Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: jgd@convex.csd.uwm.edu (John G Dobnick) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Why 900-STOPPER Message-ID: Date: 18 Feb 91 12:21:04 GMT Sender: news@casbah.acns.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 87 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 130, Message 2 of 7 Originator: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu Our Moderator says there are two reasons for using STOPPER: (1) To prevent one's own telephone billing records from showing a call to the end destination... (2) ... [stymie] the recipient of the call who wants to find out who you are / where you are calling from. He then states that agencies searching phone records (presumably by subpoena) who encounter a STOPPER service need merely subpoena the STOPPER's phone records, thus allowing Call*Matching [_not_ a trademark, as far as I know] to proceed. He also states that manual trace procedures will render STOPPER ineffective. At the risk of displaying my immense ignorance of things telephonic, which is considerable, I don't see how this follows at all. As I recall the original description of STOPPER, it was a "call forwarding" operation that accepted incoming calls and allowed the caller to then dial out on one of STOPPER's lines. Now, this setup seems to me to involve customer premises equipment that is _not_ under the control of, or directly accessible by, any phone company, or any other agency. It was also my impression that this service, assuming it is popular, will have some volume. I thus fail to see how one can disambiguate without reasonable doubt the multiple incoming and outgoing calls of the STOPPER service. (It seems that for trial purposes "reasonable doubt" would itself be a case "stopper".) Another aspect of STOPPER, as I recall it being presented, is that the company keeps NO records of connections! If there are no records, there is nothing to subpoena, is there? Or is there some (perhaps obscure) regulation that says a company is *required* to keep phone logs? Our Moderator then says: > [a manual] trace would lead back to the outdials at STOPPER; ... [this > is merely] putting an extra step in the tracing process, nothing > more or less. The call would not be 'untraceable'. But, if this is _private_ CPE installed in a _private_ location, how _can_ it be traced through? If I "lash up" my own x-bar to cross-connect my own phone lines, are you telling me the phone company can trace through this? How? This sure sounds like a Trace*Stopper [another non-trademark] to me. > [...] 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? _Whose_ audit records? STOPPER isn't keeping any, so what have they to "cover for"? > 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? I think our Moderator may have answered his own question here. He is apparently assuming that STOPPER is "part of the network", and under the "watchful care" (or "prying access") of the Phone Companies. My understanding of the service is that it is instead a (to use a computer term) "user exit" from the network, in much the same manner a PBX is -- not under control of, or accessible to, the phone companies. Thus, it seems to me that STOPPER does provide a useful "untraceability" service, _as advertised_. If it doesn't, what is the obvious aspect of this that I am overlooking? [Sorry about the Cute*Names -- I've been reading this digest too long. :-)] John G Dobnick (JGD2) Computing Services Division @ University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee INTERNET: jgd@csd4.csd.uwm.edu ATTnet: (414) 229-5727 UUCP: uunet!uwm!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!jgd [Moderator's Note: Please see my response in the first message of this issue. Either the equipment is part of the 'network' or it is not. If it is part of the network then network record keeping procedures and common carrier status will be present. If it is not part of the network then it belongs to a private user who, under the tariffs of the telco serving him is responsible for the use of his 'instruments'. Which way does he want to have it? It can't be both ways! Would he prefer to keep records and produce them on subpoena or is it his preference to get sued by call recipients from time to time? PAT]