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It's seven o'clock time once again for Off the Hook.
Let's go!
And a very good evening to everybody.
The program is Off the Hook.
Emanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
Joined tonight by Mike.
Hi there.
Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
And Bernie S.
Well, Bernie, I want to start with you because I saw a headline somewhere in the media.
It says, the subject is, Bernie S. drops Sprint for Verizon Wireless after 17 years.
What's this all about?
That was in the headline?
That was in the headline.
Or I saw it in email.
This is true.
After 17 years, I have dropped Sprint PCS and moved to a new mobile network, Verizon
Wireless.
Wait a minute.
What was that?
Well, yeah.
That was not a...
I thought it was a dispatch from Reuters or something.
Okay.
Well, you know what?
It's still an important story.
Why, after all this time, did you switch?
Well, the network was getting really crappy lately.
And a lot of it dropped calls and bad customer service.
And I've never been on a contract with them.
I always just hate them month to month because I hate being on contracts.
And the other thing is the phone that I've been wanting for a while, a BlackBerry Z30.
Sprint decided to give me a new phone.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
And I've been using it for a while.
Could you quickly describe the case that this is circling around?
Well, we've allegedly...
I think the iPad was a fairly new thing back in the day.
And a lot of high important people were like the first users of the iPad.
We're talking like White House staffers, Pentagon people, politicians, that kind of stuff.
He discovered that AT&T Wireless is a website where you could sort of, you know,
a cloud kind of thing where your iPad would have an account and so forth.
To log into that, he discovered that the URL field, the address field in a browser,
a long series of digits in that field would be...
If you just change one of the digits, you instantly saw other people's account information
like their name, address, email address, phone number, all this stuff.
And it was really a huge security blunder in AT&T Wireless.
We've allegedly...
He didn't nearly discover that, but he exploited it.
Allegedly wrote a script to suck down, you know, tens of thousands of users' info.
He supposedly contacted AT&T Wireless, said,
yo, you're really stupid, you shouldn't have this exposed.
He didn't get what he wanted.
So then he gave all this to Gawker, a news media organization,
which reported on it in a redacted fashion.
And then the AT&T Wireless and the feds went ballistic and went after Weave,
and he ended up being sentenced to years in federal prison, 41 months,
$73,000 in restitution payments,
supposedly to pay for the security patches they had to make,
which they should have done in the first place.
But anyway, you know, what he did wasn't perfectly smart,
but what he pointed out was important to point out.
And this could happen to any security researcher,
just wanting to see what's going on in the URL field of their browser.
So there were a lot of people, there were a lot of EFS people,
attorneys, people we know, a lot of people we know from our community,
were in Philadelphia today for this hearing.
The issues at stake today, the three-judge panel at the Third Circuit
weren't really interested in hearing.
They said they were only interested in hearing arguments
about the vagueness of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,
but they were willing to hear some very narrow arguments related to venue,
such as this case should not have been heard in New Jersey
because there was nothing about this case
that really was important in New Jersey,
except for the fact that AT&T Wireless is based in New Jersey,
and they have a lot of friends and supporters and employees in New Jersey,
but the server that supposedly was exploited was not in New Jersey.
We was not in New Jersey.
Nothing about this really happened in New Jersey.
So you've got to appeal on what you've got to appeal on,
and some pretty eloquent legal arguments were made,
and the judges seemed to get it,
that this really shouldn't have happened in New Jersey.
They're going to make their final decision in a couple, three months.
But it was really interesting to see how many people showed up for this thing.
There were probably 60, 70 people in our community
that came to federal court today in Philadelphia,
and afterwards we all got together, took a walk,
and had some food and drink and talked about all the issues at stake here.
What, 60 or 70 people took a walk?
Well, we took a walk down to get some food and drink after the courtroom,
but everybody was interested in the court.
The court would not allow us to bring any electronic device,
not even reporters, not even attorneys,
except for maybe the one or two attorneys that were actually arguing for the case.
A lot of other attorneys were there, some EFF attorneys,
that sort of thing, friends like Marsha Hoffman and those folks that were there.
But the judge specifically ordered,
and there was a bomb-sniffing dog there and a special metal detector just for this case
because hackers are all dangerous and all.
We have that special kind of metal that they can't detect.
Exactly.
Bernie, I have to say, this sounds like a pretty good business model.
As someone who sometimes develops and sometimes contracts for development of software,
if you just implement it as cheaply as possible in the first place
and then wait for someone to find all the parts you didn't implement and tell you about them,
then you can charge them to build the rest of it.
That's a real money-saving tip for anyone who wants some software made.
This model is not new.
It's gone way back to the Mitnick's case, to the Knight-Lightning case,
back to the E911 document.
This goes back to the 80s, some of this stuff.
But the venue arguments are still important to us
because back in those days you may remember a case.
This wasn't brought up today at all,
but it reminded me of the case of Rusty and Edie's BBS.
Do you remember that?
I do.
I remember the name of that BBS.
Yeah.
It was a porn BBS.
I may be wrong about this.
It was in California or some state with fairly liberal community standards.
And an overzealous prosecutor in a state like, I'm guessing, Tennessee.
I'm trying to remember.
Bernie, wasn't the name of that case Amateur Action?
Wasn't that the BBS?
That was the name of it, yes.
Okay.
Amateur Action BBS.
All right, that's what I thought.
It was like amateur porn.
Right.
And you could subscribe to this BBS.
I was not a subscriber.
I never even was on that BBS.
But it was an important case because some overzealous prosecutor back then said,
I don't like this porn available to people in my community
if they call this phone number in some other state that has more liberal community standards.
So the prosecutor ordered this porn, subscribed, and downloaded it into their venue
and then charged Rusty and Evie, this married couple who owned this BBS.
And this was a state case.
It wasn't a federal case.
But they were charged and convicted for violating the community standards of the venue
where the prosecutor purchased this stuff and called into the BBS from afar and downloaded it.
It was an insane case, but it set a really bad precedent.
I believe it was in Tennessee that that prosecutor called California, yes.
I'm pretty sure.
I'm pretty sure.
I'm pretty sure it was Tennessee that he called from.
Yeah, I'm guessing from my ancient memory cells.
I'm trying to remember the state.
But the bottom line is which state doesn't really matter.
It was a state that had very different community standards.
And what I think is important, and nobody was talking this today about me,
talking about this today except me when I was bringing it up to folks
that might not have been even around when that case happened,
is that local and state prosecutors look to federal case law
in deciding how they're going to handle certain cases.
And this case today is going to make federal case law.
It's never been an issue before where the venue, wrong venue,
was considered a serious mistake or not, whether it was a wrongful error.
I forget the legal terminology.
Harmless error, that kind of thing.
I don't think it was harmless error because this could be abused by any prosecutor
in a venue with very conservative local values,
could reach out, at least on a state or local case,
could reach out to anybody in another venue that is in a more liberal community
with different community standards.
And this is like for porn cases.
The bottom line is you want to have a universal rule that applies everywhere.
And so this case today is going to make case law one way or the other
on this unanswered federal question.
And I think it does still have significant impact to this community
just because of how the law works.
And it will be interesting to see how it works out.
Unfortunately, the Third Circuit panel of judges decided
they didn't want to hear no stinking Internet arguments.
And it was clear the judges didn't really seem to understand how the Web worked,
how the Internet worked.
They were willing to hear stuff about this venue thing.
But it was really good to hang out with a bunch of people in our community.
I talked a lot to them about the HOPE conference coming up.
A lot of them are going to come.
We got some commitments for some talks and panels maybe out of this today.
But it's not always a defendant you like that makes an important case.
You don't have to like Weave or what he says.
You don't care whether he's a troll or not.
You have to care about the important legal questions of the case.
And you know how the Fed always picks somebody to charge
who may not have as sympathetic a person as they'd like.
Bernie, that's not isolated to these kind of cases.
That's a tactic they've been using for a very long time in all kinds of cases.
It's why we were chosen, 2600 was chosen for the MPAA case
because they knew a bunch of hackers on trial for violating the DMCA.
Nobody was going to sympathize with that.
So, yeah, I'm familiar with the tactic.
And I'm ashamed to say I didn't know that this was happening today.
We didn't discuss it.
And I would have liked to have seen what happened there as well
and certainly encouraged listeners to do that.
There are so many things going on that we need to inform people about.
But I just want to point out it's kind of interesting.
Like I said, I had no knowledge of this.
I simply asked why your phone was confiscated earlier.
And look at the conversation we just had about all this,
all this pertinent, relevant stuff going on.
And I think that's the magic of what we do here at Off The Hook
is that we don't even have to plan the conversations.
They just happen because there is so much to talk about.
We were talking about your new phone, your new phone service.
I'd like to get back to that actually, not to diminish in any way
the important federal cases that are going on throughout the country,
throughout the world, other cases.
But, again, the big story is you switching after that many years
to Verizon from Sprint PCS.
Wow.
The industry must be reeling from that.
I don't know. I don't know.
But I didn't want to be a clone that just wanted to get an iPhone
or an Android phone.
I'm pretty interested.
I just downloaded a big software update that was made available
a couple of days ago by BlackBerry through Verizon Wireless.
So I have this new update.
I mean, this phone has amazing features.
Was it the quality of the voice connections on Sprint
that you were having difficulties with?
I think that was part of it.
It's always hard to tell with a mobile phone connection
whether the problem is with the network or with the phone itself
or a combination of the two.
All right.
Well, we've managed to track down in the past few minutes
an example of a Sprint PCS conversation
and why it's difficult for people maybe to understand
what's going on with the other party.
Maybe this could give some evidence as to why Bernie made the switch
after so many years.
Here, take a listen to this.
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Is that Mr. Gifford?
Oh, good morning, Sir Evelyn.
Is that Mr. Gifford?
Yes, this is Mr. Gifford, Sir Evelyn.
Is Mr. Gifford speaking?
Good morning, sir.
What would you like for your evening?
I beg your pardon, sir?
The evening is just coming on now.
Yes, you all right?
Hello?
Yes, good morning.
Good morning.
Do you hear all right, sir?
Yes.
Thank you.
Sir Evelyn, today as a result of very many years of research
and experimentation, we opened a telephonic channel of speech
between New York and London.
Thus, the people of these two great cities will be brought
within speaking distance.
Across 3,000 miles of ocean, individuals in the two cities may,
by telephone, exchange views and transact business instantly,
as though they were face to face.
I know that it is your aim, as it is ours, to extend this service
so that in the near future, anyone in either of our countries
may talk to anyone in the other.
No one can foresee the ultimate significance of this latest
achievement of science and organization.
It will certainly facilitate business.
It will be a social convenience and comfort.
And through the closer bond which it establishes, it will promote
better understanding and strengthen the ties of friendship.
Through the spoken word, aided by the personality of the voice,
the people of New York and the people of London will become neighbors
in a real sense, although separated by thousands of miles.
We are glad to have cooperated with you in this notable enterprise
and shall actively continue to work with you in extending
and improving the service.
I congratulate you upon your successful solution of your problems
and wish to extend to you and to your associates
the greetings and good wishes of the officers and staff
of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company
and of their associates in the Bell Telephone System.
I am very glad to have an opportunity to speak to you.
The opening of a public telephone service in the post-Atlantic,
between London and New York, is a conspicuous milestone
on the road to telephone progress.
It marks the beginning of a new key point in the development
of communication between our two countries.
Personal conversation between Great Britain and the United States
has emerged from a stage of experiment to a practical reality,
and we are confident that the service which we are inaugurating today
will be a boon to both nations, whether as an aid to commerce
or as a medium of social and domestic discourse,
and will attempt to strengthen the bonds which unite the two communities.
I am charged by the Postmaster General to take this occasion
to acknowledge the notable contributions which our company
has been able to make through its great effort of courage
and research organisation towards the solution of the many
baffling problems which have been encountered.
We recognise, as we believe you recognise,
that there are difficulties still to be overcome
so the post-Atlantic service can attain the standard of regularity
and reliability at which we aim.
But we are convinced that there is no better means to solving these difficulties
than by putting the service to the crucial test of daily talks.
And we share your hope that with all our hope
post-Atlantic conversation will be available,
not only to the citizens of London and New York,
but to every telephone subscriber in both countries.
We at the British Post Office look back with pride
upon the cordial cooperation of the American Telegraph and Telephone Company
which has led to the success so far achieved.
And on behalf of the Postmaster General
and the officers of the General Post Office,
I warmly reciprocate your greetings and good wishes.
I now declare the service open to the public.
Thank you, Sir Edward.
Goodbye, Mr Gilbert.
Goodbye, Sir.
Thank you.
Okay, a correction.
Obviously, that was not a phone call using Spring PCS
as the clarity was much greater than what we're used to.
I'm sorry, Bernie.
I got that wrong.
That actually was the first-ever transatlantic telephone call
that was established.
There's a little bit of disagreement as to whether it was 1926 or 1927,
but it was one of those years.
Rob, I believe you've tracked this down, right?
Yes, indeed.
I actually saw it on the 2600 calendar,
the wall calendar that someone in this room had made up,
and, yeah, it was the anniversary about a week and change ago
of that call taking place.
Well, you know, that's the thing.
There's a little bit of disagreement here.
One website says it was March 7, 1926.
Another one says it was January 7, 1927.
Whatever, it was back in the 20s,
and we were listening to a radio broadcast.
We were actually using, I believe, shortwave frequencies
to have a two-way conversation between New York and London.
The president of AT&T, Walter Gifford, and Sir Evelyn Murray,
who was the secretary of the General Post Office over in London,
were conversing very briefly back and forth.
I don't know what the bill for that call was,
but it was probably pretty substantial.
Bernie, had you ever heard this before?
I heard that there was the first transatlantic telephone call,
but I'd never heard the recording.
But I like all the static, which is probably sharks gnawing on the wires,
which turned out to be a big problem.
They had to put shark repellent in the wires later.
It sounded like a thunderstorm,
and that is the noise you hear on those frequencies when there is thunder,
so I imagine it was probably something like that.
Was this a transatlantic cable, or was this a radio-based connection?
According to this story,
it was a radio conversation between New York and London,
so it wasn't actually a cable.
Gotcha.
Now, a cable was laid on those early days, too,
first for telegraphy, for Morse code stuff.
Yeah.
I remember reading about that,
where they would look at this needle to see if it moved.
Like, did it move? Did you see it move?
Like, I think I saw it move.
Did it work?
Like, really, really bad.
But these people were hackers really trying to push a technology
to its extreme limits generations ago
to get information from one side of the Atlantic to the other.
Absolutely, yes.
It's trivial, but it's really important that we remember
all that went into how we're able to talk today.
It's fascinating stuff.
It's the kind of stuff that people that listen to this show
probably really find interesting.
Yeah.
The best thing I think you can do is find one of those crusty old guys
who used to work for the phone company,
however far back you can find one,
because they have all kinds of stories to tell
and all kinds of experiences.
And yes, you're right.
They have that hacker mentality of getting something done.
And yeah, this was going on way back.
In fact, I'm looking here, 1915.
Bell System engineers achieved the first voice transmission
across the Atlantic connecting Virginia and Paris
for a very short period of time.
I'm not sure why it took another 11 or 12 years
to get to the point we just heard.
In 1916, they held the first two-way conversation with a ship at sea.
And when World War I happened,
that sort of put the kibosh on it for a little while,
and they had to put all their research on hold.
So yeah, we're listening to history here,
and it's something to acknowledge.
And as part of what we're offering today,
yes, this is the last day of the fundraiser
that Off The Hook is participating in here at WBAI.
We have something we're calling the Telco Package.
So if you call 212-209-2950 and pledge $75,
you will get the Telco Package.
And let me just tell you what's in that package rather briefly.
It's a bunch of phone-related material
for people that are enthusiastic about telephones and about history.
Let's see.
First of all, we have this book that came out fairly recently
called Exploding the Phone by Phil Lapsley.
Phil has given talks at HOPE conferences.
It's The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell.
So that's pretty interesting right there.
We also have a reading, a dramatic reading, Rob, I believe,
that you'll be giving a sample of this a little bit later.
But what is it we're reading from exactly?
I see a really old relic that you're holding in your hands there.
Careful.
Yes, indeed.
This volume which I hold in my hand is 100 years old.
It was published in 1914 by New York Telephone.
Wow, that's 100 years ago.
Yep, just about 100 years ago.
There was a New York Telephone 100 years ago.
Indeed there was, and it was here in New York,
and their business was telephones.
Think about that, though,
because the first connection that we just mentioned was 1916.
Absolutely.
They weren't even having conversations of any sort until 1926 or 1927,
and yet there was a New York Telephone here that served the people,
but I guess we just couldn't connect to very great distances.
Right.
Not only was it here and not only did it serve the people,
but you could go to New York Telephone back then in 1914
and visit their facilities.
When you did, they would give you this volume that I hold in my hand
as a thank-you gift for visiting.
It's called The Eleventh Hour.
The Eleventh Hour.
The Eleventh Hour.
What it is is it's actually sort of a dramatic novella
that New York Telephone had written up
centering around a man's quest to arrange a party at the last minute,
or the eleventh hour, as they say.
Well, I see you're throwing back your cape,
so are you ready to give the reading right now,
if you're in the mood to do this?
I could do that.
Just to explain a little bit more about what you're about to hear.
What this is is it's actually a fairly technical description
of what goes on behind the scenes at the telephone company in 1914
when your calls are placed.
So this character, Mr. Gordon Douglas,
is making his phone calls and doing what he has to do
to make this party he wants to happen.
While he's doing this, the book follows what's going on behind the scenes,
what's going on with the operators,
what's going on with the telephone company's equipment.
And it all goes into fairly technical detail,
but it does it in such a great sort of dramatic and dignified way.
There is that way that people used to communicate.
We heard a bit of it just now on the recording
where they knew what they were doing,
they knew they were making history,
and there was all this pomp and circumstance about it.
Because, yeah, it's a big deal.
I still think it's a big deal to establish that kind of a link to the excitement.
When you're talking to somebody in London, you heard that in that phone call.
We don't hear that anymore.
In fact, you barely hear the person anyway.
But it's just that sense of marvel, that sense of adventure is all too often missing.
And that's what I think you've got here with this.
And that book that you're reading from,
they're telling us how it all works in the background.
It's more than they tell us now from inside the phone company.
They keep a lot of things secret.
Indeed they do.
And I think this is a really interesting piece of telephone history
and telco history and just public relations history come to think of it,
just because they actually had a fictional story written up
about one of their customers using their service,
and they would give it out to people.
And I don't think people really do that anymore.
Well, before you launch into the reading, which I see you're all geared up to do,
I just want to complete describing the package for people who call,
212-209-2950, pledge $75.
You'll get the Exploding the Phone book,
which is really, really an amazing piece of, I guess, what would you call this?
It's a documentary in words and book form.
Yeah, indeed it is.
Journalism.
Journalism, yeah.
I guess that's a good word.
Exploding the Phone, it's all about the phone networks all around the world,
about the hackers that play with these phone networks.
It's written from a very good perspective.
It's fascinating.
And you will get that for a pledge of $75
in addition to Rob T. Firefly's dramatic reading from the book from 1914 called?
1914 called The Eleventh Hour.
The Eleventh Hour.
And what I'm going to do is I've got this antiquarian volume in my hand,
and what I'm going to do is produce an audiobook version of this book.
Okay.
And so in the package of cool stuff that we're already giving you today,
you're also going to get a copy of the audiobook that I make from this.
Now, that is not the only audio you'll get with this particular package,
if you so choose.
And this is a voluntary thing.
All you have to do, we'll contact you, I suppose,
if you want, we at Off the Hook, all of us together or individually,
whatever you demand, will make a voicemail greeting for you,
a personalized voicemail greeting.
Yeah.
As long as it's nothing that we find personally objectionable or offensive
or anything like that, we will say whatever you want to say.
What are our standards?
Well, we all have different standards, don't we, Mike?
Oh.
Yeah.
Well, that's clear.
Yeah.
So we will weigh all that.
But you will get, if you have a voicemail account,
what we'll do is we'll send it to you via email,
and you can simply insert it onto your phone or your corporate office
or answering machine if you still have one of those.
You get that as well.
And we've never offered that before.
So, okay, we're up to three things now.
We've got the book, we've got the dramatic reading,
we've got a voicemail greeting,
and the final thing is a phone-related bit of artwork
that also Rob T. Firefly will be making.
Any idea what that could be, Rob?
Yes, indeed.
We're really putting me to work this week.
And so what you're going to get is I've done this once before.
I did a sort of marathon of phone-related drawings.
And you can see a selection of those if you go to my website
at robvincent.net slash off-the-hook.
You can see a selection of the ones I did before.
What I'm going to do now, it will not be a marathon here on the air
because we're halfway through our slot already.
But it will be something that I take some time with.
And basically an 8x10 drawing of something related to the telephone
or telephone history or something to that effect,
a piece of hand-drawn pen-and-ink artwork signed and dated by me.
And you will get that along with all the rest of this
cool telephone and history-related stuff.
When Rob is finally recognized for his talents sometime down the future,
imagine what that bit of artwork will be worth.
Think about that.
I'm not kidding.
I really do think you will be discovered.
Because I've seen some of your work.
And if you go to that website, you will see some of that work.
And it's a bit of telephony that you'll treasure forever.
You can frame it.
You can do all kinds of things.
But you've got to call 212-209-2950 and pledge that $75
to keep this radio station going so we can talk about things like that.
This is really fascinating material.
This is what drew me into the whole hacking world to start with
is the magic of the phone network.
Well, this is a way of giving back.
212-209-2950.
So if you've listened to this radio station,
you know that something that the host is trying to do is solicit a pledge
from every town.
And some people know every town in Long Island,
they must take the LIRR a lot so they can recite it for you.
But I think what's appropriate for this premium is that we should try
and get a pledge from every telephone company.
So if you are a Verizon customer, we want to hear from you.
Verizon Wireless, separate company, we want to hear from you as well.
Sprint PCS.
If you are in, like we really want the obscure ones.
So if you have SNET, does that still exist?
Didn't they merge with GE and then they merged with Verizon?
I'm not sure if they still exist.
Well, if you still have it somehow, we want to hear from you.
212-209-2950.
See, it used to be a lot better when there were different phone companies
for every state.
There was Southern New England Telephone, there was New Jersey Bell,
there was New York Telephone, there was Bell of Pennsylvania.
That was yours, right, Bernie?
That's right.
VPA.
And Chesapeake and Potomac.
Yeah, it was really kind of cool.
What Mike just listed were a bunch of wireless companies, mostly.
So that's the interesting thing is it's the wireline companies are all –
there's only probably one left.
But the wireless companies, there's all these little ones
because they all rent spectrum from each other.
So there's one from Two Cows, I forget the name of, but if you have that one,
Ting, if you have Ting, we want to hear from you.
Ting is a phone company?
Yeah.
But how do we know if someone's actually calling from Ting?
There's no way to really tell.
We'll have to use the honor system there, I think.
Because in the past, if somebody called from a certain area –
again, you didn't have to call their ID in the past,
but basically it was all geographical.
Now it's pretty much consumer choice.
It's different.
It's still interesting, but it's not quite the same.
212-209-2950 is the phone number.
$75 pledge gets you all this telephony-related material.
It's called the Telco Package.
And again, the Exploding the Phone book by Phil Lapsley,
the dramatic reading from the 1914 book, The Eleventh Hour,
the voicemail greeting, personalized as much as you want it to be,
and a bit of artwork that Rob T. Firefly
will also spend quite a bit of time making up for you.
212-209-2950, this offer is only being offered during our show.
I think if you call, if you hear the show later,
if you're listening on a podcast, you might still be able to call and get it.
It's really up to the people at the call center.
But please call now so we see a lot of calls coming in,
and then we can walk out of here with some bit of pride.
212-209-2950.
What is the name of the package asked for?
The Telco Package, T-E-L-C-O.
That's short for Telephone Company.
Any phone freak would know that.
But hopefully the people at the tally room know that as well.
But if you happen to be listening to this at some later time
and you want to support our show
and maybe get one of these packages if there are any left,
you can go to GiveTheNumeralToWBAI.org
and select off the hook is the show you're supporting
and put your pledge through that way.
And either way, whether you call 212-209-2950
or whether you go to GiveTheNumeralToWBAI.org,
the most important premium you're getting is this radio station.
You're keeping us alive, and we love you for it.
All right, Rob, so I see you have all your acting paraphernalia ready.
Are you ready to have this dramatic reading?
I'm actually wearing a fairly elaborate costume.
It's a shame the listeners can't see it.
I don't know why you brought that in.
Set the scene for us so that we know what it is
that you'll be discussing or throwing our way.
What I can do here is actually read the preface to the book,
which does a pretty good job of setting the scene.
Look at that.
All the people in the other room are looking in at us right now.
So apparently word of this has gotten out.
One guy's kind of staring at me.
He's been doing that for a while.
All right, so don't let that get you.
If you do this on Broadway, which there's rumors of,
you'll have to get used to that kind of a thing.
Take as much time as you need.
Get you a glass of water or something if you want that.
I think I'll be all right.
All right.
You already have flowers ready at the front door.
Let's see how he does first before you give him the flowers.
What you'll be getting is a professionally produced CD version of this.
This is just an off-the-cuff live reading on the radio,
but I'll see what I can do.
The 11th hour.
Just a little party.
Dinner for eight and the theater.
But they didn't start to plan it until nearly noon,
and then there was so much to be done.
The guests had to be invited, dinner had to be ordered,
and theater tickets had to be bought.
Mr. and Mrs. R. Gordon Douglas easily solved the problem.
They simply took the telephone into their confidence,
made their arrangements over the wire,
and gave a successful dinner party.
There's nothing particularly unusual in that.
It is exactly what you or anybody else would have done under the circumstances,
but back of the story of a party arranged by telephone
is another story of absorbing interest to every telephone user.
It is the story of the vast organization
and the delicate apparatus that make each call possible,
the story of a world of unseen wonders.
What goes on in this world, the flashes of signals, the spoken words,
the constant tests and care taken to maintain a great system of communication
is practically unknown to you.
You see very little of it except the handy instrument on your table or on the wall.
You only hear the cheerful voice that asks,
Number, please.
So we will lift the curtain and take you behind the scenes
in the telephone's central office
while Mrs. Douglas' dinner party is being arranged.
We will follow each call and describe briefly
some of the central office apparatus that is called into play.
So rapid and varied is the action at Central
that we will tell the story as nearly as possible
in the form of a motion picture.
We will show the relation between the story
and the pictures by means of blackface type.
New York City is here chosen as the scene of action,
but the story of how telephone calls are handled
and the description of the telephone's central office
apply with but slight variation throughout the whole bell system.
The actors in this drama behind the scenes are real persons.
They take part in thousands of similar dramas every day in the year.
Only the people at the ends of the wires,
Mr. and Mrs. Douglas and their friends, change each time.
Because this story is so much the same every time a call is made,
because you yourself have been frequently in a position
of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas in making use of the telephone as a time saver,
we believe you will find it in a personal interest.
Here you will see how the local and long-distance operators
weave the ever-changing web of conversation.
You will watch the switchboard electricians at work.
You will visit information and the trouble operator and the wire chief
as he guards the system against interruption of service.
And through it all, you will see the spirit of service,
the spirit that directs the loyal, dependable work behind the scenes
so that you, too, if you wish,
may arrange your parties at the 11th hour by telephone.
Wow, that was something.
Wasn't that something, audience?
Well, you can't hear them applauding,
but there they are behind the bulletproof glass there.
Wow, that was at the 11th hour,
and you go right into the title of the entire book there.
Yes, indeed.
I've never heard an operator say number plate.
I heard that on The Prisoner, you know, on the television show.
And you hear it in all kinds of old movies and things like that,
but yet, used to be what happened.
You picked up the phone, and you'd hear number, please,
and you'd give the operator the number.
Yes, there are all these little touches of telephone history
that none of us ever hear anymore.
You might see it portrayed in older films or things like that,
but this was the day-to-day reality of people using the phone,
and it's a nice sort of look at that.
It's interesting, too, because, yes,
occasionally we are faced with some of the older bits of history with telephones.
Like, for instance, yesterday, I was calling a bank,
and the phone that I chose to use was a rotary phone.
Yeah, I do that occasionally.
I use a rotary phone.
There's probably people here that have never even used a rotary phone
or don't know how to operate one.
And I got the automated answering thing,
and it basically listed all these preferences,
and the very last one was,
if you have a rotary phone, please hold for assistance.
And it repeated that three times.
So here I am with my rotary phone, unable to hit the right numbers,
and just feeling like a complete idiot.
When I finally did get connected,
the clarity of the conversation was something to behold,
but no one else was able to appreciate that.
How does the rotary help your call?
Well, it's not the rotary that does it.
It's the manufacturer of the phone.
The phone was made in the 50s, and it just was built better.
Well, the fact that it's still around today
and sounding better than the phone I bought a couple of months ago
is a testament to that.
Yes, Bernie?
I just want to say thank you, Rob, for reading that,
and for making this recording available for people who call 212-209-2950.
I just wanted to say that it's hard for us to imagine
what it was like before telephones.
How did you arrange to meet up with your friends or other things?
How did you conduct business?
It was really, really a challenge,
but people managed to do it like it was no big deal.
Well, you conducted business with the people
that were immediately around you, I guess.
Sure, sure.
It limited what you could do.
And then it hasn't been that long in our recent lifetimes
when there were no such things as mobile phones,
or at least phones you could just carry around in your pocket
as you're walking around.
How many of us still remember how you would meet up with somebody
at a certain place and time without a phone in your pocket
to coordinate by calling or texting or whatever?
I kind of forget how we did that.
We managed to do it on a routine, regular basis,
but now when you have instant access to the public telephone network
and texting and social media sites in our pocket,
you take this for granted.
So when you look back at those days
when just even having a telephone at your disposal
was a revolutionary thing,
it helps you have the perspective of the magic,
the technology that we have today because we've come really far.
Yes, and I think it's a big mistake to just assume
that the people back in those days are more primitive than we are today.
The technology obviously has advanced more.
I'm not so sure that we have advanced more.
People would connect in different ways,
and I noticed they were on time a lot more when you were meeting up with them
because it was taken more seriously.
Phone calls meant more.
Communications were of a higher quality
and not used for every little bit of trivia.
So in-person meetings, I think, were better then.
Yes, Mike.
I mean, it's certainly not the case anymore
that arranging a meeting up eight hours in advance
would be considered especially late notice.
I mean, eight minutes in advance is pretty doable these days.
So eight hours in advance is so dramatic
that you have to write a short propaganda piece about it.
That's really a change.
Yeah, I suppose.
Okay, so now what I'd like to do, 212-209-2950,
there's another historic phone call that we have here
that I'd like to share with people.
This phone call was made in 1935, April 15, 1935,
right here in New York City, 32 6th Avenue, the Long Lines building.
W.S. Gifford and T.G. Miller of the AT&T,
American Telephone and Telegraph Company,
take part in a historic phone call.
Now, they do the kind of thing that phone freaks would do many years later.
They're speaking on the phone from offices just 50 feet apart,
but they routed the phone call all the way around the world.
It's the kind of thing that I remember having fun with this
when we were playing with Sprint and MCI
when they were first making their debut in the phone market,
routing calls all over the place and having long delays and things like that.
These guys were building the network back then,
so they had the same sense of thrill
as the people who hacked the network would get later on.
Once again, 212-209-2950, ask for the telco package.
You'll get the book Exploding the Phone,
you'll get Rob's Dramatic Reading,
you'll get a voicemail greeting,
and you'll get a piece of artwork.
It's really an incredible package, but it's only available during this show.
212-209-2950, let's go to 1935 and hear the phone call
that went all the way around the world.
This is the longest telephone circuit that's ever been set up in the world.
Over 23,000 miles, they tell me.
I wonder what time it is in Java, I don't know, do you?
Well, this map here.
What's that?
10 o'clock.
Thank you very much, Java, thank you.
Are there any others in on this line that I can talk to?
London?
Yes, London here.
Well, hello, London.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Oh, this is about 2.30 over there, isn't it?
That's right.
About 2.30 over there?
That's good, see, it's 2.30 summertime.
I see.
Do you hear me well?
Beg your pardon?
Do you hear me well?
Yes, very well indeed. Do you hear me?
Fine, thank you.
Of course, I suppose if I spoke English, you could hear me better.
Instead of speaking American.
Thank you.
Hello, is Amsterdam on the line?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello, Mr. Miller?
Is Amsterdam on the line, do you know?
Well, I guess they're not listening in at the moment.
Well, I think it's a great success and a great stunt.
Thank you very much.
All of you, goodbye.
Goodbye.
Where is Amsterdam?
Come on, guys, wake up over there.
Yeah, that was back in 1935.
Two guys in the AT&T Long Lines building on 6th Avenue here in New York City
talking to each other by going all the way around the world.
Wow, that was historic right there.
And that's just a sense of the kind of history we're talking about tonight
by offering the Exploding the Phone book,
the dramatic reading of the New York Telephone book from 1914.
Not the New York Telephone phone book from 1914,
although that would be kind of cool too if we had a copy of that, but we don't.
Rob T. Firefly's reading from the New York Telephone piece,
and a personalized voicemail greeting for anybody who calls in,
and the bit of artwork too.
$75 pledge, 212-209-2950.
What did you think of that phone call, Bernie?
I was fascinated not only by the content,
but they also had to record that,
which wasn't simply just holding up a mobile phone recording app on it.
You probably had to record this on wax cylinders
or some other arcane technology by our standards.
Technology of communicating and documenting audio
and other communications has always fascinated me,
and that's what this show is about.
We bring information about communications technology to our listeners,
we record it, and we make it available in an archived fashion
to anybody who visits the website.
So if you want to keep this kind of thing alive,
it's really important that you call in,
212-209-2950, because this is not available
at any other radio station in the country.
This station doesn't take corporate underwriting,
advertising, or anything like that.
It's solely supported by the listeners, you.
So please, call 212-209-2950, pledge whatever you can,
but if you pledge at certain levels,
we can give you some of these amazing recordings
and dramatic renditions from Rob,
and an amazing book by our friend Phil Lapsley,
Exploding the Phone.
So 212-209-2950, please call.
Yeah, and I just want to say a little bit about this book,
because I've seen Phil Lapsley talk about it
both at Hope and at other events
when he was on his book tour for this book,
and it really is a fascinating book.
It's really about the history of phreaking itself,
as well as the history of the phone system itself.
And there are a lot of books out there
about the history of hacking, the early hackers,
but phreaks actually don't happen to get
all that much of a look in on these, in my experience.
And this book is all about the phreaks,
and it's all about that exploring spirit
among the phone company and among the phreaks.
And yet, it's written at a level
that anybody can understand.
I gave my mom a copy so that she might finally
start to understand what I've been on about all this time.
And it's really great for that.
And yeah, if you appreciate the history of the phone system,
or you're a bit curious about it,
or what things were like, call 212-209-2950,
or go to givethenumeral2wbai.org
and get a hold of this piece of phone company history,
of phone phreaking history.
You'll get my audio book produced
out of this other piece of telephone company history.
You'll get a nice historically-themed
phone company drawing.
You'll get voicemails from us,
voicemail greetings from us.
And yeah, that's our telco package.
That's phreak with a P-H, by the way.
It's part of the whole phone phreak culture.
Which, by the way, if you wonder
where you can hear phone phreaks
speaking about technique and history
and adventure and the future
and all kinds of things like that,
come to the Hope Conference coming up in July
right here in New York City,
July 20th, Hotel Pennsylvania.
You can go to x.hope.net
and learn everything about it
that you can possibly learn.
We're looking for more speakers as well.
If you are interested in speaking at the conference,
if you have a topic,
whether it's about telephones, computers, security,
activism, all sorts of things
that tie into the hacker world,
email speakers at hope.net
and tell us something about yourself.
Tell us something about the talk you want to give.
We try to open up to as many people as possible.
We always have over 100 talks
of various sizes of audience
that we present to.
But it's fascinating.
It's unique.
It's probably one of the most interesting gatherings
of people that I could imagine.
That's coming up in July.
Just figured I'd mention that as well.
Now, speaking of the book,
Exploding the Phone,
that Rob was just mentioning,
I wanted to read a few comments about it.
There's a page,
I don't think they actually called it Praise, though.
I know informally it was called that,
but I don't think they actually printed it on the book.
Here they do.
It's called Praise for Exploding the Phone,
and there's several pages of it
because there's a lot of praise.
Let me just read you a couple of bits here.
This is from the Daily Beast.
Exploding the Phone opens like a Cold War spy caper
with a young, incurably curious Harvard student
discovering a cryptic message
in the classified section
of the student newspaper in 1967.
The product of years of research,
this is the eminently interesting
and completely original history
of the proto-hackers,
counting among their number
a couple of youngsters named,
oh, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs.
That's right.
Here's something from Clifford Stull,
the author of The Cuckoo's Egg.
Phil Lapsley captures the excitement
of the days when phone hackers
explored Ma Bell's cabled paradise
of dial phones and electromechanical switches
when a call across the country cost $5
and operators placed person-to-person calls.
They exploit the system,
trying to stay a step ahead of police
and telephone technicians.
Here's the intriguing story
of those first electronic adventurers,
tinkerers who'd bypass a payphone
with a couple of transistors
or reach around the world by whistling.
It's all there, all these magical stories,
all the history, all the techniques
that you can use to this day
to figure out ways around systems
to design new systems.
It's really a fascinating way
to look at history.
Exploding the phone book.
Not exploding the phone book.
The book called Exploding the Phone.
Get Rob's audio book
of the 11th hour from 1914.
Get a personalized voicemail greeting
from the staff of Off the Hook.
Get a piece of a phone company
or telephone-related artwork
from Rob T. Firefly.
212-209-2950.
It's only a $75 pledge,
which I think is a pretty good deal
when you compare it to some
of the other radio and TV stations
or even things that are just sold in the stores.
You can't get this anywhere else.
Another thing to say about Phil Lapsley's book,
he went through so many
Freedom of Information Act requests
to get all the reams and reams of documents
that went into his research for this book.
When such a document is mentioned in the book,
you go to the appendix,
look up that document,
and right there is the code number
that you use to go to the book's website
and pull up the original of that document.
After you've read about something,
after you've pulled down
all the documents that Phil saw
in order to enable him to write the book,
you can dig as deep into this as you want
because Phil has done so much of the work for you.
That's not something that a lot of books do,
and it's really amazing how deep it all goes.
Here's what the Portland Mercury,
which I assume is a newspaper, said.
Phil Lapsley's great history of those hackers
is packed with schemes, plots, discoveries,
and brainy oddball personalities.
The stories he uncovers
and the questions he poses
about the relationship between criminality,
curiosity, and technology
is compelling, fascinating stuff,
whereas the Seattle Times
was a bit more compact,
saying a fascinating story.
Well, it's true.
It is a fascinating story,
and you can get the whole story
by calling 212-209-2950.
You'll get this book
plus the three other items
that we're mentioning tonight.
I've been asked to tell our listeners
that we are still offering
a pledge of $125
to ask for WikiLeaks
and NSA Thumb Drive Package
212-209-2950. Mike.
So I saw the other day go by me on Twitter
a conversation that I really thought
people involved should know better,
and the question was,
the people who participate in phone phreaking,
freaks or freakers?
Well, I mean,
either one is acceptable.
I prefer freaks myself.
It just seems like you're adding
an extra three letters
to your phone number.
But, you know, it's acceptable.
It's acceptable.
Somebody asked me that question today
after the federal hearing.
An EFF attorney asked me that same question.
All of a sudden there's interest in this.
Wow.
Maybe they saw the same conversation.
You say a tweet went by you.
This is how people, I guess,
share information.
Well, it made it all the way to Philadelphia.
I guess it depends who tweeted it,
and maybe more people saw it,
but you can call yourself whatever you want.
Did that conversation come from a tweeter
or a Twitterer?
Yeah, you see?
I think it came from a person.
I don't know about that.
I don't know.
212-209-2950.
Again, this is the last few moments of the
winter fundraiser here at WBAI.
WBAI has gone through so much
in the last few months,
and we're still here, you know,
and I think what we're offering
is something truly unique and amazing.
Yeah, you might say that,
boy, this place is crazy,
and some of the things that you might read about
that happened are not to be believed,
but the fact that remains throughout it all
is that we are still broadcasting.
We still have a voice.
We still have a way to reach all these people
and include them in the conversation,
take phone calls, have interviews,
announce all sorts of events,
and as long as that is here,
that is something we're supporting.
No matter what we're offering,
no matter what we come up with,
the important thing is the radio station,
212-209-2950.
Without that, we're just another voice on the net,
and good luck finding us.
All these phone conversations we were playing,
they're all on the internet,
but did you ever hear them before?
Probably not, because you have to know
what stones to uncover,
and Rob, you tracked them down.
Yeah, but there's so much crazy stuff
that happens around here,
but the absolute craziest thing
to ever come out of WBAI
is that you've kept on the air for 54 years
just by what we're doing now,
which is asking you for help.
You, the listener, have kept us on the air for 54 years.
You've kept off the hook on the air
for so many decades,
and you're the only thing that can keep doing that,
so if you call 212-209-2950
or go to give, the numeral 2, wbai.org,
you can make that crazy, strange event keep happening,
because if we lost it, it would not happen again.
It's too nuts to happen twice.
It's nuts enough that it happened once.
Okay, you know, as a special treat,
we're going to go out with another phone call.
This one is a bit more recent.
This is from, I believe, the 1950s.
Let me get my documentation together here.
And this took place from Canada, 1956,
September 25th, 1956.
This was the debut of TAP1,
the Transatlantic Telephone Cable System No. 1,
which was inaugurated with a three-way telephone conversation
between New York, Ottawa, and London.
Many distinguished guests participated
in the first official call over the new circuit,
the first Atlantic cable of its generation.
So this is something a bit more recent.
Please keep your phone calls coming in,
212-209-2950.
Show your support for Off The Hook.
Show your support for WBAI.
Show your support for history and telephony
and all kinds of magical things like that.
And hopefully, we'll see you next week.
Now, let's go back to 1956,
and hear some Canadians and Brits and Americans
conversing over a brand-new circuit.
May I have your attention, please?
I think it would be desirable now
if you would all pick up your handsets
and be prepared for the conversations.
This is Cleo Craig in New York calling Dr. Hill in London.
Good afternoon.
Hello.
Hello, Dr. Hill.
Hello, Mr. Craig.
This is Dr. Hill in London.
Is that you, Mr. Craig?
This is Mr. Craig.
Well, it's very good to hear your voice
and to join with you and our friends in Canada
in inaugurating this,
the first transatlantic telephone cable service.
Well, Mr. Craig, it's been a great day for me.
Well, Mr. Craig, it's been a great day for those
who for years have dreamt and waited for this thing.
Into it, as well you know,
has gone the best from each country,
and only the best was good enough.
But it's not too sentimental, I hope to say,
that as the people of our three countries
use this cable more and more,
the ties of friendship and understanding between us
will grow the stronger.
We certainly share your feeling, Dr. Hill.
And it seems to me that the building of the cable,
all of the planning,
and all of the work of construction,
these things in themselves
are another fine example of the good spirit
and the cooperation which exists
between our two countries.
Now, Mr. McConaughey,
Chairman of our Federal Communications Commission,
is here and would like to exchange a word with you.
So, goodbye for the moment.
Hello, Dr. Hill.
This is Mr. McConaughey.
Well, how do you do, sir?
It's no exaggeration to say
that you sound as if you're speaking from somewhere in London.
Yet you're 4,000 miles away
as the circuit flies or swims.
Well, it's very exciting to me,
as I'm sure it is to you.
It is indeed, sir.
I've been looking forward to this event
with the greatest of interest.
You know, we expect great things
of the people who provide communication services,
and I think they are today delivering great things,
and I know you agree.
We at the Federal Communications Commission
feel that this cable
is a major step forward
in telephone progress,
and I congratulate all
who had a part in bringing it about.
Yes, and I agree.
May I mention one name?
We have here, as everyone knows,
a real triumph of patient research
and engineering skill,
and on behalf of all of us here in London,
I would like to pay tribute to Dr. Buckley
and all those in the United States
who long before this became a project
had made it possible
by their research and experiment.
Oh, righty.
That's fantastic.
I love the way that happens.
You know, I remember that cable.
Do you remember that cable?
No, I don't really remember it,
but I do remember it in history class.