Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: FREE0612@uiucvmd (David Lemson) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Answering Machine as Room Bug Message-ID: <12387@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 20 Sep 90 23:02:37 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 54 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 663, Message 3 of 6 In a message of 18 Sep 90 05:54:28, Mark Wilkins writes: >In particular, one of them said something like "She told me I couldn't >have another part-time job at the same time if I wanted this one. I >was thinking I could recommend you..." [Details of conversation deleted] > The question I have is this: Does anyone know of a way that someone >inexperienced with such matters could accidentally set up a three-way >call? Or did this have to be intentional? >Ignore, for the moment, the possibility of a strange switching error. >Specifically, do many types of production phone equipment have bugs >which could cause this sort of thing? Here's my scenario for how this happened: For simplicity, your friend is person A. Person A is the person with the answering machine. The guy who knew your friend and knew there was a job opening is person B. Person B has three-way calling, maybe doesn't even know it. Regardless, he isn't an expert in its use (as are most people who have it). Person C is person B's friend, who is about to be sold a job. Person B called your friend to find out some details about the job. He reached Person A's answering machine. Dismayed, he clicked the receiver down for a millisecond, and dialed up Person C at the dial tone. What he didn't hear was that when he clicked down the receiver, he merely flashed and got the dit-dit-dit-duuuuh of a three-way calling alternate dial tone. He called person C, connected, spoke for a minute, and ... here's where it gets iffy. Person B must have accidentally either hit the "flash" button or the switchhook for a second, because he clicked over to three-way calling. Before he did this, Person A's answering machine could not hear the conversation between men, but after this second click, all three were linked together. The rest is on cassette. The moral of the story is: Don't ever use "Flash" to hang up, unless you really mean to! You might have three-way calling even if you don't know about it! If you hang up, count to five, and then dial, you should be safe. One other thing: The guy must have dialed his friend really fast. Because, unless your friend's answering machine is really old, it should have timed out when it didn't hear anyone on the line for more than ten seconds or so. (While the guy was in the alternate dial tone dialing up his friend, your friend's answering machine should have heard silence) David Lemson d-lemson@uiuc.edu