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From: wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (David Lesher)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Call Detail Recording, or Beating the SMDR
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Date: 15 Sep 90 14:55:58 GMT
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Reply-To: David Lesher <wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu>
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 649, Message 10 of 10


Bob Halloran wrote:

|I used to be in software development for a company in Rochester NY who
|made SMDR units for the Bell System, pre-breakup.  I found soon after
|I started that there was a known bug in the unit's software that would
|reject any records that were not 7, 10 or 11 digits (1+ dialing was
|not so entrenched in '81).  If the people reading the reports weren't
|checking the exception log, calls with extra digits slipped through.
|Punching the last digit of your number a few extra times was a common
|practice in-house :-).

I've heard of an even better one....

When Ma offered TWX to compete with WU's TELEX she did so with a
dataset (modem to us folks) run by a telephone that resembed a 565.
You called up the far end with a special reserved area code and number
{example: (710) 987-0000}, listened in the handset for the tone, hit
the DATA button, and hung up the handset. Since there was no one to
talk to, the handset had a blank cap and no T-1 transmitter.

But as the years went by, Ma started having a hard time with people
complaining about being billed for TWX calls that they had never made,
or that had ended up in Fiji, instead of Fargo.  Rumor was this was
due to a vastly reduced maintenance budget for the switches, as she
was not making the returns she wanted. So some 'brain' decided that
rather than adjust a zillion wrong numbers/month, it was easier to put
exception code in the billing software to bit bucket all TWX--->POTS
calls. (This was an easy thing to impliment, as the TWX lines had
those xx0 area codes.) This greatly reduced the numbers of calls to be
manually voided.

But, as you can all guess, some smart user noted this, and installed a
T-1 on his TWX. Presto-free LD! I understand that despite the fact
that word of this spread like wildfire, it was YEARS before Ma figured
out she was getting had. I suspect she then tried to back-bill some
people, but that's locking the barn door after the cow is gone.


wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu  (305) 255-RTFM  pob 570-335  33257-0335