telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) (05/29/90)
The subject line says it all: It is time for the first annual poll of
TELECOM Digest readers, to detirmine how many of you fit into one of
the above categories.
The two questions I would like answered are:
1) Have you made one or more phraud calls in the past six months?
(yes or no)
2) Have you broken into a computer, or gained unlawful access to a
computer in the past six months? (yes or no)
I realize these are rather sensitive questions to ask, and since most
of you probably do not know how to send an anonymous message over the
net, I have provided a work-around.
I want you to flip a coin, any coin. Don't tell me how it lands.
If it lands heads up, answer the above two questions truthfully. If it
lands tails up, then answer these two questions instead:
1) Have you eaten a hamburger for lunch in the past two weeks?
(yes or no)
2) Have you gone inside the usual bank you do business with in the
past two weeks? (yes or no)
Based on the coin-flip, answer the first two questions or the last two
questions. Send a message to 'telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu' with the
subject header 'questions', and a single line of text using the
appropriate text from the following:
1. Yes Yes
2. No Yes
3. Yes No
4. No No
Please do not include anything for the Digest and do not include
personal comments you want me to answer. Repeat: DO NOT advise me of
the results of the coin-toss. The results will be posted here in a
couple weeks.
Patrick Townsonmrotenberg@cdp.uucp (06/10/90)
Pat, It's interesting how important anonymity is for your survey on hacking and phreaking. Bob Dobbs aside, doesn't this example have some bearing on the Caller ID debate? Marc Rotenberg CPSR Washington Office [Moderator's Note: Mr. Rotenberg is the Director of the Washington, DC office of Computer Professionals For Social Responsibility. His address to USITA on September 13, 1989 entitled "Telephone Privacy in the 1990's" was the subject of a special issue of TELECOM Digest on December 3, 1989 by the same name. His message is available in the Telecom Archives for interested persons. I disagreed with his conclusions at that time, and still, I suspect, disagree, unless he has changed his mind about Caller*ID. While some people feel the privacy of the caller is supreme, others of us believe the privacy of the called-party is more important. No one forced the caller to ring our phone, after all. And as for doctors, lawyers and social-workers who will no longer be able to call from home at their pleasure, while hiding behind a third-number answering service when you call them: isn't that a pity! :) To address Mr. Rotenberg's question above, yes, there certainly is a relationship between the two. How many crackers or phreaks do you think would answer honestly if there were not a way to avoid answering? And likewise, how many phreaks do you think would continue to engage in phreaking if Caller*ID was universal? PT]
John Higdon <john@bovine.ati.com> (06/11/90)
On Jun 10 at 22:51, TELECOM Moderator writes: > While some people feel the > privacy of the caller is supreme, others of us believe the privacy of > the called-party is more important. No one forced the caller to ring > our phone, after all. And now a little personal situation begs the question for those who have maintained that Caller-ID is unnecessary because other methods are available to catch nuisance callers. I have, for a about a week now, received a call on my main private line at about 3:00 am daily. I answer with a groggy "hello", then the caller hangs up. It happens once per evening (morning). Pac*Bell's suggestion is to change my private number, a course of action I find unacceptable. Since it happens only once per day, they don't feel compelled to exert any effort on the matter (terminating traps, or any of the other medieval methods to catch crank callers) so the onus is on me. They have even offered to change my number for free. Now that's really nice of them, since in real terms it's a lot easier for them to type a new number assignment into RCMAC than it is to trap the line (and then have to deal with the results, if any.) With Caller-ID, however, this entire situation would have been settled on the first day. In the meantime, until I'm ready to change my number I guess I'll just plan on waking up at 3am daily. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !