Telecom Informer (October, 1987) -------------------------------- By Goldstein * If you re thinking of stealing a bus in Manhattan, you should know that unless you get around an electronic anti-theft device, you'll have the words "Call Police" flashing in the front where the destination usually is. A couple of months ago, that's exactly what happened. Except nobody noticed the flashing sign, or at least no one thought anything of it. It seems this guy went around picking up people for free and depositing them at their doorsteps. "All my life I've wanted to do this," he said. * We've seen surprisingly few pirate television transmissions recently. In fact, we haven't seen any. But in Poland, they re becoming rather frequent and popular. Most recently, a Solidarity radio station broke in on the sound frequency of a TV broadcast to urge Poles to shelter a Soviet army deserter who was in town. * MasterCard is buying the Cirrus system, which means that Cirrus customers will be able to use MasterCard's telecommunications capabilities and MasterCard will become the world's leading debit card organization. This will link together about 30,000 automatic teller machines starting January 1, 1988. * CLASS service is being tested in New Jersey with features like Return Call, Call Block, Priority Call, Repeat Call, Select Forward, Call Trace, and Identa Call. These features make it easier to identify incoming calls and to get through to busy numbers. If any of our subscribers have the opportunity to participate in these tests, please contact us. We have a whole series of experiments we'd like to try on these features. * We may as well get used to it; nationwide beepers are popping up everywhere. At a cost of $30 to $60 a month, it will soon be almost impossible to be out of range. * U.S. Sprint is going through hell. Combining the telephone networks and accounting systems of United Telecommunications and GTE has proven to be a much greater task than originally anticipated. Already, $76 million has been written off in uncollectible accounts, apparently due to an inability to function efficiently. Currently, there are three different Sprints in existence: the old GTE Sprint, the old U.S. Tel, and the new U.S. Sprint. And introducing the new fiber optic network and FON cards has added to the pressure. * Sprint is filing a number of civil lawsuits against people who are accused of long-distance fraud. So far, the lawsuits are for $20 million plus penalties and have been filed in Kansas City and Seattle. According to Bernard A. Bianchino, U.S. Sprint vice president and associate general counsel, Sprint is filing lawsuits because criminal prosecutors don't have the resources to pursue all leads in these cases. * Meanwhile, a really big fraudster has been caught selling Sprint and MCI codes for $100 each. Thomas Alvord of South Shore Electronics in Lake Tahoe, California allegedly used a computer to scan for codes and even advertised his service in the yellow pages. He used the name "General Bell," which showed up right next to Pacific Bell. Customers would obtain their codes by calling a voice mailbox. It's believed that this one person cost the long-distance companies more than two million dollars. As long as they know it's not hacking. * AT&T is now distributing free copies of a business-to-business Italian yellow page directory. If you have a need for Italian yellow pages, call 800-538-BOOK. * In the mood for some fun? In Washington, DC, students living in college dorms now can disconnect their telephone service without even talking to a Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone representative. Bell Atlantic is testing a service called "quick termination" or "Q.T." A student uses a touch-tone phone and calls a special number any time of the day or night. Voice prompts guide the caller through the entire process. The system can store a maximum of 300 disconnect requests. So far, we're unable to determine what, if any, security precautions are present here. * C&P is also experimenting with distinctive ringing. By assigning up to three telephone numbers to the same phone line, each line can produce a different type of ring. Residents will pay about $4 a month for one additional phone number and $6 for two. We hope they don't mislead people into thinking they're getting three separate phone lines that can all be used at the same time. * The following news item appeared recently in Network World. "A Bell Com - munications Research, Inc. scientist may have found a solution for oftenannoying call-waiting tones. Deluxe call-waiting, not currently available, can temporarily suspend the call-waiting feature, quell the tone, and signal the second caller to try later. This solution requires complex software to program computerized switches to execute the multitiered signaling between users; telephone company central offices and those placing the calls on the busy line." Let's cut the crap! This service has already been available, at no charge, in many locations for years. All a caller has to do is dial *70 or 1170 before placing a call or during a call and call-waiting is disabled. The tone is "quelled" and, as far as signaling the second caller to try again - ever hear of a busy signal? That's what they're talking about, although they make it sound so much more complex. So who is this scientist that has found a solution that already exists? Bell Communications Research and Network World are doing us all a disservice by announcing an invention that is nothing new. No doubt this is happening so that we'll get used to the idea of paying for it. Deluxe call-waiting, what next?! * The American Credit Card Telephone Company says it plans to offer a new service that would let customers charge long-distance calls to major credit cards from any public or private touch-tone phone. A customer would dial an 800 number and enter a Visa, American Express, or MasterCard number. The number would be validated and the call processed in seconds. According to The New York Times, this new service will compete with calling cards offered by AT&T. They also say that AT&T plans to offer a similar service by 1989. Does this mean AT&T will be competing with themselves? It wouldn't surprise us one bit * The FBI is installing personal computer networks at remote sites that will be linked via gateways to mainframes at regional data processing centers. The project is known as Intelligent Workstation (IWS) and calls for more than 8,000 terminals, 700 networks, and 640 gateways. Iverson Technology of McLean, VA was awarded the contract. * According to a new government report, computers are now keeping track of more than seven million American workers. They monitor rest breaks and productivity, and even the number of individual keystrokes on a terminal or typewriter. The report was requested by Representative Don Edwards of California and was prepared by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. It's called "The Electronic Supervisor: New Technology, New Tensions." "We are becoming a surveillance society," Edwards said. "Every day we are seeing new invasions of the privacy and dignity of workers. We have occupational health and safety laws to protect workers' bodies. Now, Congress needs to respond to technological threats to their dignity and privacy." The report, which describes today's office as "an electronic sweatshop," said most jobs now monitored by computers were clerical data-entry type positions, but the management technique is spreading to other more complicated work. This is leading to a substantial increase in stress level. And it doesn't stop there. Computers are installed on the dashboards of trucks to record speed or how long a driver stops for. They can now also be monitored by satellite. Drug tests are popping up all over the place and they can tell a great deal about a person's private life. Telephone logs and video cameras are also on the rise. Today's technology makes it easy and cheap to monitor all kinds of things. In Alexandria, Virginia, there are devices called telecoms. Basically they're telephones with cameras attached used to monitor people on probation and parole. The person calls the corrections officials after his "curfew." The telecom transmits a photograph of the person talking every few seconds. The authorities know that the person is at home and is not using an impersonator. According to the authorities, the subjects don't think of this device as intrusive at all. It will be used more and more in the future, they say. "Everyday an American wakes up, he or she is less free as far as private information is concerned," says Edwards. "Privacy is being invaded on a wholesale basis." Computerized tracking in this country now begins at age five, when children claimed as dependents must apply for a Social Security number. That number becomes their name. One FBI system is named Big Floyd. It plots relationships between people entered into a crime data bank and draws a graph of those relationships. It then reveals if the suspects seem to have violated laborracketeering statutes. The IRS is interested in a similar arrangement. Where is it all leading? * The State University of New York at Buffalo has adopted new computer methods to conceal the identity of reading material its students borrow. In November 1986, the university refused an FBI request for records on material a foreign student borrowed. Later they were forced to surrender the records when served with a subpoena. Stephen Roberts, associate director of libraries for the university, says the new system destroys the link between a person and any books as soon as the books are returned. He says, "We think you ought to be able to read whatever you want without anybody asking questions about it." Amen.