2600 Flash
Voice of Reagan Tortures Patients
A Republican plan to phone targeted voters with a pre-recorded message from President Ronald Reagan backfired when critically ill patients at Mesquite Community Hospital in Texas were inundated with the calls for nearly four hours.
Nurses and visitors in the hospital's intensive care ward, weary of answering telephones every few minutes only to hear the same presidential message, said they finally took all patient telephones off the hook on a recent Saturday night.
"There were a lot [of calls] and they were very aggravating. I'd like to know who did it," said Bob Grimes, associate administrator of the suburban Dallas hospital.
A spokesman for the Republican National Committee said the party was trying to encourage voter turnout in the election, but did not intend to press for votes among sick people.
The telephone calls were generated by computers and were supposed to go only to enrolled Republicans and Reagan supporters in specific areas of 25 states, but not Texas, he said.
(So maybe it was Reagan himself! residents get bored too...)
FBI Actions Anger Parents
More than a year after the FBI seized computer equipment used by 23 North County (California) teenagers, there have been no arrests and no charges - just a number of angry parents.
On October 15, 1985, 50 FBI agents, armed with search warrants, confiscated computers, keyboards, modems, and software from homes in Vista, Escondido, Oceanside, Carlsbad, Poway, and Rancho Peñasquitos (all in Southern California).
The FBI alleged that the teens had used their computers to illegally tap into a financial database used by the Chase Manhattan Bank.
The investigation has now ended, with the teenagers signing deferred prosecution agreements stating that if they do not commit any crimes within the year, they will not be prosecuted. The government has kept the computer gear.
U.S. Attorney Peter Nunez is confident that if the case ever came to trial, the youths would be convicted.
"I think justice was done," Nunez said. "I don't think it was necessary to convict people or try them. When we got their attention, they basically acknowledged the problems had been created and they walked away. It's unfortunate they still want to carry on the battle in the press."
Several of the teenagers and their parents - in their first interviews about the case - say there was no indication that the database was restricted. They are also upset about the conduct of the FBI; they asked that their names not be revealed.
"He [the FBI agent] accused and harassed my son and said if he talked about it to anyone, he'd be accused of obstruction of justice," said one parent.
The FBI denies that its agents acted rudely.
"Any time a warrant is served, people feel uncomfortable. I think anyone would," said FBI spokesman Gary Laturno. "Our agents are gentlemen, they do not intimidate people, they don't scare people." (They sure don't scare us!)
One teenager, who was at church when the FBI came knocking, said that his mother and an FBI agent came to the church to get him. He said that it was only when the FBI started to question him that he realized what he had been accused of.
"There was no way to know that it was a high-level system used by a bank," he said. "They ended up by telling me I was in a lot of trouble."
The trouble had all started months earlier, several teens contend, when a toll-free number on an electronic bulletin board gave them access to an unknown system.
That unknown system turned out to be the massive Interactive Data Corporation, used by up to 25,000 customers who pay for access to its financial information. Unknown users had been tapping into the system and changing passwords.
But both youths and parents say that the teens were encouraged to use the system and were given an account to access.
"You had the telephone number and the code name, then you connected with the system," said one parent. "At some point, there would be a help operator who would deal with you. That person would offer any kind of help you would want."
"Why would they ask how can we help you and explain different parts of the system, and literally ask my son to call back? It was an extremely friendly attitude. If they had even once told him they didn't want him on the system, it would have been different."
One parent thought the system included games and an encyclopedia and that system owners would eventually ask them to purchase the service.
"They had the trap on, they wanted the kids to call, they were afraid they had a hacker on the system. I know it sounds naive and stupid - but none of the parents knew."
Nunez labels as "nonsense" the idea that the teens did not know they had tapped into a major database.
"All of these kids were getting into a computer that they knew they should not have," he said. "Whether they knew all the rest of it is just a bunch of nonsense. You just don't go rummaging around in other people's property."
The teens and their parents say the Chase Manhattan system had absolutely no warning or name on the system - except the identifying code "IDC370" - to explain that this was a private, financial database.
"There was no warning," said one mother. "If anyone would have said get off, you're breaking the law, this would have never happened."
"It would have been funny, if it wasn't so terrifying," another parent said of the incident. "I kept thinking there will be an apology and well all laugh about it, but that will never happen."
"Q" and "Z" Controversy Rages
Most people never noticed they were missing, but a computer consultant from Lambertville, New Jersey calls it unfair that the letters "Q" and "Z" have been left off the telephone dial.
Bernard Riskin, operating under the name "Quentin Zygmundt," is the organizer of "Citizens Quest to Squeeze Q and Z Back Onto the Telephone Dial." He says telephone makers are discriminating against a large number of businesses.
Riskin said it's hard to come up with a catchy vanity number - most of which are actually words - for pizza shops and barbecue restaurants without a complete alphabet.
"Amtrak's number is 1-800-USA-RAIL, but there's no 'Q' or 'Z' on the telephone dial to spell out Pizza Queen or B-B-Q," he said.
Riskin, 58, has written to New Jersey Bell, Bell Atlantic, and six other telephone companies around the country trying to get the letters on the telephone dials and buttons.
New Jersey Bell spokeswoman Lynette Viviani said no one ever complained about the missing letters before.
"We couldn't identify where in history it was determined what letters would go on what buttons," she said. But the number 1 is reserved for area code use and 0 is reserved for the operator, she said.
Under the old Bell System, telephone listings began with two letters, followed by five numbers.
Few exchanges began with "Q" or "Z" so those letters were left off the dials. Ms. Viviani said. "We now assign telephone listings by numbers, not letters," she said.
The change would have to be made on the set itself, which is standard throughout the nation and probably elsewhere, she said.
(Pizza Queen?)