17 Dec
2003
17 Dec
'03
11:17 p.m.
Heard on the news today that they arrested a plumber and are holding him in lieu of $50,000 bail. He used a PC to crack into the phone system and set up 'Ultra' call forwarding which forwarded calls to other plumbers businesses to his. He then took the calls and told the callers that his company was covering for the one they actually called.
The irony is that the original dial telephone switch was invented to prevent this kind of problem, by a Kansas City undertaker named Strowger who thought his competitor was bribing the phone operators to redirect business, and wanted to get the humans out of the loop. Bill