george@gwusun.gwu.edu (George Hagerman) (06/23/89)
Right now, there is a campaign going on to call Beijing's "informant hotlines"
that have been set up by the PRC government to round up pro-democracy student
activists (see recent articles in misc.headlines, soc.culture.china, or in
alt.activism if you get it). The purpose is to jam those lines so that real
informants cannot get through, and possibly to set up nagging doubts about
what is going on in the minds of the "hotline" operators. It may be possible
to do this even if one is not Chinese, mainly by sending music over the phone.
I was able to keep one guy on the line for over a minute by playing "Straight
Up" by Paula Abdul, and a fellow in Massachusetts tuned them in to some Miles
Davis jazz. A little something for everyone!
Several questions for those of you who know the hows and whats of international
telephone systems:
(1) By tying up the 10- or 20-odd lines in Beijing, are we hampering the
communication of valuable news into and out of China, or are there
enough international circuits that this shouldn't be a problem?
(2) Can international jamming really have an effect, or is the ratio of
international circuits to local circuits going to dilute its significance?
For example, let's suppose that the ratio of international-to-local lines
in Beijing is 1:100 (and I have no idea what this actually is or if I'm
framing the question properly - help!). Assuming there is some sort of
queing system, then elementary statistics suggest that for every foreign
call that gets through to the informant switchboard, 100 local calls will
get through from real informants. Is there a queing system like this? Is
it possible for international calls to be flagged in some sort of way so
they automatically move to the front of the que? Any ideas out there?
(3) This could really run up one's phone bill after awhile. I'm getting
conflicting reports on whether collect calls are being accepted, and
I don't hold out much hope for that route. Does anyone have any ideas
about how a local phone company, as a public service, might set up a
toll-free line (or lines) to China for this purpose? I'm envisioning
something like a 24-hour phone center, manned totally by volunteers,
playing their favorite tunes and just redialing numbers when they're
hung up. The whole thing could probably be done automatically.
(4) In fact, might AT&T be willing to set up their own center, eliminating
the need for every local phone company to do it? Local phone companies
could, instead, put an optional box on their phone bills for people to
contribute money to AT&T to help offset the capital and operating costs
of such a center (sort of like the political campaign contribution boxes
on your tax return). Does anyone out there care to speculate whether
AT&T would be receptive to such an idea, and who at AT&T would be the
best person to contact?
One might guess that if such a jamming campaign were successful, the PRC
government would simply change the numbers; but they would still have to
publicly advertise the new numbers, and unless they REALLY clamp down (like
evicting ALL foreign journalists, which sort of runs counter to their claim
of business as usual), the new numbers would eventually find their way to
the outside world.
Please send any answer, ideas, or suggestions directly to me [r], or by
follow-up posting. If you want to cross-post on this subject, the most
appropriate newsgroups are soc.culture.china and alt.activism.
Thank you very much in advance. If you would like a list of the "hotline"
numbers, please let me know and I will send them to your e-mail address.
- George Hagerman (george@gwusun.gwu.edu -or- UUNET!gwusun!george)dong@brauer.harvard.edu (Rui-Tao Dong) (06/23/89)
What I know about phones in Shanghai is that when long distance calls come in, the local call would be cut off. That was about 10 years ago, I am not sure if that is the case in Beijing now.
ron@hpfcmgw.HP.COM (Ron Miller) (06/28/89)
Rather than spend the money yourself..... Why not forward your phone to Bejiing and then invite all the telemarketers to call you? Wish it would work.... (sigh) Ron Miller