Audit trails may now be in place, in which case the cost of anonymity is increased to the cost of the lowest denomination card. Think OTP. However, in both Britian and France I have seen defective phones that allowed LD calls but did not deduct the call amount from the card. Obviously, the effect was free LD and these phones were perpetually busy. If audit trails were in place, this problem should have been noticed quickly. As I said, things may have changed for newer systems. James ---------- From: Flying insect killer <kadafi@netcom.com> Sent: Friday, September 06, 1996 1:20 PM To: jimbell@pacifier.com Cc: James Bugden; pstira@escape.com; cypherpunks@toad.com Subject: Re: Anonymous phone calls (was: What is the EFF doing exactl On Fri, 6 Sep 1996, jim bell wrote:
At 10:08 AM 9/6/96 EST, jbugden@smtplink.alis.ca wrote:
There is another spin possible on the reasons for replacement of pay phones with credit card phones. In Canada all new credit card phones are also able to take phone cards (which are anonymous).
Don't be too sure about the "anonymity" of these cards. You don't have to give your name when you buy or use them, but assuming a large number of phone calls (to, from different locations) can be associated together after the fact, your name can probably be fairly easily obtained. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com
And phone companys that offers phone cards keep track of every call that goes thru each card number.