asterisk users - Jan 2005 - [Fwd: Re: [Asterisk-biz] bellster.net - GREAT advance]

Steven P. Donegan wrote:
> I don't want to be negative here, but I do believe people who go to do
this know the potential risks they face. In many countries (4 of which I have
direct, although several year old experience with - all in Asia) taking a local
phone line and attaching asterisk to it and gatewaying traffic from other
countries will be considered to be 'theft' by the local
governments/telco's (of their long distance revenues). My experiences were
all with USA<-> Asian manufacturing locations - if you did
voice-over-network between the same companies offices no sweat - the moment you
allowed hop-off/hop-on gatewaying you were at risk to lose your phone lines!!!
Also these choice sound bytes from the asterisk-biz list.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-biz] bellster.net - GREAT advance
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 20:24:44 -0500
From: Paul <digium-list@9ux.com>

Michael Giagnocavo wrote:
> Except law enforcement has at least some clue of what a telephone company
is, and *surprise* the idea that a telephone company might not place all calls
that come out of it.
> 
> However, when your normal POTS line lights up and has a death threat for
someone "important", and happens to mention some other stuff... I
wouldn't be surprised. Law enforcement generally LOVES the opportunity to
show up with force.
Let me tell you about them showing up in force. I mentioned a former 
employee in my previous post to this thread:

" I still remember getting an automated announcement at my office when 
the collect call was from the county jail. I promptly hung up and 
revoked all phone access for a certain employee."


That same employee was at a party with her doper friends and told people 
that she was going to shoot the officer that put her drug-dealing 
boyfriend in jail. She went on to say that her boss(meaning me) would 
buy the gun for her. As usual, there was a police informant there to 
hear all this. So 4 big bad undercover narcotics cops from 3 different 
agencies show up together at my office to check the story out. The whole 
thing was news to me but I did manage to settle them down without 
getting beat up.

If you want to get them to your house sooner it probably helps to 
threaten them, their associates and their families. You can also try 
threatening judges, parole officers, prosecutors and any informants that 
actually deliver reliable information. If I ever caught someone using my 
telephone to make such calls I would want to quickly tie them up outside 
with a telephone super-glued to their face before the police arrived. 
That might at least minimize the damage to my own health and property. 
So just imagine what will happen if you set up a bellster node and some 
recently-paroled convict uses it to make such calls. Company's coming


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [Asterisk-biz] bellster.net - GREAT advance
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 19:59:01 -0600
From: Michael Giagnocavo <mgg-digium@atrevido.net>


Well John, you've had good experiences and still trust them. They should 
be honoured to have citizens like you. Meanwhile, many others have had 
other "real" experiences. And while *eventually* you might explain
your
situation and be let off, that doesn?t mean you won't have to deal with 
visits from cops, or even confiscation (right about after you say "my 
computer did it").

Personally, Bellster is zero benefit to me, as my local calls cost more 
than what I get from our VoIP carrier. I suppose to save a few bucks 
here and there it could potentially be worth it for some people.

-Michael


-- 

Best regards,
  Duane

http://www.cacert.org - Free Security Certificates
http://www.nodedb.com - Think globally, network locally
http://www.sydneywireless.com - Telecommunications Freedom
http://happysnapper.com.au - Sell your photos over the net!
http://e164.org - Using Enum.164 to interconnect asterisk servers

"I do not try to dance better than anyone else.
     I only try to dance better than myself."

Funny, the only thing I addressed was the direct threat of busting the 
contract/acceptable use policy of your Telco/local government. I didn't 
go anywhere near the other risks:

1) you mess up your extensions.conf and some bozo - on purpose or 
otherwise - runs up some insane bill on that nice little donated phone 
line - handle this by doing REALLY specific exten lines and you should 
be fairly OK

2) abuse of the extreme types noted in Duane's original reply - no 
technological solution for this one beyond making sure your outbound 
caller-id is not sent (a darn good idea in any case but no guarantees it 
will stop any more than a casual attempt to 'trace' the call) - and make
sure you keep your asterisk CDR logs...

Duane wrote:
>
> Also these choice sound bytes from the asterisk-biz list.
>
Choice bits snipped for brevity...

Duane wrote:

I was discussing bellster with a friend of mine, and he made another 
point about this service...
> I can't imagine how unsettling it would be for my girlfriend to pick up
the phone and hear somebody else on the line.  The first time that happened,
that'd be the end of me sharing the line with anybody.  I can't think of
a way that I would explain Bellster to a non-geek in a way that makes them
comfortable.
> 
> I can almost hear her saying, "How much do you make a year again?  And
how much is unlimited long distance from the phone company?  Is that going to
break you financially?  Because if it is, you've either got a drug problem,
gambling problem, or a hooker problem."
Made me laugh at least :)

Another small point is that a lot of countries don't have flat rate 
calls, and I highly doubt anyone in those countries would be offering 
their land lines for this kind of service either. It costs me between 20 
and 30c per call to make local calls, so this basically only leaves 
North American and New Zealand as the only viable options that I know of.

-- 

Best regards,
  Duane

http://www.cacert.org - Free Security Certificates
http://www.nodedb.com - Think globally, network locally
http://www.sydneywireless.com - Telecommunications Freedom
http://happysnapper.com.au - Sell your photos over the net!
http://e164.org - Using Enum.164 to interconnect asterisk servers

"I do not try to dance better than anyone else.
     I only try to dance better than myself."

>>>>> "Duane" == Duane  <duane@e164.org> writes:
Duane> It costs me between 20 and 30c per call to make local calls, so
Duane> this basically only leaves North American and New Zealand as
Duane> the only viable options that I know of.

In France, the second most important ADSL provider (named "Free")
offers a phone line (which uses VoIP but can only be used as a FXS)
with unlimited free calls to landlines.

  Sam
-- 
Samuel Tardieu -- sam@rfc1149.net -- http://www.rfc1149.net/sam