telephones

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I've been having some problems with my phone, more than the usual ring then nothing on the line when I answer once or twice a week. The strangest has been ring, answer, no one on the line, then after a pause a regular, long high-pitched tone repeated three times then nothing.

-- james willis (joshua@kctera.net), January 02, 2000

Answers

there is a program called a "war dialer" which computer hackers use to find computers with modems attached which will answer an incoming call - providing an entry point into the system as well as possibly the network. These programs can be set up to dial banks of numbers automatically in search of modems. I would assume the high pitched tones you are hearing is a modem trying to handshake another modem. I'm just speculating - I am not by any stretch an expert in this field, but, what you describe sounds like the workings of a hacker. If it continues, I would call the phone company and alert them of this activity.

-- Greg Fountaine (gregf@wans.net), January 02, 2000.

Could also be someone sending a fax to your telephone number in error.

About a year ago, my personal line would ring each day at 7:00 a.m. I heard a fax tone when I picked up. On the third day, I plugged a fax machine into the line and received a message in Chinese. Great thing, these global networks.

-- Ray Strackbein (Ray@Strackbein.com), January 02, 2000.


This August, 1999, a police officer from my town knocked on my door at 3 a.m., demanding to know who inside dialed 911. When it became apparent that everyone in my home had been asleep and that the call had not orginated from my there, the officer called dispatch. It was confirmed that a caller had called 911, and when the person was apparently unable to speak into the phone, the dispatcher sent the officer to the address showing on the monitor - mine.

You can imagine the horror when it dawned upon the officer and I that someone, somewhere, was waiting for help that would not, could not come. Although I tried in later days to reconcile the source of this problem, I was met with resistance and eventually gave up.

If Y2K has taught us nothing else, it is that we are entrely too dependant upon systems of this nature and that we should always have a backup plan in place for life sustaining options such as 911. Malfunctions of this nature will always happen with mechanized systems, we have just need to remember that for self-sustainability and not succumb to complacency.

-- Jennifer Bunker (Salt Lake City, Utah) (jen@bunkergroup.com), January 03, 2000.


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