[VoIP] Blocking Individual Calls

[Doug Alderdice]

At 03:51 PM 3/4/2007 -0500, Lee Spenadel wrote:
>I don't have an answer to this, though I always wondered if/when this would
>happen.  I'm wondering if such a routine should check the enum server for
>valid CNET office codes and reject those that are not part of it.  While
>this might keep out the nuisance callers, it hampers those who do like to
>dial in via a portal and access the various switches.
>
>What's the CID that's been calling?


For the most part in the existence of the CNET, abuse hasn't been a big 
problem for me.  There's been less than a handful of calls over the over 
two years now that my system has been on the network that I have 
received.  I can't speak for others, of course, but I believe John Novack 
had someone he had to lock out once who would dial up his RNA line for 
minutes at a time.  I notice that this person that has been calling my 
system at the moment had my busy line dialed up for 173 seconds at one point.

I think locking out anyone who doesn't have a valid office code on CNET 
isn't the answer.  It would prevent folks from checking it out to maybe 
join and/or are curious/interested in old switching, and those are the last 
folks we'd want to prevent from having access to CNET.  Having certain 
lines listed as "OK 24/7" in the ckts.info directory helps, too, but that 
assumes that someone has the brain power to conclude that if a listing 
isn't marked "OK 24/7" you don't ring it in the middle of the night.  Greg 
has the local time function on the online directory so there really is no 
excuse for anyone ringing lines outside of normal waking hours that aren't 
marked as 24/7 lines.

That said, having a waking hours validation routine in your box is a good 
thing to have to keep people from either ringing live answer lines and/or 
dialing any number on your EM switch if it's within earshot of sleeping 
areas of your house.  I had someone last summer ringing a live answer line 
at 0400 local, but fortunately we were out of town at the time it 
happened.  The time check routine went in as soon as I discovered the 
attempted call.  My switch is in the basement so I lock out only live 
answer lines during the night; RNA, busy and my new reorder are accessible 
24/7 on my switch.

The CID of the caller is 7045791541.  Comes up to Charlotte, NC.

Doug.