TexasCHLforum.com

treadlightly wrote:

jimlongley wrote:CID is kind of a fun subject for me because I was there at the beginning as a Transmission Technical Support Engineer for NY Telephone Company.

If you've never read The Hacker Crackdown, it's a free download - http://www.mit.edu/hacker/hacker.html.

In a nutshell, a string of unrelated crumbs leads federal law enforcement from NYNEX to Texas where the Honorable Sam Sparks, demonstrating only feeble higher brain function, issued a no-knock seizure warrant to confiscate a book that they thought was computer software of an impossible nature, resulting in the first-ever successful civil rights lawsuit against the Secret Service and the creation of The Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Kids with Commodore 64's playing with things like translations and SS7 in New York nearly kills a business in Austin - better than fiction, at least for those not suffering the tale firsthand.

I was there, at NY Telephone Company, in 1990 (actually I was at NYNEX Computer Services, but that's a whole 'nother story), and we, NYTel and NYNEX handled our issues with elan and nobody hardly noticed the difference. This was after the breakup of the Bell System and most of the issue was AT&T's, and the crash wasn't quite as drastic as The Hacker Crackdown makes it out to be, but I guess that's all in your viewpoint.

I did use that information and other such when I was teaching SS7 in '93 to '96, partly as an example of why geographical separation of components was necessary to secure operation, something AT&T had decided to do a "work around" on to save expense and time.

I did enjoy their treatment of Bell's invention, but I relied more on others for the whole, and ultimately even more sordid details. Watson had tightened a clamp on a reed beyond where it should have been, resulting in it operating in an unforseen manner as Bell squawked for assistance due to his own clumsiness.

OldCurlyWolf wrote:

LabRat wrote:

JALLEN wrote:...SNIP..You might set up a taping system to record such calls. You have to tell them the call is being recorded "for quality assurance" get that disclosure and their consent on tape first thing. Then, and only then, talk about whatever they have to talk about.

I always thought Texas was a one-party consent state; at least 1 party on the call must consent to be recorded. If you're one of the party on the call then you consent and it should be no issue.

My information may be a few years out of date and I'm not a lawyer, but can anyone clarify?

Thanks, LabRat

One party consent in Texas, YES. On a Telephone NO. Either a court order or warning required.

Federal law kicks in because of the FCC and telephones.

Not trying to be argumentative but I have had protracted legal proceedings against someone that cheated me out of 10K worth of services, including charging them with theft of services. In all of that I have been told by both the investigating detective and an attorney privy to the details that the one party consent applies to phone conversations as well.

They DID advise that if I wanted to be sure it would be admitted, it was good practice to advise them they were being recorded.

FWIW, my phone automatically records all conversations and gives me the option to delete or save afterwards. It has saved my bacon more than once.

For awhile I was getting calls on my cell from Jamacia mega millions lottery saying I was a winner and need to send them $300 to collect my winnings. These calls went on for a month and I told them many times to stop calling. There really is nothing you can do but ignore them and eventually it will stop since our laws don't apply to them.