50 lines
2.2 KiB
Plaintext
50 lines
2.2 KiB
Plaintext
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From: Colin Plumb <ccplumb@rose.waterloo.edu>
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Subject: Re: NY Tel New Service For Handling Operator Assisted Calls
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Reply-To: Colin Plumb <ccplumb@rose.waterloo.edu>
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Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
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>[Moderator's Note: Can't you *just imagine* the fraud with this new toy?
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>On being asked to record their name, caller responds:
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>'Meet me at the airport at seven'; 'Call me back at acc-xxx-yyyy'; 'I do
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>not have change, but I'll be home soon.'; or a whole variety of messages
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>to which the callee can refuse to accept charges. Is telco going to
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>keep track of all the 'names' (heh-heh!) that callers use when placing
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>collect calls?
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>If telco thinks they have a hard time now keeping people from talking
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>around the operator to deliver quickie messages think how much harder
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>it will be now. If telco thinks they have a problem now with people
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>using coded names to deliver unpaid messages under the pretense of a
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>collect call, wait until complete automation! People won't even have
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>to make pretenses; they can just say something to the tape, let the
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>other person hear it and decline to 'accept the charges'. How many
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>school kids in NYC will bother to pay for local calls to tell their
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>parents they will be home late once they figure this one out? PT]
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Just one suggestion: if you're going to bother using coded names,
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don't use collect calls, call person-to-person. You usually expect a
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collect call to succeed, and the telco may notice a lot of refused
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calls to a certain place. But you bother calling person-to-person
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when you expect difficulty getting through (it's a *great* way to
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bypass n layers of secretaries!), so the usage patterns aren't as
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suspicious.
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It's quite possible the telco will listen in and keep track of numbers
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with lots of refused collect calls, although I don't know what they
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can do about it after the fact. Theoretically, they could intercept
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those lines to human operators, but it's an awful lot of work, and
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won't help if the problem becomes sufficiently widespread.
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At least around here, "operator-assisted" is a flat fee, so if I'm
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making a collect long-distance call, I often ask for a specific
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person.
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-Colin
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------------------------------
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Downloaded From P-80 Systems 304-744-2253
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