Malicious phone calls: TV program and trace methods

[Robin Whittle]

There is a program tonight on ABC TV in Melbourne, as part of the True
Stories series, on malicious calls and how they are handled in the UK.

Jim Schembri in The Age gives it a very good review.  It is at 9.30 PM
tonight - Thursday 28 November.


I have heard that Telstra has disbanded its Protective Services
section, and that it seems keen not to be involved much in malicious
calls. I have also been told that the Federal Police are reluctant to
get involved, for lack of resources, and that Telstra proposes to
charge police forces for call trace information.

This is an ugly duckling area, which everyone seems to be keen to wash
their hands of, but which individuals agree is something that requires
greater efforts and coordination.

I have quite a lot of material on the problem of malicious calls, and
ways of detecting and deterring them. 

Customer activated malicious call trace enables one-off malicious
calls to be traced by investigators without prior arrangement.  It has
nothing to do with Calling Number Display, and all modern phone
exchanges can support it as part of their basic software.  It does not
give the receiver of the call the number of the caller.

This ability, even if only used by a relatively small proportion of
the population, would be an excellent deterrent for the many malicious
callers who only call a number once, and would be an excellent
detection system for those malicious callers who persist.

I am in touch with a number of people in Australia who are
interested in this field.

I also recently received an excellent summary of how customer 
activated malicious call trace is implemented in some states of the
USA.

If anyone is interested in this awkward area, and in ensuring that
something constructive is done, I would be delighted to hear from you.

- Robin

. Robin Whittle                                               .
. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~firstpr   firstpr@ozemail.com.au .
. 11 Miller St. Heidelberg Heights 3081 Melbourne Australia   .
. Ph +61-3-9459-2889    Fax +61-3-9458-1736                   .
. Consumer advocacy in telecommunications, especially privacy .
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