HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: birchall@pilot.njin.net (Shag)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Rutgers Exchange-Changing Mayhem
Date: 11 Jan 93 22:16:32 GMT
Organization: Screaming in Digital, the Queensryche Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 19, Message 1 of 10

Rutgers University has an outlying campus in Camden, NJ.  The campus
is in exchange 609-757, with some businesses.  Since that exchange has
become full, the campus is being moved to a new exchange, 609-225,
which went into service on Friday (1/8/93).

Banners to this effect were placed on the campus dialins early this
week.

Within a day, several users of a public system at Rutgers had left
posts saying that they would no longer be able to call in for free,
because NJ Bell had told them the new exchange wasn't local to them.

Naturally, since the "localness" of a call is based on the distance
between CO's (at least in NJ), and the CO's were quite obviously right
where they'd always been, this caused a lot of confusion for the rest
of us, who were quite certain it would be a free call, as always.

It turned out that a scenario like this was being repeatedly carried
out:

	User calls the operator to ask about 225.
	Operator keys 225 into the computer.
	Since 609-225 doesn't _exist_ yet, the computer decides that
	they must (of course) mean 908-225, which is some 60 miles 
	away (and, coincidentally, a local call from a _different_ 
	Rutgers campus).
	Operator tells user that it's not local.
	User panics.

When I called NJ Bell, and explained to the operator that it was a
Rutgers campus changing exchanges, the operator's response was, "Oh, I
remember when they did that up here in New Brunswick, it'll still be
local."

Convincing all the users who had been told by NJ Bell that it _wasn't_
local was a bit of a challenge, though!

When I mentioned this to a friend in Rutgers Telecom (T.P. Brisco), he
pointed out another bit of trivia:

  "I understand when we split from 908-932 to 908-932 and 908-445, 
  that originally NJB proposed that we take the newly available 
  809 exchange (instead of 445).  We rescinded that proposal on 
  the grounds that a phone number like 908-809-xxxx would lead to 
  too many typographical errors, and confusion with the newly 
  minted 908 area code.  Maybe we should've asked for 923 instead 
  of 445?" 

T.P. also posted a followup message mentioning that people had better
specify 609-225 when they called the operator.

I think all the users have caught onto the idea now, but there's bound
to be a few who stop calling in (particularly people from outside
Rutgers who just dial in to use the public system).  Of course, those
few who continue believing it's a toll call after all our explaining
are probably modem-incompetent anyway.


Shag
birchall@pilot.njin.net, shag@glia.biostr.washington.edu, birchall@njin.bitnet
  Operator of ShagNet - Rutgers/NJIN dialup access for Burlington County, NJ
     Happy and informative user of a PPI 14400 FaxModem and GeoWorks Pro
       Editor of the Queensryche E-mail Digest - "Screaming in Digital"
From: wah@zach.fit.edu ( Bill Huttig)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Hunt Groups
Date: 12 Jan 93 02:57:38 GMT
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 21, Message 8 of 13

In SouthernBell land there are rotaries on two or more exchange ... I
would recomend (if you can get it from your carrier) that you get call
forward on busy between the lines ... line 1 on busy forwards to line
2 line 2 on busy forwards to line 1 ... I have my lines set up that
way and I only have to pay $1 for each forward on busy ... a rotary
would have made be pay about $16 more per line ... and call forward
busy does the same thing.


[Moderator's Note: Well this seems to be an applications thing based
on the volume of calls received. IBT does *not* charge any special
fees for hunting. It is free as lomg as all the lines are on the same
exchange. You can pay $1 per call forwarded on busy if you wish, but I
thought it was too expensive when IBT said each forwarded call would
cost one 'unit' -- about 3.5 cents here. Even at three cents per call
forwarded, I'd wind up paying several hundred dollars per month for
this service, which is useless considering the same thing is free from
IBT if you ask for 'hunting' instead.  PAT]
From: ray.normandeau@factory.com (Ray Normandeau)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Automated Sales Calls
Date: 3 Jan 93 14:18:00 GMT
Reply-To: ray.normandeau@factory.com (Ray Normandeau)
Organization: Invention Factory's BBS - New York City, NY - 212-274-8298v.32bis
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 9, Message 11 of 15


                                  Contact Ray Normandeau 718 392-1267
      Download this and other "off-beat" items by computer modem from
            Normandeau Newswire on Invention Factory BBS 212-274-8110


Updated January 3, 1993

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
=====================

                Computer Dialers Got You By The Calls?
                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

by Raymond B. Normandeau

Normandeau Newswire- No matter where you are from the Nassau border to
the Hudson River you may have gotten a computer dialed call telling
you that you may be eligible for a fabulous prize.

If you have not gotten such a call yet, cheer-up, you probably will.

The recorded message is played to you extremely fast. You may have won
a life-time supply of amphetatmines so that you too may start a
similar business.

Have you gotten computer dialed calls from "Hopping Harry". Maybe
calls mentioning Reno Nevada? Have these calls told you to call a
540-nnnn number?

Do you think that maybe the recorded messages failed to tell you the
price of the call? Did the recording mention "Five-Four-Oh" several
times? If the recording said "The call is billed at Five-Four-Oh" they
meant that you are billed #5.40. You WERE paying attention weren't
you? Those are the bargain calls, the sky is the limit.

Was an address speed spoke so fast that "slow you" missed it?

If you have multiple phone lines and have been lucky enough to be the
recipient of multiple calls you may like to go pick up your multiple
prizes in person.

You may have been told to call 540-0100, 540-9900 or another 540-nnnn
number.

Now ... back to that address. Sneaky us, taped one of those calls and
played back the address.

Would you like to visit the office where the calls came from?  Are you
Hopping Mad?

Here is the address:
Eagleton Group Inc
717 East Jericho Turnpike #213
Huntington Station, NY 11746

If the recording tells you that you must call within "n" minutes and
you want to get more information by phone without paying a hefty fee
for the call, then dial 718-830-8781 which is a Forest Hills answering
service for the Huntington Station address. You will only be charged
for a regular local call.

So now you have it. You can pay them a visit!

You may have to speak to them real slowly like.

They don't hear as fast as they talk.

However, no matter how slowly you tell them that you want no more
calls from them, they won't stop calling you - ever. We know, we
tried!
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 02:35:24 GMT
From: dannyb@Panix.Com (Daniel Burstein)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: 976 Fraud in Toronto
Organization: Panix, NYC
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 15, Message 9 of 10

In <telecom13.10.3@eecs.nwu.edu> Tony Harminc <TONY@VM1.MCGILL.CA> writes:

> This past November, a company I consult for had three unauthorized
> calls to (416) 976-9467 made on one of its lines.  Each call was one
> minute long and was billed at $24.  Thinking back, we remember the
> likely perpetrator -- a man claiming to be serving legal papers on
> someone who supposedly used to work at the office address.  There were
> several small discrepancies to his story, but he seemed just as
> puzzled as we were.  He asked to use the phone, and I remember that he
> did a lot of dialing, but when challenged he showed a pager with
> display and claimed he was calling his voicemail.

> Bell Canada has agreed to remove the charges, but will not tell us the
> name of the owner of this number.  We are not eager to pursue it with
> the police, because of the small amount of the fraud, but we are
> concerned that this may be part of an organized scam (else how would
> the 'process server' benefit?) and others may also have been hit.  The
> $24 charge is quite a bit higher than the usual sex and sleaze lines
> which -- according to the ads -- are mostly $10.

A similar scam has been going on in New York City. A messenger will
show up at a company with a package, and when no one there seems to
match the addressee, he asks to use the phone.  Calls a "540" exchange
(one of the extra charge numbers; the others are 550, 970, 976, and
another about to be announced) and the company gets billed for $50 or
so.

When people notice it on the bill and complain, the local telco wipes
the charge.  But how many people don't ...

Which brings up a question or two about this whole concept of
surcharged phone numbers: Aside from all the legal questions (I'd love
someone to push a strong lawsuit about misbilling and all sorts of
other things), I'd like to know the following:

Does anybody out here have any sort of breakdwon as to the users, or
rather, providors, of these services?


Thanks,

danny  <dannyb@panix.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 17:00:48 GMT
From: eo@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (Ed Oliveri)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Good Opportunity For Fraud
Organization: AT&T
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 20, Message 14 of 17

In article <telecom13.7.7@eecs.nwu.edu> johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us
(John R. Levine) writes:

> Citibank machines in New York City at least used to have a similar
> feature.  For a long time, over a year, someone who clearly had inside
> information was using an old invalid Citicard to make $100 withdrawals
> from machines all over the city when the machines were offline while
> their network nodes were down for maintenance.  The maintenance
> schedule was deliberately erratic and quite secret.  Had the guy used
> the card even once in an on-line machine the card would have been
> eaten and that would have been that.  I never heard whether they
> managed to catch him.  I'd think that it would have been
> straightforward to set up a sting to catch him in the act.

Are you sure this was Citibank?  Every Citibank ATM I've seen CANNOT
eat a card since the card is dipped into the card reader, never
leaving the user's fingers.


Ed Oliveri, eo@cbnewsb.att.com     OR     att!cbnewsb!eo


[Moderator's Note: The Citibank ATM's in Chicago eat the card for a
minute and spit it out when finished with it.   PAT]
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 09:52:23 GMT
From: minakami@xenon.stanford.edu (Michael K. Minakami)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Compressed Speech Warbles ... Need Help!
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 16, Message 4 of 12

Hello all, I'm using a GSM compressor to try to compress some voice
data digitally recorded at a studio. The uncompressed voice sounds
quite good, however once it's compressed there is an annoying warble
in the voice.

Does anyone have any ideas how I could "fix" this? Any pre-filters? I
suspect this is the same warbling experienced by some RELP coders, as
GSM employs LPC followed by long-term-prediction and residue encoding.

Any leads would be greatly appreciated!


Michael Minakami      Computer Science/Psychology    Stanford University
From: r.lightwood@trl.oz.au (Liron Lightwood)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Calling 1-800 Can Cost You a Fortune
Date: 11 Jan 93 03:24:24 GMT
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 20, Message 4 of 17

So, what happens when you call one of these costly 1-800 numbers from
a payphone?  Do the phone company pick up the bill?  Do you get asked
to insert money?  Or do you get a recorded message saying the number
cannot be dialed?

I understand that 1-900 numbers cannot be called from US payphones,
but 1-800 numbers can.  Does this apply for all 1-800 numbers
available in the area where the call is made from?


[Moderator's Note: What happened in the past was that the information
providers resorting to this sleazy tactic (of issuing a bill to the
caller after the caller dialed the 800 number) did attempt to send a
bill to the owner of the payphone ... and of course, the 'owner' of
the payphone (in effect, the subscriber) was telco itself ... telco
would not pay the IP's, and the IP's quickly learned to consult a data
base which lists payphone numbers, then refuse to do business with the
folks calling from them. The IP's still get tripped up occasionally by
COCOTS, (or actually, the COCOT owner gets the bill, he squeals like a
pig and the IP has to eat the charges) so when these numbers get iden-
tified, they also get added to the list of numbers not to be dealt
with. I think the IP's have begun to circulate the 'untouchables' list
among themselves as a mutual protection kind of thing. But in the
early days of the 800-converted-to-900-or-worse racket, it sure was
fun seeing how many charge-backs could be shoved up Mystic Marketing's
corporate waste eliminator at one time. Calls went through to those
astrologers, Tarot practitioners and 'counseling services' from every
payphone in Chicago, I suspect, and probably from other cities as
well. So how come the astrologers could not detect this little
shortcoming in their scam from the beginning?  :)    PAT]
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 11:09:41 EST
From: mertwig!daniel@uunet.UU.NET (Daniel Drucker)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Bellcore Documents Phone Number Wanted
Reply-To: Daniel Drucker <uunet!daniel%mertwig@uunet.UU.NET>
Organization: Abnormalities of Reality
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 12, Message 8 of 13

I was just reading _The Hacker Crackdown_ (Bruce Sterling). It
mentions an 800 number and a catalog from Bellsouth where you can
order various telco documents. (For instance E911.) Does anyone know
the number?

Please reply by mail as I do not recieve this newsgroup.


Daniel Drucker     daniel%mertwig@uunet.uu.net
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 20:18:19 GMT
From: troyf@microware.com (Troy Frericks)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Why Does Phone Bell 'Ping' on a Regular Basis?
Organization: Microware Systems Corp., Des Moines, Iowa
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 15, Message 7 of 10

In article <telecom13.8.9@eecs.nwu.edu> glenn@rigel.econ.uga.edu (Glenn F. Leavell) writes:

> My parents live in Mississippi and get their local phone service from
> South Central Bell.  According to my parents, the bells in their
> phones make a 'ping' every evening around 10:15PM.  They say that the

Have you tried swapping out the phone?  This would rule out some
things like EMI being picked up from something like a water softner or
a lamp on a timmer.  Some cheap (cherp, cherp) phones tend to be less
tolerant than others.


Troy Frericks                      Internet: troyf@MICROWARE.COM
Microware Systems Corporation          UUCP: uunet!mcrware!troyf
1900 NW 114th St                      Phone: (515)224-1929
Des Moines, IA 50325-7077               Fax: (515)224-1352
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 07:20:27 GMT
From: gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org (Gordon Burditt)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: SS7 Links Fron CA to NY via AT&T?
Organization: Gordon Burditt
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 17, Message 3 of 9

>> You don't seriously believe such a state of affairs will stand, do you
>> John?  The PUC will order that numbers not be delivered, period.  I
>> can even see the potential for lawsuits against Pac Bell over this.

> But the PUC cannot order this, just as it cannot prevent any carrier
> from passing realtime ANI to end users. 

Why?  Federal law?  What's so special about SS7?  Has it been enacted
into law by Congress or the FCC?

I don't see anything prohibiting a sufficiently provoked PUC (or the
state legislature backing the PUC) from doing any of the following
(except perhaps common sense on the part of the PUC?  Naaaah.  Not if
the voters are out for blood.) downright silly things:

- Prohibiting the inclusion of any equipment that uses SS7 in the rate base,
  or otherwise fiddling with the formulas so the only profitable
  thing to do with it is decommission and destroy it.
- Prohibiting the use of SS7, especially for in-state calls, with anything
  but the phone company's own customer service number in any 
  "originating number" or "billing information" field.
- Requiring a new tariff for every SS7 packet transmitted.
- Making all phone service flat-rate and prohibiting charges for
  individual calls, thereby eliminating the need for per-call
  "billing information" except for one billing number for each
  in-state phone company.  Local phone companies eat charges from
  MCI, Sprint, AT&T, etc.
- Abolishing phone numbers (in-state) and using names and addresses.
- Threatening the phone companies that if they don't quit sending
  phone numbers out of state, the PUC will set the rate for local
  calls at negative five dollars a minute.  Customers will then figure
  out that two more lines with a call permanently connected between
  them is better than a welfare check, and that pretty soon they can
  work up to thousands of lines.


Gordon L. Burditt    sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon
From: jet@nas.nasa.gov (J. Eric Townsend)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Need Help Dealing With PacBell and Harrasing Calls
Date: 12 Jan 93 00:09:39 GMT
Organization: Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation, NASA Ames
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 18, Message 17 of 18

Sometime during the night of 6 Jan 93, some individual(s) with a fax
decided that my home voice number was also a fax and started dialing.

Since then, I've received a *lot* of calls from this fax machine,
often on regular intervals (10min before the hour being common).  I
suspect it's on the east coast, since things started up around 5am
this morning.

PacBell is being less than helpful. "Hope they notice that the fax
isn't getting through."  "There's no way for us to figure out where
the call is originating from."

So I started dropping computer-words. :-)

Me: "Can't they set up a line trap?"

Them: "Uh... yes..  but, uh, that might not work."

Me: "Well, can PacBell at least determine if it's coming in LD or if
it's originating from a local exchange?"

Them: "uhm, probably."

Repair Service just took a call on it, they think that maybe they "can
figure out who's calling you and get them to stop".

Anybody know the "right" questions/requests to make of PacBell so that
they do this sort of thing a bit more quickly?


J. Eric Townsend --  jet@nas.nasa.gov -- 415.604.4311 (DoD# 0378)


[Moderator's Note: Can you temporarily call forward your phone to a
line with a fax machine and recieve a transmission from the idiots? If
so, then I presume once their identity is discovered, you could call
them yourself and give them a piece of your mind.   PAT]
From: rice@ttd.teradyne.com
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Hunt Groups
Date: 11 Jan 93 23:14:45 GMT
Organization: Teradyne Inc., Telecommunications Division
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 21, Message 7 of 13

In article <telecom13.10.7@eecs.nwu.edu>, rboudrie@chpc.org (Rob
Boudrie) writes:

> Is it possible for two numbers serviced by the same physical CO to be
> placed on a hunt group even though they has different exchange
> prefixes?

> [Moderator's Note: I've never heard of a hunt group including lines on
> different prefixes, even if they were in the same CO.  Anyone?   PAT]

Not a hunt group, but 'forward on busy' should work if the lines are
in the same switch. It accomplishes the same end.


John Rice        K9IJ    rice@ttd.teradyne.com  


[Moderator's Note: But John, the big difference between the two at
least where Illinois Bell is concerned is that 'forward on busy' is
handled like any call-forwarding, with a unit (or more) charged on
each call. On the other hand, IBT gives 'hunt' for free. Same
identical feature, but the one is charged for call after call after
call, making it quite expensive if you get several thousand calls each
day with 99 percent or more of them going somewhere other than the
lead number. IBT tried to get *me* to take that feature on a voicemail
system I look after instead of traditional hunting. I said nuts to
that and insisted on regular hunting (and checked the bill the next
month to be sure they obeyed!)   PAT]
From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Calling 1-800 Can Cost You a Fortune
Date: 11 Jan 93 22:33:27 GMT
Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 20, Message 1 of 17

In article <telecom13.12.4@eecs.nwu.edu> udi@cs.washington.edu (Udi
Manber) writes:

> I learned this the hard way after being charged for (apparently)
> dialing the wrong 800 number.

How did this charge appear on your bill? Was it a call to a 900
number, or perhaps a collect call?


Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 10:27 EST
From: turner@Dixie.Com
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: A Minor Nit With the Telecom FAQ
Reply-To: turner@dixie.com
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 10, Message 9 of 11

I think Dave did an excellent job with the faq, but I would like to
make a minor nit.

> Q: What do "tip" and "ring" mean?

> A: The conductors of a wire pair to a telephone set are referred to
>    as tip (T) and ring (R). Tip (T) is usually the more positively
>    charged of the two while Ring (R) tends to be more of a ground.

This seems to be a common misconception.  CO battery is -48, rather
then +48 with respect to (WRT) ground.  Thus tip is positive WRT ring,
but is actually at ground, if current isn't flowing.  Ring is then at
-48 V, again assuming no voltage losses.  The reasons for doing is
galvonic corrosion protection.  A conductor with a - charge will repel
chlorine ions, as Cl ions are negative also.  If the line were to have
a posative charge, Cl ions would be attracted.

This form of corrosion protection is called cathodic protection.  It
is often used for pipelines, bridges, etc.  I don't know how important
it is now, but it was very important in the days of open wire
transmission lines.

CO battery does not have to be 48 V.  24 V is often used for PBX and
Key systems, long loops may have a higher battery voltage.

>    However, two wires normally suffice to complete a connection
>    between a telephone and the central office; any extra wiring
>    would be for purposes such as grounding or for party line ringing.

Also to supply dial light for the Princess phones.

  
Pat Turner KB4GRZ   turner@dixie.com