From: jimmy@denwa.info.com (Jim Gottlieb)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Apartment Security Stupidity
Date: 23 Jan 93 19:37:05 GMT
Organization: Info Connections, West Los Angeles
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 39, Message 2 of 12

> [Moderator's Note: All the landlord needs is a few long distance calls
> made from that phone to demonstrate a 'regular phone line' is NOT a
> cheaper way to go. Some landlords may even be too stupid to have those
> phones blocked from 900/976/incoming calls,

Time to check the statute of limitations again ...

I've had a lot of fun with these things over the years.  Back in high
school (1978), some friends and I saw one for the first time.  We
ordered Call Forwarding on that line and took turns forwarding it to
ourselves so that we could have a line from that rate area.  In fact,
I still had it forwarding to myself until about 1990, when I guess
they got suspicious about the large number of local calls on their
bill.

And in the building I now live in, I used to have the line for the
entrance phone wired into my apartment.  I used it exclusively as a
"wake-up line".  That was the one phone that would ring while I sleep
and the phone system is in "Night Mode".  I didn't make calls on it,
and it seemed silly to pay for a line that may be used once every
month when someone needs to wake me up.

Alas, GTE discovered it one day and turned me in to the office of the
building.  Now I use a pocket pager to wake me up at night.

Now what about that lonely line for the payphone in the lobby that no
one ever uses ...  :-)


Jim Gottlieb
E-Mail: jimmy@denwa.info.com    In Japan: jimmy@info.juice.or.jp
V-Mail: +1 310 551 7702   Fax: 478-3060   Voice: 824-5454


[Moderator's Note: You get caught tapping a payphone line (or running
an extension of it in secret to somewhere) and you might go to jail. 
At least Illinois Bell takes that quite seriously. What would you do,
use that line to get incoming calls only? You certainly cannot deposit
coins for an outgoing call :).  How would you deal with being on the
phone talking to someone when a legitimate user in the lobby picked up
the receiver to make a call?  I guess it would be good for quick (and
free) calls to directory assistance. Years ago as a young teenager, my
uncle owned a drug store with a payphone, and a regular phone back at
the pharmacy counter. He had a two-line, turn-button phone with the
business line on one side of the button, and an extension to the semi-
public payphone on the other side. (Extensions *are* legal on semi-public
payphones, but the polarity used to be reversed so you could answer,
but not dial out on the payphone extension.) In those days, pay phones
had ground start lines and the coin dropping down the slot caused a
contact to connect ground to the tip for just a second. I fixed things
up so the third position on the turn button phone (momentary press
down and release) applied the needed ground to the pay phone line and
this allowed outgoing calls without a coin. It took about two days for
telco to send an Inspector out to the store to snoop around.  PAT]