Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id VAA20128; Mon, 8 Dec 1997 21:24:08 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 21:24:08 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199712090224.VAA20128@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #343 TELECOM Digest Mon, 8 Dec 97 21:24:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 343 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Toll-Fraud Through Call-Forwarding Again! (ctelesca@pagesz.net) Free 911 Service for Cellular Phones (Greg Monti) Misdialing 911 From Hotels? (Eric Bohlman) RBOC Stall Tactics (Adam Gaffin) Book Review: "The McGraw-Hill Internet Training Manual" (Rob Slade) Unwanted Callers (Babu Mengelepouti) Beware Call Answering (Dan Pearl) Waste of NNX Space? (Joey Lindstrom) Telecom on the New York City Subway System? (Lee Winson) Using RealPlayer on the Web (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ctelesca@pagesz.net Subject: Toll-Fraud through Call-Forwarding Again! Date: Sun, 07 Dec 1997 15:37:18 -0500 Organization: Pagesz.net Hello again! I have posted several messages to this group over the last 18 months about some problems I was having with someone other than myself remotely forwarding my phone number to long-distance numbers without my persmission -- perhaps by hacking the PIN to the RACF service. Some readers have responded to these earlier posts, and I am re-posting the original post with the responses and my answers to them. Perhaps someone out there will be able to make some suggestions on how to find out who this fraud has been perpetrated -- other than to make the same suggestions that this respondent made. Something that an FBI agent suggested was that this could be some kind of software glitch with the software that runs the RACF feature. Can anybody tell me what specific software pakage runs RACF for BellSouth, and who wrote it? Nortel, Bellcore, etc.? The FBI agent also suggested that someone could have also hacked into telco billing records to get phone numbers. Is that possible? I wrote: > Hello again! I have posted several messages to this group over the > last 17 months or so about some problems I was having with someone > apparently hacking the PIN number to a Remote-Access to > Call-Forwarding service, remotely forwarding my phone number to > long-distance numbers without my knowledge or permission. It wasn't > until a friend of mine called me on another line to tell me that > someone other than me answered on my line that I knew something was > up. A respondent said: > I haven't seen the previous posts. It sounds to me like your PIN was > observed sometime when you used it. How would that be possible if I have taken every precaution to only use this feature when no one else was around? And when I used it on a phone with Last Number Redial, I always hung-up the phone and dialed some other number to delete my PIN (or any other useful data)? > It may be someone you know. How else would someone learn the number > of your friend? No one else (not even the friends who would have access to my RACF PIN) know my other friend's number. I'm very careful to compartment- alize information. > They are unlikely to have hacked the number from trial-and-error, What about using a computer and a modem to hack the PIN? It is only a four-character PIN, and I've been told it would only take a few hours to do that, considering that there are no anti-hacking/anti-fraud safeguards on the RACF access phone number. > therefore they either observed you using it, Once again, not likely -- I don't use the RACF number around other people, and I erase the data from LNR. > recorded it with a tap I asked the phone company to see if my phone was tapped, and they said it wasn't. Of course, they didn't have to tell me if there was a legal Court-ordered tap on the phone, or if the Teleco was monitoring my phone on their own. > or with a radio scanner, (do you use a cell phone or a cordless ?) No cell or cordless phones ever! > obtained it from a file on one of your computers All computer files are encrypted (via PGP) - besides I don't keep any telco phone data on my computer. > or went through your wallet. Don't keep this info written down in un-encrypted form in my wallet, or anywhere else for that matter! > Review the security of the PIN number itself. Did you select it or was > it given to you in an interceptable manner. PIN number was selected by the Security staff of the Teleco and sent to my PO Box via USPS snail-mail. But that doesn't mean that there couldn't be a bad apple on the telco staff. > Was it recorded anywhere? Not by me - maybe by Teleco personnel? > Who else would have access to your telephones? No convenient access by anyone other than me. My phone only has one extension in my home-office, if you don't consider the Network Interface box under my kitchen window (in a fenced-off backyard) or at the phone utility box (at the street under a streetlight). > Where have you used the number ? Could the number have been retrieved > from a telephone's 'redial' button by someone who could translate the > tones to numbers? Already thought of that; I always hang-up and enter another number, then hit LNR to make sure that the RACF PIN is erased. > Change the pin and keep a history of it's use. When it gets stolen > again, you may have a clue to the culprit. There is something like $85 million in toll-fraud through Remote-Access to Call-Forwarding in this country, largely through dialing into a PBX/Centrex system and finding out how to get an outside line. However, most of these systems have ways of detecting this fraud and preventing it. Not so with residential RACF service where there are only four-character PINs, no anti-fraud features, and teleco personnel who don't feel its worth their time to solve a problem that's so small; $85 million must be small potatoes, and they can get the customers to pay for it anyway (otherwise their phone service gets cut off). ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 Dec 1997 17:10:22 From: Greg Monti Subject: Free 911 Service for Cellular Phones A brief AP wire story ran in _The New York Times_ on Wednesday, December 3, 1997. Summary: The Federal Communications Commission has ordered cellular companies to handle and complete calls to the 911 emergency number even if the customer's cellular service has lapsed. The article notes that the decision, on Monday, December 1, "clears the way for rules adopted in June 1996 to go into effect" [I don't know what those rules say]. The story notes that the Commission had delayed this rulemaking so that industry concerns could be met. The rule requires cellular carriers who do not have roaming agreements with the subscriber's home carrier to also complete 911 calls for free. My comment: I wonder if industry concerns were really addressed. As was noted previously on this newsgroup, cellular carriers worry that the users who now have $19.95 per month service "for emergencies" could potentially disconnect that service and use their disarmed cell phones to make 911 calls forever, for free. Greg Monti Jersey City, New Jersey, USA gmonti@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~gmonti ------------------------------ From: Eric Bohlman Subject: Misdialing 911 From Hotels? Organization: Netcom On-Line Services Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 00:02:05 GMT The following appeared in an article in the December 7, 1997 edition of the _St. Petersburg[FL] Times_: [begin excerpt] Clearwater police are suspicious about the number of 911 calls that come from rooms at the Fort Harrison Hotel. Police respond to each call only to be told most of the time by Scientology security guards that the call was a mistake. Police are not allowed to check individual rooms where the calls originated. In the past 11 months, 161 calls to 911 were made from rooms in the hotel, but each time Scientology security guards said there was no emergency. Scientology officials say most of the calls are mistakes that occur when foreign visitors try to dial the international access code, 011, after dialing a 9 to get an outside line. They are working with police to resolve the problem, Fugate said. [end excerpt] Is this considered a common problem at hotels that have large numbers of non-US visitors? What percentage of 911 calls in general turn out to be the result of misdialing? Do PBX/Centrex systems for hotel applications make some attempt to detect dialing that *might* be an attempt to reach 911 and reroute it on the assumption that someone in an emergency might be misdialing out of panic? Background: the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, FL is owned by the Church of Scientology and used primarily to provide lodging for members attending "services" that are only offered in Clearwater. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If police are that concerned, they can certainly obtain a search warrant allowing them to examine the phone switch logs and toll records, etc. I know that people here reading this who happen to be anti-Scientology may think that perhaps 'guests' in the hotel are in fact trying to call police because of some sort of unwanted situation involving the Scientology people, and that the security guards are either stopping them from calling or otherwise dealing with the situation on their own. That is one way of looking at the situation; on the other hand I see an incredible number of foreign people in Skokie (mainly from Russia and middle east areas) who -- it is true -- do not know how to operate a telephone correctly and get wrong numbers or no connection at all. How about this: the 911 person answering the call *can* keep the connection up the same way a telephone operator can do; why don't the police start holding on to those connections, ringing back, etc ... or does the switchboard release the line to the room even if the trunk is held up? And if the room extension is released but the trunk is held (by 911) what happens to the ring back? Does the hotel operator get the call? Why don't the police specifically ask to speak with the guest in question at that time? If the guest had misdialed, then redialed, surely they would still be on the phone thirty seconds later. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Adam Gaffin Subject: RBOC Stall Tactics Date: Mon, 08 Dec 1997 10:46:36 -0500 Organization: Network World Fusion Reply-To: agaffin@nww.com This week's {Network World} takes a look at how RBOCs are thwarting competition in their service areas. And none is more aggressive in keeping out competitors than SBC. "SBC is an order of magnitude harder to get an interconnection agreement with than any other Bell,'' says a vice president of one competitive local exchange carrier. Earlier this year, meanwhile, Pacific Bell withdrew a proposed interconnect tariff that included terms for co-location. Why? The company had been acquired by SBC. Meanwhile, SBC has filed a federal suit to try to overturn the provisions of the telecom act that require RBOCs to open their markets before they can get into long distance. You can read the entire report, and link to our recent three-part series on how the FCC is failing in its new mission to foster competition at: http://www.nwfusion.com/news/1208rboc.html If you haven't used Network World Fusion before, you'll have to register first, but it's free. Adam Gaffin Online editor, Network World agaffin@nww.com / (508) 820-7433 ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 13:35:42 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "The McGraw-Hill Internet Training Manual" Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKMHINTM.RVW 970803 "The McGraw-Hill Internet Training Manual", Ronald L. Wagner/Eric Engelmann, 1996, 0-07-066937-6, U$32.95 %A Ronald L. Wagner rwagner@internext.com %A Eric Engelmann %C 300 Water Street, Whitby, Ontario L1N 9B6 %D 1996 %G 0-07-066937-6 %I McGraw-Hill Ryerson/Osborne %O U$32.95 905-430-5000 +1-800-565-5758 +1-905-430-5134 fax: 905- 430-5020 %P 332 %T "The McGraw-Hill Internet Training Manual" This book is *not* a training manual, Internet or otherwise. In the broad spectrum of technical literature, it falls most closely under the category of short Internet guides, of which the better examples are Brendan Kehoe's "Zen and the Art of the Internet" (cf. BKZENINT.RVW), and the second edition of Tracy LaQuey's "The Internet Companion" (cf. BKINTCMP.RVW). The text is not specifically a "business on the Internet" book, either. It does, though, definitely feel as if it were written by someone for whom business, and particularly marketing, is key, and any other consideration runs a very distant second. Part one is the general overview, with the usual pep talk, history, background, and warnings. Nothing is really wrong, but there is very little detail to get wrong. Part two is, I suppose, intended to be the "training" section. It consists of a series of very program- specific, keystroke-by-keystroke, hands-on "activities." Part three is kind of a catchall, including some material on HTML (HyperText Markup Language), Internet security (not *much* security), and online commerce. The reason that the book bulks large in comparison to a lot of the shorter guides lies in a lot of verbiage and wasted space. Why have pages of pointless pictures of computers connected by squiggly lines? Why thirty pages of lessons on how to use Windows for Workgroups? On the other hand, why try to cover the extremely important topic of Internet search engines in only twice as much space as is devoted to increasing the size of Netscape's cache? Why say that you won't cover the standard internet tools -- and then cover them, anyway? (Why cover telnet, and then fail to give information on how to get a telnet client program?) For someone who is starting at the very beginning and is using Windows for Workgroups, Eudora Professional, and Netscape Navigator 3.0, this book provides enough information to get started. That does seem a limited audience and target, though. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997 BKMHINTM.RVW 970803 rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@sprint.ca slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca virus, book info at http://www.freenet.victoria.bc.ca/techrev/rms.html Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses, 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Dec 1997 09:08:59 -0800 From: Babu Mengelepouti Reply-To: dialtone@vcn.bc.ca Organization: US Secret Service Subject: Unwanted Callers aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) wrote: A clueless collection agency used to call my last employer's business line looking for someone who may or may not have worked there years ago. We did a good job of tormenting stock brokers and telemarketers there, so finally, after about six months of abuse, the totally frustrated collection agent shouted, "I know she's there, you're keeping me from her!," and we never heard from her again. --> My phone is generally used only for data and I receive all voice calls via my pager. This helps me to preserve my privacy -- I do not want to be forced to talk to someone if I'm not in the mood. So it's a really safe bet that when my phone rings (I'm not kidding, NOBODY has my phone number, not even my mother), it's not someone that I want to talk to. And it's likely someone telemarketing or hitting me with some other form of voice spam. Therefore ... I know that it's time to have some FUN! Here are a few things that I do: - If it is a collection agent (which has happened a couple of times, looking for the previous owner of the number), I will say "Yeah, he's not going to pay you so you might as well forget it" and other defiant statements that make the collection agent FURIOUS. And I steadfastly refuse to allow the agent to speak to the previous owner of the number, which further steams them. - If it is a telemarketer, I will wait until they pause, then say "Yes, I just have one question," enthusiastically. Of course, they'll answer any questions that I like ... so I ask them simply "How often do you have sexual activity?" if male, and "Yes, I was curious, are you mensturating right now?" if female. None of the telemarketers have ever answered the question, and most of them end up hanging up on ME. Which I think is hilarious -- it reverses the role of who gets hung up on. I used to ask for THEIR home phone number. But it backfired a few times and these people actually gave it to me. They were so eager to make a sale that they didn't mind calls at home. So the above method evolved over time. - There are two exceptions to the above rule. If it is a newspaper salesman, regardless of what the paper is, I start complaining as long as the telemarketer will listen (and his supervisor if I get passed on) at how angry I am that the newspaper does not carry Rush Limbaugh's column (I don't know if Rush Limbaugh actually has a column, but it sounds good). This I do while sounding like a confused drunk hick. Throughout the course of the conversation, it's important to say "MEGA DITTOES!" at random intervals, and also make regular references to "them queers who are ruining our soil, building landing strips for gay martians." While it is important not to break out laughing while speaking, it is possible. The second exception is if it is a phone company of any sort, and then I start asking them for detailed information on their network. Such as if I could get a fiber map, how widely spaced their repeaters are placed, whether they've deployed SONET, if they have implemented a self-healing network, etc. This is always very amusing, since the telemarketers invariably understand nothing about telecommunications, and usually nobody in their fraud hive does either. Incidentally I did telemarketing as a part-time job in high school, and was pretty good at it. Hence I know what frustrates telemarketers absolutely: taking up lots of their time for no sale. And newspapers and phone companies are the only ones who will continue calling you forever. Eventually other companies get the word if enough of their telemarketers hang up on you. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 16:11:40 EST From: Dan Pearl Subject: Beware Call Answering "Call Answering" is Bell Atlantic's name for the answering machine that they have in their switch. Today, after about one month of not hearing any stuttering dial tone (which indicates a waiting message), I get the stutter. When I dial in for messages, I am astonished to hear 16 previously unheard messages going back to early November. The Call Answering specialist at Bell Atlantic says that there is a problem if I don't have the latest central office hardware. (I have 5ESS, the same as she does at her home.) She recommends that if a few days go by, and I don't hear any stutters, then I should call repair service, and the programmer will restore the stutter. She claimed that the service is reliable "95% of the time". She informed me that the Call Answering for Eastern MA was down this morning (10am) and that there was no estimate for its return. I told her that it was up, that I got the stutter, and called in. I conclude that they needed to reboot the Call Answering server, and rebooting reinitialized the stutter. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That same service as offered by Ameritech has a provision in the Options Menu to 'turn call notification on or off ...' which I think means turningon or off the stutter dial tone. Have you looked at the user options available on your end? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Sat, 06 Dec 97 17:42:35 -0700 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: Waste of NNX Space? On Fri, 5 Dec 1997 22:40:39 -0500 (EST), David Leibold wrote: > TimeLine reads back times of upcoming buses to callers. Each bus stop > is assigned a telephone number, usually on the 416-539 NXX (I don't > know if any other 416-NXX is used in TimeLine service). +1 416 539 > 2737 is a good sample number to try for curious callers. Ah. Wonderful. How many bus stops? How many individual telephone numbers wasted? In Calgary, we've got a similar service available, called "Teleride". And initially it was set up in much the same way, with each stop (actually it was usually a pair or trio of stops) given a four-digit code. To find out bus information (next bus, following bus, etc.) for a stop, you simply dialed (403) 260-xxxx where xxxx was the stop number. But they changed it a few years ago, presumably after some pressure from Telus. Now you dial (403) 974-4000 (ie: just *ONE* telephone number used), then after it answers you key in your 4-digit stop number. And believe it or not, customers find this less confusing. And we wonder why we're constantly running out of telephone numbers in our local NPA's ... and yet we continue to see line number waste like this. Shameful ... :-) / From: The Desk Of Joey Lindstrom +1 403 606-3853 +1 403 282-JOEY / EMAIL: joey@lindstrom.com numanoid@ab.imag.net lindstrj@cadvision.com / WEBB: http://www.ab.imag.net/worldwidewebb/ / / If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer? / --Steven Wright ------------------------------ From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (Lee Winson) Subject: Telecom on the New York City Subway System? Date: 7 Dec 1997 01:44:08 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS Per the recent post describing the telephone system in Toronto's subway system, I was wondering if anyone knew about the New York City subway system's phone system? For instance, before radios, they had telephones at frequent intervals within all the tunnels in case of train breakdown. Are those phones still there and working? (Tunnel vandalism is a problem.) Have phones in out of the way places been upgrade from plain rotary to dial? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The Chicago Transit Atrocity -- err -- Authority used to have phones in the motorman's compartment on each train, and the conversation was carried on the third rail (the one which is electrified and runs the trains.) The connections were never very good; they always had a hiss and static but it seemed to work. At some point those lines were then interconnected into the PBX system at the CTA's headquarters. Now they use radios, in the 471 megs range. I can get them on my scanner. All the busses are likewise equipped with a phone on the wall next to the driver. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 20:25:36 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Using RealPlayer on the Web It is very disappointing trying to listen/view stuff on the net with RealPlayer. It seems to spend most of its time dealing with 'net congestion - rebuffering' rather than actually presenting whatever the material is. My configuration is RealPlayer 5.0 with IE 3.0. I have tried using Compuserve, AOL, and MSN (that is, the access to Internet and the web) and get more or less the same results. I have tried different transports and different amounts of buffer space. I originally used whatever defaults are built in, and when it responded by spending 30 seconds 'rebuffering' in order to play for five or ten seconds I tried changing some things. Last night I arranged to give it every spare bit of memory I had in a machine with 16KB ram ... it sat there for a couple minutes getting loaded up. My assumption -- apparently faulty -- was that the larger the buffer, the less likely it would be to run out or have the stream dry up. None the less, all I did was get a few seconds more before it died and said once again, 'net congestion - rebuffering' and that time it never did recover and start playing again. Apparently I gave it to much space; maybe it overwrote something else in error. This happens whether it is a live feed or if it is something canned, no differece. It literally just jerks along, plays a few seconds, freezes for a bit, plays a few seconds more, etc. Anyone have any suggestions, or is this just the state of the net these days, and nothing can be done? I have noticed kind of a neat thing: Once the audio stream is started and running -- the frequent stops and starts for rebuffering and all -- the window with RealPlayer can be minimized or hidden away completely and I can go on with other jobs while listening to whatever ... even going out on the web to other sites, etc, provided the other site does not also need RealPlayer. I have about the same experience with NetShow, so suggestions on that are welcome also. Are things like this basically just big wastes of net resources (with predictable results) or is there a way to use them satisfactorily? PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #343 ******************************