birchall@pilot.njin.net (Official Random) (06/01/91)
[For those of you in Comp.Admin.Policy, I am attempting to route a discussion of ethics in relation to use of Internet dialouts into your group. For those of you in Alt.BBS.Internet, if you follow-up this message, please route it into Comp.Admin.Policy, as it is much more relevant to the topic than ABI is. -Shag / ABI founder] My views [not to be taken as expert by any means] are as follows: A dialout is a virtual resource, just as a dialin, gateway, or account is. As such, it is the property of the organization or person operating it. Dialouts are (as far as I can see) charged non-residential rates by the corporations providing telephone service. Therefore, there can be no "unlimited free local" calling, everything being charged instead as "message units." Before using a dialout (or a dialin or any resource) an individual should be expected to request and acquire proper permission and/or authorization, just as would be expected for using any physical resource belonging to or being controlled by another individual or organization. I have nothing personally against the use of dialouts, so long as it does not affect my <thousand-plus dollar> phone bills. I do have a slight problem with the concept of using privately owned resources without permission. Noting the "Electronic Frontier Foundation" tag on the messages from the man at Syracuse University, [I have nothing but respect for Mr. Kapor and the EFF] I feel that my point could be aptly stated as follows: If we, as net-users, hackers, CPSR members, EFF supporters, or whatever, expect society to grant us the same constitutional protection as has been granted the free press and speech, we must render the same respect to virtual resources as we would render to more concrete ones. Until the day dawns where we live in a utopian society with no individual possessions, it may be wise to ask first. -shag -- >-----------------------------------------------------------------------------< >Shag is: < > A. The reincarnation of Hagbard, famous German hacker. < > B. The most sexually prolific KGB agent in Hainesport NJ (pop 3000) < > C. A word you should never say to anyone in the UK. < > D. A variable type in ANSI/ISO Standard C. < > E. A mild-mannered small-town PC programmer < > F. A random creature from the depths of Hades. < > * G. Any or all of the above, also birchall@pilot.njin.net < >-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<
bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) (06/01/91)
Although I tend to agree that using dialouts without some sort of
authorization is just asking for trouble, the situation regarding
local calling is not as simple as some make it out to be. There are
areas where commercial customers get local, unlimited dialing within
some area (I am pretty sure Washington, DC is one.)
Worse (more confusing), in many areas you can buy bulk message units
by the thousands or tens of thousands at some lower rate, in advance,
if you are a large user. In such cases, where there are say a
half-dozen dialouts, local calling would be almost insignificant even
if the few phones ran day and night (a modest sized university could
have 10,000 or more office phones.)
But that should give one no assurance about the dialout they are
using. I know when I was at large university computing center I was
asked for this by a Dean for a few local phones for faculty doing
joint research with companies (which in theory brought in income) in
the area and it was flatly rejected unless he would pay ("find the
budget for") all the phone bills. I can assure you that if they had
found someone external using unauthorized dialouts it would be
considered a serious breach and might well try to cause trouble for
the perpetrators. I doubt they would see it any other way but a theft.
I would think that open-access dialouts are very, very rare, if they
exist at all, except by accident or oversight.
In Boston local, non-residential dialing costs about .05/minute (its
figured a little differently, so much for the first 5 minutes etc) if
I remember right, about $3/hour.
At 12 hours/day usage that would come to over $1000/month per dialout,
$12K/year/phone. A small rack of those (8) could easily push $100K per
year. That would be quite a gift. It adds up fast.
--
-Barry Shein
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