43 lines
2.4 KiB
Plaintext
43 lines
2.4 KiB
Plaintext
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 91 09:38:59 +0100
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From: Torsten.Lif@eos.ericsson.se
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A brief note in a local newspaper the other day told the story of a
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simple but effective scam to draw money out of public institutions.
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A couple in southern Sweden set up a "singles hot-line" service using a
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071x-number (our equiv. of the 1-900-numbers in the US where the Telco
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and the called party split the charges paid by the caller). [note to
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moderator: fell free to correct if I'm mistaken about the number]
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Apparently, the income from this hot-line was not enough to satisfy
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them so they decided to increase revenue in a simple but effective
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fashion. They went all around town to libraries and other public
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buildings, looking for phone extensions that were not too closely
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guarded. They'd then pick up the receiver, call the hot-line number and
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leave the phone with the receiver off-hook. One extension in a library
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was reported as having been connected to the hot-line for over a week!
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At a cost of over $0.50/minute, this came as quite a shock to the
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people in charge of economy at the library when the bills arrived, some
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months later.
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The RISK of this is the old one of not letting a stranger use your phone but
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with a new twist. Normally you'd be worried about him actually USING your phone
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to call long-distance. In this case, it was enough for him to merely initiate a
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call and then go away. How many employees in a large office will think twice
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about a phone being off-hook? Most people will simply assume somebody else is
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using it and has gone away temporarily. As long as the phone in question is not
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on your own desk, you're not likely to replace the receiver.
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Many modern phone systems offer their subscribers blocks against calls to
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certain numbers or area codes, forcing users to either "unlock" the phone with
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a certain code sequence or to order e.g. international calls through the
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switchboard operator. This opens up a new can-o'worms in the matter of personal
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integrity and your boss knowing who you call, but it prevents the kind of abuse
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described here. However, it requires somebody to explicitly request this
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locking service for an office/PABX/whatever. The default, as that library found
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out the hard way, is to have all calls enabled.
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+46 8 719 4881
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Torsten Lif, Ericsson Telecom AB, EO/ETX/TX/ZD, S-126 25 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
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