“Here's one more tidbit on wire-taps: They get you free phone
service! The feds tapped the phone of the Sisters of Mercy in
Washington D.C. because of some anti-war stance or something they
took in the 1980s. The good sisters noticed some kind of clicking on
the phone at times, and finally decided that someone must have
tapped into their phone. Their solution: Don't pay the bill so the
phone company will have to shut off the phone. The phone never went
dead, and they quit sending them bills! The Feds wouldn't let Ma
Bell shut them down, and probably began paying the bills. The
sisters talked long and free with their friends across the
country!”
I,
Cringley—The Falafel Connection
Well … that's one way of getting free phone service.
The article does present a different view of the recent NSA wire
taps—that they're less listening in on all the calls and more a
“connect-the-dots” by looking at who called who. Defintely an interesting
read.
You have my permission to link freely to any entry here. Go
ahead, I won't bite. I promise.
The dates are the permanent links to that day's entries (or
entry, if there is only one entry). The titles are the permanent
links to that entry only. The format for the links are
simple: Start with the base link for this site: https://boston.conman.org/, then add the date you are
interested in, say 2000/08/01,
so that would make the final URL:
https://boston.conman.org/2000/08/01
You can also specify the entire month by leaving off the day
portion. You can even select an arbitrary portion of time.
You may also note subtle shading of the links and that's
intentional: the “closer” the link is (relative to the
page) the “brighter” it appears. It's an experiment in
using color shading to denote the distance a link is from here. If
you don't notice it, don't worry; it's not all that
important.
It is assumed that every brand name, slogan, corporate name,
symbol, design element, et cetera mentioned in these pages is a
protected and/or trademarked entity, the sole property of its
owner(s), and acknowledgement of this status is implied.
![[It's the most wonderful time of the year!]](https://www.conman.org/people/spc/about/2018/1212.t.jpg "It's the most wonderful time of the year!")