Private-enterprise wiretapping

[bill.stewart at pobox.com]

STOLEN NUMBERS -- [New York Times, p. 31, 7/5.] 
Federal investigators said the scam was ingenious in its simplicity: 
Five people in New York City would tap into public pay phones at major airports 
across the country, then steal calling-card numbers
punched in by unsuspecting travelers. The scheme ended last month 
with the arrests of four men and one woman. But the case is
only the latest machination in a $4-billion-a-year telephone fraud 
industry that keeps reinventing itself. "This is something we have
not seen before," said Boyd Jackson [of] network security at AT&T, 
one of the industry experts who helped Federal investigators on
the case. "And there is nothing I am aware of that customers can do 
to fully protect themselves." The Secret Service was tipped off
by AT&T, Bell Atlantic and MCI after they received an unusually 
high number of complaints from customers who had recently used
their calling cards in airports. 
[Also San Jose Mercury News, 1C; Rocky Mountain News, 33A; Sun-Sentinel, 3A, 7/4.]