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From: dcr0@gte.com (David Robbins)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Speech on Telephone Privacy
Message-ID: <2168@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 12 Dec 89 17:05:21 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 574, message 3 of 7


I find it faintly amusing that one aspect of Caller ID is regularly
ignored in the midst of all the heat it periodically generates;

   Caller ID is in fact nothing of the sort: it identifies the *telephone
   line* from which the call originated, but says nothing reliable about
   the *person* who originated the call.

If you assume that Caller ID will tell you who is calling, you will at
least occasionally be surprised.  You really can never be 100%
confident that you know who is calling from the number that Caller ID
displays: there is always the possibility that someone has tapped into
someone else's line to make their call.

For those of you who will rely upon Caller ID to, in effect, tell you
whether or how to answer the call:

   If I call you from a friend's house, or from a pay phone, will you
   refuse to answer the call because you don't recognize the number I'm 
   calling from? How can you ever be sure that a call coming in from a 
   number you don't recognize is a call you can safely ignore?

Those of us (myself included) who presently have *unpublished*
directory numbers are *paying* the telephone company to refuse to
disclose our numbers to the *public*.  We are allowed to choose
whether and to whom to disclose the numbers, and we are *never*
*forced* to disclose the number as a consequence of our using the
telephone.

While it is true that our number is known to the local telco and the
LD carrier, we have some expectation as a result of past and present
practice that the number will not be given or sold to the general
public.  My number has been unpublished for quite a few years, and it
has yet to fall into the hands of telemarketers.  I don't call the 900
sleazebags, so they won't get my number.  I have no doubt that a
resourceful telemarketer could, with sufficient expenditure of effort,
obtain my unpublished number -- it's not exactly classified TOP
SECRET.  But the whole idea of unpublished numbers is to give the
customer a certain level of control over the disclosure of the number.
Caller ID does, in fact, change that, and does so to a degree I am
personally uncomfortable with.

The bottom line is that Caller ID is being oversold -- it promises
something that it in fact cannot deliver, namely identification of the
*person* who is calling (why do you think they call it *Caller* ID?) --
and it takes something away from those of us who pay for an unpublished 
number.  The more I think about it, the less value I can see in having
Caller ID.  What on earth would I do with it?