covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 27-Nov-1990 0921) (11/28/90)
>Thackeray estimated in a recent Chronicle interview that PBX abuse >will cost industry $500 million this year. According to her formulas, >the DEA hackers may have used service worth $100,000 or more during >each of the 18 months in which the agency's phone system was >compromised. $100,000 in a month seems to be a little high. Considering that a full rate call to anywhere in the 48 states costs at most 25 cents a minute, recalling that FTS restricts international calling, and not taking the night and evening discount periods into account or the savings the government gets having a private network (in other words, considering each minute to be worth 25 cents), it would require 400,000 minutes of usage to cost $100,000. That's more than nine hackers on the lines 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Unlikely. john
RAF@cu.nih.gov (Roger Fajman) (11/30/90)
> More to the point, why would anyone WANT to steal FTS service? Don't > most people want circuits that work? FTS was lousy, but FTS 2000 works just fine. I have no complaints about it. I believe that the conversion to FTS 2000 for voice service is now complete. By the way, I have an authorization code for making FTS 2000 calls from off the network. There's an 800 number to call, then you enter the number being called (seven digits for an FTS number, ten digits for a commercial number), followed by the eleven digit code number. I had trouble making data calls that way because it seems to be very picky about the timing of entering the numbers. Roger Fajman Telephone: +1 301 402 1246 National Institutes of Health BITNET: RAF@NIHCU Bethesda, Maryland, USA Internet: RAF@CU.NIH.GOV