Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1991 06:50:33 GMT From: Tom Reingold Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Mystery Solved (was: Strange Phone Calls) Message-ID: Organization: TELECOM Digest Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu 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 276, Message 2 of 10 Lines: 73 Here are two anecdotes, if you care to read them. I worked at Bellcore where someone had built an experimental phone switch that ran on a UNIX system and was therefore programmable in the way I know best. For outgoing calls, it could read a text file and speak through a DECTALK. I used this to deal with a bureaucracy: I needed to call the state Department of Motor Vehicles, and as is so in every state, the line was eternally busy. After 5:00 pm on the dot, there was no answer. So I had the switch retry every three minutes or so. When it got through, it said, "Hello, hello? Is this the department of motor vehicles? I have someone on the line who wants to talk with you." Then it connected me. I usually find this practice -- even with secretaries -- rude, but I feel less guilt in dealing with the DMV. Everyone in my workgroup got an automated ad, saying that if we called a certain 800 number, we would win a free vacation. It was really obnoxious. This was before 900 numbers existed, though. So I had the phone switch call the 800 number every 90 seconds for about 90 minutes. I had it say something to the effect that the purpose of the call was to make them realize how annoying automated phone calls are and that I sincerely hope that the proprietor consider another line of business. I also implied that his offer was not legitimate. After the 90 minutes, I called and got a woman's voice. She sounded tired. I asked, "Have you been getting my automated messages?" She paused silently, then said sharply, "Hold on a minute." I got a man who cursed me out in the most vile and obscene language you can imagine. He claimed that his business was legitimate and that he was having the phone company trace the calls. Wouldn't it have been funny if he had found out that the "phone company" had made the calls? He also tried to point out that I had only been called once. Of course I pointed out that the total accumulated inconvenience he had caused to many people was probably quite large, so his argument wasn't very strong. It's sort of like stealing a tenth of a penny from everyone's bank account and making millions of dollars. Can you argue that it cost no one a significant amount therefore your deed is insignificant? Anyway, nothing was resolved, and my mean streak was satisfied, for better or worse. Tom Reingold tr@samadams.princeton.edu OR ...!princeton!samadams!tr [Moderator's Note: Would it have been funny if he found out the phone company was making the calls? No, I think not. Your employer might well have gotten sued and you might well have gotten fired, especially if your employer got sued. Out the door on your ass in a manner of speaking. His individual calls to individual phone numbers might well have been obnoxious; they were most likely not illegal. Your repeated telephone calls, intended to harrass, were illegal. People who do these things always lose in court. Do you remember the case involving the very hostile fellow a few years ago who set his computer and modem to call Jerry Falwell's 800 number once a minute for about a month? Once a minute, around the clock, Falwell's automatic call distributor would hand out a call to a 'counselor standing by to speak with you' which was nothing but dead silence. Modems, after all, have nothing to say to anyone, and they don't even start squealing until they hear another of their kind on the line. Some 43,000 calls and about $12,000 - $15,000 later, when the problem was identified (the local Bell and the director of telecom for Falwell's organization both originally thought the problem was a faulty circuit in the ACD or a piece of bad equipment in the CO), they traced the calls and caught the turkey .... he got sued for $50,000 (actual plus punitive) and Falwell won the case. Telco wound up writing it off as goodwill, but they were screaming for blood also where the 'mad dialer' was concerned. I'd take care if I were you. It could get messy. PAT]