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Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tellab5!chrz
From: chrz@tellab5.tellabs.com (Peter Chrzanowski)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics,misc.legal,misc.misc
Subject: Re: Phone Harassment
Message-ID: <2269@tellab5.tellabs.com>
Date: 20 Mar 90 18:48:43 GMT
References: <21849@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <13746@watcgl.waterloo.edu> <1990Mar16.001210.27602@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
Followup-To: sci.electronics
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Organization: Tellabs, Inc. Lisle, IL
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In article <1990Mar16.001210.27602@ddsw1.MCS.COM>, benfeen@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Ben Feen) writes:
> I saw an interesting method of getting back at phone harrassers - It
> involves a car battery, a large capacitor, and some wiring thru your phone.
> I'm not gonna go into it, but if you go through a certain sequence, you can
> send a surge through Ma Bell's wires, straight into the offender's
> handset..........


This just keeps going round and round... The fact is, most central office phone
switches, even local ones, are DIGITAL these days.  The phone switches I'm
familiar with encode each sample into eight bits.  No matter HOW LOUD a sound
you put in, or HOW MUCH VOLTAGE you put on the line  -- there's only so
much signal that's going to come out the other end.

Finally, you PROBABLY won't damage the phone company's equipment by doing
stupid things to it (you'd have to get past the lightening protection)
but if you do they'd be within their rights to make you pay for the damage.