herrickd> (04/29/91)
In article <telecom11.296.4@eecs.nwu.edu>, herrickd@iccgcc.decnet. ab.com writes: > [Moderator's Note: There are all these 'scenarios' people come up with > -- red herrings, really -- as excuses for not having Caller ID. From > your example above, I take it you would rather force the people to > answer the phone every time it rings -- being unable to tell in advance > who is calling -- rather than sit down with the people as one parent > speaking with another to discuss and correct the misbehavior of your > children. PAT] The threads are confused here, I'll start a new heading. Pat's comment refers to my scenario in which the person in a household who gets the most calls from my telephone does not want to talk with the member of my household who makes those calls, and so I, the telephone subscriber cannot get through to the telephone subscriber in that household on the rare occasion that I want to. I find most of the rantings here about wanting Caller ID (sic) in order to ignore unexpected incoming calls to be quite childish, so I set the scenario in a childish context. The point I was trying to make is that "Caller ID" is a lie. The product is "Calling Station ID". Pat's comment contains the phrase "being unable to tell who is calling". If my number appears on a Caller ID (sic) readout, it probably means that one of four or five (do I count my eldest who will be returning for the summer in a few weeks?) people is calling. However, there is a household around here where the reaction to my number on a Caller ID (sic) readout would be, "Oh, my daughter is over at Liz's and calling from there." This would not prevent me from getting through to them, but my voice would be a surprize. Most of the applications of Caller ID (sic) depend on the false assumption that knowing the number of the originating station enables one "... to tell who is calling". Most of scenarios Pat decries as red herrings are intended to demonstrating the falsity of the assumption. The Lotus Equifax database offering was killed over much smaller potential abuse. I have tried to expose the absurdity of the assumption with lighthearted examples, rather than demonstrate another scenario allowing abuse, in this posting, and the previous. dan herrick herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com