Eric Murray enscribed thusly:
Caller ID isn't for people, it's for businesses who want to track callers. They're willing to pay for that service, enough to make it worth the while of the phone companies to spend many millions on a campaign of lies (excuse me, "PR") to convince us that we need CID for "safety".
BULLSH*T! Pure, unadulterated, BULLSH*T! Businesses don't NEED Caller ID! They've got (and have had for a long time) ANI! Most businesses don't even WANT CLID! You can block CLID. You can't block ANI. This was the ultimate and supreme LIE behind all of the fights over CLID. All the arguements about how businesses would then abuse this and that and would invade our privacy was all a crock of SH*T. All CLID did was give to the consumer SOME of what businesses have had for years. The whole business abuse arguement was pure red herring... Even in California, where CLID was stopped for a while, businesses still had ANI. Do you actually think your numbers were safe just because they weren't delivered to residences? Hell no! Businesses could still get them if they wanted them and there was nothing you could do about it! To top it off - you THOUGHT you were safe! I know of some businesses whose sole reason for getting a 1-800 number was to be able to log and track that information. Every wonder about those local companies who still had you call a 1-800 number. Guess what. That was the easiest (and sometimes the cheapest) way to get ANI. I ran a Harris 20/20 PBX switch for a company over 6 years ago and remember looking over and discussing the ANI specs with the management. We decided not to pursue trying to get ANI on our DID lines but the switch supported it and that switch was considered out of date technology at THAT time!
-- Eric Murray ericm@lne.com ericm@motorcycle.com http://www.lne.com/ericm PGP keyid:E03F65E5 fingerprint:50 B0 A2 4C 7D 86 FC 03 92 E8 AC E6 7E 27 29 AF
Mike -- Michael H. Warfield | (770) 985-6132 | mhw@WittsEnd.com (The Mad Wizard) | (770) 925-8248 | http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/ NIC whois: MHW9 | An optimist believes we live in the best of all PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471 | possible worlds. A pessimist is sure of it!