Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!samsung!shadooby!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: BKEHOE@widener.bitnet
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Telephone Security in Colleges
Message-ID: <2290@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 17 Dec 89 08:46:06 GMT
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Organization: TELECOM Digest
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 582, message 1 of 10


 
 Security at America's colleges and universities became an issue of
great importance to me a few weeks ago. I received two phone bills
 from Bell of PA containing close to $45 in 976-service calls, $15 in
extraneous in-state calls (one, which lasted 34 minutes, was to a BBS
nearby, to my surprise), and close to $25 in AT&T ld calls (which
would've been substantially higher if I didn't have ROA). I wrote Bell
a letter which very firmly said that I wanted to know the source of
*all* of the calls right away, since the majority of them were made at
truly absurd times (4am), or on days when my roommate and I weren't
even home.

 While I waited for their reply, I decided to check out how the campus
has its phone service set up. The line block with most of the
connections for the 215-447 exchange was simply in the basement of the
dorm attached to mine, on the wall in the bathroom that's next to the
laundry room. Someone with a pair of alligator clips and a princess
phone could do anything they wanted to!

 Instantly I called Bell and started bitching until I was blue in the
face about their total disregard for security with student-subscribed
phones. A day later, I received a call from a woman who said that
they'd put through an adjustment to have the 976 and local charges
stricken from my bill (and have the 976 blocking put on). The letter I
sent to AT&T (now three weeks old) has yet to be replied to.
 

Brendan Kehoe (bkehoe@widener.bitnet)