> Well, I don't have a smart phone, and my movements in and out of the
> house are not very regular.
My movements aren't very regular, either.
> I'll experiment a bit. I'll try entering the house quietly, wait a few
> minutes, then make a loud noise. If that works, I'll try disconnecting the
> handset from the wired phone.
So, I'm stewing on this and thinking through the various technical
scenarios. What most people don't realize is the number of devices
that they have actually connected to the phone line. Fax machines,
satelite receivers, alarm systems, water/gas meters and modems of
various kinds. While the bog-standard telephone isn't particularily
hackable, some other things are.
For example, almost every telephone exchange uses an automated
telephone test system that can be called up by your telephone support
person or technician. The support person accesses it through a
computer connection (firewalled), but the field technician would do it
remotely via telephone keypad. One of the side features of this system
is the automated scripts that are run which test the phone lines at
programmed intervals. Depending on location, we do it daily, weekly or
monthly. If the line is busy, the script skips past it and will come
back to it at a later time. I suppose that like anything else, it is
possible for these systems to be hacked, but I'd ask "why?" when there
are simpler ways to accomplish the same task.
We've seen a major shift in telemarketing caller technology. Thanks to
the Internet, VoIP and hacked computers, we're actually getting
telemarketer and spam calls that originate from an unknown location
that bridges to the local telephone exchange through a computer that
is connected via modem to the telephone system or through cellphones.
Just as the telephone company does regular line-testing from an
electrical characteristic perspective (length, bridge taps, current,
voltage, impedence, etc.), a telemarketing computer does the one-ring
test on phone numbers. If the computer doing this action is connected
via ISDN, it can test as many as a line a second per DS0 connection
(and they run MANY). It takes very little time to determine active
numbers. It comes up with a Busy/Disconnected/Ring response. If the
line connects right away (answering machine, fax machine, etc.), it
will generally hang right up and flag it.
They then run the numbers against a purchased database which matches
numbers with target zip codes and prior purchase/response
characteristics. Based on what you have purchased in the past, which
political party you support and a zillion other things, it determines
the best possible times to call. In fact, prior call history is
extremely important to how this system works.
But you really could be paranoid.
AG
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