From: add@philabs.philips.com (Aninda V. Dasgupta)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Do Telcos Record the Numbers of Local Calls?
Date: 23 Jan 93 13:28:04 GMT
Organization: Philips Laboratories, Briarcliff, New York
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 41, Message 1 of 12

Talking of telcos recording numbers, a recent sad case of child
abduction in Long Island, NY comes to mind.  (The following narration
is a summary of what the {NY Times} reported.)

Katie Beers, a ten-year old, growing up in a severely disfunctional
family, is enduring a custody battle between her natural mother and
her god-mother, who had brought her up for most of her young life. In
steps a certain Mr. Esposito, who had, a few years ago, pleaded guilty
to unlawful imprisonment and sexual offenses on a young boy.  He
showers this emotionally deprived child with gifts and lavishes her
with attention. He then takes her out shopping for Christmas gifts,
buys her dolls and video games. Next stop: a 7-11 store for some
ice-cream. The 7-11 surveilance camera records Katie paying for the
ice-cream and meticulously putting back the change in her handbad and
carefully tucking the bag under her arm.

The pervert then lures Katie into a garage-apartment behind his
bungalow and while Katie is trying out the video games, he removes his
stero system, turns around a revolving book-shelf and bar, lifts up
layers of carpet and flooring, runs a bolt through a hook and lifts up
a heavy concrete trap-door using a winch, and opens up the passage to
a dungeon. When his sexual advances on Katie is spurned, he gets
violent, throws her down the chute into the cramped underground
cellar, ties a collar on her neck and imprisons her.

Within hours of her imprisonment, the sick man forces Katie to record
a message on a tape-recorder, something like : "I am being held by a
bad man with a knife ... Oh my God, here he comes!"  Katie's
god-mother gets that message on her answering machine.  Police search
Mr. Esposito's bungalow and Katie gets to see the search via close
circuit TV, but her cries for help do not penetrate the thick bunker
walls. In the search of the premises, police find user manuals to a
brand-new portable tape-recorder and Katie's handbag and jacket in the
man's van.

Police look at phone company logs and determine that the call to
Katie's godmother was made from a pay phone, but a search and
questioning of people in the neighborhood of the pay-phone reveals
nothing new. More searching in the phone logs reveals that 15 attempts
were made to place that call to Katie's godmother, but her phone
always happened to be busy. So, the person who left the message, got
through only on the 16th attempt. This tells police that the call was
not made by Katie, because the message sounded as if she got a chance
window of a few seconds to place that call. Getting such a window once
is acceptable, but 16 times? FBI analysis on the message on the
anwering machine reveals that it was indeed played off a tape-recorder. 

Police start a heavy pressure campaign on Esposito and his family
members. They constantly follow them and keep their residences under
24-hour-watch. Finally, the guy succumbs and confesses.  Police find
Katie safe and sound after 16 days in the cramped dungeon.

Anyway, what interested me was in this sad, sad story is the fact that
the phone company keeps logs of all calls made from a pay-phone
(perhaps all phones?) and calls to a residential phone (again, perhaps
all phones?)  Moreover, the police (or does it have to be the Feds?)
can get to the phone logs in a matter of hours.


Aninda DasGupta (add@philabs.philips.com) Ph:(914)945-6071 Fax:(914)945-6552
Philips Labs\n 345 Scarborough Rd\n  Briarcliff Manor\n NY 10510


[Moderator's Note: Yes, you are correct; very little escapes telco's
notice these days, and that INHO is good for just such reasons as the
case you cited.  The telephone should *never* serve as a medium for
harassement, fraud or the commission of other crimes. The fact that
the telephone has served these purposes over the years was due to the
technology in use for many years, not a deliberate thing by telco. The
development of ESS and the sophisticated ways in which traffic can be
analyzed and reviewed could be viewed by some twisted logic as an
'invasion of privacy' by some people, but I do not view it that way. 

On a separate note, it should be recalled that under the Constitution
of the United States, Mr. Esposito must be presumed innocent of the
crimes he is charged with unless he is proven otherwise in court.  PAT]