Telecom/1996-04-telecom-walnutcreek.iso/back.issues/1988.volume.8/misc.telecom.msgs

Internet Message Format | 1991-01-20 | 74KB

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From: "Patrick A. Townson" <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject:  other lists for the archives
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29-Feb-88 12:34:52-EST,37464;000000000001
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Date:     Mon, 29 Feb 88 9:56:09 CST
From:     Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  Back traffic for Digests

Maybe the enclosed will be of help to you. While the Telecom list was on
hiatus, I had accumulated the following traffic related to Telecom topics
from the Info-Modems list. I append it below. It may be that some of the
traffic that was lost due to the missing Digests included items from
this. There were several postings with the Subject: of "Enterprise Numbers"
that I have deleted from this group before sending it, because I found them
duplicated in Digest #30. Maybe the others were what was in the missing #s
29 and 31, 32? Anyway, here's the data:

Regards, Will Martin

***Begin Telecom-related postings***
Date: 25 Dec 87 01:41:01 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Subject: Re: Sophisticated modems and Call Waiting

Dave Levenson questions having two lines in the same hunt group when one is
used for modeming --

My modems will auto answer, but generally I don't use that feature, and I
usually leave it turned off via software. My configuration, which I think is
ideal, works like this --

We only give out one number to persons calling. This number is mainly for
voice. The second number is mainly for my outbound modem calls, and I never
give the number to anyone except a person I am expecting to receive a modem
call from.

Both lines have call waiting, and the ability to suspend same (*70). When a
call is in progress on line one and a second call arrives, call waiting will
notify us. The second call can be brought in, and under Starline, switched
to the second line by /flash/#2/announce/flash. I get the call on the second
line, my roomate goes back to the call already in progress on line one.

If we wish, implementing cancel call waiting on line one forces a second
incoming call to <hunt> to line two. If I am on the modem (i.e. cancel
call waiting by default) then busy is returned to the second caller. If
not, then line two rings and the call is answered.

If on the other hand we each have a call on a line and a <third> call comes
in, it will be via call waiting (usually on line one) and it can be
answered and retained on line one or transferred to line two, where again,
it will trigger call waiting. It can be answered by whichever of us is on
line two, and held or disposed of.

If I am on a modem call (almost always outgoing), then *70 is defaulted into
the dialing string...and an accidental wrong number, for example, which would
otherwise ring line two and disturb me is shunted via hunt to line one....

Line one appears on single line instruments in the kitchen and my roomate's
bedroom, and in the living room area. Line two appears on a single line

phone in my bedroom and on the two modems (I will never be in both places
at the same time). A Black Box swither allows either my Apple computer or
my terminal to use either modem....and allows either modem to use the phone
line, or allows the terminal to talk to the computer via null modem or
to the printer, etc.

Starline is an extremely flexible and powerful communications system from
Illinois Bell. Not only can you physically switch calls between lines, you
can answer any ringing line from any other free line; the lines function as
an in-house intercom to each other (distinctive call waiting tones advise
if it is an outside call waiting or an intercom call waiting); distinctive
ringing advises if a call is from inside or outside; of course it includes
three way calling on each line <as well as on [each half] of a call waiting
situation>; a 32 number speed dialing arrangement; call forwarding; no charge
for intercom calling; automatic transfer to another line on busy or no
answer after three rings; and more. I highly recommend it if you use your
phones alot and share the phones with other people.   Patrick Townson

------------------------------

Date: 30 Dec 87 08:07:09 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Subject: Shocking Price For Starline!

When STARLINE comes to your community, you will probably want to dump all
your key equipment and go strictly with this neat centrex-like package.

Here is a breakdown of what I pay for "Items of Service" each month to the
Mother Company --

1 Non-pub directory    1.45  (covers both lines - both non-pub)
1 Touchtone service     .73  (first line)
1 Touchtone service     .73  (second line)
1 Line charges         4.53  (first line)
1 Line charges         4.53  (second line)
1 Supplemental chge    2.00  (line one - courtesy of Judge Greene)
1 Supplemental chge    2.00  (line two - courtesy of Judge Greene)
1 Starline package     5.52  (line one - see details below)
1 Starline package     5.52  (line two - see details below)
30 number speed dial   5.00  system feature covering both lines
1 System call forwding 2.50  system feature covering both lines
1 system call-waiting    2.50  system feature covers both lines

This totals out to $37.01 per month, of which $2.50 call waiting plus
$2.50 call forwarding and $5.00 speed dialing would be charged anyway without
Starline.

What you get for the $5.52 per line/month with Starline is the following
features --
You may have between 2 and 6 lines on the system. Each has its own number for
receiving calls. Each line would cost $5.52.  My two lines therefore cost
about $11.00

Each line is an intercom to the others. Use #2 through #8 to signal desired
line. Distintive ring identifies intercom (long single ring) versus incoming
central office call (short double ring/pause/short double ring, etc).

Answer an incoming call (intercom or central office) from the nearest phone
by dialing *9. The call is immediatly transferred to your line.

30 number convenience dialing is a SYSTEM feature. Pay for it once ($5.00) but
use it/program it from any phone on the system. Speed numbers are programmed
like this: *75 SN xxx-xxxx  where SN is the desired speed number (*20 through
*49) and xxx is the local or long distance number to be associated. You will
therefore save $5 per line after the first for each line you desire to have
this feature otherwise.

Three way calling is included. Just flash, dial the third party number, and
flash again to reconnect. There is no charge for this SYSTEM feature, which
means saving about $2.50 for whatever lines you would otherwise have it on.
Unlike conventional three way calling where if you disconnect the parties you
connected to also drop off, under Starline if you set up a three way call --
or transfer an incoming call out of the system -- the parties remain connected
until [they] choose to disconnect. In effect you operate a mini-switchboard.

To hold a call and take a call waiting (or intercom waiting), flash, dial
*8 and the new call is online (if the call was camped on to you) or dial
*8 then *9 to hold your party and pick up a ringing line elsewhere.

Either tell the latest call to hold while you finish your first call or
dispose of it. Flash and dial an intercom number (or an outside number) and
when it answers, announce transfer and hang up. Phone will ring and party
you left earlier on hold will return... or if you prefer, tell second call
to hold, flash, dial *8 and [he] goes to the bottom of the stack and your
first call pops up again. You can, as I said earlier, transfer an incoming
call off net out of your system elsewhere if desired.

Call waiting tones are distinctive; to advise if an intercom is waiting or
a central office call is waiting so you can use an appropriate answer phrase.
As long as someone is on hold on your line, flashing and dialing *8 will pop
the stack and bring the one on hold back up and stash the other one on hold.

You pay one call waiting charge to cover all lines ($2.50) and save the
same amount you don't have to pay for the other lines.

Any phone can be call-forwarded either to another phone in the system or
off-net as desired. You pay one fee $2.50 which covers all lines. The
protocol for forwarding is the usual one, except for forwarding to intercom
lines an answer (or second dialing) is not required to confirm it. All
central office calls will forward as instructed -- intercom calls will NOT
forward, thus allowing you to shunt outside calls while retaining a line
to others in the system.

An additional feature included in the STARLINE package at no additional
charge is called "Forward on Busy/No Answer". It's alot like hunt, except
that it will also hunt automatically (if programmed at the central office)
to another station in the system after three rings. This may sound like a
moot point, and it is with only two stations as I have...but in a large house
where you might not hear a phone ringing elsewhere, it is handy.
Mine are set so that line one hunts to line two on busy or after three
rings, and in reverse, line two to one under the same conditions. Since
both lines have call waiting, the lines are never "truly busy" in the
central office unless I have implemented "cancel call waiting" on one
or both lines.

Intercom calls are also subject to the Forward On Busy/No Answer provision.
However, call forwarding takes precedence over this feature. That is, if
line one is call-forwarded off net, as it sometimes is, an incoming call
encountering a busy on line two will attempt to hunt line one and will go off
net in the process....an unanswered call however will be just that...not
answered on line two. Intercom calls are subject to the central office forward
on busy/no answer but not subject to manual call forwarding.

For all this, I pay (in addition to regular charges) $5.52 times 2 per month
plus ONE SET of charges for "custom calling features". For me it nets out to
an increase of about $5-6 per month. If I had 3-6 lines, it would be
different. After the first two lines, the monthly STARLINE fee of $5.52
per line is just about covered by what custom calling charges would be.

In actual practice, my TOTAL bill to Illinois Bell is about $150 per month.
Besides the $37 or so in fees, I go through about 2000-2500 message units
per month at 4 - 5.5 cents each. I pay $11.10 for Bonus Reach Out Plans, and
$50-60 in long distance charges.

Here we also pay about fifty cents each time we deign to ask the Directory
Enquiry anything at all, and they also hit you up good for calls to 976
and/or the "900 Service Corporation" a/k/a horoscopes, dial-smut, and
chat with eight others at once.

Oh yeah....our apartment building also has "Enterphone Service"; a lobby/front
door to apartment intercom which works on the regular phone line. The building
pays for this. A caller at the front door uses the lobby phone to call the
apartment and announce himself...we dial "4" to unlatch the front door.
If not for my STARLINE, "Enterphone" functions alot the same way; distinctive
ringing or call waiting tones mean a front door caller; you answer or not
as desired. The front door caller only sees an intercom code which does not
relate to a specific apartment number; and he does NOT see or find out your
non-published number.

Since I have STARLINE, the intercom ring and ENTERPHONE ring come out the
same...

Enterphone is offered by Illinois Bell. A sturdy outdoor type phone is mounted
at the front door; a pair runs to dedicated equipment in the central office;
a pair runs back to a transformer which in turn buzzes or unlocks the door.
The pairs to our building from the central office of necessity are dedicated
since they have to serve not only our phones but Enterphone as well. If you
move in this building and do NOT have phone service, a phone plugged in a
jack will still work with Enterphone. The building pays Bell $100 per month
for the common equipment and $1.10 per month per apartment intercom phone.
Finally --
There is no charge for intercom station to station type calls and there
is no charge for Enterphone calls. Enterphone calls are automatically
timed out after one minute which is plenty of time to answer the door and
take a message or admit the person, etc.

I use an old Apple 2+ computer with a clock program to wake my brother each
day. I set it to make an outdial call at 8 AM, to dial *2, the intercom
number in his bedroom. It dials and sends alternating answer/originate
carrier noises at him (wee hah!  wee hah! wakeup! wakeup!)

The answering machine is based on line one, but answers line two after five
(transparent to the user) rings since on the fourth ring the call has
hunted over to line one, and two rings later the machine picks up. Enterphone
on the other hand overrides all STARLINE features and sticks to line one,
allowing the answering machine to answer the front door when we are out.
I think I have a very powerful and flexible phone package!  Patrick Townson

------------------------------

Date: 30 Dec 87 08:25:56 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Subject: Digital ESS: For The Birds

By the by, if your telco someday announces they are switching to digital
ESS, politely hold up your middle finger and invite them enjoy themselves
with it....

Most unreliable...that's the only way I can describe it.....two central
offices here, Chicago-Kildare and Chicago-Irving both cut to digital ESS
a few weeks ago....

They've both gone down about five times! I swear if they reboot the thing
once a day they do it five times a day....

I am out of Chicago-Edgewater, an "old fashioned" ESS, but our TSPS operators
work out of Irving office; I was talking to a buddy with an Irving number,
the line went dead; I couldn't raise anything there for five minutes, tried
to get the operator, could not raise him either...finally I did get an
operator, asked, "did you go down again"...he sort of giggled, said yes, the
second time this week....   tell your telco NO digital until its de-bugged!

------------------------------

Date: 31 Dec 87 01:01:52 GMT
From: tramp![e-mail]  (GRAESE WILLIAM S)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Subject: Re: Digital ESS: For The Birds

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
=They've both gone down about five times! I swear if they reboot the thing
=once a day they do it five times a day....

We at C U Boulder just got a new AT&T Campus 200 phone system installed a
year and a half ago.  Since then I know of 2 crashes, and I will BET
there have been more.
Actually there are several handy features with the system.  It is an ISDN-
alike with features like auto call back (rings you when extension is free)
as well as 9600 FDX on the 'B' jack, and it supports at least two exchanges
(not fully).  Not bad, albeit the down time.
(BTW, It cost $10.4 million to install!)
![e-mail]------------------------!   ,---.     !
! Bill       |(insert something terribly witty, humorous, )!   | _   _   !
! GraeFe, Jr.|(and inspiring in this space:               )!   `-+-' |   !
!---------{sunybcs, hao}!boulder!tramp!graefe--------------!     `---'   !

------------------------------

Date: 2 Jan 88 07:05:48 GMT
From: mtune!icus![e-mail]  (Gil Kloepfer Jr.)
Subject: Digital ESS: For The Birds

Although it IS indeed annoying when the phone system screws-up and leaves
you hanging, there is much good to say about the new digital ESS...

In the Bay Shore/Islip area of Long Island, NY, our telco changed the CO
to digital about a year ago.  For the first 3-6 weeks, there were unusual
telephone outages which got annoying.

After 6-8 weeks, all the bugs were basically out and the system has worked
like a champ!  Better yet, I used to attempt 300 (yes, 300) baud connections
to where I work, 35 miles away.  The old switching systems introduced so much
noise I couldn't use my modem at all for this.  After the change to digital,
this problem went away, and I can work up to 2400 baud with no problems.

Try to bear with the problems, as much of a pain as they are.  You will
eventually reap the benefits of the enhancements.

Gil Kloepfer, Jr.                                         USENET:  ...icus!gil
ICUS Computer Group, Systems Development
P.O. Box 1     Islip Terrace, New York  11752

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jan 88 22:39:45 GMT
From: decvax!ima![e-mail]  (John R. Levine)
Organization: Not enough to make any difference
Subject: Re: Enterprise Numbers and other funny phone numbers

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>OTHER MORE OR LESS STANDARDIZED PHONE NUMBERS IN THE 1930'S - 1950'S:
>...
>Coin phones always began with a 9, as in 9xxx. This was universally
>recognized ...

Well, not quite universally. My phone number is -9650 and as far as I can tell
hasn't been changed since the house got dial service, other than changing the
prefix from UNIversity to the equivalent 864. (I'm not that old, but the
number came with the house.) I note that -9649 is indeed a payphone in a
nearby bar. -9950 used to be the local business office, causing a certain
number of strange calls.

My understanding is that they put special relays on pay phone lines that
bounced when they connected, making a distinctive ticky-ticky sound that the
operator could recognize.

For that matter, when you make a toll call from a payphone, how does the long
distance company know that it's a payphone? Special trunks? Special bits in
ANI messages? Only AT&T does anything interesting with direct dialed calls
from payphones, but the other LD companies at least know to block them.

John Levine, ima!johnl
--
John R. Levine, IECC, PO Box 349, Cambridge MA 02238-0349, [phone]
{ ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, [e-mail]
Gary Hart for President -- Let's win one for the zipper.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Jan 88 05:32:22 GMT
From: ptsfa![e-mail]  (R. Perlman)
Organization: Pacific Bell Marketing
Subject: Re: Enterprise Numbers and other funny phone numbers

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John R. Levine) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>OTHER MORE OR LESS STANDARDIZED PHONE NUMBERS IN THE 1930'S - 1950'S:
>>...
>>Coin phones always began with a 9, as in 9xxx. This was universally
>>recognized ...
>
>Well, not quite universally. My phone number is -9650 and as far as I can tell
>hasn't been changed since the house got dial service, other than changing the
>prefix from UNIversity to the equivalent 864.

Actually you are both right!  In step-by-step offices the 4 and 9
levels were ofter tied together when all line thousands groups
were'nt needed.  A non-coin would be assigned the number -4xxx
and a coin -9xxx, in fact it didn't matter whether you dialed a 4
or nine, you get the same number.

BTW, Operators have listings by area code showing all the NNXs
(actualy NXXs) that have coin stations.  Usually only 1 code per
CO has coin lines.  If a number (for 3rd number or collect
calling) is a -9xxx & is in a coin NNX then the Operator checks
with Rate & Route for a "coin check" to see if the number is
indeed a coin box.
--
"there's no success like failure and failure's no success at all" Bob Dylan
Richard Perlman  1E300 2600 Camino Ramon, San Ramon, CA 94583  [phone]
uucp {ames,pyramid,ihnp4,lll-crg,dual}!ptsfa!perl   ||   ceo rdperlman:8

------------------------------

Date: 8 Jan 88 16:59:14 GMT
From: codas!ablnc![e-mail]  (Robert Maxwell)
Organization: AT&T, Maitland, Florida
Subject: Re: Enterprise Numbers and other funny phone numbers

> >Coin phones always began with a 9, as in 9xxx. This was universally
> >recognized ...
> Well, not quite universally.

Back in the days before the TSPS operator positions, the operators had
an indexed list at their positions that they used for identifying
area codes that listed almost every city or exchange in the USA.
One of items also listed in this index was the pay phone number series
in any exchange that used a special group of numbers. It has been a
few years since I last saw one, but I do remember the numbers for pay
phones could be anything from an exchange + 1 digit (ie: 321-9) to
a group of numbers (ie: 321-7800 to 321-8299). As I remember the
instructions with the list, this was a group to be checked for possible
pay phone, not necessarily an absolute list.

I don't consider myself very old, but I can remember when the phones were
so automatic, you didn't have to turn a dial or push buttons, you would
just speak the number you wanted into the mouthpiece and the connection
would be made. :-)

> For that matter, when you make a toll call from a payphone, how does the long
> distance company know that it's a payphone? Special trunks? Special bits in
> ANI messages? Only AT&T does anything interesting with direct dialed calls
> from payphones, but the other LD companies at least know to block them.

With ESS offices, the programming takes care of handling special needs for
a given line. It is reasonably simple to prevent charging LD calls to
a given line, no matter which company you use for LD. The same basic
technique that gives you 1+ dialing to your LD company can control how the
calls are accepted from a pay phone.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Maxwell    AT&T DP&CT         |    All standard (and most non_standard)
Maitland, FL    ihnp4!ablnc!maxwell  |  disclaimers apply.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 06:43:03 GMT
From: imagen!atari!portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Subject: Re: Enterprise Numbers and other funny phone numbers

Perlman points out a method of detecting coin service which is correct.
If in fact the receiving number is coin; and if the caller insists on
making the call collect, and provided some fool on the receiving end
agrees to accept the collect call then he has to deposit the money as
if he were making the call. The only problem is, the distant operator cannot
supervise the collection properly. The operator tells called party to hang
up and wait a minute....she calls inward in the city in particular, and
asks for assistance from a local operator <in that town> in manipulating
the coin collection table; assistance in dumping the coins in the box,
collecting for overtime, etc. The local operator calls the coin box, gets
the money and connects the parties.

Does anyone on here remember when coin phones had <three slots> on the top
for nickles, dimes and quarters AND had no trap door on the coin return AND
had regular -- not armored -- cable to the handset?

As little kids we rarely paid for calls. We either applied ground to
the line through a tiny pin hole in the handset cord (which we put there,
of course) or we used a coat hanger bent in a funny way which we stuck
up the coin return. We would deposit the money which fell on the table
inside. The process was the operator would apply the tip and ring one
way to throw the table and toss the money in the box or would apply it
in reverse to throw the table in the direction of the return slot, to
give the money back if there was no answer, etc.

To make long distance calls, we would use the same quarter(s) over and
over. The operator would ask for two dollars -- in would go two or three
quarters (clung clung clung)...."just a minute operator, I am looking for
more change!..."and that coat hanger would go up the return slot and
trip the table, sending our quarters down the chute and back to us....
"Ok operator, here is the rest of the money...." and if we were fast
enough, or the operator was not suspicious, the coat hanger could be
used to retrieve the three quarters <a second time>...some operators
immediatly collected when there was an answer, especially if they
suspected hanky panky on the other end...some would not wait for the
full collection, but grab the coins as they came in, hitting that
ring key over and over knowing the brat-child on the other end of the
line had been thwarted in the process....

Some of the older exchanges in downtown Chicago years ago had to have the
assistance of a special "trunk operator" to return the money if a call
was not complete. Your operator would give up on completing the call and
tell you to hold on...after a few seconds and a click, someone would answer
"Wabash trunking"....and your operator would say something like "return on
circuit 5096"....and the phone would clatter and your coins would fall
back out to you. And there was also (downtown) the Franklin Coin Central
Office which handled nothing but pay phones in the 1940's-1950's.
Patrick T.

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 06:20:59 GMT
From: imagen!atari!portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Subject: Re: Enterprise Numbers and other funny phone numbers

John R. Levine asks about pay phones --
 1) He notes, correctly, that some exchanges did/still do have private phones
beginning with 9xxx. Its not too common, but happens. Here in Chicago, one
exchange for many years, "LOngbeach 1" (now 561) had private residence numbers
beginning that way.

 2) How, John asks, do the OCC's detect calls from payphones (presumably, in
order to collect money)?  They don't.   In the case of XXX-Bell payphones,
they all default to AT&T for long distance. The use of the 10xxx codes from
payphones doesn't work, at least in Chicago.

 The OCC's use the "950-xxxx" numbers for that purpose. Generally, the "950"
version is the same as the "10xxx" version. That is, MCI is 10222; they are
also 950-1022 here. Sprint is 10777 and 950-1077, etc. The use of the 950
numbers requires an authorization or travel code number from the OCC. You may
use the 950 number from a private phone if you wish to override the billing;
however the 10xxx version will simply override the default carrier assigned
to the phone while still causing the billing to go to the phone being used.

Privately owned payphones must be programmed by their proprietors to allow
or toll restrict as desired. Typically, the private pay phones in Chicago
offer transparent calling to the user. You enter the desired long distance
number, the circuitry in the private pay phone detirmines a routing and a
cost; demands the money and dials out on the carrier programmed by the
proprietor.

Most private payphones are NOT in the 9xxx number series; but under ESS, the
nature of the phone is known to a TSPS operator should the user attempt to
zero-plus a person to person call and attempt to bill the private coin phone
line. The operator will catch this, and decline the charge. <Inbound> calls
to a private pay phone generally fail: most private payphones here do NOT
have their number printed on them; leaving the user in the dark about what
number to dial. Should the number be dialed, most will not ring in the
phone itself; will wait at least 10-12 rings before answering, and then
will emit carrier, since private pay phones are programmable both from
the tone pad itself as well as remotely by someone using a PC. I am
reluctant go get into a discussion right here on the net about hacking
private pay phones...it <can> be done, and people sitting cozily at home
at their PC, programming private pay phones about town to accept a nickle
as the rate for long distance calls to Alaska is one reason most have had
their number changed to non-pub and the notation removed from the number
plate on the front of the phone.

Some private pay phones will wait 10-12 rings and answer with a synthesized
voice saying, "Operator! Operator! This is a pay phone! No charges allowed!"

I think all xxx-Bell payphones nationally default to AT&T as part of the
breakup. Am I right?

Finally, there is another oddity about the OCC's and the 10-xxx numbers
here. If you dial <without pausing> 10xxx-1-acc-ppp-nnnn the call will
complete via the OCC and be billed to the line being used. If you dial
10xxx then PAUSE AND WAIT, the OCC dial tone will be extended, and you
must enter the desired long distance number <and> an authorization code
in the protocol required by the OCC.

Dialing 10xxx from an xxx-Bell payphone usually gets a recorded intercept
saying "....the carrier access code you have dialed cannot be reached from
this phone...". Even 10ATT won't work.

By the way, did you know MCI will not complete calls to 976? They have never
been able to reach an agreement with PacBell (and a few others) on who should
be billed for those special service calls; and they say they have no way to
bill their users at present.

Ever wonder WHAT carrier was the default carrier for the phone you were
using? Dial 1-700-555-1212 and listen to the recorded announcement tell
you....(valid in Chicago,312 -- I assume it works elsewhere).

{To force the announcement from each carrier, dial 10xxx-1-700-555-1212.
You should get messages welcoming you to MCI; telling you that with
Sprint you made the right choice, etc.

Patrick T.

------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 88 07:18:12 GMT
From: imagen!atari!portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Subject: Re: Enterprise Numbers and other funny phone numbers

Levine notes a time when ..."phones were so automatic you did not have to
push buttons or twirl a dial; just speak into a mouthpiece and the call
would be connected...."

Ah yes....and frankly, the old manual service [was as fast, or faster] than
dial service. Hard to believe perhaps, but true, at least in those days,
but I'll grant you it would be slower now, if not impossible. The operators
were trained to grab a cord and have it already in the plug going to the
desired central office before you completed what you were saying...so that
if you ask for (my parent's number) Rogers Park 3714, by the time you said
"Rogers Park" the operator was already up on that strip. By the time you
said "3714" she was on the line waiting for Rogers Park central to answer.
There would be just a click and she would repeat, "3714", then a second or
two later (to you) "thank you"...and be gone.

The fun came in the long distance (pre area code, pre dialing) calls. You
would ask your operator for "Long Lines" and she would plug in there and
wait; then pass your number to the long lines operator and leave. You
want to call California...let's say Hollywood....

The Chicago operator would get on a trunk to St. Louis...after a few seconds
(usually), a distant voice would yell in the phone, "St. Louis!" and your
operator would say, "St. Louis, give me Kansas City...", and in moments
another voice would answer, "Kansas City"...and your operator would ask to
be extended to Denver, etc...finally you'd reach Los Angeles, then a local
operator in Hollywood, where if you were calling the MGM studios, the general
offices phone number was Hollywood 1000. The switchboard operator at MGM would
connect you with your party....you would talk all of about thirty seconds and
Praise The Lord!...the line would go dead.

Furious, you would flash your hook...your local operator would answer...you'd
say, "Operator! ##@@%&&!! You disconnected me!" and she would say,
"Oh no...I did not. You are still up here..." and she would vigorously
raise Long Lines and say, "Operator! You cut my party!"...and Long Lines
would say, "oh no I didn't...you are still up here...." and she would
raise St. Louis and bawl her out...and on it would go...."Denver, what
are you doing? You cut Chicago off!".... and finally the poor operator
at the MGM switchboard would have them all blame <her>...

And not once would any operator along the line ever admit to being the
guilty party...all insisted "party is still up here.." as if the whole
thing, all these human tandems just came apart like magic...

And then like now, no matter who or what was actually at fault, your
local operator got the cussing out and the sins of the telephone company
heaped on her/him. Mostly to placate the operators, who in the 1920's were
still not unionized, but growing more militant all the time, the alphabetical
directory of the Chicago Telephone Company (predecessor to Illinois Bell)
printed an Admonition to Subscribers on the front cover of the June, 1921
edition: "We request that our subscribers use the same courteous language
and phrases to our operators that they would want to hear from the operators
in response...."

My great aunt Myrtle was the first union steward here in Chicago. At that
time, the other operators used to laugh at her: "You'll never organize the
Bell....why even try?"  But she organized "the Bell" alright, and when the
union first began active recruitment of the operators, the others would
shun my great aunt; they were frightened for their jobs and they had been
warned by their supervisor to have no part of it. In those days, there were
no federal laws against company interference with union activities, and Bell
tried hard to bust it up before it grew "worse"... but that's a subject that
could fill several more posts another time.

Patrick T.

------------------------------

From:     "Roger Fajman" <[e-mail]>
Date:     Fri, 15 Jan 88  12:35:57 EST

> John R. Levine asks about pay phones --
>  1) He notes, correctly, that some exchanges did/still do have private phones
> beginning with 9xxx. Its not too common, but happens. Here in Chicago, one
> exchange for many years, "LOngbeach 1" (now 561) had private residence numbers
> beginning that way.

My newly-assigned home phone number here in the Maryland suburbs of
Washington DC (served by C&P Telephone, part of Bell Atlantic) is
in the 9xxx series.  I suspect that the shortage of exchanges in
some areas is forcing the phone companies to give up such conventions.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Feb 88 06:34:10 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Subject: Re: Disabling Call-Waiting on a Per-Call basis in Metro DC?

Regards the disable call waiting situation in Washington, DC, it may well
be the set up there does not allow it.

The standard is *70 if you have a twelve button touch tone phone. If you
have rotary dial or a ten button touch tone, then use "1170". If these
do not work, then I suggest your particular exchange on the C&P system
does not have the feature...some early ESS machines never had that feature
installed.

Example: Here in Chicago it is available <almost> everywhere...the Morton
Grove central office however cannot disable call waiting. And the guys
out there with modems really bitch about it...their only options are a
second actual line (and dropping call waiting) or the use of call forwarding.

I cannot imagine why C&P would not tell you if they had it. Here, Illinois
Bell uses that as a selling point to show how flexible the system is.

-------------------------------

Date: 10 Feb 88 01:24:47 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Subject: Re: Disabling Call-Waiting on a Per-Call basis in Metro DC?

According to DC-area residents whom I know from People/Link, C&P does NOT
offer the disabling of call waiting now.  Customers who also have call
forwarding can get around it by forwarding calls to a number that will be
busy or won't answer, but you have to remember to shut call forwarding off
when you are done (disabling call waiting automatically resets when you
hang up).

In some areas the threeway-calling trick doesn't work either (it goes
like this: if you have threeway calling but cannot disable call waiting,
start by phoning something that is busy or won't answer; then flash the
switchhook as if to start a threeway call, and dial the data connection;
then do NOT flash the switchhook the second time as you normally would for
a threeway conversation -- that ties up both halves of your line and gives
incoming calls a busy signal, but in some areas the blip of call waiting
comes right through during the use of threeway calling).

When I moved here in September, 1987, and started service with Central
Telephone of Illinois, CenTel told me that disabling call waiting would
be available in roughly sixty days.  They have made no announcement but
I haven't asked either.

D.W.T.

-------------------------------

***End of forwarded traffic***
29-Feb-88 12:37:43-EST,29524;000000000001
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Date:     Mon, 29 Feb 88 10:03:05 CST
From:     Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  Telecom-related traffic from Security

Here is a collection of Telecom-related traffic that I've gleaned from
the Security list archives. I thought it would be worthwhile to send it
in to Telecom so it would get into that list's archives for future reference.

Regards, Will Martin

Subject:  Telephone-tapping from Security

------------

Date: Fri, 4 Sep 87 15:54:33 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Paul Pomes - The Wonder Llama)
Subject: Telephone tapping via the isolation box

It occurred to me, while watching the telco man install my data line, that
the network isolation box provides very easy access to a line tapper.
A line powered FM transmitter with a RJ11 plug and socket at each end
would take less than two minutes to install start to finish.

These thoughts have prompted me to install a locked cover over the box.
-pbp

------------

From: [e-mail] (Scott Dorsey)
Subject: Re: Telephone tapping via the isolation box
Date: 25 Sep 87 20:14:03 GMT

  It takes a lot less time than that.  Even more fun... take a look at
your supply closets and broom closets at work (and maybe the bathrooms).
You'll probably find banks of #66 punchdown blocks with each line
carefully labelled on them.  Not only can someone walk in and make
free phone calls, but dropping a tap in is simple.  Keep the phone
cabinets locked, and remember that the phone is never very secure
in the first place.
--
Scott Dorsey   Kaptain_Kludge
Internet:  [e-mail]

------------

From: [e-mail] (Mitch Mlinar)
Subject: Re: Telephone tapping via the isolation box
Date: 25 Sep 87 19:57:32 GMT

>These thoughts have prompted me to install a locked cover over the box.

That is hardly worthwhile.  What you have done MAY stop a true amateur, but
wire tapping can be cleanly done anywhere along your phone line.  There are
some interesting gadgets I saw at a convention which clamp onto any phone
line (outside or inside your house) WITHOUT need of a physical contact to the
wire itself and filter out the background clutter to send a clean FM signal
up to 1/4 mile away.  (This was a closed convention in '84 for security
types only; I happened to be consulting as a computer expert and needed to
find products that were amenable to computer monitoring.)  By the way, the
price for this goody at the time was around $350 - cheap by most standards -
and could be installed in 15 seconds.  The receiver (a bit more pricey) could
even filter out multiple signals (if it was clamped over two lines instead of
one), but required some manual work to keep it focused if both lines were in
use.

A more interesting gadget was an HP spectrum analyzer which was tied to a
computer and display as well as a nice IF antenna.  You got it.  ANYTHING
typed on the IBM-PC about 100ft away (for effect) appeared on the monitoring
display.  (Whoever said that emissions for PCs was small!)  The antenna was
directional, and for "kicks", the demonstrator turned it towards another
known PC in the auditorium.  We watched every character that the person
at the Vivitar security booth typed in!

I don't mean to pick on you, Paul, but the state-of-the-art is well beyond
your deterent. Unless you reinstall your phone lines with two ground coax (all
the way to the telephone pole) and get your PC TEMPEST equipped, the lock
cover is about as effective as dead-bolting your doors while leaving the
windows open...

-Mitch

------------

From: sunybcs!kitty![e-mail]
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 87 10:45:17 EDT
Subject:  Re: Telephone tapping via the isolation box

> These thoughts have prompted me to install a locked cover over the box.

    And what, pray tell, do you plan to do about all of the unlocked,
outside cable terminal boxes between your building and the telephone company
central office?

<>  Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York
<>  UUCP:  {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry

------------

Date: Sat, 26 Sep 87 20:25 CDT
From: Mike Linnig <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: Telephone tapping via the isolation box

There are multiple places that your line COULD  be tapped.  If
I was going to do it for short amount of time I'd go up the
road from your house and tie in at one of those telephone junction
boxes.  The telephone person would spot it in a second, but it would
be good for a week or so on the average.  The real problem with
that technique is that you would have to figure out which line is
yours.  But if you were a mafia Don, at least I don't have to
walk up to your house (grin).
    Mike Linnig

------------

Date: Tue, 29 Sep 87 09:40:09 edt
From: [e-mail] (Nark Mason)
Subject: Re:  Telephone tapping via the isolation box

Don't worry, your phone lines still are not safe. Many years ago (when
I was young and irresponsible...) I amused myself a few times by sitting in
the bushes near my house at a unlocked telco junction box looking for a
friends data line. Didn't find it, but I did hear some interesting stuff
and caught a guy trying to break into a nearby church (I wouldn't tell the
police where I was phoning from). Failing this I went to his house, clipped
my handset into the wires outside his house and plugged a tape recorder in.
In a relatively large city like Newton the CO's (Company Offices?) were
manned 24 hours a day, in smaller citied they aren't and noone's too
concerned with keeping people out of them.

------------

Date: Sun, 4 Oct 87 14:40:10 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Barry Shein)
Subject: Telephone tapping via the isolation box

>That is hardly worthwhile.  What you have done MAY stop a true amateur, but
>wire tapping can be cleanly done anywhere along your phone line.

Waitaminute, do we have a case of security-macho here? Maybe he's only
trying to protect against the "true amateur"? Remember, the only
person that's going to bug his phone is a person with a motivation to
do so.  More often than not that will be someone w/in the organization
who isn't going to expend the resources to hire a pro, but if a pair
of alligator clips will do the job, what the hell, right?

Years ago I had an office which had a wire-closet for a good portion
of the building behind the door. I got curious and began playing with
a pair of alligator clips and found a phone line which appeared to be
unused.  This was useful because my phone line could not dial
off-campus while the discovered one could (not long-distance, that
took an access code, but even up the corner for a pizza.) [standard
disclaimer: this of course was on another planet where such things are
encouraged.]

If someone had simply put a locked box over it I'm sure I would have
never bothered to investigate (unless it was such a dumb lock...but
that's a different story.)

Let's not make the best the enemy of the good.
    -Barry Shein, Boston University

------------

Date:         Mon, 05 Oct 87 15:40:17 IST
From: "Robert (Al) Hartshorn" <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: Telephone tapping via the isolation box

Just a short note.  I retired from the US Army (MI).  I inspected sites
for security problems (TEMPEST).  Just to let you know, there is so meany
ways to monitor your PC.  We could monitor your phone line at the house,
at the pole, at a transmitting site, or even monitor your power lines.
There are more ways to do it then one would normaly think about, and alot
of the things that one would need can be gotten localy.

If you have information that you don't want anyone else to see, filter your
power line, put a ground screen on all four walls, floor and ceiling.
Ground your PC to a ground point that you can only get to from inside the
room, and now place your PC in a sheilded box, with you only access toward
the largest mass of your house.  This will do for a start.

This may sound like a joke, but this is just some of what you would have to do.
To me, it sound like to much work and I just don't have anything that I want
to prevent anyone from getting so bad.  But to secure your phone connection box
is not a bad idea for other reasons.  You can never tell when someone may
connect to it and make a call.

Have fun, and don't let this go to your head.
Al

------------

Date: Sat, 10 Oct 87 20:39:13 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Paul Pomes - The Wonder Llama)
Subject: telephone tapping

My object is not to be secure against professionals or those with excess
cash for nifty devices.  The "threat" to my privacy are the students in my
Explorer post and the local high school students who shop at Radio Shaft.
For the money ($3 and a half-hour) I've secured a too easy tap point.
Beyond that it's not worth the trouble.  The telco people in C-U usually
lock the junction boxes.  (Have you ever gone up a pole?  It's quite
stimulating to the adrenals when done illicitly.  'Tis far better to
have a lower profile then stimulate that sort of interest in your calls.)
-pbp

------------

From: [e-mail] (Scott Dorsey)
Subject: Re: telephone tapping
Date: 21 Oct 87 14:51:27 GMT

 Kaptain Kludge's Cheap and Easy Telephone Tap:

     --------+----| |------------) (-----------------
phone        |        .1 MFD     ) (                    to mike input of cheap
line         |         or so     ) (                    cassette recorder
     ---+----|----| |------------) (-----------------
        |    |
        |    )                600-1000 ohm transformer,
        |    (              or old transistor radio output
        +----)                 transformer
to  ----+----   48V relay
tape ---+---^  (110Vac relay works too... not well, though)
control

   Total cost: assuming broken transistor radio is lying around, and a tape
recorder can be 'borrowed' from somewhere: $5.00 or so for an RS relay.
--
Scott Dorsey   Kaptain_Kludge
SnailMail: ICS Programming Lab, Georgia Tech, Box 36681, Atlanta, Georgia 30332
Internet:  [e-mail]
uucp:    ...!{decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,rutgers,seismo}!gatech!gitpyr!kludge

------------

Date: Wed, 11 Nov 87 15:00:33 PST
From: [e-mail] (Brock Meeks)
Subject: Picking locks on pay phones

Here in San Diego we've had an unusual round of news reports about "a man
with a pony-tail" that is "the only known person in the U.S. that can pick
the lock on pay telephones.  He is known to frequent Country and Western bars
and carry large amounts of change."  He is said to reap about $2,000 a day
from his "speciality."

The police say there are "tell-tail scratch marks" on the phone lock boxes.

Question:  Is there any truth to these news stories?  Is it possible that only
one person in the U.S. can pick the lock on a pay telephone?  If so, what
makes these locks so damn hard to pick.  (And, in what sounds like an easy way
to pick up a good piece of spare change, why isn't this activity more
widespread?)

------------

Date: 19 Nov 87 06:19:05 EST
From: *Hobbit* <[e-mail]>
Subject: mister pay phone

If they know so much about this guy, why isnt he in the klink already?

Pay phones generally use lever locks.  These were invented ages ago, before
the pin-tumbler, and are still in use on things like phones and safe
deposit boxes.  A properly constructed one is extremely difficult to defeat;
there are numerous false or "confuser" notches built in, and very specialized
tools are probably required.  It would seem more likely that this guy knocked
over a coin collector and stole his key ring.
_H*

------------

Date: Thu, 19 Nov 87 22:18:46 EST
From: Michael Grant <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re:  Picking locks on pay phones

I once asked a phoneman emptying one of those safe-like phones about the
security of them.  He told me that they were alarmed, and that if you open
one even with a key at the wrong time, telco will phone the police.  I
have never verified this though, nor hav I ever ripped open a phone and looked
for sensors.  Anyone out there had any experience with this?

I'm also cc'ing this to telecom.
-Mike

------------

Date: Sat, 21 Nov 87 15:29:53 EST
From: [e-mail] (Steve Fine)
Subject: Re: Picking locks on pay phones

Brock Meeks ([e-mail]) asked if it was true that only one person in
the U.S. can pick the lock on a pay phone.  I think the uniqueness claim is
exagerated.

I read an article (possibly in the Toledo Blade) in the past few years about
someone who had been picking locks on pay phones in Ohio.  I don't remember the
details but I think the person had made a special set of tools that allowed him
to pick the lock.  Even with the special tools, the phone company claimed that
it would take about 20 minutes to open the lock.
--
Steve Fine
Internet: [e-mail]         BITNET:   fine@psuvaxg
ARPANET:  [e-mail]
UUCP:     {allegra|ihnp4|akgua}!psuvax1!gondor!fine

------------

Date: Tue, 24 Nov 87 01:30:27 EST
From: [e-mail] (Dave Kucharczyk)
Subject: Payphone locks

  Regarding picking a payphone lock it is possible that this person
has made a very special tool that would make it much more likely
that one could pick a payphone lock.
  Payphone locks use a 9 or ten lever, lever lock. The levers are
very thin and close together to make picking difficult and also have
a ratchet that catches the lever if it is raised too high during
picking. One could make a tension wrench that also allows the
resetting of the ratchet, like when a key is inserted but you
would have to have a lock from a payphone in the first place.
Then one would need a special tool to throw the bolt on the coin
box cover, but that is a relatively simple item compared to the
tension wrench for the lock.
  By the way the coin box is a removable sealed box that has a special
seal on it.  When the coin collector comes around he pulls the
full box out which closes itself as it is extracted from the
actual payphone housing.  He then inserts a empty and open box
back into the housing which then primes it so that upon removal
it seals itself untill it is reset, which can only be done by
breaking the seal on the box.
ssr

------------

Subject: Re: mister pay phone
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 87 01:12:55 -0500
From: Fred Blonder <[e-mail]>

    From: *Hobbit* <[e-mail]>
    Pay phones generally use lever locks.  These were invented
    ages ago, before the pin-tumbler . . .

How many ages ago? The pin tumbler lock was invented by (surprise)
the ancient Egyptians. True, their keys were a bit large by modern
standards (they were hung from the owner's belt.) but the principle
was exactly the same.
----
                    Fred Blonder [phone]
                    seismo!mimsy!fred
                    [e-mail]

[I stand somewhat corrected.  However, the principle wasn't *exactly* the
same -- the pins in the lock were only the top halves, and the pegs on
the wooden key formed the lower halves when the key was pushed up into
the slot.  The security was based mostly on the *positioning* of the holes.

Related to this, Larry then asks:]

From: Larry Hunter <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: mister pay phone

    A properly constructed [lever lock] is extremely difficult to defeat...

That's interesting!  How come I use a pin-tumlber on my door at home?  If
these things are so good, how come they are not in wider use?

                                                      Larry

[HellifIknow.  Perhaps they don't wear as well due to stronger springs, or
get jammed more easily if left outside.  This *is* an interesting question.
I have no theories offhand -- anyone else?

_H*]

------------

From: [e-mail] (Bill Landsborough)
Subject: Re: Picking locks on pay phones
Date: 1 Dec 87 17:41:27 GMT

When I was a pay phone coin collector in the early-sixtys in
Bakersfield CA there was a man/woman team that was hitting the Kern
Co. area pretty hard and they made my work pretty hectic.  The way
they would do it was they would both go into the phone booth and the
woman would hold a newspaper up like they were calling want ads.  The
man would pick the lock with very sophisoticated tools and then
"scrape" the bolt down to open the lock.  Pacific Telephone invented a
new C version lock that was "unpickable" but this guy was successful
in picking at least one C version that I remember.

I came into a bar one morning only to have missed him by less than 10
minutes.  When I opened up the door for the coin box there was no coin
box and there was no money laying in the bottom of the phone housing.
I asked the bartender who was the last person to use the phone and he
described the couple to me.  Sometimes he got ~$120....sometimes $.30.
We never caught him while I was there to 1964.

            Bill Landsborough

------------

From: mimsy!cvl!decuac!uccba!ncoast![e-mail] (Phil Smith)
Subject: Re: mister pay phone
Date: 2 Dec 87 01:27:28 GMT

>  It would seem more likely that this guy knocked
> over a coin collector and stole his key ring.

It would not do him a great deal of good to have stolen
keys from a coin collector. The coin box locks are all
keyed differently. True you will eventually find duplicates
I would think, but not enough for the amount of phones he
has supposedly hit.
--
              decvax!mandrill!ncoast!smith
            ncoast![e-mail]
        (ncoast![e-mail])

------------

Date: Fri, 4 Dec 87 10:31 CDT
From: Mike Linnig <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: Re:  Picking locks on pay phones

I worked as a teleco lineman one fall (an engineering co-op job).
As part of that work we had to go around and extract the cash
boxes from the payphones.

They gave us a large ring of keys (not a master key).  Incidentally,
we never really touch the coins, they fall into a coin box that gets
replaced when we open up the phone.

As for the phones being alarmed, I really don't believe it.  Except
for high crime areas maybe.  On one occasion we had a phone that
would not open at all.  The key mechinism was jammed (it came from
a high school -- I wonder who jammed it?).  I got to try and
break into the phone -- fun fun.

We tried drilling out the lock.  We trashed a drill bit or two
doing it but we managed to get a nice hole through the lock cylinder.
Well, that was fun, but it got us no where.  It still wouldn't open.

We decided to take the phone off of the wall.  The mounting bracket
was designed so that you only had access to the mounting screws if
the phone was unlocked.  I really don't remember how we did it, but
we got it off of the wall (probably by brute force -- I had a BIG partner).

By the way, no alarms went off.  No police arrived on the scene.  Remember
this was in a high school -- If they alarmed phones in general, I wouldn't
expect them to have the high school phone disabled.

Anyway, we managed to get the damn thing open by lots of prying with
large screwdrivers (used as crowbars) and some hammering.  The phone
was totally worthless -- but we got the money back to the telco
(the phone had to be replaced anyway, can't leave them until they
fill up with coins).

This was a small telco in southern indiana, Bell systems and
GTE may do things differently.

    Mike

ps.  Don't do this with your phones, someone MAY get annoyed (grin)

------------

Date: Fri, 4 Dec 87 13:56:57 CST
From: Bob Kusumoto <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re:  Picking locks on pay phones

I don't know about these new phones that other companies other than MaBell are
putting out but the old standard pay phones are not alarmed. They have 8
tumbler locks on them so it is VERY difficult to pick these open. I have heard
stories about people hooking up a van to a pay phone to pull it out and the
axle was ripped out from the van. Another story from the north (Canada) was to
pour water into the coin slot, let it freeze over then hit the phone so it
splits open. The reason why the phone company switch to these more secure pay
phone was that people were breaking into the older models and they needed to
collect more money (by the way, the phone company spends aprox $1800 per pay
phone plus any other extras they want to add like a light or special set-up for
it).

Hope this information helps.

Bob Kusumoto
    Internet: [e-mail]
    BITNET:   [e-mail]
    UUCP:  ...{!inhp4!gargoyle,!oddjob}!sphinx!kus3

------------

Date: Sat, 5 Dec 87 20:40:33 PST
From: [e-mail] (Brock Meeks)
Subject: Re: Picking locks on pay phones

Steve,

I have happened to get a copy of that article you read in the Blade re:
the guy with the special tools.  I asked at NATA, of the Medeco folks, if
they had heard of our San Diego coin bandit, they had, he is the *same*
guy as in the blade; an industry legend.

Seems the security folks have tracked him across the nation.  He used
to be a machinist.  He's never hit a Medeco lock, only "old telco"
boxes (whatever those are).

As for the 20 minute time frame?  Forget it.  The guys I talked to said,
"He's just about as fast as a guy with a key."  The favorite story: the
time he cracked a box right before jumping on an airline, in broad daylight,
waiting to board a plane.

------------

Date: Sat, 5 Dec 87 20:36:05 PST
From: [e-mail] (Brock Meeks)
Subject: Re:  Picking locks on pay phones

> He told me that they were alarmed, and that if yo upoen one, even with a
> key at the wrong time, telco will phone the police.

This is wrong, according the pay phone specialist I interviewed for an
article I wrote.  I was just at the North American Telecomm. Association
show in Dallas, and they had a big payphone pavillion there.

The only way these guys know a phone has been hit is when they come to
empty it.

I spoke with the folks at Medeco (they had a big display of their "virtually
pick proof lock) and they verified the problem with pay phone locks.

You see, it seems that with the influx of private pay phones, these guys were
starting to toss "crap on the market" (crap being locks) and they cared more
about profits than good security (a topic of conversation that only recently
began getting any kind of hearing in the pay phone industry).

BUT...cracking the lock box is not the BIG DEAL.  The *real* story is that
guys are ripping off the expense COMPUTER BOARDS and electronics in the
upper half of the phones.  These boards run some $300 or $400 a piece and
according to one security analyst, "There's a huge black market for these
boards."  Interestingly enough, the locks protecting the electronics
are far easier to pick than the coin box lock.

"These guys are more worried about protecting $20-$50 in coins rather than
$300-$400 in electronics," the rep from Medeco said.

You figure it.

------------

Subject: Submission for misc.security (Coin telephone security)
Date: 5 Dec 87 00:43:26 EST (Sat)
From: uunet!kitty![e-mail] (Larry Lippman)

>  He told me that they were alarmed, and that if you open
> one even with a key at the wrong time, telco will phone the police.

    If this is true, it only applies to newer electronic coin telephones,
and NOT the traditional single-slot coin telephones such as the WECO free
standing types (1A, 1C series) or the WECO "panel-mounting" types (2A, 2C
series).
    The only thing close to an "alarm" is that some coin telephones had
a coin "bank" [the proper term] with an electrical contact on the top.  When
the bank gets full of coins, a ground is effectively placed on this contact.
This ground is placed in series with a resistor which places a high resistance
ground to one side of the telephone line.  This condition can be periodically
scanned by automatic equipment in the central office to ascertain if a coin
telephone bank is full.  Actually, I have only seen this done on some early
multi-slot coin telephones during the 1960's, and I don't believe this feature
was even provided on single-slot coin telephones.
    Coin telephone repairpersons usually have no keys for access to the
coin bank portion of a coin telephone.  There is actually no need for them
to have access, since all repairs can be made with the upper housing opened.
Opening the upper housing gives no access to the coin bank; you would need
something like string and chewing gum :-) to extract any coins from the bank.
Restricting coin bank keys to coin collection (and not repair) personnel
gives telephone companies a better sense of security.
    Coin banks have a sliding cover with an interesting lever mechanism;
the coin banks are intended to be provided with a wire seal.  With the seal
intact, the bank can be inserted and removed from a coin telephone ONLY ONCE.
There is no way to remove a full coin bank and open the cover to get access
to the coins without breaking this seal.
    Quite frankly, telephone company security personnel seem more paranoid
about employee theft from coin telephones than from theft committed by the
general public.  Occasionally, a malfunctioning coin collection mechanism
will cause a few coins to spill into the upper housing where a repairperson
might have access to them.  The proper procedure is to take the coins, place
them in a special envelope, label it and seal it right away; the envelope
is to be turned in to supervisory personnel as soon as possible.  Some BOC
security personnel seem to have nothing better to do than plant "marked"
coins in the upper housing of a coin telephone, and try to bait some
repairperson into not properly turning in the money.
    I also find amusing the following introductory paragraph as quoted
from a BOC coin telephone service manual: "Social changes during the 1960s
made the multi-slot coin station a prime target for: vandalism, strong arm
robbery, fraud and theft of service.  This brought about the introduction
of the single slot coin station and a new environment for coin service."
Social changes?! :-)
    My knowledge of coin telephones ended with the single-slot series
mentioned above.  I have almost no idea what happens inside the new-fangled
coin telephones with CRT's and credit-card readers.

<>  Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York
<>  UUCP:  {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry
<>  VOICE: 716/688-1231        {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|utzoo|uunet}!/
<>  FAX:   [phone] {G1,G2,G3 modes}   "Have you hugged your cat today?"

------------

Date: Tue, 15 Dec 87 19:41:09 EST
From: John Hanley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re:  Picking locks on pay phones

Maybe pay phones maintained by the BOCs don't have alarms, but
a friend of mine is having an independent manufacturer install
a pay phone at his store, and he claims that not only can it be
programmed to call a number when it's coin box is full and announce
in an incredibly sultry voice that it's time to collect, but it
can also dial a number and shout for help when it thinks it's being
broken into.
                        --JH

-------------

Date: Mon, 18 Jan 88 14:47:37 -0500 (EST)
From: Walter Ray Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: Pay phone thief again

This pay phone guy has made the big time: Weekly World News!  Right next to a
diet ad...

Copyright (C) 1988 Weekly World News
Reprinted without permission

Phone ranger rips off $500,000 from booths
FBI dragnet is out for the nickel-&-dime desperado

    Cops have circulated wanted posters throughout the country for an elusive
bandit who they say has ripped open pay phone coin boxes for seven years--and
made off with $500,000.
    The phantom phone bandit has been identified in a fugitive FBI warrant as
James Clark, 47, who brazenly uses the name "James Bell" and pays bills with
mountains of coins.
    "He's about as slippery as they get," said Powell Caesar of Ohio Bell in
Columbus, Ohio.
    "He's like a crooked Houdini.  There isn't a coin box he can't crack."
    Clark, a former machinist and die-maker from Ohio, drives a blue van,
wears cowboy boots, gold-rimmed glasses and has a ponytail.
    A special tool allows him to open phone boxes, steal the coins and quietly
slip away, say phone officials.  He's been doing it for seven years, making
$70,000 a year tax free.
    "Every telephone company from California to New York State would like to
nail his hide," said Caesar.  "Sooner or later he'll slip up and we'll be
waiting."
    Police believe Clark is in Arizona, California or another western state.
He's supposed to be armed with a .38 caliber pistol.
    The wanted posters offer rewards for information leading to his capture.

---------------------------------
***End of traffic from Security***
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Date:     Mon, 29 Feb 88 10:14:40 CST
From:     Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  More traffic from Info-modems

Here is some more recent telecom-related traffic from the Info-Modems list,
as a follow-up to the batch I just sent earlier.

Regards, Will Martin

***Start forwarded traffic***
Date: 12 Feb 88 19:34:00 GMT
From: snail![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Disabling Call-Waiting on a Per

    I have lived in Oregon and Illinois and never had a hitch with getting
call waiting turned off (in fact, my autodial sequence always starts with *70W
so I don't get cut off).
    Observation: if you are using the phone for data alot so that getting
bleeped to death is a big problem, shouldn't you reconsider whether having
call waiting is even worth it? The telco will cut it off for a few bucks, and
the problem goes away. So people will get busy signals sometimes -- that's
what you are trying to arrange...
    Suggestion: rag on the phone company. DC is thick as thieves with
modem users, and if the phone company doesn't support *70, it is a *big*
problem, and should brought to the proper people's attention. Maybe they
just threw a switch for your local exchange and never noticed....

Johnny Zweig

------------------

Date: 13 Feb 88 06:18:45 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Subject: Re: Disabling Call-Waiting on a Per-Call basis in Metro DC?

Neil Groundwater suggests forwarding calls to onesself as a way of preventing
call-waiting interupptions.

Really, it depends on the generics in the ESS machine. That used to work here
in Chicago, then one day it didn't any longer. Forwarding to yourself would
set up an semi-infinite loop, it would go around maybe 10-15 times and decide
the forwarding chain was never going to end and return -- not a 'busy signal'
to the caller -- but actually, a 're-order signal' which sounds alot like a
busy to the untrained ear.

In some ESS' when you attempt to forward to yourself the system simply won't
accept the instruction and either gives you an intercept message or sends you
a re-order tone and dumps you.

In most exchanges in Chicago we have 'chain-forwarding'; that is, party A can
forward to B; B to C; C to D, etc....and a caller to A will wind up at D or
wherever...I think there is a limit of about ten or perhaps fifteen interim
links in the chain....we have not counted to see.

But some of the older ESS stuff here has a different approach. A can forward
to B and B can forward to C.  Calls to A go to B [AND STOP THERE].
Calls to B forward to C. Whether or not a call to B gets forwarded to C or
not depends on the way the call got to B. If it was directly dialed to B,
the assumption is B wants C to receive his calls. If it got to B via forwarding
from A, there is [no such assumption that A wants C to get his calls]. We only
have a few exchanges left here with this arrangement. Most simply keep on
forwarding within reason up to 10-15 jumps.

Under the above "A goes to B but not to C" configuration, then if I forward my
line to you and you forward your line to me there will NOT be an infinite loop
since "A wants B to get his calls but there is no assumption they are to be
passed further..."; rather, calls to me will ring you, and calls to you will
ring me.

Using three way calling to set up a dummy call on half the line WILL work
provided you do not actually flash in the conference. Here, a three way
conference, once established, still allows call waiting to get through. When
you have a three way going and get call waiting, flashing puts the three way
on hold (letting them still talk to each other!) while you are on the other
side taking the call-waiting.

If you set up a dummy call to a silent termination line, or a line which will
not answer or whatever, then flash and start a new call but never get around
to connecting the two, then an incoming call waiting will get a busy signal
since call waiting is programmed to never interupt dialing tones or pulses,
for obvious reasons.

I have two lines here with circular hunt. That is, if one is busy it will
hunt the other, or vice versa. Each line also has call waiting. The call
waiting takes priority over hunting since with call waiting the line is
never "truly busy"...if I activate the disable feature (*70) then the
line becomes "truly busy" and a subsequent call hunts to the other physical
line. Oddly enough, if I am in the middle of dialing or flashing for a
three way or doing something that on its own merits keeps call waiting from
working then the interim caller gets a busy signal....very strange.

I've also noticed that if I have one of my lines call forwarded and am on
the other line with call waiting disabled (meaning true busy) then a call
to that line hunts to the other line alright, but does <not> follow the
call forwarding instructions. Instead it rings through to me, on the line
that is call forwarded.

Just tell C&P to get with the times and install the feature!

------------------

Date: 17 Feb 88 19:55:38 GMT
From: bpa!drexel![e-mail]  (Steve )
Organization: Drexel University, Phila., Pa.
Subject: Re: Disabling Call-Waiting on a Per-Call basis in Metro DC?

Here in Philadelphia, call waiting disables with no problem.

Pulse 1170 works much better than Tone *70 (if *70 works at all).

When I pulse 1170, I get 3 or 4 short beeps and then another dial tone,
so in one command I tell my modem to pulse dial 1170, wait for a
second dial tone and then tone dial the actual phone number. Works Great.
I have all my numbers programmed that way and get "auto-disabling" when
I use the modem.

If I try *70 the phone rings . . . and I end up getting a
"call cannot be completed as dialed" message.  Did it disable anyway?

Is there some other way to use *70?

Steve Young
Drexel University

------------------

Date: 19 Feb 88 21:39:47 GMT
From: cooksys![e-mail]  (Walt Cooksey)
Organization: Cooksey Systems, Inc.
Subject: Re: Disabling Call-Waiting on a Per-Call basis in Metro DC?

 *70 is used with what Southern Bell calls "Presteige (sp?).  The standard
is 70* on most systems.

In any event, every area I have been in lately gives you detailed
instructions in the white pages of the phone directory.

Walt
--
Walt Cooksey        COOKSEY SYSTEMS, INC        [phone]
            uunet!cooksys!walt        CIS 76010,522
            gatech!dscatl!cooksys!walt

------------------

Date: 25 Feb 88 03:57:26 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!percival!bucket![e-mail]  (Leonard Erickson)
Organization: Rick's Home Grown Unix; Portland, OR
Subject: Re: Disabling Call-Waiting on a Per-Call basis in Metro DC?

It sounds to me like you have one of the (all too common!) modems that
can't dial "*" or "#". Try using a real touchtone phone on the line and
see if dialing *70 works that way. If it does, try sending ATDT**********
to your modem and see if you get a tone out.

As a general rule of thumb, unless the manual EXPLICITLY says that your
modem can dial * and #, assume it can't.
--
Leonard Erickson        ...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'.
You know... I'd rather be a hacker."

***End forwarded traffic***