Telecom-Request%usc-eclc@brl-bmd.UUCP (12/17/83)
TELECOM Digest Saturday, 17 Dec 1983 Volume 3 : Issue 120
Today's Topics:
Dial-Up Sex Services
MCI Charge-a-call phones
Portable TouchTone generators
airport phones vs celluar
Rumors...
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Date: 16 Dec 1983 0745-PST
From: Wmartin@OFFICE-3 (Will Martin)
Subject: Dial-Up Sex Services
I am somewhat mystified by all this recent hoopla regarding the High
Society magazine dial-up audio sex line. For many years there have
been hundreds of dial-up services advertised in the tiny ads in the
back of the "men's magazines", wherein you dial, give a MC or Visa
number, and get n minutes of supposedly stimulating conversation with
a person of the female persuasion. Is the only difference with this
one the implication that it is free (aside from the cost of the call
itself)? If so, I guess the poor peoples' organizations should cite
this as another example of the administration's "anti-poor-people"
attitude they keep complaining about...
The best comment I ever saw on this sort of thing was a cartoon in one
of the magazines carrying such ads. It showed the woman on the other
end of the line -- a frowzy housewife in her kitchen with a kid on a
highchair, reading all this salacious stuff off a gravy-splattered
script...
Some local massage parlor used to have a similar service here; until
they opened up around noon or so, if you dialled their number, you got
one of several (seemingly random choice) recordings of a sultry female
voice talking of sexual matters. It was interesting that they were
very careful to not use any slang or common obscenities or terms;
always very clinically proper in their terminology. Anyway, there was
no fuss about this that I recall, but the number was changed a day or
so after it became common knowledge. This doesn't seem to exist here
anymore, but most of the massage parlors have been repressed recently.
Will Martin
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Date: 16 Dec 1983 0806-PST
From: Wmartin@OFFICE-3 (Will Martin)
Subject: MCI Charge-a-call phones
I note the description in one of the messages about the new MCI
chargecard phones that they are good only for INTERSTATE calls. I
thought that these alternative services were now claiming that you
could call "any" other phone and there was no restriction on
intrastate calls. Is there some special restriction on the numbers
diallable (or reachable) from these particular MCI phones?
(I guess this would have to be tested somewhere else than the
Washington National example cited, as just about everything is
interstate from there.)
While I am on my usual intrastate vs. interstate pet peeve, was
anyone else offended by that mention that the California PUC allowed
intrastate LD charges to rise by 10+ percent? Intrastate charges, at
least here in Missouri, are far higher than the same distance called
interstate, and there is absolutely no excuse for this, except the
relative powers of the local telco and the state PUC (or equivalent)
as opposed to the FCC! If the powers-that-be who have decreed the
breakup and restructuring mainly to allow cheaper long distance
calling (I can't see any other benefit) believe in this cause so
strongly, why not also federally mandate that no intrastate call can
be charged at a higher rate than the same-distance call made
interstate? After all, isn't a cheaper intrastate LD call just as
important as a cheaper interstate LD call? For the nonce, freezing
all intrastate LD charges would seem to be the correct interim
procedure. I expect someone is going to say that the federal agencies
have no authority to so control a state matter, but that argument
doesn't hold much water around here, at least, where we have federal
judges setting local property tax rates and overriding local election
results regarding taxation, due to a school desegregation case. It
seems that any federal agency can really do just about anything it
wants if it wants to badly enough...
Growl... Will Martin
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Date: 16 Dec 1983 0830-PST
From: Wmartin@OFFICE-3 (Will Martin)
Subject: Portable TouchTone generators
Recently, one of the list contributors recommended the use of the
little portable TouchTone generators for accessing alternative LD
services from non-TouchTone phones. I just wonder if the common use
of such devices will lead to more use of "Blue Boxes", probably housed
in the same nondescript Radio Shack tone generator boxes?
After all, a few years ago when we were hearing about "blue box" LD
service theft fairly often in the news media, there were very few
legitimate uses for such external tone generators. The MCI/Sprint
services were not common yet, and, aside from some answering machine
control units, there was no justifiable reason for sending funny tones
into the telephone mouthpiece with a mysterious box. Now, with such
things common enough for Radio Shack to sell them, I would think that
it would be harder to restrain their use.
By the way, since we don't hear about "blue box" arrests anymore, has
the system been changed so that they don't work any more?
An hypothetical question: I note that Radio Shack sells one of these
tone generators to control appliances, lamps, etc. via dial-up. If
you built your own system to do this, or run a phone answering
machine, or some such legitimate use, but used the particular tone
patterns that the "blue box" people use to muck about in the innards
of the phone system, would your device be "illegal" or confiscatable
by telco security? That is, it would work as a "blue box", but also
function in the exact same manner to perform a perfectly legitimate
and legal purpose. By the way, are "blue boxes" in and of themselves
outlawed by any statute, or is it just their use for an illegal
purpose (theft of service) that is illegal (and they being thereby
confiscated as "tools of the crime" or some such)?
Will Martin
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Date: 16 Dec 83 1441 EST
From: Rudy.Nedved@CMU-CS-A
Subject: airport phones vs celluar
I am always amazed at how slow people change. You add better features
to existing systems but people rarely hop on the band wagon to use a
new "system" like walking down an airport corridor and talking on your
celluar telephone.
The current trend at least in Pittsburgh seems to be "car phone" sales
tactic....not "portable or belt phone". I expect the celluar phone to
take several years to get in almost everyone's car and then a few more
years to get outside the car.
Therefore MCI and AT&T are doing the right thing. Lots of money is
made in a few years.....
-Rudy
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Date: 16 Dec 1983 1628-EST
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
Subject: Rumors...
Heard a rumor today that there was a major nationwide (i.e.
multi-site) PhonePhreak bust. Seems the FBI was busy.
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End of TELECOM Digest
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