Re: AT&T Home Security Plus

[doug@netcom.com (Doug Merritt)]

"George A. Gleason" <gg@well.sf.ca.us> said:
>Cross-list directories: having served as a key witness against a very deadly
>local stalker here, I have taken great pains to let PacBell know that my
>service address is not to be released in any form for any reason; I've gone
>over this with service reps every single year at directory-compiling season.

Yes, unfortunately there are institutions that are obnoxious about this.
Here's an innocent anecdote that shows how bad things can be.

Last year I got to know a woman via her nome de plume on a mud. She was
highly privacy-conscious, to the point where she told no one there anything
about her real life (this is common on many muds, but not on that particular
one). We'd had a bunch of heart-to-heart's, and since I'm a smart ass, at
one point I called her up. Since she hadn't told me her real name nor what
city she was in, let alone given me her phone number, she naturally wanted
to know how I'd managed this.

(I underscore that this was innocent; we talked for 6 hours that time and
she recently visited me while passing through the area where I live, which
is to say that she wasn't bent out of shape by my doing the above.)

Anyway the scary part is that her university lists both *residence*
phone and address for all students in their phone directory services.
She said that she had tried to get unlisted but that university policy
*forbade* that, so she was stuck with being listed. (Yes, this is a U.S.
university.)

That's the sort of policy that ought to be prevented by law. Even non-deadly
stalkers can be a serious nuisance.
	Doug