Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: das@cs.ucla.edu (David A Smallberg) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Caller ID Privacy Question Message-ID: Date: 8 Sep 89 00:29:23 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Lines: 19 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 357, message 4 of 12 Maybe I missed something between the previous go-round on this issue and now, but I thought there was a general feeling that the problem could be resolved this way: * The caller chooses whether or not to have his/her number transmitted. * The receiver's equipment decides whether or not to accept certain calls. Most people would probably choose to have suppressed-origin calls ignored by their phone (with a recording back to the caller that suppressed-number calls are not accepted), and most businesses and government agencies would still accept them (maybe government agencies should be required to accept them, since callers are not potential profit-generating customers). People might have their equipment reject certain recognized numbers, but would be wise accept any other identified call, since it could be an urgent call from a friend on a strange phone. Didn't this resolve the major concerns? the obscene caller, the hard-to-trace telemarketer, the battered wife, calls to the IRS, I-locked-my-keys-in-the-car- so-I'm-calling-from-this-payphone. -- David Smallberg, das@cs.ucla.edu, ...!{uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!cs.ucla.edu!das