Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: "Jerry B. Altzman" Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: 666 and Ignorant People Message-ID: <10619@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 6 Aug 90 21:02:48 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 35 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 552, Message 10 of 10 >[Moderator's Note: 10666 went unassigned as a carrier access code for >quite a long time for the same superstitious reason: Whichever telco >used it would have rumors spread about them similar to the ones which >have plagued Proctor and Gamble for over a decade. PT] Could you enlighten one of the unenlightened what this means? Jerry B. Altzman jbaltz@columbia.edu jauus@CUVMB NEVIS::JBALTZ (HEPnet) +1 212 854 8058 [Moderator's Note: Certain people -- a hybrid type of Fundamentalist Christian actually -- of which there seem be to several million in the United States alone, have long believed that '666' was an evil number, based on their reading of selected scripture. These people get NASTY when they think they have found an agent of Satan somewhere, based on the use by that person of some number involving '666'. It could be part of a street address or telephone number. In the P&G case, for the past decade, P&G has received several hundred cards and letters DAILY from people who express concern that (in the words of the rumor) 'the chairman of P&G has a pact with the Devil, and shows his love for Satan by the arrangement of the stars and ram's head in the corporate logo of P&G'. Arranging the stars in the logo in a certain way, you see, forms the evil 666. P&G has squelched the rumor several times, only to have it start up again. They finally had to drop the corporate logo they used for a hundred years, it got so hard to deal with. Where telcos are concerned, subscribers whose phone numbers end in X666 have complained bitterly about receiving huge numbers of obscene and/or hate calls, accusing them of being Satan worshippers, etc. The people spreading the rumor are vicious. PT]