nanog mailing list archives
RE: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences
From: Matthew Black <Matthew.Black () csulb edu>
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2016 16:46:04 +0000
One toll defeat trick that worked in GTE land in Southern California was to call the operator, then silently wait for them to hang up. Rattle the receiver hook several times for them to come back on the line and they would not know the caller's telephone number. -----Original Message----- From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces+matthew.black=csulb.edu () nanog org] On Behalf Of Larry Sheldon Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 12:11 PM To: nanog () nanog org Subject: Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences On 4/20/2016 10:15, Owen DeLong wrote:
On Apr 20, 2016, at 7:59 AM, Jean-Francois Mezei <jfmezei_nanog () vaxination ca> wrote: On 2016-04-20 10:52, Owen DeLong wrote:For the most part, “long distance” calls within the US are a thing of the past and at least one mobile carrier now treats US/CA/MX as a single local calling areaIs this a case of telcos having switched to IP trunks and can reach other carriers for "free" Or are wholesale long distance still billed between carriers but at prices so low that they can afford to offer "free" long distance at retail level ?I think it boiled down to a recognition that the costs of billing were beginning to account for something like $0.99 of every $1 billed.
I wonder if the costs of avoiding-preventing-investigating toll fraud final grow to consume the profit in the product. I know that long ago there were things that I thought were insanely silly. A few examples: As an ordinary citizen I was amused and annoyed, in the case where a toll charge had been contested (and perforce refunded) there would often be several non-revenue calls to the protesting number asking whoever answered if they knew anybody in the called city, or if they knew who the called number belonged to. (Proper answer in any case: Who or what I know is none of your business.) Often there would calls to the called number (super irritating because the error was in the recording--later learned to be poor handwriting) asking the reciprocal questions except that often they had no idea that a call had been made. I was a Toll Transmissionman for a number or years back in the last iceage and one of the onerous tasks the supervisor had was "verifying the phone bill" which might be a stack as much as six inches tall. The evening shift supervisor (or one of them in a large office, like Los Angeles 1 Telegraph, where I worked for a while) would go through the bill, line by line, page by page, looking at the called number an d if he recognized it and placing a check mark next to it, If he did not recognize it, he would search the many lists in the office to see it was shown, and adding a check mark if a list showed it for a likely sounding legal call. If that didn't work he would probably have to call the number to see who answered (adding a wasted revenue-call path to the wreckage). Most often it would turn out to be the home telephone number of a repair supervisor in West Sweatsock, Montana, who had been called because a somebody who protested the policy that the repairman going fishing meant some problem would not be addressed for several days. So he put a check mark next to the number and moved on. Which meant the number would show up on the next month's bill. And it would again not be recognized from memory. And so forth and so on. Until eventually, after several months, the number would be recognized, check-marked without drama, and disappear forever from the bill. Lastly, in later years I was assigned to the the Revenue Accounting organization (to write programs for printing telephone books) and came to realize that there were a LOT of people in RA working with a LOT of people in the Chief Special Agents organization using a LOT of computer time to analyze Toll records for fraud patterns. Oops, not quite lastly.... Looking back at my Toll Plant days in the heyday of Captain Crunch--there were a lot engineering hours redesigning Toll equipment, and plant hours modifying or replacing equipment do defeat the engineering efforts of the Blue Box Boys. -- "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." --Albert Einstein
Current thread:
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences, (continued)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences John Levine (Apr 15)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Owen DeLong (Apr 20)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Jean-Francois Mezei (Apr 20)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Owen DeLong (Apr 20)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Larry Sheldon (Apr 26)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Owen DeLong (Apr 26)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Julien Goodwin (Apr 26)
- RE: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Ray Orsini (Apr 26)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Blair Trosper (Apr 26)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences John Levine (Apr 27)
- RE: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Matthew Black (Apr 27)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences John Levine (Apr 20)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Dan Lacey (Apr 20)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences RT Parrish (Apr 24)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Leo Bicknell (Apr 18)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Eric Kuhnke (Apr 18)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences John Levine (Apr 18)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Jay Hennigan (Apr 13)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Peter Beckman (Apr 13)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Jay Hennigan (Apr 13)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences John Levine (Apr 14)