The FIREWALL CHIP. U're phone always offhook?

[SINCLAIR DOUGLAS N]

>    We have potential bugging devices in all our houses - The telephone!
> Of course, when it is onhook, the microphone does not transmit... or
> does it? Would the phone have to be rewired to render it always
> "offhook" or would it be an operation at the central phone company?
> If the present models would have to be rewired, then how about future
> models? Much function is done thru chips & so could many of the models
> on the current market be remote programmable? See the latest issue of
> Mondo 2000.

The Mondo article ("Total Surveillance" by Charles Ostman) was a joke.
Among other things, he claims the Teledesic project is a massive
satellite surveilance scheme.  Those birds are going to be in
geo-synchronous orbit!  What's more, even a LEO spy-sat weighs many
tons.  Nobody could launch 840 satellites of that weight without being
noticed.

>From the innacuracies in what I do know about, I assume all of the
phone-paranoia is also unjustified.