waldman2%husc8@harvard.harvard.edu (Bruce Waldman) (04/12/90)
I have recently been receiving various sorts of threatening calls from
an anonymous person. I reported it to the police, and they offered to
put a tap on the phone, etc. But I am wondering about the
possibilites. One of my friends tells me she used to get regular
calls from someone where nothing was said, and the person then hung
up.
New England Telephone registered her line in some sort of "capture"
system. After she got one of these calls, she was supposed to call an
800 number immediately, and the origination of the previous call would
be recorded. She had to sign some sort of agreement stating that she
would press charges against the caller once he or she was identified.
My friend was told that the length of the call did not matter, this
would all be done automatically. Is this possible, and how? Only in
special exchanges? (Apparently the caller was never identified or
else New England Tel did not choose to communicate this information to
my friend.) In my own case, what are the possibilities? How
difficult would it be for the phone company to identify callers?
Would it make a difference what sort of exchange the call originated
from? Would it make a difference whether the call originated locally
or from a long distance carrier, and would it make a difference which
long distance carrier it was?
As you can see, I am rather naive about the capabilities of the phone
company. In the movies, the police always try to keep the
ransom-demanders on the phone for enough time that they can physically
trace the calls I guess, but is this now unnecessary? I'd be grateful
for relatively non-technical enlightenment.
Bruce Waldman, bw@harvarda.bitnet
waldman2@husc4.harvard.edu
...!harvard!husc4!waldman2