Date: 22 Oct 2000 06:15:09 -0400 Message-ID: <20001022101509.21437.qmail@xuxa.iecc.com> From: owner-telecom-digest@telecom-digest.org (Telecom Digest) To: telecom-digest@telecom-digest.org Subject: Telecom Digest V2000 #96 Reply-To: editor@telecom-digest.org Sender: owner-telecom-digest@telecom-digest.org Errors-To: owner-telecom-digest@telecom-digest.org Precedence: bulk X-UIDL: 95a7a724f978ae4198f88d79f754a49a Status: RO X-Status: Telecom Digest Sunday, October 22 2000 Volume 2000 : Number 096 In this issue: Re: service theft problem Re: service theft problem Re: service theft problem Re: Web-based email services offer employees little privacy Re: service theft problem re-dialer or dialed number "editor" Re: re-dialer or dialed number "editor" Electronic Telegraph -- Internet users face £5m bill over BT error Uncreative Destruction: Internet in the Balance -- George Gilder in WSJ Do You Know Where Your Kids Are? Re: service theft problem ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Oct 2000 07:39:27 -0400 From: David Lind Subject: Re: service theft problem In article <39EFBD49.54CF@Prodigy.Net>, fws@IEEE.org wrote: > My son is having a problem where it appears that someone is bridging his > line and making toll calls and 900 line calls. He calls the phone > company, they say it's an outside line wiring problem, they say they fix > it and then next month more strange numbers are on the bill. It is an > apartment complex, but I don't know if there is a phone cross-connect > panel in a service room or if it is one in a public area. Someone is > committing service theft and has picked my son's line(and probably > several others too). The bills keep mounting, and the phone company > hasn't been good about credit for the bogus calls. > > Has anyone who has been in this kind of situation been able to get the > problem solved? and get restitution from the phone company? Any > suggestions on how he should procede? > Just a guess... Find out where the access panel is for the phone lines are and have this secured as well as a new lock to the room in which it is located. Maybe the building manager can help. I would talk to other tenants. The phone lines to a friends complex are located in the laundry room. If I were a thief, it would be easy to get access. -- David Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 2000 08:04:13 -0400 From: dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) Subject: Re: service theft problem In sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steve Sobol) writes: >>From 'Fred Schimmel': [story of someone apparently tapping into his son's phone line and making lots and lots of unwanted calls] >>Has anyone who has been in this kind of situation been able to get the >>problem solved? and get restitution from the phone company? Any >>suggestions on how he should procede? There are a bunch of possibilities here. a) I've got to point this out: it's possible your son is lying. Among other reasons to suspect this: If somone else is tying up his line making lots of fraudulent calls, there's a good chance that he'd bump into them on occassion when he picks up his telephone (or someone calling him would get a busy signal). Now, if he (or a roommate) isn't making teh calls, we go to some factual issues: b) As others have pointed out, if he's in an apartment building or similar complex, then there's a big panel box in the basment where his, and dozens of other phone lines, enter. It's trivial to patch into them through a brute force wiretap. BUT, BUT, BUT... people who know how to do this are unlikely to stay on teh same circuit since it makes it easy to backtrack. The telco security folk might, among other tricks, check the 75 suspicious calls and look for a pattern, etc. (Yes, some of these assholes are dumb, but not too many of them). Another possibility is that there's a "bridge tap" on the line. It often turns out that not only does the circuit appear at the box in the basement, BUT it might also run to five other boxes, including one three miles away. (Bridge taps are one of the great secrets of the phone system. They're also one fo the biggest headaches around). These are a consequence of the way phone wires were run and then spliced and respliced and rerouted, etc. Anyway, this means that a rewiring of teh last fifty feet to your son's apt isn't always going to help. AND there's another possibilty: c) fradulent billing: What telephone company is printing up these bills? It's not unheard of for some of them to make charges up out of thin air. AND d) computer/modem fraud: There are all sorts of nifty computer programs you can download from (typically) porn sites without even realizing it. These will make your modem dial out to a whole bunch of extra cost (900 and international) calls. ANYWAY, what to do: 1) run, do not walk, to Radio Shack and get a "line in use" lamp. This will let your son know as soon as someone picks up that other extension. (This *might* not work on a bridge tap depending on how far away it is, etc.) 2) have the line BLOCKED for "900" and international calls. Also, perhaps, for all toll calls. Make them using a calling card. 3) Lean on the telco to clean this up. Have them verify that your son's line is direct copper from teh central office to the basment box, and that there are no other appearances or bridge taps. If there are any, ahve them fix it. 4) Another useful option (but this one is a bit tricky, especially in NJ) is to have the line converted to an ISDN circuit. You *might* be able to get the telco to place a dedicated ISDN de-converter box in your son's apt and pretend that it's all a regular phone line tariffwise. Even if the nogudnick patches into the ISDN circuit he won't be able to do anything. This might actually be easier if your son has multiple lines.. (An ISDN circuit gives you the equivalent of two phone lines on that single pair). - -- _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 2000 10:17:41 -0400 From: Roy Smith Subject: Re: service theft problem heywood@gloucester.com (Heywood Jaiblomi) wrote: > Doresn't even have to be at the cross connect panel. Most high rises > have a 25 pair or two of them running up the vertical between floors, > all the culprit has to do is pick a pair going through the box on his > wall, tap on, and make the calls. Box? What box? In the last apartment building I lived in, all that was done was to run a 25-pair cable up a stack of bedroom closets. At at each floor, they left a loop in the cable, sliced open the outer sheath, and fanned out the pairs inside, right in the clothes closet. - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 2000 12:19:49 -0400 From: tongtao_98@yahoo.com (Tao Tong) Subject: Re: Web-based email services offer employees little privacy In article , Monty Solomon wrote: >Web-based email services offer employees little privacy > >By Rachel Konrad and Sam Ames >Staff Writers, CNET News.com >October 3, 2000, 1:30 p.m. PT > >Everyone knows the boss can read all of the email you send and >receive through your corporate account. > >Unfortunately, security experts say many employees would be surprised >to know that Web-based email services also offer little privacy. >Messages sent via a Yahoo or Hotmail account, or through instant >messaging products, such as ICQ or America Online's Instant Messenger >(AIM), are just as accessible to nosy employers. > >http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-2924978.html >-- >The Telecom Digest is currently robomoderated. Please mail >messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. They can always use PGP, right? - -- Tao Tong 1327 E15th Street, 2nd Floor Brooklyn, NY 11230 http://www.geocities.com/tongtao_98/ - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 2000 16:08:35 -0400 From: "Reed Blake" Subject: Re: service theft problem Don't forget that if he has an older cordless phone, some one else in the area with the same type of phone could be connecting to his base station. Roy Smith wrote in message ... >heywood@gloucester.com (Heywood Jaiblomi) wrote: >> Doresn't even have to be at the cross connect panel. Most high rises >> have a 25 pair or two of them running up the vertical between floors, >> all the culprit has to do is pick a pair going through the box on his >> wall, tap on, and make the calls. > >Box? What box? In the last apartment building I lived in, all that was >done was to run a 25-pair cable up a stack of bedroom closets. At at >each floor, they left a loop in the cable, sliced open the outer sheath, >and fanned out the pairs inside, right in the clothes closet. >-- >The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail >messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 2000 18:13:22 -0400 From: Michael Grant Subject: re-dialer or dialed number "editor" I am looking for a small device which I can program to redirect an outgoing call or rather "edit" the number being dialed. I'm imagining a small box that I can plug in a telephone and an external line (or said otherwise, a box which goes between the telephone and the outside line). When I pick up the telephone, I get a dial tone. If I were to dial 0800123456, the box would turn around and dial 0044800123456 for me on the outside line. It would edit the number by chopping off the leading 0 and replacing it with 0044. Does such a box exist or anyone have any plans on how to simply build such a box? I tried to search the archives but couldn't really figure out what to call this sort of thing. - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 2000 20:01:38 -0400 From: "Andy Berry" Subject: Re: re-dialer or dialed number "editor" "Michael Grant" wrote in message news:200010212211.AAA03801@splat.grant.org... > I am looking for a small device which I can program to redirect an > outgoing call or rather "edit" the number being dialed. I'm imagining > a small box that I can plug in a telephone and an external line (or > said otherwise, a box which goes between the telephone and the outside > line). When I pick up the telephone, I get a dial tone. If I were to > dial 0800123456, the box would turn around and dial 0044800123456 for > me on the outside line. It would edit the number by chopping off the > leading 0 and replacing it with 0044. > > Does such a box exist or anyone have any plans on how to simply build > such a box? I tried to search the archives but couldn't really figure > out what to call this sort of thing. You want what I call a "dialer" (AKA speed dialer or auto dialer). All kinds of businesses use these, but the most prevalent is (was?) by long distance companies before equal access to dial an access number, so that the customer only had to dial "1+". I'm pretty sure that they are versatile enough to do what you describe, but I have never used one in this way, so you might check. Check out the following link. (Note: I have never used either the Smart 1 or this company, I just did a quick search to find an example.) http://www.telsoftinfo.com/mitel.htm Andy B. - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 2000 23:18:30 -0400 From: "Ed Ellers" Subject: Electronic Telegraph -- Internet users face £5m bill over BT error BRITISH Telecom (BT) is struggling to claw back £5 million from its customers after a computer fault gave them free access to the internet for six months. Up to a million users of internet services managed by BT on behalf of other firms have unwittingly been getting free calls. Now the customers, possibly including those whose internet access is provided by W H Smith and Tesco, are being hit with big backdated bills. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=003672982144297&rtmo=r2kbrEFX&atmo=rrrrrrvs &pg=/et/00/10/22/nbt22.html - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 2000 23:23:49 -0400 From: "Ed Ellers" Subject: Uncreative Destruction: Internet in the Balance -- George Gilder in WSJ Gore's policies would lay waste to cyberspace. BY GEORGE GILDER A few weeks back, Al Gore, mocking his own penchant for hyperbole, bantered with David Letterman's "Late Show" audience: "I gave you the Internet--and I can take it away." This is no joke. While Republicans waste time with captious critiques of the straight-arrow Gore's credibility and character, the real threat posed by the Democratic candidate is utterly ignored. Mr. Gore's policies would impose an energy, tax and regulatory garrote on the Internet. http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=65000446 (Unlike The Wall Street Journal's main site, OpinionJournal does *not* require registration.) - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 2000 23:40:24 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Do You Know Where Your Kids Are? Do You Know Where Your Kids Are? by Declan McCullagh 2:00 a.m. Oct. 21, 2000 PDT WASHINGTON -- Federal agencies seem to be having problems satisfying a children's privacy law. The U.S. Justice Department's kids' website collects information about minors without asking for parents' permission. That appears to violate the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. The law does not normally apply to federal agencies, but the Clinton administration pledged to abide by its guidelines this summer. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,39607,00.html - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 2000 04:41:58 -0400 From: "Ron Bean" Subject: Re: service theft problem dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) writes: >c) fradulent billing: > >What telephone company is printing up these bills? It's not unheard of for >some of them to make charges up out of thin air. How common is this, and how do you prove it? Some time ago I mentioned a bogus 900 charge that showed up on my bill a few years ago, and PAT refused to even consider that it might be a billing error-- he insisted that someone *must* have tapped into my line somewhere. >2) have the line BLOCKED for "900" and international calls. Also, perhaps, >for all toll calls. Make them using a calling card. This would be my first step. I thought 900 blocking was mandatory if you want to get any cooperation out of the phone company. I've considered having all toll calls blocked as well, because I only make one or two a year (that's what email is for :-). - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ End of Telecom Digest V2000 #96 *******************************