Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!lll-winken!telecom-request From: john@mojave.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Speaking in Defense of ThriftyTel (was Fighting Hackers) Message-ID: Date: 21 Jun 91 19:32:56 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 44 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 476, Message 8 of 8 Kurt Guntheroth writes: > Record me as a supporter of ThriftyTel. You are overlooking a major flaw in Thrifty Tel's scam. In the United States, the system of jurisprudence requires the plaintiff in a civil case to 1.) prove damages and 2.) show mitigation of damages. Thrifty Tel does neither. In a five-day period, Thrifty Tel whisked a "Hacker Tariff" through the CPUC without comment, showing, documentation, or any justification WHATSOEVER. This tariff, which provides for "charges" that are around three hundred times the company's going rate for services, is then used in civil suits to claim damages. Thrifty Tel sits back in court, presents the logs showing the intruder's usage and then holds up this bogus tariff. In other words, TT has at no time ever proved its claim for the extortion it pulls on the "criminals and thugs" that it so actively crusades against. Concerning point two, let me give you an analogy. Let us suppose that I have decided to go into the banking business, but find that the cost of constructing a vault is prohibitively expensive. So I leave all the cash sitting around in the tellers' drawers. Word gets around that my bank is an easy mark, and consequently I find that frequently the cash has been cleaned out by thieves the night before. To combat this, I install a very sophisticated intrusion detection system with cameras and the like. I am now able to identify the theives and I manage to get a law passed that allows my bank to claim damages against the burglars at about three hundred times the value of the cash stolen. Obviously, a bank vault would solve the lion's share of my problem, but why should I have to pay for a vault when it is "criminals and thugs" that are at the root of my "losses"? This is precisely the argument that TT uses when it is suggested that it upgrade its equipment and use FGD instead of FGB. Of course, FGD would not allow it to skim intraLATA traffic from Pac*Bell as it now does, but that is a different matter altogether. Believe me when I tell you that Thrifty Tel has no moral high ground to stand on. John Higdon (hiding out in the desert)