Re: ADDRESS DATABASE?

[Damaged Justice <frogfarm@yakko.cs.wmich.edu>]

andr0id@midwest.net writes:
> >
> >My untrained brain sees two problems with this:
> >
> >1) Cellular systems are inherently less secure than standard telephones,
> >as anyone who can afford a decent scanner can listen to your conversations
> >at will.
> 
> I was speaking more secure in that the billing information is much harder to
> get.  If someone had the time, money, and equipment to track a particular
> person at a specific location making a cellular phone call from a given
> number they would most likely already have the means of getting the
> information an easier way.

I'm not familiar with this aspect - how do cellular services store and
make use of billing information, as opposed to traditional phone services?

> At least 50% of the cellular carriers are not telco related.  Giving out
> cellular numbers and names is a tabbo NONO for cellular carriers.  If
> cellular customers start getting sales calls from a company that received a
> list from a cellular carrier, the cellular carrier is obligated to refund
> the customers bill for those calls if the customer complains becuase the
> customer pays for calls comming or going.

Is this obligation incurred by the contract between the customer and the
cellular service, by statute, or otherwise? Contracts can always be
broken, and passing laws to guard the guardians generally amounts to
having the fox guard the henhouse...

> I don't feel that cellular is completely private or secure but its getting
> much better with the addition of digital cellular.  The problem with digital
> is that the conversations are more secure but the information about the
> people calling is not.  Digital cellular and PCS offers ANI and a bunch of
> other identifying information.

This seems par for the course - the rise of ESS sounded the death knell for
traditional blue boxing. Conversion to digital makes everything easier,
including tracing. Therefore, it behooves us to recognize good and bad
aspects of technology, the better to "take what you can use, and let the
rest go by." (Ken Kesey)

(Whatever happened to Apple's bid to give away a huge chunk of the bandwidth
spectrum? Did the FCC ever get around to addressing their request? As Bill
Frezza said, *that* took cojones...)

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