On Wed, 26 Feb 2003 02:58:54 +0100 (CET)
"Carlos E. R."
With all the electronic switching going on, some agent in Washington, can issue a signal, so that when you call a number to your ISP, you are actually being switched to a big phony ISP, which simulates your ISP, and can redirect you to bogus DNS servers, and possibly gain peer-2-peer access into your computer.
Telephone (POT) is old technology - I worked in that field - and the exchanges are not networked, not in the sense we do with PCs (it knows no tcp/ip, for example). To do such a reroute you need full cooperation of the telephone company and their technicians. It is not as simple as "giving a signal from outside".
Hmmm, there is an ongoing argument going on right now concerning legislation which allows federal agents to initiate instant wire taps from their personal computers. I guess they want it, because crooks are using multiple different cell phones to foil conventional taps. That means there is a way for outside computers to manipulate the electronic switches at the phone company. Now initiating a tap, may not be the same as redirecting a call to a different number, but it's getting close. Plus who knows what they are'nt telling us? The secrecy involved in all this is suspicious in itself, knowing that the government usually is using technology which is 20 years ahead of what the public is aware of. It's just something to be aware of, as we move into "The Age of Big Brother". To get a glimpse of what they are currently "talking about": http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/CALEA/meeks_wiretap.article http://hotwired.lycos.com/clipper/privacy.epic.html Now this is what they are telling the public. What have the super-secret agencies been doing already? -- use Perl; #powerful programmable prestidigitation