even working,
which in, in previous years, I think we've talked about as SMS being sort of reliable
in emergencies.
And you don't know when SMS doesn't work because it doesn't bounce.
You don't get a bounce message.
So you assume it went through and, uh, lots of times it doesn't.
Right.
I don't understand, um, why people don't keep landlines because there's so much more
dependable.
Obviously when all the telephone poles are knocked over, they're not quite as dependable,
oftentimes, almost every time I've lost power, I've kept my phone line.
Yeah.
But if you have a phone line that's hooked up to your power, uh, through a cable or through
VoIP or something like that, and it's not backed up, it doesn't have a power supply
going that'll keep it up during a power outage.
You're going to lose everything.
You're gonna lose all your communications.
Yeah.
And it just seems like, um, not very smart if you want to stay in touch with people,
uh, these things fall apart a lot quicker than, than you might think.
Yeah.
And again, it's, uh, it's sort of experimental still.
Like it's, it's, it's essentially a really nifty toy, but it's so fragile, uh, when,
you know, real world stuff starts happening.
And, you know, with, with copper, it just was never, uh, it was never a doubt that you
would still have those batteries running that network and stuff.
So here they are back with, uh, selling us all these fancy toys and, um, they're completely
unregulated the way, uh, utilities, like telephone utilities were back in the day.
Uh, I don't know that that would make the wireless service any better, but, uh, you
know, we're paying for basically something that isn't really guaranteed to work.
Yeah.
And there's just this tendency in, uh, in, I think our society nowadays to just try and
upgrade and find the next shinier thing and, uh, the bigger, better thing.
I mean, analog TV in this country is pretty much dead.
Uh, we've, we've got all these new, um, these new flashy things and there are houses now
where they don't own a radio and, you know, that used to be a, there used to be a radio
in every house and it was something dependable.
It was something you always knew was going to just work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's sad.
I don't own a radio.
You see, or a landline telephone.
Yeah.
This is it.
Mike, you personify what's, what's going on in this country.
Yeah.
You're the trendsetter here.
And, uh, next time the tsunami hits, let me know how your landline holds up.
Well, you know what?
I'll bet my landline will hold up a lot better than, uh, than your non radio will hold up.
I, I, you know, I don't know how to compare those two things.
I'm just saying, if you don't have the technology in the first place, uh, then,
you know, you're at a disadvantage because, uh, it won't be there.
If it works or, you know, the things that, that hold up to, uh, to storms, to power outages,
I think that they've proven themselves already.
And they're, uh, they're, they're things we should rely on, um, until they get replaced
by something as, as reliable.
I think we can, we can only hope that they're learning a lot from these kinds of things.
And as customer customers of the, these kinds of companies, we can hope and encourage them
to come up with ways to deal with stuff.
You know, I'd like to say they're learning.
And I think, I think citizens dealing with these kinds of emergencies are learning themselves
about ways they can, they can like set up a low power FM station.
They're saying, Hey, you know, I can't depend on this.
Right.
So here we are again, people sort of hacking together ways of, of dealing with, uh, adverse
circumstances.
I'd like to see everybody's learning.
I'd like to see us learn that local radio is important.
That's important to have live people in radio stations like we have here at WBA.
I don't see that happening.
I see corporate interest taking over and basically farming out music boxes everywhere and having as
little local content as possible.
I see the way people are treating nuclear disaster saying, well, they can't happen here.
It's not as dangerous as you think it is.
And just simply closing their eyes to what is actually going on.
When you have a radiation levels tens of thousands of times the normal level and people
are comparing it to eating a banana and, and, and, and, uh, standing next to a human, things
like that.
It's, it's silly.
Obviously there's a major issue here.
Obviously there are things that are completely unsafe and should never have happened in the
first place.
And we don't learn anything by being stubborn and saying, well, our way is better and it
can never happen here because it could happen anywhere.
And it will, uh, okay.
I didn't mean to get so dark there, but, uh, let's move back into the humorous part of,
uh, of, of technology reporting.
Bernie, you posted this story, uh, to the list and, uh, I believe you said there are
so many things wrong with this reporting.
I don't know where to start.
Uh, it's a associated press story, uh, about, uh, tougher penalties for hackers.
And, um, you also pointed out that the story seems to be, uh, uh, run in different newspapers
and chopped down.
And when it's chopped down, it makes even less sense.
What I'm going to do is, is, is read, um, uh, one of the longer stories that, uh, that
was on the associated press.
And you just jump in and stop me anytime I say anything that doesn't make a lot of sense
or that is just wrong.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
Uh, Bill seeks tougher penalty for hackers.
Are we okay with the headline at least?
Okay.
By Michelle Rindels, the associated press.
Presumably she got her name right.
Uh, embarrassing messages sent to friends and clients.
All right.
I have a problem right there as an English major.
I'm sorry, but that's not a sentence.
It's certainly not a leading sentence.
Uh, Michelle, you should be embarrassed, ashamed of yourself there.
That's, uh, that's not how you start a story.
Wait, there's a period and not a comma after that?
Yeah.
Period.
Embarrassing messages sent to friends and clients.
How about Michelle?
Embarrassing story written with your name on it.
That's a good way to start that.
Prank phone calls.
That's another sentence.
Michelle got another sentence, a three word sentence.
Prank phone calls.
Yeah.
And the final sentence threats texted to his girlfriend.
First of all, who is his.
I mean, you're having to find who your leading character is here.
Don't ever write a novel because that's not how you do it.
It's building suspense.
That's how you write a novel.
Maybe not how you write a news story, but it's how you write a novel.
Yeah.
The first paragraph of a news story is not supposed to contain mystery.
It's supposed to contain facts.
But you said it's not how you write a novel.
It is how you write a novel.
I think this author has a great career in novel writing ahead of her.
Well, then she can write novels, but she should stop writing for the Associated Press.
Based on this first paragraph.
And Bernie, I really thought you'd have more problems with this than me.
But we haven't even gotten into what the story is about yet.
So let's let's try that.
A Las Vegas man shared a laundry list of modern technological terrors with state senators Friday,
telling them about what a woman did after she felt scorned following a date with him.
OK.
All right.
And here's a quote.
There are not words to describe how violated you feel, Jeff Crampton said.
I live afraid of the next time it will happen.
OK.
A Nevada Senate committee was considering a bill that would raise the penalty for illegally
gaining access into a computer, also known as hacking.
Oh, we have a problem with that, Bernie.
Tell us what's what's what's not factual about that statement.
Illegally gaining access to a computer is not necessarily hacking.
Well, it could be it could be trespassing.
It could be I mean, there's so many different ways you could describe
illegally gaining access to a computer.
Hacking means a lot of things, you know, driving away from a bank where you just stole money
is could either be called driving.
Or, you know, fleeing a bank robbery,
and they're just using a too general a term to describe a specific thing.
OK.
All right.
Well, that that is a that is a problem with the story.
Measure SB 376 sponsored by Senator Barbara Sigovsky.
I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that right at all.
A Republican from Las Vegas and 14 other lawmakers would charge hacking as a low
level felony carrying a longer prison term and a fine instead of a misdemeanor.
The misdemeanor sentence currently in state law allows for up to six months in prison and a fine
of up to one thousand dollars.
All right.
Well, she's not doing too badly.
You haven't objected anything she said so far other than the one thing.
Crampton said the alleged hacker broke into his email and sent embarrassing messages to
his contacts list.
She made prank calls and sent threatening text messages to his girlfriend, Crampton said.
Wait, wait.
He said she she sent messages to his contact list.
You mean to to to people in his contact list or to his list?
She sent embarrassing messages to his list.
So I imagine that encompasses people.
Really?
This is this is the objection you have.
That's just grammatical.
But there's there's bigger parts wrong with the story.
Yeah.
Let's get to them.
All right.
She made prank calls and sent threatening text messages to his girlfriend, Crampton said, and
then used the girlfriend's email account to send emails to his client,
clients rather, telling them not to trust him in major business deals.
When she was told she could be put in jail, she allegedly said not in the state of Nevada.
The proposed legislation would carry a prison term of one to four years and a fine of up to
five thousand dollars.
Misdemeanor crimes are rarely prosecuted, Sagavsky said.
This gets the offenders attention.
We're almost at the end of the story, Bernie.
You haven't objected to very much.
She's going to wrap it up with a doozy.
All right.
Let's hear it.
Hopefully.
Hacking includes.
Yeah, you're right.
Hacking includes willfully interfering with a computer network or communications device.
Or do you want to object as I go along and wait for the sentence to end?
I'll just stop.
I'll wait till the sentence is end.
OK.
I'm going to say ah, ah, ah at the end of it.
Don't do that.
But with this writer, you never know where the sentence is going to end.
Or locking someone out of their computer or device.
OK, I think we all see where the problem is there.
A stricter penalty applies if the hacking interrupts a government computer system,
causes injury or commits fraud.
And the last paragraph here, Chuck Calloway of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department
said investigations for such crimes often take months.
He supported the stronger punishments in the proposal,
saying police don't like to expend many resources on hacking crimes
when the existing penalty is so small.
I have a problem with that there.
That would like the whole problem with the story.
But with that methodology, with what Chuck said, you have a problem with that.
Yeah, like whenever police don't like to expend resources on on on a law enforcement issue
when the existing penalty is so small.
Like what you know, what do they apparently they get?
They get like commission points for prosecuting people for for, you know, more serious crimes.
Then I just I just don't buy that whole that whole concept of law enforcement that if it's
if it's not if it's not if it's a crime doesn't have a strong penalty,
they're not going to bother enforcing it.
First of all, a lot of penalties are way out of the box,
stronger than they should be, as in most hacking related related statutes.
But it just it seems like if they want to if they want to prosecute these offenses,
they should really go after serious activity instead of just making not so serious activity
have a really a really harsh sentence and then make it worth their while to prosecute.
It just doesn't make sense to me.
OK, well, that's that's what's coming out of Nevada.
New hacking regulations, quote unquote.
We have some letters to to read from our listeners.
You can write to us, OTH at 2600 dot com.
You can also call us 212-209-2900.
We'll be taking phone calls in just a couple of minutes.
This letter comes from who does this come from?
From Owen.
Hi there.
In my two most recent addresses slash phone numbers, I received communications intended
for previous occupants.
This is based on last week's show where we played some of Kyle's famous voicemail messages
to strange people.
I used to have his phone number.
These have been from debt collection agencies and have on occasion been quite threatening.
Some recorded messages have informed me that bailiffs or thugs licensed to seize debtor's
property had been dispatched and were en route to my home.
I recently had what appeared to be a handwritten card put through my letterbox, which was designed
to look like a notification of a missed delivery.
An extremely small print on the reverse side was the name of a company, which a little
investigation through the U.K.'s company's registrar turned out to be a wholly owned
subsidiary of a large collections agency.
The company mentioned on the card was simply a front to obscure the debt collector lurking
in the background.
I can only assume that this was intended to get me to call the company to confirm whether
the debtor was still residing at the address on their records.
I think it's funny how companies can use these social engineering techniques while
private citizens are discouraged from employing similar tactics.
Well, we're all discouraged from using them because they work.
Social engineering is one of the most successful ways of getting information, and it's basically
the art of convincing people to tell you things that they really shouldn't be telling
you.
And we like to play around with that a lot as hackers.
It's also one of the most reliable methods.
No matter where the technology goes, no matter how many fancy protections you can put on
technical measures, it's still, you're always going to be able to lie to somebody and convince
them that you're telling the truth.
And Austin writes in to say, not the whole city, the person, writes in to say we were
making fun of Kyle's voicemail system last week.
One of the commands was re-save, and he says that re-save is for born-again Christians
who have OCD.
Thank you, Austin, for that.
That's, yeah, always good to have things explained to us.
And Drew writes in, I was surprised to hear the Newcastle Maker Faire mentioned on the
show last week.
I hail from Newcastle, England.
I was in attendance with my son at the Maker Faire.
It was a really good turnout with some great showcases of technology and looks as though
it's going to get bigger year on year.
If you're ever in England at the beginning of March next year, I would recommend going.
It's great to see the hacker community coming together, having fun, showing the general
public the side of hacking they don't hear about in the mainstream media.
Keep up the good work on the show and the magazine.
Bringing it to Kindle was a great idea.
It's in the top 10 magazines here in the UK.
And thanks, Drew, for that kind letter.
And yes, speaking of the Kindle, we're coming out on the Kindle again on Friday.
The next issue of 2600, April 1st, no fooling, coming out on the Kindle this week on Friday.
Are you sure you're not going to switch it with an issue of TAP?
Why would I do that?
For April Fools.
Yeah, that's a good idea.
But no, you don't have April Fools on the Kindle.
I think that would just confuse people because they're confused enough as it is.
And, you know, I should probably take this moment to address a couple of issues that
we've been having with Kindle subscriptions.
It's going great.
I mean, it's a mushroom into something much bigger than we ever thought it would be.
But, you know, actually, it must have been a lot bigger even than that a few weeks ago,
where our subscriptions actually doubled in a couple of days.
And after about 10 days, the Kindle people quietly just took them all back with some
kind of accounting error.
This is what we have to deal with.
These are the kind of things that happen.
They're new to this.
And I'm not being disparaging by saying this.
It's basically this is a new venture for Amazon, for Kindle.
And a lot of people write to us and say, how come you're not on the iPad?
How come I can't read you on the Nook?
And there are a number of reasons for this.
For one thing, Amazon and Apple simply have conflicts.
They have problems and they don't agree on how to distribute each other's material.
And the problem is that Amazon books or Kindle books are different people than Kindle magazines
and blogs and things like that.
They use different formatting completely.
And they simply have not worked out a plan yet to have Kindle magazines available on the iPad.
Now, it works on Android devices.
It does not work on anything Apple related.
Now, we've addressed this issue pretty thoroughly in the next issue, which if you do have a Kindle
or have eyes and can go to a bookstore and pick it up there, you can find out what we're
talking about as far as that goes.
But it's something that if it's not resolved by the next issue, we're going to figure something
else out as far as just getting it to people with iPads.
We're trying everything we can.
I know people get angry at us because they think we're the ones.
In fact, on the Amazon site, it says that it's a publisher restriction.
It's not.
It's an Amazon restriction.
And it's something that we're fighting to get changed so that everybody has DRM-free
editions on whatever platform they choose.
When can I buy this in an open format without DRM?
You can.
You can.
I can't.
Well, you can when you have a Kindle.
That doesn't say open format to me.
Something I can only read on one particular hardware device.
Yeah, well, these conflicts have to be...
See, the problem is if we were to suddenly allow it to be distributed on the iPad
through some other source, went to the Apple store...
I have no interest in iPad.
I just want to read it on my computer.
Yeah, well, there are all these different formats.
It takes a lot of time.
It takes a lot of energy to get them just right for every single format out there.
But Amazon has these little rules that you have to provide it to them at the lowest price.
And if anybody provides it at a lower price, they cut your payments in half.
And it's really kind of crippling when they do things like this.
It's anti-competitive.
We're arguing about this.
We're trying to get it fixed.
We're trying to make it so that everybody can read this on the platform of their choice.
Well, and part of it is that Amazon's got a really popular platform.
That's where all the customers are.
That's where all the people are that want to buy an electronic format of a magazine or a book.
And so, we're sort of learning about their rules and what it takes to participate in that market
and provide that base of that audience product.
And it is work to get things into the right formats and stuff.
And if we were to just put out a text file of it, that work would basically be sort of
a volunteer thing.
And it takes energy to get things in the right format and make them available,
even just converting them and getting them out there.
That's why you don't see other issues dealing with this.
You don't see other magazines that do this because of the amount of work it does take
to do this in the first place.
I pay for PDFs as often as I can.
Well, you'd be pleased to know we have the PDFs of Volume 26 available for free,
not free download, but free, DRM-free is what I'm trying to say.
And Volume 27, which is 2010, will be available fairly soon as well.
That is the most we can do right now under the current way the whole system works without
antagonizing companies and penalizing ourselves.
But we're fighting this.
We're trying.
We're trying to make it available to as many people as possible DRM-free worldwide.
That is our goal.
There's no reason why we wouldn't want to do that.
And what we've learned so far from the steps we've taken is that electronic publishing
is a really good thing to be involved in.
And it's foolish for any publication not to take those steps or to try to keep things
restricted.
But they make it hard.
They make it really difficult for you to set things your way, to basically have it so that
your audience can benefit.
You have to play by their rules or you wind up paying a penalty.
Yeah, definitely.
I think we're learning and playing their game to see what the boundaries of it are,
what it takes to actually be involved in that marketplace.
And if we can change some of these things that we're concerned about, maybe we can
start looking at other options as well.
But Amazon's aware of that possibility of other devices and other ways of distributing
electronically.
And they're very hostile to if you were to provide it at a lower cost or this, that,
or the other thing.
And right now, because Amazon is so popular, it's like if you're not playing in their
little sandbox, then you're not really a part of that electronic market.
I mean, they're it.
There's not anybody that has as much product and are as popular and big as the Kindle.
One thing we're trying to do is address the issue directly on the Kindle.
If you subscribe to 2600 via Kindle, there's a special section in there just for people
that get that particular type of electronic edition where these issues are talked about
directly.
For instance, this is fascinating.
You know, if you use the less than sign anywhere in an article for Kindle magazines, it gets
obliterated.
We have to write to them.
And it's a lot of back and forth emails to get them to put the less than sign in the
article again.
Apparently, they think, or they just don't know any other way to do it, they think that
publishers are going to try and take over their system by issuing all kinds of HTML
commands and taking over.
I don't know what they think we're capable of doing.
But that's just one little hurdle that we have to constantly watch out for.
And these are growing pains.
We know that it's not optimal yet, but we're getting there.
We're trying and we're trying to have an open dialogue with people on the subject.
And we've gotten so much support.
You know, we're number one in customer service.
That's amazing.
I never expected that.
We were outselling Forbes magazine for a while and Fortune and things like that.
Not on the newsstands, but in Kindle.
I mean, these kinds of things, they tell me that there are a lot of people out there interested
in what we're doing and willing to support the efforts.
So there's nothing we don't want to try.
Let's put it that way.
Manuel?
Yes, go ahead, Bernie.
Do you remember when the early days of the Apple podcast, we were rated on Apple's website
of the radio show Off the Hook.
It was like number eight or something.
It was crazy high on the list initially.
Do you remember that?
Yes, I did.
That didn't last very long, though.
No, but it was interesting being in the top ranking of everything that people were downloading
to their iPods as far as streaming.
Right, right.
Definitely.
I mean, it didn't last long because so many other things popped up.
Right now on the Kindle, there are less than 100 magazines total that are being offered,
which is probably the reason why we're so high up on the list and are getting a lot
of attention that way.
And that just says something about publishers not being willing to take a chance.
They're worried about, well, if I put it there, everyone's going to copy it and we
won't make any money.
There might be some of that, but there are a lot of people who do support what it is
that you're all about and are willing to, as Mike said, pay for PDFs or pay for some
kind of electronic publishing.
You got to embrace technology sometimes and try and shape things to your liking rather
than avoid the realities, the inevitable.
This is something that the record companies, the motion picture industry, they're very
good at avoiding what's obvious, the writing on the wall, what everybody sees.
And that's why they're so hostile to change and to the consumer in the end.
Well, and now when an industry is in its infancy, like the ebook publishing industry
is now, now is the time when you can affect things and I think make lasting changes.
Whereas if they got set in some ways that didn't work well for the consumers or for
the publishers, it would be much harder to change it further down the line.
Exactly.
With less than 100 magazines out there and with a special section devoted to Kindle readers,
you better believe your words are going to be read by people shaping the industry.
So it's a great way to get involved now while it's relatively in its infancy.
So yeah, coming out on the Kindle, second issue in our subscription experiment this
Friday.
And of course, the real printed issue is coming out right around the same time as well.
Mike?
Do we have a minute to discuss this privacy story out of Germany?
I know we only have five minutes to take phone calls.
Make it quick.
But the story is really kind of fascinating.
There's a German politician.
He's with the Green Party called Maltes Spitz.
And he sued T-Mobile, which is a German company, to get his location records for his cell phone.
And Sight Online published this.
And they have this great interactive map.
You can go.
They translate it into English.
You can see everywhere he went for six months.
You can see when he leaves the country, you see him go to the airport.
And then he disappears till he gets back.
And so they published this.
And then the New York Times picked it up and published this story called,
It's Tracking Your Every Move, And You May Not Even Know
About How Basically You Have No Privacy on the Phone.
And then the Congress picked it up.
Representatives Markey and Barton, who are the co-chairs of the Congressional
Bipartisan Privacy Caucus, wrote to the four US telecom carriers asking them.
There's a total of seven questions they were asked.
And they have 15 days to respond, saying, do you care at all for your user's privacy?
And so there's really very little technically new here that listeners of our show wouldn't
already be aware of.
But it's great that someone finally is taking an interest.
Well, basically, tell me if I'm wrong here.
It's somebody saying that while their cell phone is on, it's able to pinpoint their location.
Right.
And Germany had this law called data retention, where, in fact, the carriers were required
by law to maintain those records for six months.
We don't have that in the United States.
But what we also don't have in the United States is any idea whatsoever of if they're
retaining it, what they do with it.
So hopefully, we'll get some clarity.
I have to assume that they're doing that, that as long as I have a cell phone on my
person that is turned on, that my whereabouts can be tracked if that cell phone can be
attached to me.
There's no reason why you have to have a cell phone that has your real name on it.
You can trade it with a friend.
You can confuse the authorities in all sorts of ways if that's really how you want to fight
the system.
But this is nothing that surprises me.
And as you said, I don't think it surprises many of our listeners.
I think people who are paying attention have been aware of this for a long time.
But it's good to see that more people are paying attention now.
All right.
Hopefully, something can be done about it.
Rob.
Yeah.
The fact that The New York Times and Congress are now taking an interest in it, that's what
surprises me.
Yeah.
I mean, haven't we been saying this for almost decades now?
Okay.
Well, at least this has got their attention finally.
Emanuel.
Let's take a phone call.
Go ahead, Barney, quickly.
I just want to say real quick, our congressional representatives are trying to enact legislation
that would limit how mobile carriers could use this tracking data commercially.
I'm more concerned about how our government is going to use this tracking data.
And there's no proposed legislation along those lines.
Yeah.
Governments often don't pass legislation limiting what they do.
Okay.
212-209-2900.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Speak up.
Yeah.
What's on your mind?
Go ahead.
Let's see.
I'd like to mention...
Rebel, please.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
I said, Governor, what does 2600 mean?
Uh, it means to go on to the next phone call if it had a say in the matter.
Let's go over here.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
All right.
I'd like to mention when you...
Okay.
Rebel, you are banned from calling now.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
When is the DRM measure is going to be available for my Commodore 64?
Good evening to you too, sir.
Thank you for that question.
And good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Hey, how you doing?
Okay.
Good.
Emanuel, it's me, Jake.
I met you at the store the other day in a parking lot.
Oh, hey.
Yeah.
We meet listeners in parking lots all the time.
And it was a lot of fun.
Yeah, good.
I'm glad.
I'm actually in Nassau County doing some work for the VV.
Yeah, you work for Verizon Wireless, we found out.
I most certainly do.
Yes, I do.
I don't know if you've heard our history of the various phone companies before.
Yeah, I did, as a matter of fact.
And you shouldn't see me.
It was the greatest.
It was great.
I actually stopped working and listened for a while.
There's a lot of things I didn't know.
Well, if we were able to get phone workers all around the world to stop working while
we were on the air, then we've accomplished what we set out to do.
There you go.
So what's on your mind?
A couple things real quick.
Do you guys remember the name of, I think it was an Israeli company?
I think they started out here in the late 90s, but they folded up like real fast.
I can't think of the name.
I think they're right around the same time that satellite cell phone company,
portable phone company started up.
What does an Israeli company do?
Geotech.
That's it.
Geotech.
That's what I was thinking of.
Okay.
They actually started a private partner network, too.
And it was weird because what they did, they had sites where we have our site,
and when they folded up, they just left everything.
They left loads and loads of really nice HP and, well, Agilent wasn't then,
but test equipment and their sites and stuff.
It was actually a mass exodus.
Interesting.
Yeah, they were going to be another cell phone company.
And the other thing is, I don't want to mention, did you guys see,
I might've missed this the other day, but something in the newspaper about
the authorities wanting to make it harder to track pay-as-you-go cell phones.
I did not see that myself, but they want to make it harder?
Yeah, it was either a news day or the daily news.
I forget what it was.
Do you mean they want to make it easier?
Yeah, they want to make it easier.
Okay.
Yeah, that makes more sense.
Yeah.
I was wondering if you guys had heard anything about that.
I know I didn't hear much comment.
Well, that's kind of an ongoing thing, so I didn't hear that specific story,
but it doesn't surprise me that that kind of thing is going on.
Yeah, it was in the news today.
All right.
Listen, we're kind of out of time now, but it's great running into you
and great talking on the phone.
And Jake, definitely, if you see T-Mobile leaving any equipment behind,
let us know so that we can collect it for our phone company.
Yeah, I'll do that.
I run into those guys all the time.
We'll see what happens.
All right.
I'm sorry we didn't get to take more phone calls,
but we have a lot to talk about tonight.
And thanks to all the listeners who did call in.
Thanks to all those calling in now.
I'm sorry we can't get to you.
Write to us, oth at 2600.com.
Next week, we'll try and take some more phone calls.
And until then, stay technically savvy.
Oh, Rob, you want to say that there's 2600 meetings this Friday?
Yes, there's 2600 meetings this Friday.
Well, good for you.
Okay, well, be sure to attend on April Fool's Day.
Good night.
Good night.
Good night.
Good night.
Good night.
Good night.
Oh, yes, Brazil.
Hey.