Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!pacbell.com!ucsd!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Why 900-STOPPER Message-ID: Date: 18 Feb 91 03:11:37 GMT Sender: news@casbah.acns.nwu.edu Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab, Univ. of Wash., Seattle Lines: 67 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 128, Message 7 of 9 In his note to Jerry Leichter's posting on 900-STOPPER, the Moderator makes the comment, "For the average John Doe whose only immediate way of call tracing is via Caller*ID then the 900 service is virtually useless at this time." I thought that Call Trace was the service that would permit a customer to have a call traced, by the telephone company or law enforcement, if a call was made inappropriately. Please correct me if I am wrong, but this confusion of services is not helping the overall discussion. Bob Jacobson [Moderator's Note: Let me try to explain again. What are the two reasons one would place a call through STOPPER? (1) To prevent one's own telephone billing records from showing a call to the end destination in the event the billing records were examined, for example by law enforcement people. So instead of seeing a call to the place where they know good and well you called, they see instead a call to STOPPER at that time. Don't you suppose they will then subpoena the STOPPER records to demonstrate what happened next? I doubt the proprietors of STOPPER will/would fight any subpoena of their records. After all, your $2 phone call is hardly worth it. So in this instance (1), all you do is add an extra step in the tracing process; you do not make anything 'untraceable'. In another application for the service (2), it is not the government trying to demonstrate that a call was made, but the recipient of the call who wants to find out who you are / where you are calling from. There are two ways to go about it: (a) a manual trace initiated by telco people on the receiving end of the call, or (b) an automatic trace using Caller*ID or *57. In the case of (a), the trace would lead back to the outdials at STOPPER; again I ask if you think the proprietor there is going to cover for the perpetrator of the call at the risk of going to jail himself ... I doubt it. So with (a), the caller would be putting an extra step in the tracing process, nothing more or less. The call would not be 'untraceable'. Many's the time calls have been traced halfway around the world in a few minutes when the need was there. I'm reminded of the mentally ill person in Chicago who used to frequently call Buckingham Palace to threaten the Queen. After everyone got tired of the joke and decided to do something about it, British Telecom was waiting for the chap and signalled their colleagues at AT&T on this side to pick up the pair he was on. AT&T traced him back to the switcher on Canal Street in Chicago; they got the call from IBT's Chicago-Superior office; and the Chicago-Superior CO got it from ... hmmmm ... WHitehall 4-6211, the Lawson YMCA. A quick call to the security office at Lawson sent someone up to the phone room on the fifth floor where a look at the old cord board showed the trunk in particular up to the guy's room phone. Total time from start to finish, about ten minutes. Admittedly there was some advance coordination. So a call via STOPPER would do what? Add another link to be checked? And in the case of (b), for the time being forget it unless the call is intra-lata. A call that cannot be identified with Caller*ID can't be handled via *57 or *60 either. So if Caller*ID, *57 and *60 are largely ineffectual on an inter-lata basis anyway, and the proprietor of the STOPPER service is unlikely to cover for you in the event of a manual trace and/or audit of billing records, then what remains to make STOPPER such a valuable service? Is there something else it can do to hide a phone call that isn't already happening by virtue of the way the phone network operates in most places at the present time? PAT]