Amiga Plus Extra 1996 #3/AmigaPlus_CD-ROM-EXTRA_Nr.3.bin/aminet-spiele/role on/panicsociety/txtdata1/telephone

Text File | 1994-11-22 | 10KB | 265 lines

Telephones in the Panic Society

    The 20th Century had a great deal of problems with
telephones. There were all kinds of problems once the telephone
was invented and put into use.

    Alexander Graham Bell, the evil inventor of the telephone,
got his clothes ruined when he spilled one of the batteries and
got acid all over his clothes. His famous first words were "Mr
Watson, come here" was a call for assistance due to his clothes
being ruined by the acid. (and his hide.)

    Soon, everyone needed a phone. At first, all phones had to
be connected through an operator. Such people were rude and often
evil testrosone infested males. Soon, women were employed for
this job. That added to the confusion.

    Then, the computer took over. You know, that monotone voice
that says that you have dialed a disconnected number. Touch tone
soon speeded up the process of dialing. Direct dialing soon
became possible.

    The cities became a jungle of wires. There were several
competing companies, each with their own switchboards. Wires
often became crossed due to the mess out there. You had to own
several phones as competitors never shared services or wires.

    The evil Government stepped in and formed ATT. That took
care of the competition mess. Phone service soon settled down.
But, it was still expensive as ATT could set its own rate. You
had to rent your phone too. People complained about this.

    Your Glorious Leaders caused ATT to break up. People could
now buy there own phones. Soon, the market was flooded with cheap
phones. Some of those phones were just plain junk. People soon
had a phone in every room. You no longer had to pay for extension
phones.

    Portable phones became popular. Even cellular phones became
necessary.

    Portable phones were especially hazardous to use. Often,
they didn't have the range that was advertised. There were many
places in the house that the phone didn't work, or you got a lot
of noise. Other times, the neighbors portable phone interfered
with your phone. You got wrong numbers, or worse yet, you got
billed for their long distance calls.

    Sometimes, those phones did weird things when the batteries
got bad. Those phones started making strange noises in the middle
of the night. Other times, they started dialing random numbers.
This was not a fun thing to have happen especially if the phone
starting dialing 911 and you got slapped with a huge fine for
reporting false alarms.

    Cellular phones were also a pain to use. You paid by the
minute for their use. You even paid if someone called you up and
it was a wrong number. You got charged double, triple, and higher
should you happen to use the phone out of district. It was not
unusual for you to be talking to someone and then suddenly get
cut off in a blast of static.

    Your Glorious Leaders found out that cellular phones could
cause cancer. We started warning everyone about this danger. But,
evil companies convinced you otherwise.

    Finally, the fax machine became the in thing to have. With
this device, you could send electronic mail anywhere.

    However, it cost money to send and receive the fax. In
addition to having to pay for the toner and special paper that
the fax used, you were billed by the phone company every time
that you used a fax.

    Even worse, salespeople discovered that they could send junk
mail over a fax line. Soon, faxes began receiving junk mail.
Owners of fax machines became outraged when they found their
machines out of expensive toner and paper with piles of useless
paper by the fax machines. They were even more outraged when they
got their phone bill.

    As a result of deregulations, Long distance phone companies
soon popped up all over. Wires, cables, and microwave towers
began to pop up everywhere. You had to dial 30 digit numbers co
call long distance. You had to know where each company was as
well.

    Phone bills had all kinds of papers in them. There were
local charges, there were access charges, there were long
distance charges per service, there were toll charges, there were
cellar charges, and then along came the 900 services.

    Teenagers and kids were long known to abuse the use of the
telephone. They were on the thing all the time yakking to their
friends for hours on end.

    900 service caused even more problems. Kids were bombard
with TV adds to call and listen to their favorite TV heros. This
cost $2 a minute on average. Even worse was when they discovered
Dial a Porn. Kids were fascinated by the "Obscene Phone Calls" of
Dial a Porn. Parents found out too late when they received the
$300 to $400 phone bill later that month.

    Jeff Kohus, 15, of Collage Hill, Ohio, ran up a $40,500 tab
on the phone bill between June 30 and August 22, 1990. He spent
hours talking to a 900 phone service called "Ultimate pleasure
Connection. Their charge, $25 for the first minute.

    The public was then constantly bombarded with 900 phone
services. One of them promises free credit card service. However,
they bill you $10 for the call.

    In 1991, the 900 service became the number one method to
create fraud in the country. People could easily and legally be
ripped off for millions.

    Often, after dialing the 900 number, you are told to by a
recording, to dial another 900 number. Michael Murphy answered an
ad to qualify for a credit card by dialing a 900 number. He was
then told to dial another 900 number for further information. As
he dialed the new number, he was cut off by its computer. He
tried 5 times to get through, then gave up. He was billed $29,95
for each time that he was cut off in addition to the $7.95 for
that first call.

    Answering the phone could be hazardous too. You would drop
what you were doing, crawl out of bed, the bathroom, etc to
answer that phone, only to find out that it was some pushy
salesperson trying to sell you something that you didn't need.
Other times, it was some charity that you never heard of trying
to shame you into giving them a bunch of money.

    And then, there were the phone nuts that called up people
with obscene phone calls. A lot of people went crazy worrying
over the threats of that unseen caller.

    The ultimate insult was caused by the computer. Computer
hackers loved Bulletin Board Services. However, they often ran up
huge phone bills due to the access charges and long distance
rates. Often, it was necessary to be hooked up for hours to use
those services.

    Some hackers solved that problem. They were able to instruct
the telephone switchboard computer to send the bill elsewhere
through the use of the credit card number. This led to some real
shockers of phone bills to unsuspecting card holders. One person
received a $45,000 phone bill that was delivered in several
boxes, so numerous were the calls made on that card.

    Needless to say, between the dial a porn, teen use, and the
huge phone bills, the panic people screamed for something to be
done.

    Presently, a person can use a 900 blocker on their phone.
This keeps the kids from dialing those numbers. However, if you
ever need to use that service, it cost $11.80 to have that block
removed.

    Portable phones are becoming safer to use. Many of the
better ones use coded interlocks to prevent other phones from
using those base units. However, anyone can still listen to your
conversation and still use this against you as blackmail, or in
court.

    Laws were passed to restrict junk mail on the fax after
Congressmen in the Capital were unable to use their fax machines
because the fax machines were being tied up with incoming junk
mail.

    In many communities, a special number called 911 was set up
to speed the use of emergency service. With such a simple number,
anyone that needed to place an emergency call could get the
police, fire department, or an ambulance.

    There have been big problems with 911. In some areas it does
not work. Callers have run into rude operators. Others have
called the police only to be told that they are too busy to
respond.

    Even worse, was the modernization of the operator service.
Instead of dialing the operator, you now got a computer message
with the instruction to press numbers. (try that on your rotary
phone).

    When you finally did get the operator, you were told to do
it yourself.

    In August 1992, 65 year old Angeline Brinks, a blind and
crippled woman at home alone, dialed the operator to summons help
when her rural house caught fire.

    The operator finally patch the call to the 911 dispatcher.
Mrs Brinks was unable to tell the dispatcher where she lived. The
dispatcher asked the operator for the address. The operator
refused to give out the address of the call. This went on for 14
minutes before a motorist noticed the fire and called it in to
911 with an address.

    The operator refused to give out the address because of
company policy. The house burned to the ground. The woman was
saved by the motorist.

    In the Panic Society, there will be no telephones allowed.
All communications will be by computer. It will all be channeled,
monitored, and controlled by the central super safe computer. It
will make sure that there is no overuse, or abuse of
communication.

On the Positive Side

    There will be no problems with the use and abuse of
telephones. No one will be stuck with huge phone bills, Teens
will not be tying up a phone and wasting hours talking on them,
Abuse and problems with portable phones, cellular phones and fax
machines will be a thing of the past.





























On the Negative Side

    Loss of the freedom of speech.

Is this all possible?

    It happens all of the time in Russia and other Communist
countries. All calls there are tapped and monitored.

Currently, in 1993, the technology and equipment is in place to
monitor all calls made by anyone in the country.

    If you don't believe me, then look at your long distance and
cellular phone bill. Who you called, when you called, and how
long you called is a matter of computer record.

AH