From: cmwolf@mtu.edu (christopher m. wolf)
Subject: Re: Caller ID block?
Organization: Michigan Technological University
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 18:26:58 GMT

>------------------------------------------------------------------
>From: bd@fluent@dartmouth.EDU (Brice Dowaliby)
>
>The phone ringing is an intrusion into *our* privacy, 
>and if we don't want to answer a blocked call, WE DON'T HAVE ANY 
>OBLIGATION TO!!!
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>From: mcovingt@aisun3.ai.uga.edu (Michael Covington)
>
>On receiving a call with caller ID blocked, one thing you could do is pick
>up the receiver and say, "If you want to talk to me, call back without
>blocking caller ID," and hang up.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>From: bg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Brent Goodrick)
>>So
>>the machine would have to pick up Caller ID information BEFORE actually an-
>>swering the call, which would give you a record also of all the people who
>>called you but DIDN'T LEAVE A MESSAGE...
>>...
>
>Yep, and the Caller-Id-sensitive machine could also maintain a phone kill
>list of those nasty callers.  You could tell the machine to not accept
>a message from the phone number last received!  
>
{Do you actually have a formal message every time you call someone?  Don't
you ever call to talk?  What do you to, talk to the machine for a few
minutes? }
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>From: roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail)
>
>You misunderstand me.  CNID is a coming service, and I wish to purchase
>this service when it becomes available.  
>
>Don't be a Neo-Ludd.  Technology is giving me more control over how I
>communicate, and I like that.  Instead of bemoaning the paradigm shift,
>why not rise to the challenge and decide how you will react to the new
>features and processes?
>------------------------------------------------------------------

First off, caller-id blocking is a coming service, and I may "wish to purchase
and use this service when it become available", just like you.  "Now that
technology has found a way to cheaply provide it for me" {*67}, "I'm
going to use it."

I guess that makes me an evil person and forces me to put up with 
people being rude to me, after looking at a post like Mr. Covington's, above.
Then that must make you an evil person too for using the other half of the
technology.  Can I be rude to you when I call you?

Some have chosen to argue that giving their private number to you is
an invasion of their privacy.  Don't think your doctor with his unlisted
number is going to be calling you any too quick when you have a problem at
night.  He has to drive to his office first before he calls you, lest
you not answer his unlisted home number or continually call him back once
you find it out.

About be a "Neo-Ludd".  I know how I plan to use this technology, and it
just happens it doesn't coincide at all with what I've been writing.  Its
just that I've seen this topic drift across a dozen different groups in the
past year or two, and am sick of the rightous, stand on a soap-box and
preach about my rights people that start to speak up.  Everything you
say can also be taken from the other standpoint.  Use the technology as
you must (and will).


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Wolf             Electrical Engineer                cmwolf@mtu.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers
 exactly  what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will
 instantly disappear  and be replaced by something even more bizarre
 and inexplicable. 

 There is another which states that this has already happened."
                              - Douglas Adams
------------------------------------------------------------------------------