roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) (10/29/90)
An article in the Sunday 10/28 {New York Times} (A22, "For
Police, a Delicate Job of Reordering Priorities" describes a 911
operator answering a call, "Within one second, the computer told her
the caller's telephone number and the address and even that the caller
was on an extension phone". How is it possible to know that the
caller was on an extension? Did the reporter misunderstand what he
was told, or is there some magic going on here that I can't figure
out?
Recently somebody on the Digest says he travels with a butt
set so he can, for example, tap somebody's outside junction box in an
emergency. What would happen if you needed to call 911 and the
fastest way was to break open a nearby telco box, clip a butt set onto
a random pair, and call from there? When you told the operator, "No,
I'm not at [insert address corresponding to that pair's subscriber's
home], but on the corner of foo and bar", would s/he be likely to
believe you?