Re: Can't block caller ID in Massachusetts?

At 19:37 7/15/96, Alan Horowitz wrote:
[...]
>> It's especially annoying when they've got an in-state or other
>>non-nation-wide
>> 800 number, or when you're calling from outside the US, especially when
>> they're a business you'd like to be able to reach from anywhere, any time,
>> like the travel agent your office uses
>
>    Your straining my credulity to claim that you can't get ahold of the
>regular phone number of them.   Come on, are you 7 years old?

How do you get a hold of the phone number if you don't know the location of
the company, they aren't on the net, and don't have the US phone numbers
CD-ROM handy? I am 33 and have yet to figure this one out...



-- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.
   Defeat the Demopublican Unity Party. Vote no on Clinton/Dole in November.
   Vote Harry Browne for President.

At 12:03 AM -0700 on 7/16/96, Lucky Green quoted/wrote:

> >    Your straining my credulity to claim that you can't get ahold of the
> >regular phone number of them.   Come on, are you 7 years old?
>
> How do you get a hold of the phone number if you don't know the location of
> the company, they aren't on the net, and don't have the US phone numbers
> CD-ROM handy? I am 33 and have yet to figure this one out...

	Try getting anything done from outside the country, where WATS lines
need not apply, thank you, even if you _do_ have your CDRs with you. The
amount of effort it takes to get around those %#$*ing 800 numbers from
outside the US is a nontrivial component in US companies losing business to
foreign competitors, imo.

	ObCrypto: non-net communications channels will necessarily play a big
part in any systematic effort among the G7+ to establish a transnational
GAK regime, and prickly details like disparities/imbalances in phone
systems will wreak havoc on a practical level. In fact, the
politico-economic dynamics that distort international telecom arrangements
will probably go a long way toward hobbling the "widening horizons of
police cooperation" the TLAs are aiming at. Then again, maybe the only
thing worse than international GAK might be an incompetently bureaucratized
international GAK system.

Ted

On Tue, 16 Jul 1996, Lucky Green wrote:

> How do you get a hold of the phone number if you don't know the location of
> the company, they aren't on the net, and don't have the US phone numbers
> CD-ROM handy? I am 33 and have yet to figure this one out...

   Look in a trade directory?  Call the advertising manager of the
publication that ran the ad?   Call the office of the relevant trade 
association?

Gosh, are these radical concepts for you?   Am I to understand that there 
has arisen a generation of cypherpunks which can't sniff out any 
information which a Net Search Robot doesn't return?

Go back to your couch, potato.

On Tue, 16 Jul 1996, Lucky Green wrote:

> How do you get a hold of the phone number if you don't know the location of
> the company, they aren't on the net, and don't have the US phone numbers
> CD-ROM handy? I am 33 and have yet to figure this one out...

For most companies you can call the library's research section.  As long 
as you don't have a mean librarian they will usually try to help.

Unlisted ones are another story though (see my previous post)


--Millie