Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!shelby!agate!telecom-request From: peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Do Network Interface Devices Make Fraud Easy? Message-ID: Date: 24 Feb 91 02:37:14 GMT Sender: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu (USENET Administrator) Organization: A corner of our bedroom Lines: 38 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 154, Message 9 of 12 X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu In article , FLINTON@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Fred E.J. Linton) writes: > outside the demarc; and the linesman who came to undo the squirrels' > handiwork opined that he wouldn't mind at all if such a quick way to > disconnect premises wiring were to be made mandatory. Many apartments in Houston have a network interface that consists of a wire coming out of the wall in a closet somewhere with an RJ11 plug on the end, going into an RJ11 socket. Just unplug the plug from the socket and you're isolated. Plug a phone in and you can test the phone company. And because it's inside there's no security problem. My current apartment doesn't have one. Pity. Why bother with a knife switch? peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com) [Moderator's Note: Well Peter, it really comes down to the style and age of your existing demark. In a very old building, you may not have one at all, or it may have been installed before any of us were born. Did you ever see any demarks in old buildings where the cable came in from the street and was tied down on a (let's say) 500 pair IT (or Inside Terminal)? The pairs leaving from there into the building will have little paper tags tied with strings on the old brown cloth twisted pairs with cryptic notations. In a building where I used to live there had been (long before my time) a big switchboard and the demark was right behind it, still in service although the switchboard was long gone. From a phone man long since gone on to his Reward: 'fifty pairs from Rogers cable 96 multipled to *new* building across the alley. Ed Smith, May 5, 1931'. And in the same box a tag saying 'pairs 109-114 in use by WUTCO. Do not take them. 9/1946'. Sheesh! Sometimes you are better off to isolate yours to avoid confusion later on or false complaints of problems you caused in the box for others served from the same place. PAT]