[HN Gopher] Secret Military Telephone Buttons
___________________________________________________________________
Secret Military Telephone Buttons
Author : zdw
Score : 231 points
Date : 2022-01-02 05:11 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (computer.rip)
(TXT) w3m dump (computer.rip)
| tiahura wrote:
| Surely we all read Hackers?
| joezydeco wrote:
| pigbearpig wrote:
| It's also interesting that the precedence concept was in the
| original IP header RFC 791.
| https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc791#page-12 Probably a
| good thing it was dropped along the way or I can only imagine
| what Comcast would have done with that.
|
| Here are allegedly the guidance on what the precedence levels
| should be used for. http://www.plexoft.com/SBF/Autovon.html
| colanderman wrote:
| > Probably a good thing it was dropped along the way or I can
| only imagine what Comcast would have done with that.
|
| You think you're joking.
|
| ToS morphed into DSCP [1], which is sometimes used in
| residential networks to prioritize VoIP. (I can't speak to
| business or industrial networks; presumably it finds use there
| as well.) WLAN networks can be configured to heed this
| priority, more aggressively grabbing airtime for high-priority
| packets. I configure my home network that way.
|
| DSCP does not generally cross the home network<->Internet
| boundary, but there is one major exception I know of: Comcast.
| They tag all _non_ -CATV traffic as the _lowest_ priority (DSCP
| 8), resulting in terrible performance of any home network
| configured to heed DSCP values. (You can avoid this by
| stripping DSCP values from inbound packets.)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differentiated_services
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| Hah, I wish I'd remembered that when I wrote this post. There's
| a whole story about IP having borrowed concepts from AUTODIN
| and AUTOVON as well as computer precedents like NCP. Of course
| the idea that DoD would move their networks over to IP was
| actually surprisingly unsuccessful and to this day a lot of the
| originally envisioned concepts like multilevel security on IP
| networks are no closer to happening.
|
| In parallel, most modern military/IC telephone systems are
| commodity Cisco with specialty features added somewhat
| awkwardly. Not nearly as exciting as it once was.
| anonymfus wrote:
| Are email priority levels also related to this?
| solarkraft wrote:
| > commodity Cisco with specialty features added somewhat
| awkwardly
|
| What type of functionality does the US military need that
| individual customers wouldn't want?
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| The precedence system is added to some VoIP networks as a
| line appearance feature although I suspect that's just
| being implemented by adding the prefixes to the dial plan,
| so it's the same as most of the other post-DTMF networks.
| You could do the same on your own system if you wanted,
| most IP PBXs support the actual underlying trunk preemption
| features but they just aren't typically configured to be
| accessible to users (more for things like allowing trunk
| preemption for emergency calls).
|
| The bigger issue is TEMPEST and other COMSEC concerns,
| which lead the government to pay companies like CIS to
| perform an authorized aftermarket modification of off-the-
| shelf IP phones.
|
| A major issue is that NSA guidance requires that all
| telephone instruments in a secure area have a feature
| usually called "on hook protection" or "on hook security,"
| where the phone physically being on the hook switch
| electromechanically ensures that microphones are disabled.
| This was easy with many earlier phones because they were
| often physically wired this way (hook switch connected the
| voice circuit). For modern IP phones this is all software
| controlled, so for secure variants like those made by CIS
| some dedicated electronics have been added that disconnect
| the microphones until the user presses a physical button to
| enable them. This is outside of software control to prevent
| a network intrusion being able to use the phone as a
| listening device. The modification is usually somewhat
| clunky and you can regularly recognize it in photos from
| military, white house, etc environments due to the Cisco
| phone's awkward looking and unusually large rear enclosure
| (added RF shielding against emissions) and a small red
| button added via a hole drilled in the faceplate, once
| again awkwardly.
|
| I bring this up in detail because I find it very
| interesting that the government has chosen to pay a third
| party to modify a COTS product in this way when they used
| to just have the phones custom made. I'm sure it's more
| cost effective but seems like a surprising failure by e.g.
| Raytheon, who used to make several secure phones, to win
| the contract. It's probably also a factor that there are
| nowadays a surprisingly large number of independent secure
| telephone systems operated by different agencies, which has
| diluted the buying power somewhat. The days when it was DoD
| making central purchasing decisions are gone, these days
| much of secure telephony is in the intelligence community
| where despite efforts of the ODNI the level of
| standardization on secure networks is rather poor. There
| are some good reasons for this but there's also a lot of
| plain bureaucratic lockup.
|
| electrospaces.net is the blog of a person interested in
| secure telephony who knows more about the actual
| instruments than I do. If you look through the archive he
| has photos of many current and historic models. I believe I
| have more information about the cryptographic and switching
| systems, which I do plan to write about, but there's only
| so much to know since the details of these things often
| start out classified and thus end up obscure. The historic
| military systems are much better documented than the IC
| systems, mostly because DoD and AT&T produced a lot more
| documentation on them that gets declassified as they go out
| of use. The IC likes to use a lot more suite A crypto
| (classified algorithms) and systems tend to be smaller and
| have shorter lifespans, which all leads to less stuff
| preserved for history.
|
| The topic is interesting in general though, and I will
| probably write a future post about exotic government
| telephone technology like the STUs with Fortezza cards and
| the earlier Crypto Ignition Keys. These are honestly rather
| smart designs that never really made it to private
| industry.
| solarkraft wrote:
| What a great and in-depth response. Thank you!
| hereforphone wrote:
| What's secret here? Fourth-row buttons and prioritization on the
| Autovon (and other systems) is public knowledge. Sounds cool, but
| nothing to see here.
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| The title was a joke, sorry.
| hereforphone wrote:
| Ah. Still an interesting article, thanks for posting it
| throwawayForMe2 wrote:
| There is the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service, and
| also the Nationwide Wireless Priority Service.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Emergency_Telecommu...
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_Wireless_Priority_S...
|
| After 9/11 the company I worked for then (a quasi-government non-
| profit company) ramped up their security and disaster planning a
| bit. The whole department I was in had to get national security
| clearances, and they also issued cards for the GETS system. On
| 9/11 I remember it was very hard to get any call through.
| euroderf wrote:
| Are there publicly-published guidelines anywhere on the
| appropriate uses for each level (R,P,I,F,FO) ?
| pigbearpig wrote:
| http://www.plexoft.com/SBF/Autovon.html
|
| That's is apparently the guide.
| neom wrote:
| In case anyone wanted a picture:
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/AUTOVON_...
|
| Now we have the answer to one of lifes burning questions, what
| does the FO button do?
| InvaderFizz wrote:
| If you want a slightly more up to date example, these were in
| common use at least as recently as 2010:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Red_Switch_Network
|
| As to what the FO button does, it cuts off whatever call the
| number you were dialing is on and connects your call instead.
| So you had better be sure your call is is important enough to
| potentially cut off a General Officer.
|
| At least that's how it was explained to me back in 2003. Never
| had occasion to use the priority modes.
| monocasa wrote:
| It's more that on systems with a circuit switched network
| there are typically fewer outgoing/incoming lines at a
| location then there were telephones, so you can get in a
| situation where a choke point in circuits can mean that you
| can't make a call because they're all busy. FO will force
| hang up other calls to make sure yours can go through. That's
| very likely to hang up other, unrelated calls in order to get
| through, rather than the person you're calling (it will hang
| up their call too if they're currently on a call though).
| twothamendment wrote:
| In the late 90s I was with a group of people and we were
| trying to make a call. The line was busy, had been for an
| hour. We assumed it was the teenage daughter on the phone.
| One in the group took the phone, dialed a lot of numbers,
| then asked for the number we were trying to call. He
| punched it in and handed the phone back. The call went
| through and the confused teenage daughter answered -
| confessed because her call was interrupted. Everyone in the
| room was amazed and he went back to reading as if nothing
| happened.
|
| I don't know what went on, but I can only imagine it was
| related to FO. My thought was he punched in to somewhere
| that would let him use a non normal button by way of
| numeric entry and connected the call - but I don't have a
| clue.
| michaelhoffman wrote:
| As far as I know, anyone could do busy line interruption
| in the U.S. with the help of the telephone operator:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busy_line_interrupt
| a-dub wrote:
| yes, it sets your priority for throwing others off of
| interswitch trunks and keeps others from throwing you off,
| as i understand.
|
| traditional phone network would give a fast busy or an "all
| circuits are busy" message if all lines between two
| switches are busy. the special buttons let you assign
| priority for your use of those lines. F0 is just max
| priority.
| usrusr wrote:
| ...and now imagine how likely "all circuits are busy"
| would be in a network were half of the infrastructure was
| freshly nuked. A dedicated button for "give me a line,
| I'm the president!" doesn't seem that far fetched
| anymore. Who knows, if they spend enough time pondering
| communications availability in such dire circumstances
| someone might invent an internet!
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| I can even imagine a packet-switched network still
| running into "more telephones than trunks" problems.
|
| I can imagine it every day when I deal with WiFi
| problems! Ugh...
| [deleted]
| Natsu wrote:
| This makes me realize that "Crash Override" was probably a riff
| on "Flash Override" which I somehow never connected before.
| op00to wrote:
| Please please please say it stand for "fuck off" and ignites
| the rocket under your desk chair for a quick escape.
| nexuist wrote:
| It's called "Flash Override" but I feel like a better name
| would have been "Fall Out."
| emmelaich wrote:
| Flash is a priority higher than urgent in Navy
| communications.
| thelittleone wrote:
| Modern phones could do with an "FO" button for an entirely
| different purpose. Don't like the current call... hit the FO
| button... let them know. In particular a disturbing practice
| I noticed in Australia. The bank calls, I pick up and a
| recording: "this is XYZ bank, please hold an operator will be
| with you shortly". A golden opportunity for an FO button. It
| could work like an email spam button Enough FO's and the
| number gets auto blocked.
| JdeBP wrote:
| It already exists on many telephone service providers in
| some countries. It doesn't have a specific button, and it
| isn't standardized across providers. But on one provider in
| the United Kingdom, for example, it is 14258 then star
| twice to blacklist the number that last called. (On another
| provider, just to show the variation, it is 1572 then 1.)
|
| * https://sse.co.uk/asset/pdf/guide-to-call-features-with-
| your...
|
| * https://plus.net/help/phone/call-features/
|
| The downside of a single button would be that even with the
| existing systems it is all too easy to accidentally
| blacklist the wrong people. I know someone who was
| accidentally blacklisted by one of xyr elderly friends. It
| caused all sorts of interesting fallout until the two of
| them had the opportunity to speak in person.
|
| One can imagine what a single button could do in the hands
| of small children. And, indeed, we have known for a couple
| of decades what anti-spam buttons can do in the hands of
| people who (say) decide to "junk" every mail message after
| reading it.
|
| For Australia, see rather the Do Not Call Register, which
| is the better option as these blacklisting systems are
| usually restricted to a couple of handfuls of numbers.
|
| * https://donotcall.gov.au
| plapsley wrote:
| <shameless plug> I love this stuff. So much so that I spent years
| researching and writing a book about it: "Exploding the Phone", a
| history of phone phreaking and the telephone systems the phreaks
| hacked on, from 1950-1980. http://explodingthephone.com/
| </shameless plug>
|
| Regarding MF being an informal or loose standard, it was
| described in detail in the the 1955 AT&T publication "Notes on
| Nationwide Dialing"
| (http://explodingthephone.com/hoppdocs/nond1955.pdf, pdf page 95)
| and the 11956 AT&T subsequent technical publication "Notes on
| Distance Dialing"
| (http://explodingthephone.com/hoppdocs/nodd1956.pdf, starting pdf
| page 82) and then in subsequent editions of "Notes on Distance
| Dialing" (1968, 1975) and then in "Notes on the Network" 1980. It
| was also specified in several international standards (CCITT, now
| ITU). For those interested in this kind of stuff, this page will
| be of interest: http://explodingthephone.com/docs.php
|
| Search of autovon docs:
| http://explodingthephone.com/search.php?q=autovon&sort=relev...
| Some interesting stuff there because you get a sense of AT&T,
| FBI,, and NSA being worried about this stuff. Also, this
| particular hack is interesting -- it describes a clever technique
| called guardbanding to get into AUTOVON from the civilian
| telephone network: http://explodingthephone.com/docs/dbx1032.pdf
| mattl wrote:
| It's a really good book and I've recommended it to several
| people.
| throwaway32mkz wrote:
| Secret? Okay, maybe not common knowledge vs. the # of people that
| use "normal" touch tone telephones (or used now, now that hardly
| anyone does!). But A/B/C/D are not a secret by any stretch. This
| stuff has been well documented for a few decades.
|
| Back in the 90s when I first learned about this, and had a modem
| that would dial these additional digits just fine, I used to see
| how various PSTN LECs would handle them. Mostly ignored, but some
| results were interesting.
|
| Also, back then I was living in the Greater Houston (Texas) area,
| and had to have a "metro" phone line to be able to get local
| calling to various NXXs outside of the core Houston (some even
| still came with a toll charge!). Often when dialing between these
| zones, the in-band MF tones used by the switching systems were
| audible to the caller.
|
| A lot of this stuff really interested me, and I really got into
| phreaking and such as a teenager. See also red box, blue box, and
| all the other colors.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| A couple of years ago one acquaintance of mine, who works at a
| company making aviation simulators, bought some flight manual for
| US fighter jet on Ebay.... And when he travelled to Georgia (near
| the Black sea one), he was detained and deported to the US and
| has spent a year in prison there on espionage charges.
|
| He was released after great efforts by many people and is forever
| banned entry to the US. So I wouldn't touch anything 'secret' and
| 'military' even with a 2 meter pole.
| wtallis wrote:
| I think you meant _extradited_ rather than _deported_ , for his
| transfer from Georgian custody to the US. He was subsequently
| deported from the US after pleading guilty and being sentenced.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Perhaps, English isn't my first language.
| erikerikson wrote:
| Thank you for learning English. Hopefully that response
| helped you learn more of it.
| pigbearpig wrote:
| There's nothing secret about this. The info is on Wikipedia.
| The "secret" is either a joke or clickbait. I'm going with a
| joke.
| ganzuul wrote:
| Is this fact or FUD?
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Decide for yourself:
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dcs+developer+arrested
| Mirioron wrote:
| Why is it possible for him to be deported from Georgia to the
| USA? He didn't break any Georgian laws, did he?
| detaro wrote:
| Illegitimately obtaining military "secrets" is a crime pretty
| much everywhere. Would it have been illegal for him to obtain
| such documents about Georgian military tech in such a way in
| Georgia? Then the US can ask for him to extradited for
| obtaining US documents - at least that's how many extradition
| treaties work.
| trasz wrote:
| There weren't any secrets involved; the manuals are public.
| detaro wrote:
| I used "secrets" with the quotes as stand-in for
| "documents restricted in some way" since I didn't know
| the details, reading other comments I guess you should
| insert "export-controlled information" instead, I don't
| think it changes the point of the comment much. Plenty
| places have that concept, so plenty places will extradite
| over it.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Also it's not because there aren't extradition treaties
| that one cannot be deported. A country can always ask for a
| one time favour, and the US usually gets most head of
| state's attention.
| catchmilk wrote:
| Assuming OP's story is 100% true - how is buying something
| off of Ebay illegitimate?
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| Buying the manuals wasn't the crime. He violated the Arms
| Export Control Act, when he tried to ship them back to
| Russia via an American stooge.
| jevoten wrote:
| The Arms Export Control Act is a US law, and his friend
| was neither American nor in America. As a non-American
| myself, I don't like it one bit when I see US law reach
| into what should be sovereign countries. And then have
| that dismissed as "there's nothing stopping Georgia from
| doing a favor for the US", when that favor involves
| taking away the freedom of one of their citizens. A US
| citizen getting extradited to Russia as a favor would not
| be treated so casually.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I think most people are unaware of details of
| international law and agreements. The down voted sibling
| poster has a great clarifying example - if you are
| citizen of country A, living in A, but robbed a bank in
| B, which has extradition agreement and good relationships
| with A, do you feel you have some magic get out of jail
| free card? That the crime doesn't count? That you are
| immune because your crime was international in nature?
|
| I'm in Canada and resenting Americans is our national
| past time :-), but still most comments here about evil
| tendrils of American empire are besides the point.
| Interpol, extradition, etc are a thing outside of
| America.
| jevoten wrote:
| The key difference with the bank robbing example is that
| that is a crime in both countries A and B, and it didn't
| take any pressure of country B onto A to make it a crime
| in A as well.
| detaro wrote:
| Do you think/know Georgian law doesn't recognize the
| concept of secrecy requirements/trade-restrictions around
| material relating to military equipment?
| mantas wrote:
| Illegally trading and/or transporting across borders
| military manuals is a crime pretty much anywhere in the
| world.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| Most countries don't extradite their own citizens but
| won't hesitate to do it if it's a foreigner.
|
| I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have happened if the things
| had been reversed (US guy buying Mig 29 flight manuals).
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| First to correct some factual errors. The importer was a
| Russian citizen, who happened to be visiting Georgia. His
| conspirator was an American citizen living in Texas, that
| being a critical element to him being able to purchase
| the manuals and forward them to Russia.
|
| Furthermore, it wasn't that long ago when Russia invaded
| Georgia and essentially annexed portions of its
| territory. It's clearly in their national interest to
| cooperate with laws that seek to prevent technology
| transfers to Russia.
|
| However, if you defraud a little old lady living in
| England of her money over the internet, you may very well
| be extradited to the UK despite being from the US. Would
| that be the UK riding rough shot over US sovereignty?
|
| The American legal system (for all its faults) is
| independent and has strong safe guards for the rights of
| defendants. The Russian legal system is not independent
| and routinely uses as a tool to suppress descent and
| prevent potential challengers from standing for election
| as observed in the many cases against Navalny.
| usrusr wrote:
| So what happened to the Texan guy? Was this the outcome
| of some legal construction shifting all blame to the
| absentee, a legal construction that was entirely well-
| meant because on paper they'd have treat him like some
| cold war area spy but didn't find that appropriate wrt
| the documents in question? With nobody expecting that
| construction to affect the absentee like it eventually
| did?
|
| Imagine some US citizen had bought "can't leave the
| country" documents about some British military things via
| a London middle-man (very hypothetical because I'd assume
| secrecy to work very differently in the UK). Would one
| expect the UK to skip that middle-man wrt consequences?
| gruez wrote:
| >So what happened to the Texan guy?
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20190514124604/https://www.st
| and...
|
| >The Texas man was indicted along with Tishchenko, but
| District Judge Dale Kimball in 2017 signed an 18-month
| deferral-of-prosecution agreement. Then, on Wednesday,
| all charges against the Texan were dismissed.
| OJFord wrote:
| > However, if you defraud a little old lady living in
| England of her money over the internet, you may very well
| be extradited to the UK despite being from the US.
|
| You reckon? It's only crimes that happen on the USA's
| side of the road that don't count?
| toss1 wrote:
| >>Arms Export Control Act is a US law
|
| Notice the first word - "Arms"
|
| >> I don't like it one bit when I see US law reach into
| what should be sovereign countries.
|
| The US govt also does not like it when people attempt to
| use US arms to kill US people, military or civilian.
|
| So, yes, your nationality or location are irrelevant. If
| you are actively exporting US military goods or
| information without a license, you should expect that the
| US will do whatever it can, including asking favors of
| other nations, to find and imprison you.
|
| In Other Words - do not f'n do that - or get a proper
| license and do it right (or make sure your smuggling is
| sufficiently profitable and you are sufficiently clever
| that you can live the rest of your live always positioned
| out of their reach - good luck).
|
| It is not that hard to avoid shipping US Arms information
| & goods without a license.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| I don't understand where this bizarre notion comes from
| that if you commit a crime while not physically being in
| the country and not being that country's citizen, this
| somehow nullifies the crime and means you shouldn't be
| extradited.
|
| People often have irrational emotions about teh evil
| Amerika, so forget them. Say you're an Argentinian in
| Argentina and commit a ransomware attack against an Irish
| bank, but somehow give yourself away. Do you not expect
| trouble upon landing in a country with which they have an
| extradition treaty, merely because your crime was
| committed from Buenos Aires?
| vageli wrote:
| > I don't understand where this bizarre notion comes from
| that if you commit a crime while not physically being in
| the country and not being that country's citizen, this
| somehow nullifies the crime and means you shouldn't be
| extradited.
|
| Should we extradite Americans living in America to China
| if they mock Xi or dishonor Chinese heroes?
| [deleted]
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| Every nation decides which charges are included in the
| extradition treaties, and which aren't. So no, we should
| not.
|
| However, in this scenario, depending on your
| importance/visibility, you should absolutely read up on
| extradition treaties when visiting China-friendly
| nations.
|
| Any American who visibly supported the Hong Kong pro-
| democracy protests should definitely think twice about
| ever visiting China and (again depending on
| visibility/importance) any friendly nations with
| extradition treaties and the numerous countries around
| the world without rule of law.
| temac wrote:
| > I don't understand where this bizarre notion comes from
| that if you commit a crime while not physically being in
| the country and not being that country's citizen, this
| somehow nullifies the crime and means you shouldn't be
| extradited
|
| Well when it concerns their own citizens, this bizarre
| notion comes at least from the USA who even threaten
| judges working at the International Court of Justice, and
| their families... So maybe sometimes the emotions about
| "evil" USA are not completely irrational.
| wrboyce wrote:
| > A US citizen getting extradited to Russia as a favor
| would not be treated so casually.
|
| It just wouldn't fucking happen because America think
| themselves above every other nation. Case in point, Anne
| Sacoolas.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| The story is this, to the extent of my understanding: US
| citizens are free to sell such manuals within the US. The
| seller refused to send the manual to Oleg on his russian
| address, so some american guy on a game forum agreed to
| buy it and resend it to Russia. And in doing so the US
| espionage law was broken. Dura lex, etc. Had he just
| scanned the manual and put it anonymously online, all
| would be ok, I guess.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Is this one of the DCS developers?
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Yeah, that one. He went for a salsa dancing festival in
| Georgia, and it totally didn't go as planned.
| SOMA_BOFH wrote:
| he shipped the manuals to russia through a third party to
| obscure his identity because he knew it was illegal.
|
| the reaction to the crime may have lacked proportionality
| but there are more details to the story.
| spython wrote:
| There are legitimate services commonly used to buy stuff
| from US sellers who don't want to deal with the
| complicated shipping to Russia and other countries. I
| doubt he had any intention to obscure his identity - the
| seller would just not sell to him directly.
| devman0 wrote:
| It's only legitimate so long as it isn't used to
| circumvent ITAR. The seller would probably not sell to
| him directly because exporting flight manuals for
| military aircraft was paper work the seller didn't want
| to deal with. By obscuring his identity through a third
| party the buyer violated ITAR, the seller probably also
| did as well by not doing proper due diligence.
| op00to wrote:
| Man what a bummer. The F16 is my favorite jet to fly in
| DCS. :(
| will4274 wrote:
| He also promised (on the DCS forum) that he would not
| sell the material and then did so repeatedly to nationals
| from a variety of countries.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Is there any suggestion that there was anything to learn
| from manuals being sold in eBay that wouldn't already be
| well known? Did the person selling the manuals get
| prosecuted? Was someone court martialed for releasing
| them?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The legality to own, sell, export, and import things can
| be different.
| devman0 wrote:
| They were probably illegal to export under ITAR, but
| otherwise not classified, there are lots of items that
| fall in to that category.
| [deleted]
| a-dub wrote:
| funny. was thinking about autovon today and was wondering if
| adding notions of priority/qos are basically the bedrock of
| building reliable systems...
| temac wrote:
| IIRC there is a standard field in ISDN and H323 for transmiting
| precedence levels.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Anyone else remember their local phone company charging than
| extra $10/month for the privilege of using DF? This is why my
| family stuck to pulse dialing for a long time.
| rolph wrote:
| https://autovon.org/
|
| http://www.bunkertours.co.uk/autovon.html
|
| https://wd0giv.com/Autovon.html
|
| http://www.paul-f.com/weAutovon.html
| rcarmo wrote:
| That page has the best footer I've seen in a long, long time.
| Animats wrote:
| Here's the earlier system mentioned, MF, shown in an operator
| training film.[1] Two vertical rows of five numeric keys, plus
| the KP and START keys. Those tones were used within the long
| distance system, not out to customers.
|
| The phone system started out entirely manual and slowly migrated
| to fully automatic over decades. Switching was automated before
| billing and routing. What you see in that video is an operator
| who is placing a long distance call for a customer. When this
| film was made, around 1949, local calls were mostly automatic
| dial, but long distance was only semi-automatic. The operator is
| doing the routing and billing. They have to find an idle outgoing
| trunk on their board to the next toll office along the route.
| Then they can use the keyboard to remote control that toll switch
| to connect them another step forward. When they get to the
| desired end office, which connects to customer lines, they can
| punch in the number of the final destination phone and complete
| the call. Lots of things can go wrong; hence all the different
| blinking light signals.
|
| All this was gradually automated, before computers, using relays
| and special purpose hardware.
|
| Some background info:[2]
|
| [1] https://archive.org/details/Operator1949
|
| [2] http://atlantatelephonehistory.org/atlanta:part3
| IgorPartola wrote:
| A few years ago I read a story online which may or may not be
| true but that went something like this: the poster worked in a
| call center that would auto dial random numbers to do whatever
| telemarketers do. One day he got a high level official at a three
| letter agency who was quite upset at being called because "you
| shouldn't have been able to dial this number". The agency
| allegedly sent agents to the call center to investigate how that
| was possible.
|
| For a long time I've been wondering exactly what the mechanism of
| this kind of phone call would have been and I wonder if it was
| one of these priority keys that was used.
|
| Incidentally, now whenever I get a call from my pal Scam Likely I
| answer it with "FBI Fraud Prevention Division, this is Brennan"
| or "911, what's the location of your emergency?" or "is he dead?
| I told you not to call me unless he is dead!" I've had a bit of
| good fun with these.
| shellback3 wrote:
| AUTOVON brings back memories from the mid 1960s. I was on a US
| Navy Oiler which was getting some maintanance from the shipyard
| in Subic Bay, PI. The shipyard officer we were assigned hosted a
| small party at his home and learning that I had been frustrated
| in not been able to complete a phone call to my wife in
| California imitated a call for me from his phone. Amazingly the
| call went through almost instantly and as I heard my wife answer
| an operator said more or less: "Sir, are you aware that this
| priority is used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and ... . Sir what
| is your name, rank, and position?" Operating under the conceit
| that I may be stupid but not that stupid I quickly hung up.
|
| The handset was a 'regular' one, not the one illustrated.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| And a reminder of how unsecure and unencrypted these
| communications channels were. That operator not only could
| listen in, but was certainly instructed to listen in on all
| such priority calls in order to police them. No encryption. No
| channel hopping. Anyone with a handset and a pair of alligator
| clips could have literally clipped into the line at any point.
| Anyone in the know would also be able to monitor a trunk line
| looking for that priority signal. So it would probably have
| been more secure to hide amongst the masses by _not_ pushing
| the priority buttons.
| yencabulator wrote:
| Much like today's TCP/IP world, the encryption was layered on
| top of the phone call. The military used codebooks, code
| words, and authorization codes.
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