Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!sun-barr!apple!limbo!taylor
From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Caller-ID
Message-ID: <1378@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 22 Oct 90 18:41:23 GMT
Sender: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Lines: 40
Approved: taylor@Limbo.Intuitive.Com

Rop Gonggrijp replies to my earlier article on Caller-ID...

> noting that it should prevent the activity happening in the first place, 
> rather than stopping it once it happens, which isn't as good a solution.

More or less right. Junk phone calls... I like that.

> The phone network was never meant to give the called person direct
> id on the person calling.

Meant by whom? The phone network was never meant to allow direct dialling...
until it was implemented. It was never meant to allow data transfer... until
it was implemented. It was never meant to allow junk phone calls... they just
happen. What "the phone network" was "meant" to do is a red herring, I'm
afraid. I can say "the phone system" was meant to be for "important matters"
for which physical mail is too slow... and crank calls and telemarketing
doesn't fit that definition.

> Same thing with letters: I don't have to show ID to be granted the 
> right to mail something.

You also can't interrupt someone at an arbitrary time (say, 3AM) with a letter.
Oh, sure, I can ignore phone calls. Turn the ringer off. Let my answering
machine/voice mail system/whatever take all my calls. But that would be to
abandon the immediacy that is one of the advantages of the phone system.

> Sure, I can mail nasty things to people, but I still think it's nice 
> for people to be able to mail me stuff without worrying whether I tell 
> anybody who they are. 

There are now, and will be for the forseeable future, methods of blocking
CLASS/ANI/ISDN variants of caller identification. In fact I would prefer
there be a "privacy" mode rather than let people use ad-hoc methods of getting
around it. That way I can distinguish between calls from people who don't
want to let me know their number from simple "number not available" cases...
and let the electrochemical computer between my ears decide what to do about
the call rather than depend on some misprogrammed piece of junk at the phone
company that I've got my "call block" on.

Peter da Silva