Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!killer!vector!telecom-gateway From: ulysses!smb@research.att.com Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Calling Party ID Message-ID: Date: 17 Mar 89 21:54:32 GMT Sender: news@vector.UUCP Lines: 51 Approved: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 95, message 3 of 5 I'll throw a few more packets into the fray, some of them maybe even saying something (a) new, and (b) factual... First, when telephone solicitors call, you will not gain any meaningful ability to call them back. Outbound-only lines like that, in a modern exchange, do not even have a real phone number, just an internal line id. (The same is true, incidentally, of many hunt groups -- there's only a single number for the whole thing. I personally hate that, since it keeps me from dialing past a dead modem.) Even without that, it'll be a while before you get the number on calls not handled by your switch, as best I can tell (and from the few answers I've seen to my query); SS #7 just isn't widely-enough deployed, it seems. Second, most of the claimed benefits of calling party ID can be obtained without giving away numbers. There's already a ``trace'' function as part of the package -- if you get a harassing call, you dial a special code and the phone company records the number, to be revealed only via proper investigative procedures. The same sort of thing could be done for call-blocking (I don't want to hear from this number), or via a user-specified list -- you supply the switch with a list of numbers and a category code, and it tells you what category a call is in. It's not hard to see how to feed that back to the switch after a call -- tell it how to sort the last call you got. Yes, those variants mean you give the telco your list of numbers, but (a few abuses notwithstanding) the phone company has a pretty good record of keeping such material confidential. And of course, things can be implemented so that these records aren't available to the maintenance craft people, but only to those with special authorization. Some saner laws making your calling records your property, and not the phone company's, would make subpeonas for that type of information a bit more rational; you'd have to be served with the papers (and hence have the opportunity to contest it), rather than the phone company. Third, several parties to this discussing have said they wouldn't mind the feature if there were a way to disable it. There isn't necessarily such an option; in particular, NJ Bell has not enabled that code. (If you think about it, of course, the phone company has very little interest in unlisted numbers or anything else that hinders folks' ability to call you; they make their money on calls.) Finally, the whole topic can be discussed in much calmer language; I was quite appalled by the tone of the Moderator's original posting (and for that matter some of the quoted columns and editorials). It's possible to discuss the question without namecalling: I'll promise not to call folks fascist pigs if they'll stop calling me a pinko liberal commie.... --Steve Bellovin