john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (09/02/90)
After reading parts one and two of the Epson special, an interesting
question has come to mind. What about Call Detail Recording?
A short time back, a distant acquaintance dropped by to conduct a
matter of business. During the visit, he asked to use the telephone.
No problem. He made a couple of calls and happened to notice the sound
of a printer in the other room everytime he hung up the phone. In
response to his inquiry, I told him that it was SMDR that monitored
all calls, in and out. He turned white and asked, "You mean that
everything I have dialed on this phone is on paper?" "Yes, it is." "I
dialed some very private numbers and I would like to see those records
destroyed." "No way."
This fellow is still miffed. Well, what about it? Does anyone have the
right to know what numbers are dialed on his phone (including local)?
What about big companies who run SMDR, and a guest uses the phone in
the lobby -- leaving a trail of his calling card and what have you on
the SMDR? Should I have a sign in my living room that says, "All
numbers dialed on this phone are recorded"?
John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395
john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !Ed_Greenberg@fin.3mail.3com.com (09/04/90)
John Higdon tells of having an associate visit who was p*ssed that
John's SMDR recorded details of his calls. This happened to me,
visiting a friend who has a little Panasonic switch. Fortunately, I
was standing right by the printer and grabbed the printout.
In this case it was mild. I'd _give_ Larry my credit card number, but
he does have kids (good kids, but kids nonetheless), and it points out
that we leave that credit card number all over the place when we dial.
On a similar subject, did you know that most Unix machines can be set
to record both bad login attempts and bad passwords entered to a good
user id? So, if you normally log in with a password of "rosemary" and
you accidentally use "trosemary" by hitting two keys, you've left your
password for the sysadmin. Moral: don't use the same password on more
than one system. I forget the names of these files, but they live in
/usr/adm/something_or_other and they should most definitely be
protected 600 and owned by root.
Ed_Greenberg@fin.3mail.3com.comklb@pegasus.att.com (Kevin L. Blatter) (09/05/90)
In article <11669@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: [ Story of John's acquaintance using his phone deleted ] > This fellow is still miffed. Well, what about it? Does anyone have the > right to know what numbers are dialed on his phone (including local)? > What about big companies who run SMDR, and a guest uses the phone in > the lobby -- leaving a trail of his calling card and what have you on > the SMDR? Should I have a sign in my living room that says, "All > numbers dialed on this phone are recorded"? I say that I have an absolute right to know what numbers are being dialed from my phone (I, like John, have an SMDR device hooked up to my two home lines) whether the calls are toll calls or not. On the other hand most people do not realize that when they check in to a hotel and use their calling cards to avoid the hotel's rip-off phone rates, that chances are the hotel is going to have their calling card number! For a few years prior to coming to work for AT&T I wrote call accounting systems which utilizes SMDR information for billing or whatever and our standard practice was if we saw a calling card number come through that we stripped the information out and classified the call as a 'charge call' which meant that we would not rate the call. However, we could have stored the information for who-knows-what purpose. Perhaps 'we' (whoever 'we' are) should place notices on our phones as John suggests, stating that dialed information is being recorded. After all, resturants often announce that they use microwave ovens for the would-be pacemaker customers. Use at your own risk. Kevin L. Blatter AT&T - Bell Labs Lincroft, NJ Disclaimer - AT&T may or may not share my opinions. [Moderator's Note: Re hotels and others with call detail having a record of your calling card number: How do you think credit card calls were handled years ago? You passed the number to the operator and the hotel got 'memo' time and charges for commission purposes, etc. You are dealing with an ethics thing here. Either the people that must deal with record keeping that you create are honest about it, or they are not honest about it. Many a telco operator could secretly write down your calling card number and abuse it later. Some have done so, some have been caught. Hotel operators are the same way. An honest person in a position of trust does not abuse the trust. PAT]
dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com (David Tamkin) (09/05/90)
In volume 10, issue 617, John Higdon wrote: | Should I have a sign in my living room that says, "All | numbers dialed on this phone are recorded"? If you do, you'll have to word it differently. I'd say more than 75% of the population would read that and think their *conversations* were being recorded. Better to say, "All telephone numbers dialed from this phone are logged." Note the changes of preposition and verb. David Tamkin Box 7002 Des Plaines IL 60018-7002 708 518 6769 312 693 0591 MCI Mail: 426-1818 GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN CIS: 73720,1570 dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com
mkallas@eecs.nwu.edu (mark kallas) (09/05/90)
In article <11669@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon <john@zygot.ati.com> writes: (some stuff deleted) >Well, what about it? Does anyone have the right to know what numbers are >dialed on his phone (including local)? What about big companies who run >SMDR, and a guest uses the phone in the lobby -- leaving a trail of his >calling card and what have you on the SMDR? The company supplying the service is responsible for paying for the call. They will get an itemized bill from the phone company for toll call. It seems clear to me that the provider has a right know who is dialing which numbers and how long the call was active. Many businesses ask employees to pay for non-business calls if they are billed for them. I also remember something about billable non-business calls on a business phone are actually a benefit which could be taxed by the IRS. So yes, the company supplying the service has the need to know how the phone system is being used. They are financially and legally responsible. Mark Kallas UUCP : texsun!digi!mkallas Internet: mkallas@digi.lonestar.org
BRUCE@ccavax.camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) (09/05/90)
If you use the # (call it what you may) key at the end of your dialed phone number it will often but not always tell the 'system' there are no more dialed numbers. This certainly speeds international DDD, where there is an unknown number of digits to expect. The # generally also knocks off tone to pulse converters if they are present, and some SMDR units will stop capturing, too. You will probably find situations where adding the # will mess up your dialing, but it is worth a try if you are paranoid.
rkh@mtune.att.com (Robert Halloran) (09/06/90)
In article <11757@accuvax.nwu.edu> BRUCE@ccavax.camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) writes: >If you use the # (call it what you may) key at the end of your dialed >phone number it will often but not always tell the 'system' there are >no more dialed numbers. This certainly speeds international DDD, where >there is an unknown number of digits to expect. The # generally also >knocks off tone to pulse converters if they are present, and some SMDR >units will stop capturing, too. I used to be in software development for a company in Rochester NY who made SMDR units for the Bell System, pre-breakup. I found soon after I started that there was a known bug in the unit's software that would reject any records that were not 7, 10 or 11 digits (1+ dialing was not so entrenched in '81). If the people reading the reports weren't checking the exception log, calls with extra digits slipped through. Punching the last digit of your number a few extra times was a common practice in-house :-). Bob Halloran Internet: rkh@mtune.dptg.att.com UUCP: att!mtune!rkh Disclaimer: If you think AT&T would have ME as a spokesman, you're crazed.
horwath@uunet.uu.net (George Horwath) (09/06/90)
I always get a good laugh out of these postings describing surprise
and/or outrage on the amount of "detail" captured by call detail
recording on PBXs. The last time I worked on a PBX's SMDR was seven
years ago and the only thing that limited the amount of information
captured was what the customer was willing to pay for a program
change. The hardware capability is there to collect every digit you
dial from when you go off hook 'til on hook. Doesn't matter if you get
answer, dial "#", or whatever. Just a matter of writing the software
to do it and getting someone to pay for it!
To start another thread - I hope no one out there believes those ads
in the back of {Popular Science} or other such mags. You know, the
ones that sell a device that turns on a red light when your phone is
"tapped".
George Horwath | Cellular Infrastructure Division
...uunet!motcid!horwath | Motorola, Inc.
| Arlington Heights, IL
Of course I speak for myself, not my employer...