From: werner@cs.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig)
Newsgroups: austin.general
Subject: this caller-ID arguments tend to be "a bit dense"
Date: 18 Nov 1992 06:29:13 -0600
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
NNTP-Posting-Host: dimebox.cs.utexas.edu

Wowbagger wrote:
||>Making Caller ID illegal is good news to me. 
||>... invasion of privacy involved.

	not to me, it isn't.  it's not all "cut and dried"...


||different from the peephole you have on your front door.

	that it is.  but related, nonetheless (though too many people
	use analogies to lead people to inappropriate conclusions:
	by arguing for a logic in the analogeous situation, and then
	claiming - often not even spelled out in so-many-words that
	"the same applies back in the analogeous case")

||CallerID  limits its "resolution" to just identifying the number and not the
||person *actually* on the phone but I dont see why it should give privacy
||advocates nightmares. I've seen some discussion on this topic in some other
||groups, but I never seem to understand why privacy advocates are so reluctant
||to forfeit their right to call people anonymously.

	well, no reason to assume that repeating the reasoning once more is
	going to make a dent ...


>What about the rights of the people receiving the call?  I feel I have the 
>right to know who is calling me, since they are disturbing me.

	well, you pick up the phone and ask them, and if you don't like the
	answer, you hang up ...

	...and if it was an honest mistake, you really don't have "any such
	rights" (and what "rights" you have otherwise in this regard hasn't
	really been established yet, has it?!!)

	That said, I am a great fan of "not getting called in the first place"
	by the kind of people whose answer lead me to hang up on them...

	I simply want a "non-soliciting blocker" (and FREE OF CHARGE) and a
	PUCC ruling that forces all phone-solicitors to register their "spiels"
	and to pay for whatever the technology costs that would prevent them
	from ever bothering me by ringing my phone ...

>Sure, you say I do not have to answer the phone, but I frequently get calls in
>the  middle of the night where they hang up as soon as I pick up the phone.
>These types of calls would stop rather instantly if caller ID were avaible to me.

	that seems a fallacy (for if a person wants to bother you, he can
	always call from a phone that you can't trace back to a person)

	but, besides, what gives anyone a right to regulate the hours which
	*I* decide to sleep (or be busy with work, or children, or ...
	whatever is important to me) - and make it "ok to solicit without
	fear of annoying" ?!?

	
>You should not have the right to keep make anonymous calls to my house!

	I'm in agreement with you in the following sense:
	
	I should have the ability to push a query button on my phone to see
	"some information the caller permits me to see" (not necessarily
	the number):  "Bush-Quayle campaign calling" would be just fine,
	as long as I am also able to set my phone up to "ignore all political
	campaign calls"...

	I should be able to (silently) instruct my phone (the phone company?)
	to stop ringing for a certain class of calls; as a matter of fact,
	we should be able to program our phone's ringing in many ways and
	by many criterias...  and not have to disclose that to the phone
	company either (for example, if I decide to want to block all
	Democratic campaign calls, but accept the Republicans, I should
	be able to do that, conveniently and cost-free... heck, I have a
	room full of retired computers, which have a standard interface
	and the capability and capacity to run programs to do these little
	chores for me ...

	these things should not lead to higher charges; instead phone bills
	should be getting lower (i.e. reflect the shrinking cost of computers)
	while capabilites increase...  Society is getting ripped off by
	"regulated monopolies", there is no doubt about it!  (well, better
	than having a government monopoly though, isn't it?!!  if you have
	not lived in such a place and experienced what the govmt routinely
	tends to do with a "cash-cow" monopoly, and capability to "snoop"
	just ask people from any of dozens of countries...


> The phone ringing disturbs me, but I do not want to turn of the ringer
> because  then I may miss an important call.

	absolutely agreed!  We want to filter out "nuisance calls" while
	accepting "important calls" ANYTIME...  Those folks who suggest
	"turn of the phone when you go to sleep" clearly don't seem to have
	any aging parents or kids out driving the car on weekend nights...
	

>Simple solution:
>DO NOT CALL ANYONE THAT YOU DO NOT WANT THEM TO HAVE YOUR PHONE NUMBER!

	sometimes "simple" is more like "simplistic".....

	actually, I can think of calls I made that I'd rather not
	identify the phone-number.....  I'd be quite willing to identify
	myself by name, however ...


> a 2-way street.  If you dial *my* number then I should know who you are

	yes and no:  I may be willing to identify myself, but not where
	I am calling from: thus, if you had the ability at your end
	to request that I identify myself so that I could communicate
	back "it's Werner" (some form of keyboard and display) then that
	would do also (and I would not have to let you know where I am at
	- which is none of your business!)


>I am tempted to get call-return just so I can call back those who hang up on
>me, but why should I have to pay extra to try to protect myself and still not
>know who is disturbing me?

	exactly!  however knowing the phone number would not help you
	(or rather me) with the problems we'd like to see go away:
	the out-of-state sweat-shop phone-banks (which are always busy,
	never answer, and move all the time - and people would just laugh
	at you with a "sue me" if you'd actually get anyone to answer:  it
	would be easy - and not illegal, I don't think - for "them" to
	rig a device to the phoneline, which, when called, would pick up
	and disconnect immediately again; of course, you'd pay for the
	first minute ...)

>I would like to see caller ID legal.  If you want the option to turn it off, 
>then give me the option of having my phone AUTOMATICALLY REFUSE any call from
>a "blocked" caller ID.  If you do not want to tell me who you are, then I do 
>NOT want to talk to you.  You should have nothing to hide from me.

	"nothing"?  NOTHING!?!!! you must be joking.  In this context,
	for example I might be returning a call or responding to some
	phone message on my answering machine (saying, for example,
	"please call, we found a document which seems addressed to you,
	but doesn't show an address - or a parcel for which you would
	need to accept paying postage for... or come pick it up... or
	one of many things...)  Or I might, unknowingly, have misdialed
	(or been given a wrong number) and not getting an answer - or
	worse, getting only a ringing (or busy?) signal, without some
	additional information that would help me (onward through the
	fog), the situation would really be "less than ideal" (and
	desirable)...


||Per-call-blocking is absolutely essential,  
>
>Why?  Are you engaged in something illegal that you should *have* to disguise
>who you are?

	"WHY" is none of YOUR business....

	get it? get it? !!  (as was stated elsewhere: it's a two-way street)
	

||If you dont want to let callerID give out your identity, more power to you,
||just dont believe the recepient is obligated to pick it up!

	agreed.  however, what I concerned about is that the "features"
	of the phone-system of the future change  NOT with the "people"
	in mind, but mostly according to greed motive (and an attitude of
	 f*ck-you-unless-you-pay-me-not-to)
	

>But I do not want to talk to anyone who wishes to hide their identity from me!
>I would like to block "anonymous" calls.  It is my right as well!

	yes, yes.  but, can you see where the ideal solution has to provide
	"more" than the "simple" solution you seem to advocate?!?
-- 
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