BKEHOE@widener.bitnet (12/17/89)
Security at America's colleges and universities became an issue of great importance to me a few weeks ago. I received two phone bills from Bell of PA containing close to $45 in 976-service calls, $15 in extraneous in-state calls (one, which lasted 34 minutes, was to a BBS nearby, to my surprise), and close to $25 in AT&T ld calls (which would've been substantially higher if I didn't have ROA). I wrote Bell a letter which very firmly said that I wanted to know the source of *all* of the calls right away, since the majority of them were made at truly absurd times (4am), or on days when my roommate and I weren't even home. While I waited for their reply, I decided to check out how the campus has its phone service set up. The line block with most of the connections for the 215-447 exchange was simply in the basement of the dorm attached to mine, on the wall in the bathroom that's next to the laundry room. Someone with a pair of alligator clips and a princess phone could do anything they wanted to! Instantly I called Bell and started bitching until I was blue in the face about their total disregard for security with student-subscribed phones. A day later, I received a call from a woman who said that they'd put through an adjustment to have the 976 and local charges stricken from my bill (and have the 976 blocking put on). The letter I sent to AT&T (now three weeks old) has yet to be replied to. Brendan Kehoe (bkehoe@widener.bitnet)
gabe@sirius.ctr.columbia.edu (Gabe Wiener) (12/21/89)
Here at Columbia we have a digital phone system (much to my dismay). Billing is relatively secure. Each student is issued a Personal Security Code which must be entered on the phone before you can get an off-campus trunkline. This PSC is the source of all billing. Thus even roommates who share the same phone will receive separate bills. It's a little inconvenient having to dial 91 plus a seven-digit PSC followed by the number, but it saves a lot of hassles in billing later. The distributing frames in the dorm basements are locked, but there are always ways to get around that. However, there isn't much point, as you can't "listen in" to a digital signal, and you can't make a call w/o the PSC number. Before 1988, Columbia was on a Centrex system, and the panels for that were blatently exposed. You could walk into the phone closet of any floor or the dist. frame in the basement and play all the games you wanted with a test set. I don't think it was ever too widespread, though. Gabe Wiener - Columbia Univ. "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings gabe@ctr.columbia.edu to be seriously considered as a means of gmw1@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu communication. The device is inherently of 72355.1226@compuserve.com no value to us." -Western Union memo, 1877