HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Date: 26 Jan 93 13:11:45 GMT
From: ccoprfm@prism.gatech.edu (Monte Freeman)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: "Secret" Phone Codes
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 45, Message 4 of 7

tompkins@tti.com (Tompkins) writes:

> In one of those discussions, about a year ago, a number was posted
> that purported to work nationally: 10732-1-404-988-9664. 

 Well, it doesn't work from 404. Here's the results of my poking around:

 From home (404) 634-xxxx with AT&T as my default carrier I got a
reorder.  If I just dial the 404-988-9664 part, then all I ever get is
a busy signal.

 From work (404) 894-xxxx with MCI as the default carrier I got a
recording telling me that it was not necessary to dial a 1 with this
number.

I redialed it this time without the 1. I got a recording that said
that I must first dial a 1 or a 0 plus the area code when calling this
number.

I redialed it again. This time with a 0 instead of a 1. I got a
recording telling me that it was not necessary to dial a _1_ (no,
that's not a typo) with this number.

If I pick up our WATS line and dial this number (I have no idea what
company provides the service), then all it does is ring.

  Strange results from 404 land. Anyone got any ideas here?


Monte Freeman  --  Operations Department / Information Technology
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
Internet: ccoprfm@prism.gatech.edu    Bitnet:   ccoprfm@gitvm1.bitnet
From: Mark_V_Miller@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: 5ESS-2000 Switch
Date: 26 Jan 93 04:01:51 GMT
Organization: TELECOM Digest
 
 F
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 44, Message 3 of 15

new product designed to bring advanced "digital" computerized switch
services to rural telephone customers across the United States, plant
officials said Wednesday.
 
  The new switching product is a smaller, stand-alone version of
AT&T's "5ESS" digital telecommunications switch already made at the
plant.
 
  The product will provide many modern services in market areas with
1,000 or fewer customers where it previously may not have been
economically feasible for a small phone utilities [sic] to provide
such services.
 
  "Telephone customers in rural areas want access to the same
custom-calling and digital business services that suburban and urban
customers take for granted," said Pete Gannon, manufacturing vice
president at AT&T's Oklahoma City plant.
 
  "This new product will deliver to the rural markets the same
features, software and operational capabilities as our larger
switches," he said.
 
  AT&T announced plans for the new product, known as the 5ESS-2000
Switch Compact Digital Exchange, Wednesday in Maui, Hawaii, at the
annual meeting of the Organization for the Protection and Advancement
of Small Telephone Companies.
 
  The first shipments of this new product are expected in early 1994.
Initial production work may start at the Oklahoma City plant late this
year.
 
  "While we anticipate significant demand for this product, it is not
expected to require an increase in the size of our work force," Gannon
said.
 
  The Oklahoma City factory, which had product sales of $1.8 billion
in 1992, has about 4,100 employees.
From: acrosby@uafhp.uark.edu (Albert Crosby)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Apartment Security Stupidity
Date: 22 Jan 93 02:42:03 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 37, Message 11 of 15

In several of the recent issues, PAT has mentioned that it is stupid
to use a plain telephone line for an apartment building security
system.  A poster or two have noted that the system is fairly common,
and that it is less expensive to use the systems that use POTS.

In SWBT territory, it at least was possible to have a POTS line
_with_no_1+_long_distance_carrier.  I had a good friend who used this
as a cost control measure. (No teenagers, he and his wife just felt
less inclined to make long distance calls if they had to dial on a
card.)

If you blocked 900 numbers, 976 numbers (and I guess in this day and
age, 800 numbers) plus had no default LD carrier, is there any reason
such a line wouldn't be suitable for a security system?


Albert


[Moderator's Note: No, provided the line also had Billed Number
Screening, meaning collect and/or third number calls could not be
billed to it, and provided security was not compromised (i.e. calls
could get through without busy signals -- call waiting on each line --
and actual phone numbers could not be ascertained by listening to what
was being dialed, and the door could not be tricked into unlatching by
means of a pocket tone-decoder blown into the receiver). It might also
be wise if the phone at the door (a) was non-pub in directory
listings, (b) had a number not generally known except to people in
management who need to know it, and (d) was set for one-way service,
outgoing local calls only in the event someone did learn the phone
number. To prevent the line from being used for social conversations
from the lobby to an apartment or excessive units from being charged
if it is a metered line, you might also consider a timer which would
disconnect the line after 30 seconds or so of it going off hook. A
special touchtone pad which went dead after the maximum number of
digits required would be a good idea as would an armored handset ala
payphone style to prevent the receiver from being liberated every week
or two by vandals. Glue the ends of the receiver where they unscrew to
avoid losing the mouth or earpiece innards to pranksters. Basically,
making it like a payphone style handset or if possible, a speakerphone
hidden behind a little slot people would speak into, with only the
*metal* buttons of the touchtone pad protruding out of the wall would
be best. Avoid the plastic touchtone pads if possible since people
like to hold cigarette lighters up to them and melt the buttons, etc.  PAT]
From: trebor@foretune.co.jp (Robert J Woodhead)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature ...
Date: 23 Jan 93 12:06:29 GMT
Organization: Foretune Co., Ltd.
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 41, Message 4 of 12

alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle) writes:

> Paul Robinson <FZC@CU.NIH.GOV> writes:

>> kstox@admips2.berkely.edu writes in TELECOM Digest 13 #14 about how
>> someone programmed the IBM 1130 to generate tones on an AM radio.

> I've got one even even better.  How about programming a CDC 3600 to
> play the Star-Spangled Banner on its tape drives -- in stereo!

I heard about an artist who noticed that when he drove over a local
suspension bridge, the metal grid deck of the bridge (made this way so
snow could fall through it) interacted with the tires of his car to
produce a hum, and the frequency of the hum was proportional to the
speed of the car.

He thereupon went and recorded the tones of the bridge at various
speeds, and edited the tapes into a musical score.

To my mind, the record-holder for world's largest instrument.


Robert J. Woodhead, Biar Games / AnimEigo, Incs.    trebor@forEtune.co.jp
AnimEigo US Office Email (for general questions): 72447.37@compuserve.com
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 06:27:24 GMT
From: sue@netcom.com (Sue Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature ...
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 43, Message 10 of 12

In article <telecom13.31.12@eecs.nwu.edu> chuckm@canada.hp.com (Chuck
Munro) writes:

> Well, as a matter of fact .....

> When I was a customer of H-P (*many* years ago) I had a program on my
> HP1000 that would rapidly move the brake solenoid up and down on the
> paper tape reader.  This would result in music (quite loud if you
> placed an IBM punch card in the reader) which you could play from the
> console keyboard.  This was my first experience with a pre-MIDI
> computer music system.

I had that same program on an HP 2000 system.  We had some nice
classical pieces, the names of which I can no longer remember.  This
was, hmm, 1977 or thereabouts, during my college days as system
administrator of the math dept's system.
From: duggan@cc.gatech.edu (Rick Duggan)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: "Secret" Phone Codes
Date: 26 Jan 93 15:44:17 GMT
Reply-To: duggan@cc.gatech.edu (Rick Duggan)
Organization: College of Computing
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 48, Message 3 of 13

In article <telecom13.45.4@eecs.nwu.edu> ccoprfm@prism.gatech.edu
(Monte Freeman) writes:

> tompkins@tti.com (Tompkins) writes:

>> In one of those discussions, about a year ago, a number was posted
>> that purported to work nationally: 10732-1-404-988-9664. 

> Well, it doesn't work from 404. Here's the results of my poking around:

I got it to work from 404.  First, I tried the above directly.  When
that didn't work, I decided to dial just 988-9664.  That just rang
about 10 times before I gave up.  Finally, I went with 10732-988-9664.
Third time's the charm, I suppose.  It functioned as advertised, down
to the extra '8' at the end.  Now, does anyone know if a bunch of
comp.dcom.telecom readers are going to have some $10 charge (or some
other strange amount) on our next phone bills?  They obviously know my
phone number :-).


rick
Date: 25 Jan 93 01:53:54 EST (Mon)
From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Wiring For Multi-Lines on One Jack
Organization: I.E.C.C.
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 43, Message 11 of 12

You're right, you can wire up several lines on a single modular jack.
You can only get up to three lines, since standard phone plugs only
have six wires.  For eight wires you need a data plug, which isn't
very different, but there's no conventions for wiring voice pairs on
data plugs.  On the six wire voice plug, the pins are numbered from
one to six.

The wiring arranagement for a single line is the familiar RJ-11, with
pins three and four being the ring and tip sides of the pair.

For two lines, it's called RJ-14. with the ring and tip for the second
line on pins five and two.  This is a very common arrangement -- most
two-line phones plug into an RJ-14.  At the Radio Shack you can get an
adapter plug for about $3 which splits out the two lines to separate
RJ11 jacks.  (At the Harvard Square Rat Shack they don't even ask for
your name any more for small cash purchases.)

For three lines, it's called RJ25, with the third ring and tip on pins
six and one.  This arrangement is much less popular.  I haven't seen
any consumer RJ25 equipment and adapters, though it would be easy
enough to wire it up on your own.  Keep in mind that most modular
telephone cables are only four wires and wouldn't work for RJ25.


Regards,

John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl
From: dan@phoenix.az.stratus.com (Dan Danz)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Can Paging Software Detect Alphanumerics?
Date: 24 Jan 93 01:00:26 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer Inc, Marlboro MA
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 40, Message 1 of 13

mc/G=Brad/S=Hicks/OU=0205925@mhs.attmail.com writes:

> Is it possible under the IXO/TAP protocol, or any companies'
> interpretations of it, to detect whether or not a particular pager
> number can receive text pages?
[...]
> But sometimes those error messages are helpful.  For example, if it's
> an invalid pager ID, you get a message that says so, so I search the
> return strings for "INVALID PAGER" and if I find it, don't bother
> retrying.

> Now what I'd really like, is for the paging computer to detect that
> I'm trying to send an alphabetic page to a numeric-only pager and give
> me a <NAK> with an error message that says so.  Does anybody do this?
> Would this be a reasonable thing to ask the folks at Cybertel and/or
> Skytel to support?

If I send Skytel "**12345", I get back **12345 ... INVALID NUMERIC
MESSAGE ... ENTER NUMERIC MESSAGE:>

However, since when did SkyTel start using IXO/TAP?  I'm currently
talking to them using their menu-driven PC connection that is
definitely not IXO/TAP, which I would prefer.


L. W. "Dan" Danz     (WA5SKM)     VOS Mail:  Dan_Danz@vos.stratus.com
Sr Consulting Software SE         NeXT Mail: dan@az.stratus.com
Customer Assistance Center        Voice Mail/Pager: (602) 852-3107
Telecommunications Division       Customer Service: (800) 828-8513
Stratus Computer, Inc. 4455 E. Camelback #115-A, Phoenix AZ 85018
From: PJJ125@URIACC.URI.EDU (Tony Pelliccio)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: N.E. Telephone Admits Ripoff - Refuses Restitution
Date: 24 Jan 93 21:12:10 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 43, Message 1 of 12

Oh yes, the system is FILLED with errors. Last I knew NET was
embarking on changing all it's billing and order systems over. Perhaps
your area of MA just went through it. I know Providence went through
it last October. I had a line installed in my new apt. and five months
go by, no bill. Nothing!  The best part is, my number ends in 071x and
the VA Hospital is 710x. Guess where all my LD was being billed to? Uh
huh, the VA. I'd call NET and ask them and they could never find
account info, same thing with AT&T for my LD.  Who knows, maybe I
should have kept my mouth shut and I'd be receiving my service
compliments of New England Telephone.
 
The only reason I knew about the LD being billed to the VA Hospital in
Providence was because a friend of mine who I call quite often lives
in NJ and he got a rather nasty call from someone at VA who takes care
of the telecom system asking who he knows that works there. Well, he
immediately called me thinking it might have been one of my computer
hijinks again but it wasn't.
 
To this day, those five+ months of LD have NEVER been billed to me. I
guess VA either just payed them or disputed them. Ah well ... thanks
Uncle Sam!
 
Tony


[Moderator's Note: I had a phone turned on about twenty years ago at a
place where I stayed occassionally and although the service got turned
on, the paperwork never made it to accounting for the purpose of
setting up a billing account. Since the line had unmeasured metro
service (a type of service we had back then) there were never any
extra units generated and no reason to ever issue a bill. It went on
like that for a year. I was careful to never make any long distance
calls from that line or do anything which would start paperwork going.
Then one day, some $$#%&# phreak billed a third number phraud call to
that line. From a telco unknown to me comes the billing tape; it hits
the accounting department and of course the charges promptly fall out
and go to suspense, there being 'no such number' to bill them to on
this end where Accounting was concerned. In the adjustments/suspense
investigative process, someone at telco actually dials my number and
discovers it turned on .... hmmm, they say, and they ask the CO to
send the paperwork all over again. The next billing cycle, I get a
bill for *12 months to date* of service, plus the installation charge
which never had been billed, plus next month's service in advance, and
of course, plus the (still unknown to telco) phraud LD charge. I got
the phraud charge removed, but was hardly in a position to argue with
them about the service I had been using for the past year. :(   PAT]
Date: 23 Jan 93 09:46:01 EST
From: tim gorman <71336.1270@CompuServe.COM>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Modem Dial Lines and Problems
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 40, Message 12 of 13

jackl@pribal (jack lowry) asks in TELECOM Digest V13 #35:
 
> What is the guarenteed maximum loss on a local voice line?
 
> We have also been told that the loss on the line is 6db and that modems
> start having trouble at 8bd with 10db being the max guaranteed loss on a
> phone connection.
 
I think someone has only given you part of the story. Actual local
loops can run up to 8dB as a design limit, individual long loops can
have even higher losses. So if both circuits are in the same central
office, you could have a possible connection loss of 16dB. If the two
circuits are not in the same central office then another 3dB to 6dB of
loss could be added by the central office in a totally digital
network. This would give a possible overall connection loss of 22dB.
If the interoffice connections are over an analog network the
interconnecting losses could be even higher depending on how many
central offices are traversed and how far apart they are.
 
I would assume that overall connection losses of 25-27dB could be
feasible and within normal design limits. If you actually have this
situation, you have encountered a rather unfortunate circumstance.
 
> Modern folklore has it that there used to be a "special" modem phone
> line available. Is this still true?
 
I've never actually known of or had anyone admit to knowing about a
"modem" line in the state of Kansas. Various conditioning levels have
been able to be ordered. These provide certain levels of loss and
slope. There is, of course, a charge for this. Perhaps these have been
considered as modem lines?
 

Tim Gorman - SWBT
*opinions are mine, any resemblance to official policy is coincidence*
From: jharuni@micrognosis.co.uk (Jonathan Haruni)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature ...
Date: 23 Jan 93 14:16:17 GMT
Reply-To: jharuni@micrognosis.co.uk
Organization: Micrognosis International, London
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 41, Message 5 of 12

In article <telecom13.31.11@eecs.nwu.edu>, PAT wrote:

[about a Sun computer performing music to a live audience]

> When the work was finished, they introduced the fellow who had
> programmed it.  I left the program absolutely higher than a kite; it
> was so wonderful!

Please elaborate ... was the Sun controlling some sort of Synthesizer card
which the guy had written a command script for?  Was it controlling a
MIDI controller plugged into some commercial synth?  Or was it just playing
some digital recording?  What exactly did the guy "program"?  What was
so wonderful?  What was the big file server for?  Why was this more
impressive than a tape recorder?


Jonathan Haruni


[Moderator's Note: It was a series of great big executables which were
called up one after another for each of the various movements (or
parts) of the musical work. I think the executables were kept on the
storage device which was connected to the computer until it was their
turn to be used. It should be noted that "Pictures at an Exhibition"
is about thirty minutes in length, and is composed of several
movements, or 'sketches' each ranging in length from a minute or two
to several minutes. There was no synthesizer card or MIDI or similar
device attached.  The executables sent pulses to speakers attached to
the computer (actually, what would have been an audio output on the
computer was fed to the building sound system) and the speed and
duration of the pulses caused the speakers to make the sounds required
to resemble the music. That is an overly simplistic explanation of
what makes speakers work, but you get the idea. What was so nifty to
me was the total lack of any external equipment; just electricity sent
to an output causing the speakers to vibrate the way he wanted it.

I used to do the same thing with my little Apple ][+ ten years ago,
poking binary values into RAM in a certain order then calling the
routine so that musical sounds would come out of the speaker, but
never of the magnitude of the performance I attended. The Apple had a
cassette jack on the back to load programs from tape. By making use of
the little two (or maybe four) byte A/D converter inside, I found I
could digitize my voice using a microphone plugged into the cassette
jack then save the resulting binary on a floppy disk and play it back
through the speaker on the Apple. Because this sort of thing is of
interest to me, I find fascinating anyone who can write sufficient
executable script to transcribe a technically difficult piece of music
of 30 minute's duration.  A tape recording would not have been the
same. Part of the pleasure was hearing the live performance and seeing
the 'performer'.   PAT]
From: deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Do Telcos Record the Numbers of Local Calls?
Date: 21 Jan 93 14:41:31 GMT
Organization: AT&T
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 37, Message 8 of 15

In article <telecom13.33.4@eecs.nwu.edu> dcoskun@alias.com (Denis
Coskun) writes:

> Do telcos record the dialed digits for all local calls?

> My back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that it is entirely
> feasible for telcos to store the number of every single local call
> that you dial: In a city with 1,000,000 phones, with an average of 10
> calls a day on each phone, and logging both origin and destination
> phone numbers (7 digits each, so 14 ASCII characters), 

Minor quibble: phone numbers are almost always stored as ten digits,
but are stored in BCD, so that the total size of the phone number is
five octets.

> such a log would consume just 1,000,000 * 10 * 14 = 140 Mbytes per
> day.  That would fit on a tape which costs less than $20.

Of course, they also store a lot of other information, such as
originating number, call start time, call end time, etc., etc., etc.


David G Lewis                              AT&T Bell Laboratories
david.g.lewis@att.com or !att!goofy!deej     Switching & ISDN Implementation
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 19:19:13 GMT
From: tompkins@tti.com (Tompkins)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: "Secret" Phone Codes
Reply-To: tompkins@tti.com (Tompkins)
Organization: Transaction Technology, Inc.
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 37, Message 15 of 15

In article <telecom13.27.5@eecs.nwu.edu>, kwatson@netcom.com (Kennita
Watson) writes:

> At the end of the month I'm moving to a house that already has one
> phone line installed, and having a second line turned on.

> I have heard that there is a code I can dial into a phone that will
> tell me what phone number that phone is connected to.  Would somebody
> please email me what it is?  If there are other similar nifty codes,
> I'd love to know those too.

In one of those discussions, about a year ago, a number was posted
that purported to work nationally: 10732-1-404-988-9664.  10732 is a
private ATT network.  I know that this number does return your area
code and number verbally from 213, 310 and 818 area codes, and I have
read reports from others that it works elsewhere.  It does add an
"eight" to the end of any number I've ever called it from.


Pete Tompkins   tompkins@tti.com