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1992-09-26
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The LOD/H Technical Journal: File #10 of 10
Network News & Notes
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CWA Backs Bill To Ban Secret Telephone Monitoring (Communications Week
4/13/87)
The Communications Workers of America threw itself into the thick of a
growing congressional debate on privacy protections for workers by launching
a
campaign to enact legislation prohibiting secret monitoring of telephone
operators. The union has for years attempted unsuccessfully to stop
telephone companies from listening to operators for performance assessments.
The union estimated that over 200,000 operators at AT&T & local
operating
companies are under surveillance. Third-party monitoring of telephone calls
is
illegal under the 1968 Wiretap Act, but a provision in the law lets employers
listen in on worker conversations.
For many years, only the telephone companies had the ability to monitor
employees. Today, with the development of electronic telephone gear and
computers, the practice has spread to health and insurance company personnel,
the IRS and airline and hotel reservation representatives.
Telephone company officials said they had not yet determined their
position on the bill, but they stressed that monitoring was necessary to
ensure
that operators maintain performance standards. "In the competitive world AT&T
faces, the name of the game is how well you treat the customer," said an AT&T
spokeswoman. "We make spot checks to ensure the quality of service.
CWA president Morton Bahr argued at a news conference that monitoring
does
not improve service. "The assumption by many employers that supervision must
be
conducted secretly, or else the worker will quit trying, is both unfair and
contradicts all available evidence," he said.
The stress of being under surveillance by supervisors and computers
often
causes operators to develop stress-related illnesses, such as nervous
conditions, anxiety, depression and ulcers, union officials said. Even the
time
operators take to use the bathroom is calculated.
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Crime Doesn't Pay (Communications Week 4/13/87)
Those 18 cellular telephone abusers recently arrested in New York on
charges of illegally altering memory chips so they could make calls free of
charge would not have been able to bilk carriers had the companies been using
cellular phones from AUDIOVOX CORP., Hauppauge, N.Y. Audiovox president John
Shalam said his company's phones contain a mechanism built into the software
that blocks alteration of the phone's electronic serial number, or ESN. "If
someone attempts to change the ESN, the phone will not activate," Shalam
said.
The cellular suspects apparently changed their ESNs, causing other users to
be
billed for the offender's calls. FBI agents estimated that local mobile
telephone companies are losing approximately $40,000 per month, or about $3
million nationally, because of cellular fraud.
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US Sprint Initiates Operator Services (Communications Week 4/13/87)
US Sprint Communications Co. has quietly become the first major long
distance company other than AT&T to offer its own nationwide collect calling,
third-party billing and other operator services.
US Sprint's initiation of operator services early this year was made
possible by a multiyear agreement with National Data Corp. The Sprint program
puts a small dent in AT&T's marketing claims that they provide value-added
services its competitors cannot equal.
Before Sprint began offering the nationwide program, only AT&T offered
large-scale operator services to its customers. MCI Communications Corp. has
been conducting a limited operator services trial exclusively in Topeka
Kansas,
for about two years but has no immediate plans to expand the service to other
cities.
National Data is primarily a transaction processing company,
specializing
in credit card authorizations via voice or data lines. Operators handling
Sprint's collect and third-party traffic will also be spending some of their
time handling credit card authorizations.
Calls from a US Sprint customer to an operator are automatically turned
over to National Data's operator centers in Atlanta; Cherry Hill, NJ.;
Lombard
Ill.; Miami; Sparks, Nevada; and Toronto, following directions from software
developed for the long distance company's switches by National Data and
Rockwell International Corp.
National Data is currently negotiating with about 20 other regional and
national long distance companies to provide the same sorts of services to
them
as the company does for US Sprint.
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WARNING: Fiber Cable Is Not Tap Proof (Communications Week (4/13/87)
Until recently, companies and government agencies were little concerned
about clandestine siphoning of data from fiber optic networks.
Because of the technology involved-lightwaves-fiber is considerable more
difficult to eavesdrop on than copper wire. Many telecommunications users,
however, have mistakenly assumed this to mean that fiber is tap-proof.
Recent tests conducted by federal agencies, such as the NSA, CIA, and
FBI
have debunked the tap proof myth.
Security of voice and data transmitted via fiber is an increasingly
crucial issue as use of fiber optical local area networks grows within the
government. Civilian agencies have committed themselves to upgrading their
on-premises networks by installing fiber. The military too, is developing
more
applications for fiber optics.
Encryption, while a common method of protecting military and State Dept.
secrets, is expensive. While signal encryption is used mostly for classified
defense communications, many other types of government data are not encoded.
Security is a matter of definition. Fiber is secure in that it is
resistant to simple methods of tapping. To tap it, you have to be much more
sophisticated. Virtually anyone who can lift a manhole cover has access to
leased lines.
Indeed, the government says fiber's security advantages include its
immunity to jamming, electromagnetic interference and electromagnetic pulses.
Counter-intrusion equipment is designed to monitor and detect any breach
in optical transmission, using the principle that at least some loss in a
lightwave signal will occur if a fiber line is tapped. Such equipment also
enables a rapid pinpointing of where the intrusion is being made on the
cable.
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