hoque@huxley.bitstream.com (Tareq Hoque) (07/24/90)
These college phracking stories remind me of my days at MIT and dealing with Dormline ( . . . collect and third party calls, not accepted). Since Dormline was 1940's era step-by-step, it didn't have any billing mechanism, thus it only accepted incoming calls, and you could only make internal, toll-free or collect calls. Anyhow, the only way to get full telephone service was to get Netel to install your own personal line. A common thing to do in the dormitories was to share local lines with several rooms, which required bridging lines and reconfiguring if anyone changed rooms). One day I lent my friend my Western Electric lineman's set to do some maintenance on the bridge. It turns out that someone in the dorm saw him playing in the phone box in the basement and called the Campus police. When the campus police arrived, they questioned him on what he was doing and seemed confident that he wasn't doing anything malicious. They let him proceed with modifications but they did take down his name for their notes. After my friend was done, he gave me the lineman's set back. However, later in the week I got a frantic phone call from this friend saying that the CP's have been calling him because they want him to turn in the line set to the CP headquarters, because he would be breaking the law if he didn't. Well I told my friend that it was not illegal to own or use this equipment for legitimate purposes, but he asked me to talk to the police. I asked the police why they thought I should give them my own personal property. They said it was against the law to own a lineman's set. I asked them to cite the law that prohibits possession of the equipment. They couldn't answer. Then they said they wanted it because I could do illegal activities with the set. I told them I could kill somebody with my kitchen knife, did they want that too? In the end I told them I was refusing to give my property to them. They said they would turn me in to the Dean of Student affairs if they didn't receive it in 24 hours. I never turned it in, and I never heard about the incident again. The good old days. tareq
zawada@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Paul J Zawada) (07/24/90)
hoque@huxley.bitstream.com (Tareq Hoque): > When the campus police arrived, they questioned him on what he was > doing and seemed confident that he wasn't doing anything malicious. > They let him proceed with modifications but they did take down his > name for their notes. After my friend was done, he gave me the > lineman's set back. However, later in the week I got a frantic phone > call from this friend saying that the CP's have been calling him > because they want him to turn in the line set to the CP headquarters, > because he would be breaking the law if he didn't. > Well I told my friend that it was not illegal to own or use this > equipment for legitimate purposes, but he asked me to talk to the > police. > I asked the police why they thought I should give them my own personal > property. Actually, both of my Western Electric butt sets say "BELL SYSTEM PROPERTY" "NOT FOR RESALE". I bought them at a hamfest. I realized that this "warning" as such didn't appear on phones 'till the early seventies or so, but wasn't this assumed before the labelling? I mean back then, the phone company provided the customer with the phone equipment, so they owned most of it, if not all of it. Right? Was it possible to buy regular Western Electric phones, let alone butt sets, before the divestiture? I don't recall ever being able to buy WE equipment from the Bell System. It was almost always leased. Correct me if I'm wrong. On the lines of doing your own rewiring ... I believe I heard somewhere that unauthorized entry into telephone comapany plant was a federal offense. This is probably mumbo-jumbo, so if anybody knows - what really are the laws governing access to telephone company plant? Paul J Zawada | zawada@ei.ecn.purdue.edu Titan P3 Workstation Support | ...!pur-ee!zawada Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) (07/25/90)
Tareq Hoque <hoque@huxley.bitstream.com> writes: > In the end I told them I was refusing to give my property to them. > They said they would turn me in to the Dean of Student affairs if they > didn't receive it in 24 hours. I never turned it in, and I never > heard about the incident again. Whatever anyone says, the MFJ had its benefits. This is one of them. I remember from the time I was a kid until about the time I founded my own telecommunications vending company, there was this air of panic everytime a telephone repair person showed up on the premisis. If there was trouble on the line a pit in the stomach would occur from thinking about all of the "cleaning up" that would have to be done with all the wiring. Disconnect the extra phones, get rid of the "construction projects", can the experiments. And never, never have any telco-type test equipment around -- even if you bought it legitimately. Now, of course, when a phone man comes out it is a totally different story. On several occasions I have provided my lineman's handset to the repairperson when s/he needed two. One of the things that has helped is the "network interface", a direct result of divestiture. I leave everything the way it is and with one simple motion, telco can isolate its line and find the fault. Oh, there's still a lot of the old attitude among the front line folks. In the not too distant past, I had tried to get the projected cutover date for a particular CO. Everyone I talked to through normal, front-line channels seemed to indicate that such information was proprietary. Then I did an end run via one of my friends. Not only did I get the info that I wanted, but he pointed out a Pac*Bell periodical that lists cutover dates six months in advance. Of course, Pac*Bell now sends announcements to customer's advising them of planned cutovers. They are detailed form letters stating the equipment to be removed, to be installed, and the generic release along with info as to what kind of changes might occur in the service. > The good old days. Back in the good old days, none of this information would have been considered to be any of the public's business. And why would it have been? The "telephone company" provided everything end-to-end and no one else need be concerned over what equipment is in the CO. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !