Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: lloyd!kent@husc6.harvard.edu (Kent Borg) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Two apartments on one telephone line Message-ID: Date: 26 Jun 89 01:58:26 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: Kent Borg Organization: Camex, Inc., Boston, Mass USA Lines: 44 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 215, message 8 of 8 In article mvac23!thomas@udel.edu writes: [about two locations having the same line] >[Moderator's Note: An 'extension phone' can be hooked up anywhere in the >loop. Two or more wire pairs can be wired in parallel from the central >office as easily as they can be in your home. What you are describing is ... >I might add this is how the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA >also listen to you (assuming authorized taps, of course). When telco is >served with a court order to apply a tap to your line, they tie another >pair on your line in the office and send it through a coil and off to the >FBI. **And they charge both YOU and the FBI for the price of the line!!** Is it really done that way with modern electronic switches? If so, does this mean that the electronically inclined and paranoid among us might be able to keep track of when we are being bugged by measuring the impedence and capacitance of our lines? I'm not electronically enough inclined to know off hand how I might easily do this (though I wonder whether a detailed frequency response curve might not be a good start), nor am I paranoid enough to bother, but I am curious... Maybe Sharper Image will start selling a box to watch your line and tell you when its electrical properties change in a suspicious way? One more thing. When the CIA taps your domestic US line they are seriously violating the law, they are supposed to only operate outside the USA. Now, if you believe that they *always* behave... Anybody out there handled the CO end of wire taps? Got any interesting details for us? Kent Borg kent@lloyd.uucp or ...!husc6!lloyd!kent P.S. The NSA (No Such Agency) always listens to all the international traffic they can get their hands on--like Usenet. Their computers will sift through this message, see the use of "CIA", "NSA", "FBI", and possibly add another entry in my file. (I've used these words before you see.)