Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ukma!rutgers!att!chinet!patrick
From: patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Freedom of hate
Message-ID: <8331@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 1 May 89 04:17:00 GMT
References: <14130@gryphon.COM< <8132@chinet.chi.il.us< <1216@frog.UUCP< <8200@chinet.chi.il.us< <755@maths.tcd.ie} <8251@chinet.chi.il.us} <779@maths.tcd.ie>
Reply-To: patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 47

In article <779@maths.tcd.ie> dbell@maths.tcd.ie (Derek Bell) writes:

>		Whoops! I meant to say; What was the case involving 'Ramparts'
>about? Is it some militarist magazine that published 'How to build your own
>guided-missile system'? 

Go back and read earlier messages in the series. Ramparts announced in one
issue that in the next issue they would explain in great technical detail
how to create your own (computer-acceptable, but fraudulent) telephone
calling card/billing number. This was almost twenty years ago, and telephone
credit cards, as they were called then, used very simple minded formulas
to 'prove' the authenticity of the card number given to the operator for
billing purposes. It was your ten digit phone number with a 'key letter'
at the end of it. The 'key letter' would be matched with the various digits
from zero to nine, and would be one of the digits in the phone number. This
changed from year to year for security purposes. 

The trouble was, you and nine or ten of your friends could get together,
compare billing numbers/letters, and manage to figure out what letter matched
which what digit each year. Then you of course mutually agreed not to abuse
*each other's* cards, but could easily make up numbers for billing your
calls.

Ramparts was going to explain all this in detail, along with the formula
and key letters for the year. AT&T flew into a rage; they were absolutely
livid about it and got a court order to kill publication of that issue of
Ramparts.

By the early 1970's, it had gotten to the point that everyone knew how the
phone system worked, leaving Bell/AT&T feeling like sitting ducks where
fraud was concerned. One of the points made at that time regards ESS, or
electronic switching, was that it would assist in cutting back the very
severe losses due to fraud that Bell suffered in the 1970's. 

In a hearing before the Federal Communications Commission in 1975 discussing
certain interstate phone rates, in response to a question by a Commissioner
regards losses due to fraud, a representative from New York Telephone 
stated they *in that company alone* had written off ten and a half million
dollars the year before due to fraud billings.

I believe Ramparts took the case to Appeals and lost it at that level also.


-- 
Patrick Townson 
  patrick@chinet.chi.il.us / ptownson@bu-cs.bu.edu / US Mail: 60690-1570 
  FIDO: 115/743 / AT&T Mail: 529-6378 (!ptownson) /  MCI Mail: 222-4956