From: csmith@plains.NoDak.edu (Carl Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Caller ID block?
Date: 23 Dec 92 03:38:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: ns1.Bzp0sr.Dxu
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network

In article <1992Dec22.212743.1856@lunatix.uucp> chelf@lunatix.uucp (Chad Helfenberger) writes:
>In article <1992Dec22.145426.19388@cc.gatech.edu> byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff) writes:
>>
>
>Everyone lived for a long time without Caller ID, and now it's like 
>it's a basic human right or something.

Well, I don't think that caller id is a basic human right, but I have
been arguing in favor of it because of the people who seem to think that
it is some kind of basic human right to NOT have caller ID.

>The first time the telemarketer calls, tell them if they call again you will 
>take legal action.  If the droid doesn't seem to understand, ask to speak to 
>a supervisor.  I get approximately 2 telemarketing calls a YEAR, since I 
>started threatening them and not passing my number to businesses via CNID.

Well, I think you are very lucky then.  I have dealt with quite a few 
different telemarketing firms and on the repeat callers I have never
been able to get rid of them on the first call, no matter how much I 
rant and rave.  I ask that they do not call anymore and they say 
something like "Then you would like us to remove your number from the
list?" and I reply "Yes, please."  and they say "OK sir."  But a few
days later they call back anyway.  The most extreme example was MCI.
They would call me twice a week to nag me about leaving at&t.  Every
time I would tell them to remove me from their lists, which they would
agree to do.  Or I would ask to speak to a supervisor, and the next 
sound I would hear is a buzzing sound commonly referred to as a "dial
tone."  After many months of this I had the following final conversation
with MCI.

ring ring
ME:   Hello?
THEM: Hi. This is MCI.  I would like to tell...
ME:   I would like you to leave me alone.
THEM: Huh?
ME:   Well, you were going to give me the usual sales pitch about switching
        over to MCI, right?
THEM: Yes...
ME:   Well, if I ever decide to switch from at&t it won't be to MCI, it 
        will be to sprint.
THEM: Why?
ME:   Because they don't call me twice a week to nag me about switching.
THEM: Oh.
ME:   And, if I ever receive another sales call from MCI again, I will be
        consulting with the phone company and my lawyer about the 
        possibility of pressing harassment charges against you.
THEM: Oh.  Sorry to have bothered you.

They haven't called back since, in at least a year.  But it took me a year
to get someone that would actually listen to me, rather than just hang up
when they figured out that I wasn't going to listen to the sales pitch.

Of course, I have learned from the above, and would never again let a
similar situation drag out that long.  Now I would call the phone company
and complain about it after the second or third call.

BUT, if I had caller ID I could put them in a kill list after the first
call and never have to deal with it again.   And furthermore, having caller
ID log the numbers would give me better evidence against the offending 
repeat callers if I did decide to take action.

In short, it is not as simple to get rid of telemarketers as you make it
out to be in your paragraph above.

>CNID doesn't prevent anyone from calling you.  It just doesn't ring your 
>phone (in your 'black box' case, that is).  People can call you from a 
>payphone, and you'd think they were allowing you to have their number.  

And they would get an anwering machine, since pay phones would not be
in my list of important people.   If I didn't know that it was a pay
phone, and I put them in the "kill" list, they would get the answering
machine in the future too.  

>Anyway, in a lot of areas, when your phone is ringing (even if your box 
>prevents it from ringing), your line is busy.  So building up this massive 
>list of people who are not allowed to call you may busy out your phone when 
>they call.

It is not going to keep my phone any busier than if I screened calls with
an anwering machine.  Actually it would be less, as extrememly undesireables
would be hung up on after the first ring and not even get the machine.
My phone will be tied up LESS, not more.

>>My "kill list" as you call it will not be large. Actually there will be two
>>small lists and all the rest:
>>
>>A List: Numbers to accept at any and all times. Parents, family, friends.
>>F List: Numbers to reject at any and all times. Persistent computers, tele-
>>        marketers, pranks, annoying people.
>>Default: any other number not on list A or F.
>>
>>"A list" folks always get you, "F list" folks won't get you at all and depending
>
>How can you say it will not be large?  If you add every telemarketer that 
>calls you onto the 'F' list, then it *will* become QUITE large.

Time for some calculations.  A phone number is of the format 999-999-9999,
which, when represented as a decimal number is 9999999999, which is 
2540BE3FF in hex, so an number requires 9 bytes.  Now, in this day and
age, 32Kbytes of memory is a pittance.  My calculator has 32 KBytes of 
memory, which could store 3641 phone numbers.  This can be increased more
by noticing that the leading hex digit is a 2, which requires only 2 bits
to represent, so the number actually can be stored on 8.25 bytes with some
fancy packing techniques.  With 32 Kbytes would store 3971 phone numbers. 
I would probably use a full 64K of memory, since even the dumbest of 
microcontrollers can address that much memory these days.  That comes to
OVER 7900 phone numbers that can be saved.  I haven't received near that
many calls at my home phone in all my life.  

>>If you havn't noticed most every business in this country already has this
>>method in place. They're called receptionists. All I want at home is a
>>computer based receptionist.
>
>One big difference.  Receptionists make notes of who calls.  CNID doesn't.  
>Why?  Because CNID is not an AI box which converses with whoever calls.

So, the receptionist can actually ask the name of the person on the
other end of the line, whereas CNID just gives you the phone the call
was placed from.  MOST of the time they are identical anyway.

>
>>BTW you can laugh away but if/when I get this box built then if you try to call
>>me you'll get an answering machine and my phone won't ring at all. And that
>>my friend would make this "Big Brother" extremely happy ;-).
>
>I won't laugh when you build it.  I wish you luck.  However, I think that 
>this little black box is just a way to avoid telemarketers.  

"Just a way?"  It is a very convenient way to avoid telemarketers, and other
undesireables.

>I find it fun 
>to cuss them out, when they call.  

It may be fun the first couple times, but when you have to deal with it
on a daily or weekly basis it becomes a major annoyance.
Xref: sparky alt.cyberpunk:6918 sci.electronics:21830