From: epstein@sunc7.cs.uiuc.edu (Milt Epstein)
Subject: Re: capturing caller id data
Reply-To: epstein@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 20:57:51 GMT

In <1992Apr03.015818.11500@clarinet.com> brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton) writes:

>I think a lot of the debate about caller ID comes from people not talking
>about the same thing.   There are many things being called caller-id.
>
>One is absolute caller-id without any blocking.  Only a few Bell people
>who want to make it simple seem to want this.  I doubt anybody here is
>defending it.   Yet everybody's attacking it like there are people
>here advocating it.  Are there?

Yes, there are.  I know for a fact that Illinois Bell wanted Caller ID
without any kind of blocking -- they even said they would not make it
available at all if they were required to have blocking.  I have heard
that this is the case with phone companies in several other states.  I
suspect this is just a bargaining ploy, since when the Illinois
Commerce Commission approved Caller ID with per-call blocking, the
phone comanies were quite happy.

As to people here defending it, there are several people who have
objected strongly to anonymous phone calls, and claimed they had the
right to know who was calling, and the caller did not have the right
to make an anonymous call.  A very natural conclusion from this is
that they would not want blocking to be availabele.

However, now you and some others have mentioned some sort of
compromise proposals (some of which have actually been around for a
while) that may make everyone happy (except perhaps the phone
companies), and hopefully, this will lead to more understanding on
both sides.


>The next is ID with (free) per-call blocking.   This is not the best, but
>there's certainly nothing wrong with it in my books.  It protects the
>privacy of the recipient and the maker of the call as desired.   The
>key to this working is the existence of "anonymous call blocking."
>(This rarely gets talked about.)  You can implement it with a box.
>I think it's important enough that it should be implemented in the DSS.

Again using Illinois as an example, Illinois Bell has said that
blocked calls will display "Private" or "P" (I don't know what decides
which) on the Caller ID device.  They also say "The subscriber [to
Caller ID] would then have the option of not answering the call or
telling the caller that blocked calls won't be accepted."  I'm not
sure whether this latter option must be done by answering the phone
and telling the caller, or whether it can be done automatically.  (If
the former, that certainly is misleading writing by the phone
company.)

Taking this further, how about allowing a default setting for per-line
blocking, and allowing per-call override (all this should be free).
Also, the callee should be able to reject incoming blocked calls, and
in such case, a message go back to the caller that blocked calls are
not accepted.  (I'm not sure what you mean by "anonymous call
blocking".)


>An ideal system, which we should have but which would be more work for
>the bells in implementation is:
>
>	When a call is made, the following data comes with it:
>
>		a) A unique ID code for the caller.   This could be a
>			code for the person, not the phone, but it
>			would start out being just the phone.  It would
>			not be the phone number, but could be used to
>			call the person back, but not to identify them,
>			unless there are criminal charges, in which case
>			the police could map it backwards.
>
>			This code would be optional and could be replaced
>			by "anonymous"
>
>		b) The purpose of the call: (semi-optional)
>			- Business
>			- Personal
>			- Phone solicitation
>			- Emergency
>
>		c) The priority of the call
>			- Low
>			- Normal
>			- Urgent
>			- Emergency
>
> The purpose code is semi-optional.  One need not put it on, but in the
> case of a phone solicitation, it would not be optional.   Ditto for
> "Emergency" -- it would be an offence to misuse it.

This proposal seems problematic -- in particular, who would have the
power to set the purpose and priority of the call, and how would they
enforce it?  I can envision the case of the stereotypical
mother-in-law calling about the grandchild and claiming it was an
emergency. 


>Does anybody object to this?  Why?  Isn't it my right to be able to
>conveniently refuse anonymous calls just as much as it may be your right
>to make them?

I'm not sure I have an opinion right now on your above proposal
(offhand it sounds too problematic and complicated).  I will answer
"yes" to your last question here, and say that my proposal above seems
to take care of that (I'm sure you'll let me know if you disagree :-).

-- 
Milt Epstein
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois
epstein@cs.uiuc.edu