[comp.dcom.telecom] Bizarre phone conversation interception

miket@brspyr1.brs.com (Mike Trout) (01/25/89)

I just remembered something that happened to me a couple of years ago.  I'm
wondering if someone can explain how this could happen.

I was living the Troy, N.Y. exchange at the time (north of Albany, area code
518, number 274-XXXX).  I came home to find my answering machine indicating
one call had been received.  But the tape did not contain a phone call to me.
Instead, it contained a part of a long distance phone conversation between
some place in the midwest and some place in the east.  There were two people
talking: a male representative of the American Beef Council and a female
editor of some kind of nutrition newsletter produced at a famous eastern
university.  The Beef Council rep was explaining to the woman that he would be
mailing her some menus and nutritional information that she could use in her
newsletter.  She was reluctantly agreeing that she would take a look at the
material and would use it if it was suitable (the usual PR vs. journalism
battle that I'm familiar with).

Neither party was located in New York State.  My machine did not record the
beginning of the conversation; for whatever reason it just started recording it
in the middle.  It did record the end of the conversation and the sound of the
two parties hanging up.  I made a casette tape of this and have saved it
somewhere.

I've never had anything like this happen before or since.  My answering machine
is a fairly common Panasonic model, and I've never had any trouble with it.

Anybody have any ideas?

--
NSA food:  Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, DIA & NRO.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110  (518) 783-1161
"God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson