Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!ria!uwovax.uwo.ca!telecom-request From: chron!magic322!edtjda@uunet.uu.net (Joe Abernathy) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Houston Chronicle Cellular Fraud Story Message-ID: Date: 17 Mar 91 01:30:38 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 72 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 211, Message 5 of 9 floyd@ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson) writes: >> We just had a case where some people came to town and set up >> three-way conference calling between Houston, Iraq and Kuwait,'' said >> the chief financial officer of one cellular service provider. That >> fraud can total up to $30,000 in 24 hours.'' > Hmmmm. 1440 minutes in 24 hours, so the combined cost of calling Iraq > and Kuwait is about, ahhh, $22 a minute, or $11 to either one alone > per minute. [Moderator's Note: Actually, its $20.83 per minute, but go on ... PAT] You overlooked one thing, however. It's three-way conference calling, so the cellular company is paying for both those lines in both directions across the ocean. Norman Yarvin writes: > Abernathy presumably has access to Usenet, and is possibly > computer-literate. Still haven't found an alternate source for your alt.sex feed, eh, Norman? > Why then doesn't he include the critical fact that > the insecurity of cellular phone systems which his article mentions > can be completely eliminated by the simplest of security arrangements? Pointless hostility aside, I disagree that a simple solution is possible to the problem. At the inception of the industry, yes, the problem would have been more simple. But at this stage, what is required is fast, precall account validation at the switch, made possible by a central repository of valid ESNs and PINs. GTE just completed a field test in Los Angeles of such a system, which validated calls in two or three seconds. The problem is that nobody will be buying it until the current stuff wears out. Your other question/flame suggested that it is not possible for the industry to offer a coherent response to the problem while still having individuals service providers contributing to the problem. That suggests to me primarily that you aren't a cellular telephone user, or at least that you didn't purchase your phone in a competitive market. In Houston, for instance, we have two providers, and one is much more of a staid, traditional company, while the other is fiercely entrprenuerial. I don't mean to link them to problems within the industry because at this stage neither of them is running a particularly lax ship. But this sort of situation amply illustrates how the industry can both be solving a problem and making it worse at the same time. Regards, Joe Abernathy (800) 735-3820 [Moderator's Note: Addressing only the first part of your response let me ask what do you mean 'paying for both lines in both directions' ?? There is ONE charge per call. There are TWO calls in progress at the same time, admittedly both international. At the highest rate possible for either call, the cellular company is paying maybe $3 per call/minute. on the international link. *Maybe*. So we have $6 per minute plus the cellular phone charges. Are these thirty or forty cents per minute each? If you can squeak $7 per minute out on this, that would be a very generous estimate. Charging for everything you can think of, how do you begin to approach $10.42 per call/minute, or $20.83 per minute overall? And that $20.83 per minute -- using your $30,000 per day estimate -- means the connection is left up continuously, otherwise the rate per minute of use must of necessity be even higher. Sorry, Joe, I really think you got a bum steer. If the source lied to you about the losses involved, what other information might have been incorrect? PAT]