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From: fadden@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Andy McFadden)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Caller ID: a modest proposal
Message-ID: <10585@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 29 Jan 91 19:46:37 GMT
References: <15377@milton.u.washington.edu> <48611@apple.Apple.COM>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: fadden@cory.Berkeley.EDU
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In article <48611@apple.Apple.COM> baum@apple.UUCP (Allen Baum) writes:
>Would it be reasonable to allow caller-id, but report back not the phone
>number, but some 'encrypted' version of it. This is a number that could
>be reported to the police, or whatever....

A nice thought, but remember how well cable TV scramblers worked... ever hear
of "Pirate TV"?  Anybody with enough money would be able to buy one, which
is not likely to be popular with The Masses.

What might make everyone happy is to have two options: per-call blocking,
and per-phone-blocked-call-blocking.  The latter means that a given line
will not ring unless Caller ID information is sent first; that way you
can't be harassed by somebody without knowing their number, but services
which want to guarantee anonymity can leave the lines open.

>		  baum@apple.com		(408)974-3385

-- 
fadden@cory.berkeley.edu (Andy McFadden)
..!ucbvax!cory!fadden
fadden@hermes.berkeley.edu (when cory throws up)