180 DEAR HACKER
180 DEAR HACKER
Dear 2600: Here is a tidbit you may want to share with your readers: the AT&T
calling card lets you call without any surcharge from any phone booth, hotel room, etc. for ten cents a minute under the following conditions:
1) You subscribe to Reach Out America ($10 month includes one hour of free out-of-state, off-hour calls); 2) Your call is made to a number which is in a different state than the one you are calling from; 3) You call off-hours (weekends or 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.).
Concerning the ongoing issue of lack of security and verification pro- vided by various institutions (banks, telephone companies, etc.), I lived for many years in European countries (Poland, France, Switzerland, Great Britain), where you are not trusted by anybody. Every action re- quires positive verification. This may prevent some errors but it makes life very difficult for citizens who do not want to abuse the system. Making a collect call or third-party call takes twice as long because everything has to be verified. All contacts with authorities have to be done in person as nobody trusts a phone call. Even a letter is suspect. Coming to the United States, where you are in general trusted by the authorities, was a big relief.
CL Holmdel, NJ
While the AT&T plan is better than nothing, there are still far too many restrictions. What we need are inexpensive, surcharge-free, and easy ways for all of us to make coin-free calls from anywhere in the country. Any phone companies out there interested?
Dear 2600:
I have two questions. First, I have recently bought a $20 radio trans- mitter from a mail order place that advertised in the back of Popular Science. What I was wondering about was, would it be possible to send data from a modem over the airwaves via the transmitter? And just
TECHNOLOGY
and watch as the data is fed onto their screen? Next, could you try and settle an argument I am currently in with my friend? On New Year’s Eve, while my friend and I were waiting for a ride to pick us up,
I tried to explain to him that television cable was transmitted over the phone lines. He doesn’t believe me, and although I do believe I read it somewhere, I am not certain either. Think you could clear things up for the both of us?
The Winged Plecenta Oregon
It certainly is possible to transmit data over airwaves. WBAI-FM in New York did this a number of years ago. Of course, most listeners felt compelled to change the station at that point. If your transmitter is delivering a clean signal, you should be able to do the same thing, however, your range will be very limited. Cable TV can only be transmitted over phone lines if the phone company controls cable TV. It’s considered the wave of the future to have this happen, as well as to have cable companies delivering alternative dial tones.
Dear 2600: In the process of gearing up for the 1996 Olympics, Atlanta city officials
announced several months ago that they were going to begin to upgrade the city’s traffic lights. By far the majority of the traffic lights here are “dumb” lights, with no pressure plates or flow sensitivity at all.
This announcement got me thinking. Anyone out there have any ex- perience in hacking traffic light controllers? I find myself extremely curious about how these damned things work. Especially the “intel- ligent” ones.
Lone Wolf Atlanta