TELECOM Digest Mon, 8 Nov 93 22:34:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 747 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: TRW Phone Print to Fight Cellular Fraud (Erik Ramberg) Re: AT&T Ships 800 Number Directory to One Million Consumers (D. Levenson) Re: Remote Call Forwarding (Gary Morris) Re: Long Distance Provider Access Codes (Clarence Dold) Re: Question About T1 Equipment (Marc A. Tamsky) Re: Non-Bell Local Loop (Tony Pelliccio) Re: 800 Phone Sex, ANI, and Call Blocking Through PSN (Kath Mullholand) Re: 800 Phone Sex, ANI, and Call Blocking Through PSN (David A. Kaye) Re: Telecom-Tech Mailing List (John Stanley) Re: AT&T 2000 Public Phone (Jon Gefaell) Re: Telephone Pioneers Opens up Membership, etc. (David Leibold) Re: Frame Relay Information Request (Tom Wiencko) Re: Nationwide Caller ID Update (John Kennedy) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Nov 1993 18:34:14 -0800 From: Erik Ramberg Subject: Re: TRW Phone Print to Fight Cellular Fraud [Moderator's Note: Erik sent in a couple replies in this thread which got mangled in processing. They've been reconstructed below and I apologize for the delay in using them. PAT] Paul R. Joslin wrote: > In article , Willie Smith (wpns@newshost. > pictel.com) wrote: >> erik_ramberg@SMTP.esl.com (Erik Ramberg) writes: >> Ha! All this probably means is you have to clone the same >> manufacturer and model of phone. Especially with the big push to Six >> Sigma (every product is identical to one part in a million), it's >> going to be really difficult to tell phones of the same model apart >> without denying service to folks at slightly different temperatures, >> battery charge levels, and altitudes. How long do you think it'll >> take the cloners to crack this one? > In the short term, how are cloners supposed to find out the make and > model of the phone from the transmission they're stealing the ESN > from? Buy their own TRW system, and start characterizing signatures? > I think you're right in the long term. Professional thieves will > "borrow" a phone from a parked car, get the ESN, then return the > phone, or buy model number/ESN pairs from dishonest employees of the > cell companies. Perhaps this system will at least prevent the > "casual" thieves. First of all, one of our test fixtures is to take five phones that were manufactured one after another on the assembly line, and see if our system can differentiate the phones. In other words, six sigma only has relevance if the six standard deviations are of a feature that we look at. And since these features are the result of complicated mechanical/electrical/RF factors, the six sigma standard has little relevance to us. Second, it will be a long time (if ever) before one can modify a phone to match another. John R. Covert wrote: > Interesting. > But, of course, there's a problem. I can legitimately use my cellular > phone's telephone number and ESN on three different transmitters: > 1. The Micro-TAC itself. > 2. The 3W VA in my own car > 3. The Extended System in my wife's car. > Actually, I can legitimately use it in _any_ compatible transmitter > that provides the plug to go into the bottom of the phone. We know of these situations and our algorithms take this into account, thus allowing your legitiment use but denying the criminal access to your account. John Nagle wrote: > erik_ramberg@SMTP.esl.com (Erik Ramberg) writes: >> TRW INTRODUCES BREAKTHROUGH TECHNOLOGY TO BLOCK CELLULAR FRAUD >> Each cellular telephone emits unique signal transmission >> characteristics - an electronic version of a human fingerprint - which >> cannot be duplicated. These characteristics are matched with the >> mobile identification number (MIN) and the electronic serial number >> (ENS) of the phone to develop a unique pattern for each legitimate >> customer, TRW PhonePrintTM uses sophisticated signal analysis hardware >> and software to analyze and file the patterns belonging to legitimate >> customers. When a caller attempts to access the network, the system >> compares incoming patterns to those on file. If the patterns do not >> match the call is immediately terminated. > I suspect this is an exaggeration of the actual capabilities. > There are only a few chipsets used for these things, after all, and > two units with the same chipset should perform very similarly. But > they might be able to tell which chipset was being used. Statisti- > cally, though, that alone gives them a good chance of catching > someone who records over-the-air info. Unfortunatly I cannot disclose the workings of our algorithms, but we can distinguish between identical phones. You have to remember that there are many steps that a signal takes between formulation and transmission...and though these may be non-performance impacting variations they are nevertheless variations that can be measured. It's these parts that we call the PhonePrint(tm) and if you use a phone in a heavy fraud area I'm sure you'll notice an improvement in the cellular service. > Cellular ID systems should have been public-key from day one. > Someday, they will be, government opposition or not. Why not public key? There are several companies with commercial applications using public key ... the government only gets antsy when it's used for general purpose encryption of data/messages and the register bits are long enough to eliminate any realistic crunch by a supercomputer (i.e. a day or two). Use as an authentication device (i.e. digital signitures) is not a big deal. In fact my Mac at home implements this capability in the operating system! Erik ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: AT&T Ships 800 Number Directory to One Million Consumers Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 21:14:34 GMT In article , ndallen@io.org (Nigel Allen) writes: > AT&T Ships 800 Number Directory to One Million Consumers > Brighter and easier to use, this enhanced yellow-page directory > contains more numbers and easy-to-locate categories than ever before. > It lists 60,000 businesses that can be reached toll-free. Don't forget ... this directory lists only those businesses who have AT&T 800 service. A great many other businesses also have 800 numbers, but won't be in the book. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: garym@alsys.com (Gary Morris @ignite) Subject: Re: Remote Call Forwarding Organization: Alsys Group, San Diego, CA, USA Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 01:10:27 GMT In jon@montego.umcc.umich.edu (Jon Zeeff) writes: > Are there any other solutions for remote call forwarding where I need > to remotely change, on a rapid and frequent basis, where a phone > forwards to? Yes, sort of, use a handheld cellular phone to set your forwarding. At a recent PacTel sale I picked up a GE (CT-100) handheld cell phone for $99. My total monthly cost is $20 for the cellular service. I can forward the cellular number to another phone. There are no airtime or per minute charges for the forwarded calls (unless the number is a long distance call, of course) or to change the forwarding. Forwarding changes take effect right away, I just dial *72nnn-nnnn on the cell phone and it's set. Plus calls to the cell number are toll free over a much wider area than regular landline calls, callers don't pay toll charges and I don't pay airtime for forwarded calls. If forwarding is all you need then the portable cell phone alone could do the job, the monthly cost may be more than you want to spend though. In addition to using my cell phone for remote forwarding, I also use it in conjunction with voice mail and a pager. I forward the cell phone to whatever location I'm at and when I don't want calls or am not near a landline phone, I forward it to my voice mail number. When at home, I forward it to my home number which rolls over to the voice mail if there is no answer. Voice mail with pager notification works better than receiving calls on the cell phone, since I don't have to keep the cell phone on and using batteries. This system is better for other people too, since they only have to know one phone number to reach me instead of my cell phone, pager, home phone, various work phones, car phone, etc. The total cost is not real cheap though when you add up the pager, voice mail and cell phone. Gary Morris KK6YB Internet: garym@alsys.com San Diego, CA USA SD Sheriff's Dept - RACES Strike Team ------------------------------ From: dold@rahul.net (Clarence Dold) Subject: Re: Long Distance Provider Access Codes Organization: a2i network Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 04:43:17 GMT Alan M. Foonberg (foonberg@aero.org) wrote: > Can someone tell me where I might find a list of the 10-xxx long > distance provider access codes? > [Moderator's Note: Sure ... in the Telecom Archives, in the sub-directory Surely you jest? The most recent date is 1991. Clarence A Dold - dold@rahul.net - Milpitas (near San Jose) & Napa CA. [Moderator's Note: Well actually, that date might be in error because Carl Moore frequently works on the files in the area code and carrier sub-directories. Check and see if the files there are not peppered with [update,dated xx] remarks. So far as I know the carrier access codes file is accurate. If anyone wants to take a look and see what updates are still needed, if any, I'll be glad to put a new version of the file there. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tamsky@cco.caltech.edu (Marc A. Tamsky) Subject: Re: Question About T1 Equipment Date: 8 Nov 1993 10:20:48 GMT Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena In article add@philabs.Philips.Com (Aninda Dasgupta) writes: > I am trying to get an estimate of equipment needed for a T1 > connection. > Scenario 1: > Let's say I have a workstation and 24 geographically distributed > salespersons. My salespersons want to dial into my workstation using > modems. I get an 800 number, linked to a hunt group of 24 lines, from > MCI (i.e. I get a T1 link to the MCI POP, provided by my LEC). What > equipment (DSU/CSU, etc) do I need at the workstation end, to be able > to provide these connections , keeping in mind that I will never > originate any outgoing calls? I recently got some material sent to me by both Cisco and Ascend. Ascend seems to make exactly what you are looking for ... Very brief summary: Pipeline Access Router, supports 1-4 T1 circuits, call management, and their larger units support anywhere from 8-40 additional digital v.32bis modems. Ascend phone 510.769.6001 Marc Tamsky Finger for pgp 2.2 key. tamsky @ {cco.caltech.edu | rain.org | cs.ucsb.edu | crash.cts.com} ------------------------------ From: Anthony_Pelliccio@brown.edu (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: Non-Bell Local Loop Date: 8 Nov 1993 21:28:14 GMT Organization: Brown University Alumni & Development Office In article , oppedahl@panix.com (Carl Oppedahl) wrote: > The October 11, 1993 issue of {Network World} (page 27) talks of MFS > Communications, Inc. which has supposedly launched a local and > long-distance package for small and midsize businesses in New York > City. > Supposedly the service offers no-toll local calling and flat-rate long > distance at 14 cents per minute. > The article does not give contact information for MFS. > I wonder if it is a subsidiary of Metropolitan Fiber, the company that > is running fiber in competition with New York Telephone? Here at Brown University they're replacing alot of New England Tel's lines with a fiberoptic loop. Here in my dept we're replacing our three 56kbps lines and 100 voice lines passed through NET with a microwave system. I love it. Tony Pelliccio, KD1NR Anthony_Pelliccio@Brown.edu Brown University Alumni & Development Computing Services Box 1908 Providence, RI 02912 (401) 863-1880 ------------------------------ From: k_mullholand@unhh.unh.edu (Kath Mullholand, UNH Telecom, 862-1031) Subject: Re: 800 Phone Sex, ANI, and Call Blocking Through PSN Date: 8 Nov 1993 13:17 EST Organization: University of New Hampshire In article , tweek@netcom.com (Michael D. Maxfield) writes ... > s0130703@cc.ysu.edu (Daniel East) writes: >> Dan noticed that Gordon Soukoreff once wrote: >>> Yeah, I just called the thing and found out the 1-800 no. is routed thru a >>> 1-900 no. and you pay for the call. >> Can anyone verify this? The University of NH has had some experience with callers dialing 800 numbers and their ANI getting charged for calls billed as third party calls, collect calls or credit card calls. In every case, the number charged was the ANI number for the trunk that placed the 800 call. The provider insisted that they had received a call from the caller, had terminated that call and called the caller back. Since the numbers billed are out-only services, we knew they were, at best, billing for unsuccessful call-backs, or, at worst, lying through their tranceivers. None of the telephone numbers referenced on the bills are the 800 number that was actually dialed. We have documentation from those who placed the calls that: 1) they were not informed there would be a charge. 2) they did not receive an incoming call from the service 3) they did receive the service they expected to receive, usually by pressing one or a series of numbers on their phone. (Since PBX callers' ANIs are not the phone number of the phone they are calling from, there's the additional problem of figuring out who actually placed the calls, but I'll stick to the issue of charging for 800 calls.) In addition, the time the calls were billed disagreed with the actual time of the 800 call by as much as three hours. We documented the instances and complained to the FCC. No response. We then copied that complaint, added additional information to it, and, since all the calls were billed by a single provider, sent a new complaint to our BOC asking them to refuse to act as a billing agent for this particular company. We copied the FCC, and our PUC. No responses from anyone except the PUC, who wrote to tell us it was out of their jurisdiction. BUT, there is (sort of) a happy ending. The FCC recently ruled that this kind of billing back to an ANI from an 800 number is illegal (sorry, I don't have the citation at my fingertips -- maybe a reader here does?) *unless* the caller establishes a customer relationship with the company. From this, we're assuming that the company would have to collect at the very least a name and address for the caller. It doesn't protect UNH from the secondary ANI/Caller ID discrepancy problem, but it should protect consumers from unexpected charges to some extent. (Right ... just like the FCC ruling on autodialers has protected us. I still get autodialed sales calls at least once a week.) My basic feeling about the issue is that we have established a social expectation that 800 numbers are free. For companies to abuse that expectation in order to provide harder-to-block 900-type services is something that the FCC should stomp on very quickly, in order to preserve the integrity of our national phone system. **soapbox mode off** Michael, you have my premission to post this to other groups. I'd do it myself if I were more familiar with the system. Kath Mullholand University of New Hampshire ------------------------------ From: dk@crl.com (David A. Kaye) Subject: Re: 800 Phone Sex, ANI, and Call Blocking Through PSN Date: 8 Nov 1993 18:28:04 -0800 Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [login: guest] Michael D. Maxfield (tweek@netcom.com) wrote: > The lady did mention that she has heard of some services charging > callers of an 800 line for their calls, but such charges would be > independant of the phone company and believed legally required to be > preceeded by an announcement stating such a charge. (There is NO > audio announcement on the line ... I just called it). There is a legal term called "informed consent" which means that a person can consent to a contract (in this case to pay for a phone call) ONLY when informed about it. People rightfully believe that a call to an 800 number is a free call (it's in the front of the phone book, after all), so I don't think any service will succeed in pushing for payment for a call when they have not warned the caller there would be a charge. ------------------------------ From: stanley@skyking.oce.orst.edu (John Stanley) Subject: Re: Telecom-Tech Mailing List Date: 8 Nov 1993 19:43:32 GMT Organization: Coastal Imaging Lab, Oregon State University In article , Tom Ace wrote: > If (like me) you don't have a news feed, you can now read and > participate in the discussions in alt.dcom.telecom, as it is now also > available by mail as a digest. To quote from the heading of a recent > issue: This should pretty much put to rest the complaints about how much the non-USENET Telecom Digest readers will lose should comp.dcom.telecom. tech be created. If you get TELECOM Digest by mail you can certainly get Teletech by mail. That leaves no reason for TELECOM Digest readers to vote against the group. [Moderator's Note: Unless like me, they just want to be contrary and vote NO out of spite. :) By the way, I had heard that after that special mailing by Asbestos Dippold the other day to offset the undue influence and Bad Thoughts I propogate each day while commercializing the net that they were gonna have another vote; one that would be clean and honest, and without any undue influence or hypnotized voters, etc. I assumed by now Asbestos probably would have issued the Call For Voting, but maybe he is afraid if they have another vote they will lose *again*; then who will they blame, the votetaker? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jon Gefaell Subject: Re: AT&T 2000 Public Phone Organization: Security and Technology Planning, ITC/UVA Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 22:45:47 GMT In article , Tony Pelliccio wrote: > In article , Greg Abbott edu> wrote: >> While on a recent business trip, I attempted to use an AT&T 2000 >> Public Phone (the model with a keyboard attached). I was unable to >> get it operate, but didn't have a whole lot of time to read all of the >> instructions. I was attempting to use my AT&T Corporate Calling Card >> and the CRT on the phone kept telling me something like "Service >> unavailable ... please try again later". I got this reponse on all >> three attempts. I didn't really need to use it, but being a >> techno-buff, I decided it would be fun to play with. >> [Moderator's Note: You were probably not doing anything wrong. That >> style phone had to be temporarily (maybe permanently?) suspended when >> one of the other carriers (I think it was MCI) had a hissy fit and >> said if they could not have it also, then no one could. They got a >> court order to force AT&T to quit offering the service; that litiga- >> tion is pending in the courts. PAT] Same thing happened to me today I was at a seminar in D.C. and wanted to check my email from on of those phones in the hotel, Service unavailable. I was angry. I tried to use a phone like this six months or so ago and had the same experience. At least I know why now. Damn Judge Green. As for MCI, I think if they want to put the equipment in, good for them. but I see no reason that AT&T should make THEIR equipment available to MCI. > We see the same thing in Amateur Radio. The American Radio Relay > League offered to administer the re-started club callsign database. > The W5YI group yelled and screamed to the FCC about it so now there > will be no re-start. Bunch of crybabies if you ask me. Make me want > to send my W5YI accreditation back to them with about 400 pages of > nastygram attached, postage due. You are distorting the truth. The fact is, W5YI *DID* yell, but what they yelled about was that the ARRL should not be allowed to be the _only_ group authorized to do this. The ARRL suffers from the idea that they are the end all and be all of Amateur Radio, yet they discriminate and for various other reasons are not unanimously supported by all Amateurs. This is entirely different from the above situation. W5YI doesn't want to use ANY of the ARRL's resources, it(he) is just demanding the right to be able to represent Amateur Interests. Any opinions expressed herein are not intended to be construed as those of UVA Jon Gefaell, Computer Systems Engineer | Amateur Radio - KD4CQY Systems Research, ITC OSSSD/Carruthers Hall | -Will chmod for food- The University of Virginia, Charlottesville | Hacker@Virginia.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Nov 93 20:50:44 EST From: David Leibold Subject: Re: Telephone Pioneers Opens up Membership, etc. A few important follow-up items from the original Bell News post on the Telephone Pioneers. Contrary to the impression the article text might have given, membership is limited to telecommunication personnel, not the general public. Also, the phone number is the contact for Bell Canada, and not a main office for the Telephone Pioneers (though it may be a point of contact for those who can't find out about the Pioneers otherwise). David Leibold replies: dleibold1@attmail.com djcl@io.org Fido: 1:250/730 ------------------------------ From: tew@netcom.com (Tom Wiencko) Subject: Re: Frame Relay Information Request Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 19:38:03 GMT Michael Lewis writes: > We are migrating our network from X.25 to Frame Relay and I am > interested in all the information I can get on the subject. > I can find a lot about both Cell-Relay and ATM on the Internet, but > precious little about Frame Relay other than one RFC. > Does anyone know where this subject is hidden? Several books I have stumbled into lately: Data Network Design (McGraw Hill, Darren Spohn) Frane Relay Networks (McGraw Hill, Uyless Black) Hope this helps. Tom Wiencko tew@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: warlock@csuchico.edu (John Kennedy) Subject: Re: Nationwide Caller ID Update Date: 8 Nov 1993 20:30:58 GMT Organization: California State University, Chico In article , Dick Rawson wrote: > In ISDN, at least according to the standards, the CNID is always sent; > ... (Given regulatory issues, what the phone companies implement might > be different.) ... On our switch, we have pretty much all of the 916.898-xxxx locked up and dedicated to our University. Anyone calling my ISDN set in the office (that is calling from the university) has their phone number show up on my display. This works if the call is being made to me from POTS or ISDN lines. A while back, when the 899-xxxx prefix was added, someone apparently forgot to block them out and we could see 899 numbers show up too. They fixed it later and now they show up as "PRIVATE". This was all done on the local switch, as far as I can tell. We're obviously in a far different situation as far as privacy is concerned when we're dealing with campus-campus calls, although 899 privacy is obviously being looked out for. I believe there is a key sequence to press (doubtless costing $$$/month) that will let anyone conceal themselves as "PRIVATE". Off-site (or non-899) calls come in as "IN-COMING" on the display. John Kennedy ; Communications Services; USENET admin Windows/NT - From the people who brought you EDLIN ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #747 ****************************** ****************************************************************************** Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253