TELECOM Digest Mon, 7 Feb 94 07:31:00 CST Volume 14 : Issue 65 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson CERT Warning: Corrupted Passwords (Ben Delisle) Guard Your Royal Database (Hackers Still With Us) (Donald E. Kimberlin) A Small Town in Wyoming (John Sullivan) Ordering 56Kb Leased Line (Chris Ambler) Any LD Carriers With Cellular Plans? (Dave Goldblatt) Re: Phone Number History (Daryl R. Gibson) Re: Phone Number History (Dave Niebuhr) Re: Phone Number History (Carl Moore) Re: Phone Number History (Jay Hennigan) Re: Phone Number History (David A. Kaye) Re: The Right Number, But Not *Quite* Right ... (J.S. Wylie) Re: The Right Number, But Not *Quite* Right ... (jdl@wam.umd.edu) Re: The Right Number, But Not *Quite* Right ... (Carl Moore) Re: The Right Number, But Not *Quite* Right ... (Jerry Natowitz) Re: Wiretapping Problems (Michael D. Griffin) Re: Wiretapping Problems (Gary Breuckman) Re: Caller ID in Software (Stuart Whitmore) Re: New York Telephone Issuing "New" Rotary Phones (coyne@cc.utexas.edu) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson Associates of Skokie, Illinois USA. We provide telecom consultation services and long distance resale services including calling cards and 800 numbers. To reach us: Post Office Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690 or by phone at 708-329-0571 and fax at 708-329-0572. Email: ptownson@townson.com. ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. TELECOM Digest is gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup comp.dcom.telecom. It has no connection with the unmoderated Usenet newsgroup comp.dcom.telecom.tech whose mailing list "Telecom-Tech Digest" shares archives resources at lcs.mit.edu for the convenience of users. Please *DO NOT* cross post articles between the groups. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: delisle@eskimo.com (Ben Delisle) Subject: CERT Warning: Corrupted Passwords. Organization: Corner Core Dump Cafe Date: Sun, 6 Feb 1994 20:49:42 GMT Internet Warning. Your passwords may have been compromised. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you remotely use Telnet, Ftp, or Rlogin, ect. Read This Now. According to an advisiory from CERT (see comp.security.announce) as well as articles in several national newspapers -- {Seattle Times, NY Times, Washington Post}, others -- there is a group(s) of hackers on the Internet with 'sniffers' that are grabbing passwords and account information on its way to it's final destinations. The sniffers are looking for password information as you remotely FTP, Telnet rsh, rlogin, or other related functions. It is possible for them to attatch a sniffer to your system; if they can get in, they will use your system to grab more passwords. The sniffers are programs placed in systems, computers, routers that may be in the path between your site and the remote site. **> If you see strange things in your account contact your system administrator at once. <** According to published reports, several tens-of-thousands of passwords may have been captured. This is affecting much of the Internet. I have no other details. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The same report was in all the papers here Sunday morning. Everyone is urged to change their password(s) immediatly, and it really would not hurt to get into the habit of changing your password at least every two or three months. Readers may recall a few years ago when the thing with Len Rose came up (he was an active Usenet participant / Internet denizen who was sent to the penitentiary [I don't know how penitent he became if at all, but that is another matter] for his hacking activities), the scheme then involved the sneaky collection of passwords by tampering with the Unix program 'su' (or 'superuser') and propogating a patch to 'su' which would collect the passwords presented by users. So, it looks like the password and account sneak thieves are hard at work once again ... let's get those passwords changed. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Feb 94 18:07 EST From: Donald E. Kimberlin <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: Guard Your Royal Database (Hackers Still With Us) COMPUTER VANDALS SAY THEY GOT DRUNK, TRIED TO RING UP QUEEN (Feb. 3) A couple of British computerists have told a London TV station they gained access to British Telecom's secret phone files and even tried to make drunken phone calls to Queen Elizabeth II. The two -- aged 23 and 16, who agreed to appear on a Channel Four television documentary called "Walk On The Wild Side" on the grounds they would not be identified -- said they called the queen at Buckingham Palace several times but that servants answered the phone. One of the men, who was from southeast England, said the Buckingham Palace calls eventually were traced by authorities, adding, "The first time I was ever traced was from Buckingham Palace when I found the direct dial-up for Buckingham Palace. And I had too much to drink one night and thought I'd have a chat with the queen but it didn't go down too well. That was my first call that was ever traced." United Press International, reporting on the broadcast, said the pair also showed the film makers, from the independent television company Big Star In A Wee Picture, "how to hack into the U.S. military system and to steal from credit card companies." Said the wire service, "They said they only stole from the credit companies when they needed a new piece of computer equipment. They also claimed to have made free use of gaps in the telephone system to make free international calls." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There was an instance several years ago of obscene calls made to Queen Elizabeth II which were traced to an interna- tional origin here in the United States. It took a cooperative effort between British Telecom, AT&T, and Illinois Bell to catch him, but they finally did. The story has been here in the Digest in the past. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sullivan@msri.org (John Sullivan) Date: Sun, 6 Feb 94 14:45:49 PST Subject: A Small Town in Wyoming While driving across South Dakota and Wyoming last fall, there wasn't much choice of radio stations to listen to. At one point I was near Buffalo, Wyoming, tuned to FM 92.7, which at the time was giving local small-town news. This included notice that someone had found a dog. The owner was asked to "call us [the radio station] at 5126". Could it be that in this town, four-digit dialing is possible? Or does everyone just know what the exchange is? (The phone book at the next gas station showed Buffalo as 684, I think.) John Sullivan [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Although four digit dialing might still be possible, it is unlikely. Probably everyone in town gives their number out that way, with the exchange assumed. Not only is everyone in town on the same exchange, but if the place is really small, all the numbers may possibly begin with '5' as well! I've seen that in a few cases; all the listings fit on two or three pages as a supplement to some other (larger) phone book, with the first *four* (or sometimes five!) digits all the same and only the last three digits varying. Small town, America! Very small town ... PAT] ------------------------------ From: cambler@cymbal.aix.calpoly.edu (Chris Ambler - Fubar) Subject: Ordering 56Kb Leased Line Organization: The Phishtank Date: Mon, 07 Feb 1994 07:13:41 GMT I find I need to order a leased line from my premesis in San Luis Obispo, CA (805-782 or 805-781) to either San Jose, CA (408-241), Culver City (310-842) or Irvine (714-708). Who do I call? AT&T? MCI? Sprint? Are there others that can do this? This is for simple Internet access; it'll be going to a service provider who will be putting a CSU/DSU & router on both ends. Suggestions, bids, phone numbers, etc, are needed. Thanks! ++Christopher(); // All original text is strictly the _opinion_ of the poster chris@toys.fubarsys.com / cambler@cymbal.aix.calpoly.edu Christopher J. Ambler, Author, FSUUCP 1.42, FSVMP 1.0, UUPlus Utilities Erpnotes: The Ozric Tentacles Mailing List: erpnotes-request@toys.fubarsys.com ------------------------------ From: daveg@locus.com (Dave Goldblatt) Subject: Any LD Carriers With Cellular Plans? Date: 07 Feb 1994 03:59:12 GMT Organization: Locus Computing Corporation, Burlington MA Reply-To: daveg@locus.com Having recently broken down and picked up a cellular phone, I decided to determine what the delta was between using it and my home phone service was. Cellular One / Boston has a program which waives airtime charges at night, so it basically comes down to what the LD carriers will charge me. (I'm not too worried about local calls) Since I have AT&T as my primary on my home lines, I figured I'd give them a shot. As I've got ROA, I called that group to see if they had any ideas about there being any discount programs available on "residential" cellular. I received the telephonic equivalent of a blank look, followed by a lengthy chain of runarounds at AT&T, even to groups that didn't deal with long distance. ("Thought of getting pissed at us? You will.") While I'm not particularly hopeful, I'm curious if anyone knows if any of the major carriers offer discounts to cellular customers. Thanks! Dave Goldblatt (daveg@locus.com) Locus Computing Corporation Burlington, MA (617) 229-4980 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Feb 1994 00:27:01 MST From: Daryl R. Gibson Subject: Re: Phone Number History Pat, I've enjoyed your phone history notes ... I remember taking a tour (as a kid) around the local CO/switchboard, and watching the operators plugging in the lines. One interesting note about that small town switchboard was that the switchboard summoned the local police and fire departments. When a call came in for the fire department, the operator would ring five "fire phones" at volunteer firemen's homes, until someone answered, when she'd put the caller through. If she couldn't get a fireman, she'd keep ringing other phones until she got one. Before she rang the fire phone, though, she'd throw a switch that would start a siren to bring all the volunteer firemen, (and most of the town, of course) to the fire station. To summon the police, she'd take down the information and hit a switch that lit a light hanging over main street ... the local cops would see the light, presumably, while driving down the street, and would then call in and find out what was up ... when they changed to a dial system, they wired the cop phone to that same switch, somehow, so when you rang the phone number, it would turn on the light and activate this huge old answering machine. Our phone number was 200, and my father's work number was "96." When they went to direct dialing, he had a sign painter come over and paint over the number on the sign in front of the shop. I notice that the new paint has chipped off, though after 30 years, so it's gone back to "phone 96" on the sign ... Daryl [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you ride the elevated train in Chicago there is a point along the trip where a building to the west of the tracks has a large, very faded sign advertising some local merchant (of fifty years ago) and his phone number 'Edgewater 537'. The use of a flashing strobe light to announce a phone call is common enough. There is a taxicab stand near one of the elevated train stations here where idle cabs will park to wait for passengers. A phone is in a weather-proof box mounted on the wall and an incoming call to that number causes a little strobe light on the top to flash. Any cab driver parked along there who sees it is invited to go over and answer the phone and get a pickup order. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Feb 94 07:21:33 EST From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: Re: Phone Number History Re: The discussion about prefix names: My exchange prefix is known ATlantic. 516-281-XXXX is still referred to as ATlantic in the phone books yet none of the older ones using the 516-28x designation state anything about ATlantic. Dave Niebuhr Internet: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (preferred) niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Senior Technical Specialist, Scientific Computing Facility Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 (516)-282-3093 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Feb 94 06:58:38 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: Phone Number History No, PENnsylvania becomes 736, not 636 ! ------------------------------ From: jay@coyote.rain.org (Jay Hennigan) Subject: Re: Phone Number History Date: 6 Feb 1994 22:18:35 -0800 Organization: Regional Access Information Network (RAIN) This is a fascinating thread on the evolution of numbering plans. Does anyone remember phone numbers with a letter suffix? In Riverside, CA (Pacific Telephone) the manual numbers for party-line service had a letter at the end of the number. My parents' house was 4699J. The letter was the Morse Code symbol for the ringing cadence. "J" was one short and three longs. They cut to crossbar (one of the first crossbar exchanges, I believe) around 1955 or 56. The numbering plan was 2-5, but could just as easily have been 3-4, as the only exchange was OVerland 3-xxxx which equates to OVErland-xxxx. Jay Hennigan jay@rain.org Santa Barbara CA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think the party line suffixes in most places were -J, -M -R and -W. I never had a party line, but a friend of mine did. Do party lines still exist anywhere or are they all discontinued by now? PAT] ------------------------------ From: dk@crl.com (David A. Kaye) Subject: Re: Phone Number History Date: 6 Feb 1994 19:30:45 -0800 Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [login: guest] varney@ihlpe.att.com wrote: > Exchanges never had conflicting names because telephone companies > always had to name the building containing the exchange. In most > cases, the town name WAS the exchange name ... I think there was a tendency to create CO names which didn't conflict with CO names in other cities, too. In the SF Bay Area we had lots of CO names which had nothing to do with their towns, neighborhoods, or local companies. However, we did have TEmplebar in Oakland, which was named after the Temple Bar where telco employees hung out. We had BAyview in SF, but it was more than five miles from the Bayview neighborhood. We never had a MUrray Hill (68) as in New York, but we did have a MUlberry. Oakland had an OLympic, while Fremont, 15 miles to the south had an OLiver. The Bay Area suffered through many other contortions which didn't mean anything to us, such as TWinoaks, THornwall, GReenleaf, HEmlock, WAbash, WYman, BEacon, BRowning, JEfferson, ELgin, KEllogg, and HIgate. I haven't seen any of these combinations in other cities, so I can only assume that when an operaor in New York or Chicago was asked to call "TWinoaks 2000" s/he knew to call a number in Oakland, California. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There were some exchange names which seemed to be common everywhere, while others were unique to some community. Many places had PLAza, and we had a WABash here in Chicago. But some we had here I have never heard of in other places: GRAceland, MULberry, TUXedo, INTerocean, VICtory, EDGewater and IRVing are a few which come to mind. PAT] ------------------------------ From: JSWYLIE@delphi.com Subject: Re: The Right Number, But Not *Quite* Right ... Date: Sun, 6 Feb 94 19:10:45 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) I feel that the proper solution is for Directory Assistance always to quote the ten digit number. It IS NOT reasonable to assume that callers will know of the latest NPA splits. Therefore the companies have an obligation to do everything to assist the poor caller. It IS reasonable to assume that the caller has learned the basics of the phone system. Here, the only OBLIGATION is to provide clear instruc- tions in the telephone directory. However, they could eliminate the confusion for those who don't/won't learn by accepting 1+ and 0+ ten digits for ALL calls, not just long distance ones. I've tried this on several 215-land switches and it works just fine. It didn't when I tried it a number of years ago. Things do get better. Please understand, I'm not against helping the less fortunate, but when it is done at the expense of those who are willing to use their brains, then I get upset. ------------------------------ From: jdl@wam.umd.edu (HornUser) Subject: Re: The Right Number, But Not *Quite* Right ... Date: 7 Feb 1994 03:11:58 GMT Organization: University of Maryland College Park In article Paul Robinson writes: > Then we discovered the problem. Davis is in the *916* areacode, *NOT* > in 707. And the funny thing was, living in the Washington, DC area, > I'm used to hearing the local DA recording give the area code before a > number. Later tonight, in repeating the experiment, I called 707 > information. The first Directory Assistance operator informed me that > the area code for Davis is 916, and to dial 916-555-1212 to get > Directory Assistance there. The second call to 707 DA gave me the > 752-1011 number without mentioning the area code. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The way it works is that a lot of DA > Bureaus are handled from the same location by the same operators and > they are *supposed* to pay attention to what lines the incoming calls > arrive on, but they do not always do that. You'd think it would be > just as simple to ignore the identity of the incoming trunk and just > always recite the response with an area code on the front to avoid > this kind of confusion, but the answer to that is that since most > people do in fact call the correct area code (plus 555-1212) to obtain > the desired number, the recital of the area code at the start of the > number would confuse people (the local people) into thinking *they* > had to dial the area code first also. PAT] Why can't the computers automatically give out the correct area codes when the caller dialed the incorrect area code? Surely it is not impossible for someone who calls 707 555-1212 to get a recording that says 916 nnn-nnnn whenever the COMPUTER detects that the caller called 707 DA? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think in some places the DA clerk sees the correct number on a terminal screen and moves the cursor to that spot for the computer to begin vocalizing what is at the cursor, and it does not include an area code. I think it can be done to include the area code (if different) provided the operator tells the system it is to be added, but generally they assume the caller is using the right number to get into the DA system. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Feb 94 13:13:59 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: The Right Number, But Not *Quite* Right ... The editor's note mentions confusion caused by giving out the area code with all number referrals. Was that ever a problem in the DC area? (By the way, I believe the DC area allows any direct-dialed call in country code 1 to go as 1 + NPA + 7D -- even when 7D, for a local call within an area code, is available.) But yes, the area code needs to be given out when it is different from the area code used by the caller. I had a case where I called Maryland directory assistance (301 area before the 410 split) and was given a number in Washington DC without the 202 area code. (I was talking to a person at the other end, so I said it should have been given out with the area code.) ------------------------------ From: jin@spdcc.com (Jerry Natowitz) Subject: Re: The Right Number, But Not *Quite* Right ... Organization: Guest of Stephen Dyer Consulting Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1994 18:27:23 GMT Organization: Guest of Stephen Dyer Consulting Related to DI operators making sure you have the correct area code: I live in Brookline Massachusetts, which my NJ accent oftens pronounces as Brooklyn. One day I call the local DI for a number in Brookline. The operator informs me that Brooklyn in in AC 718. Jerry Natowitz - jin@spdcc.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is a chronic problem all over the USA as operators in the south try to figure out what the northerners are saying, and vice-versa. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mgriffin@access3.digex.net (Michael D. Griffin) Subject: Re: Wiretapping Problems Date: 6 Feb 1994 16:17:55 GMT Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA Pawel Dobrowolski (dobrowol@husc8.harvard.edu) wrote: >> There is also a device (TDR, time-domain- >> reflectometer) that will bounce a signal down the line and give you a >> visual indication of bridge taps or irregularities in impedance along >> the circuit. You can usually see any splice or terminal box. > Anyone care to answer the following questions? > - how much tech. knowledge do I need to use it? Some :-), TDR's provide a o'scope like trace of the line. Thus it must be interpreted and the user must know what each *glitch* or *event indication* indicates. The real problem is that if you have no previous record of what the line looked like before the *tap* was placed, how can you distinguish between a *normal* event and an *added* one. > -how to operate it? This is not really the problem. See above. > -how much does it cost? Anywhere from about $3,000 to about $8,000, depends on range and resolution desired. > -where to get it? Tektronix and Riser-Bond (and others) sell them. You can also rent them at about 10% of purchase price/month. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 08:49:27 GMT From: puma@netcom.com (Gary Breuckman) Subject: Re: Wiretapping Problems In article is written: > Anyone care to answer the following questions? > -how much tech. knowledge do I need to use it? > -how to operate it? > -how much does it cost? > -where to get it? OK, an example ... Tektronix 1503C metallic cable tester. Quoting TEK DIRECT: "The 1503C metallic cable tester will relentlessly hunt down problems in LANs, WANs, phone lines and CATV metworks. From 10 inches to 50,000 ft, the powerful 1503C can pinpoint a fault with lethal accuracy in seconds with pulse widths from 2 to 1000 ns. And its optional YT-1 chart recorder lets you document the event for the troops back home. $4,950.00, add $950 for the chart recorder option." The chart produced, or screen image, is an oscilloscope trace with a horizontal line representing distance. Any impedance change, bridge tap, terminal block (depending on how good and seamless the block is), change in wire type, shows up as 'squiggles' on the line. You should probably talk with a Tektronic sales engineer regarding your specific application. Other manufacturers, HP, etc., have similar equipment. puma@netcom.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Feb 1994 04:43:05 -0800 From: whitmore@tahoma.cwu.edu (Rattlesnake Stu) Subject: Re: Caller ID in Software Organization: Central Washington University james@kaiwan.com wrote: > 5. Data handshake and shell to external program Ah, yes, but ZFAX doesn't tell that external program anything relevant (e.g., COM port, connected speed, error correction status...). I wish it did! If it did that, and if it swapped itself to XMS and only left a few K active in conventional memory, I'd use it for a front-end to a BBS. (A front end that can handle voice mail, faxback, etc. -- that's my idea of COOL software!) -stuart whitmore@tahoma.cwu.edu ------------------------------ From: coyne@thing1.cc.utexas.edu Subject: Re: New York Telephone Issuing "New" Rotary Phones Date: 6 Feb 1994 23:48:36 GMT Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas In article Jerry Leichter writes: > You know, some of the ancient Greeks would have loved this mailing > list (and the net general). It's populated by people who, like them, > believe that sheer logic is enough to understand the world -- you don't > need any "dirty" observation. > "Everyone knows" (by simple reasoning) that replacing touchtone phones > with rotary phones won't help because "the bad guys" will just go to > Radio Shack and buy tone dialers. "Everyone knows" (by simple > reasoning) that this whole approach just won't do anything. This recurring thread has this simple middle class suburbanite confused and baffled. Why does crippling the phone system cripple the drug trade? I have applied sheer logic to the problem and am unable to fathom any reason for the drug trade to be particularly dependent on telecommunication infrastructure. Jerry Leichter may ridicule me, if he must, but I prefer to ask here rather than do "'dirty" observation." I am hopeful that he will understand. ;-) What are the mechanics of the trade that are particularly dependent on telecommunication infrastructure? Pagers, cell tels, and pay phones receive frequent mention in this forum and in the popular press as REALLY IMPORTANT drug trade infrastructure, but I cannot imagine why. Is it some way to minimize the legal risk? Do they have a tele- clientele? Is it some way to stay ahead of the street cops? Do they actually have a rigid hierarchical structure with formal command and control procedures? Are call records useless to law enforcement agencies? Baffled but enquiring minds want to know. My spouse works in a public school district and I have always suspected that the real reason educators want to ban pagers and the like is that since educators are in a telecom black hole during the day the students must be forced to join them. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Basically, using the phone is a way for drug dealers to make contacts at a safe, discreet distance. Any why does any business have telephone service? Why do pizza delivery places have phone service? The answer would seem to me to be for the convenience of thieir customers in placing orders. So this convenience factor, plus the obvious inability of drug dealers to accept straight walk-up traffic without knowing *who* they are dealing with make the telephone an ideal tool of the trade. You take away the convenience and the ability to hide which the telephone affords its users, and it puts a crimp in the drug dealer's business, which is all most neighborhood people are asking for. The theory seems to be the sales will never stop, but if the phones around here are hard to use, they'll go somewhere else. It seems to work, probably because drug dealers don't usually keep up on developments in telecom. They don't patronize Radio Shack and they apparently do not read this Digest! :) It works, say the neighborhood people. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #65 ***************************** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253