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From: taylor@hplabsz.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Telephone Privacy Issues
Message-ID: <1096@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: Tue, 24-Nov-87 15:37:38 EST
Article-I.D.: hplabsz.1096
Posted: Tue Nov 24 15:37:38 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Nov-87 04:51:51 EST
Sender: taylor@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab Harvard, Cambridge, MA
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Approved: taylor@hplabs

>...the use of computers to dial ... a series of phone numbers.

>Questions to our readers - What can I do to hang up on such a call?
>And what can I do to stop such calls from being generated?  Are there
>responsible (and responsive) agencies that will help?  Etc.

Although this depends on the exchange, it is usually possible to hang
up on these calls by hanging up for 20 or 30 seconds.  In many areas,
the connection will not be broken for this amount of time if the called
party hangs up; this is to allow the callee to change phones.

On the second matter, in my bill this month from New England Telephone,
I received a card to fill out if I did not want to receive computerized
phone calls.  A new law in Massachusetts requires the phone company to
maintain this list free of charge to consumers, and requires all computer
callers in the state to acquire this list and to remove the people on it
from their computerized calling programs.  This will not prevent us from
receiving computerized calls originating outside Massachusetts, nor will
it help anyone living outside the state.  Perhaps other states will follow
suit.

David Albert