Conference 7.286::digital

Germany has very specific workers-rights laws which prohibit the use of
monitoring systems to collect data on employees.

So, for example, a word-processing system would not be allowed to track
the typing speed of an employee.

A security system would not be allowed to report the amount of time an
employee spent in the building.

A telephone system would not be allowed to report the amount of time an
employee spent on the telephone.

Part of the social agenda of the Chaos Computer Club is to show that computers
are insecure.  Let's assume a computer system is claimed to have security which
would prevent, for example, the managers from extracting the entry/exit times
from the security system and keep that data only in the hands of the security
organization.  CCC claims that the system will be inherently insecure, and
management (or worse, robbers who want to know when it's safe to get into an
employee's home) will be able to gain surreptitious access.

Therefore, personal information may not be stored in computers.

/john

    re .0: I do not know the US laws (not that I'm an expert in German
    laws). Anyway, I think there's two sides to this question - obviously,
    the purely legal side, which depends on the country, and a 'moral'
    side.
    
    On the latter side, I'd say that if my employer/manager has to use
    computer records of my *individual* phone calls to control me there
    must be a similar problem with lack of trust (just as mentioned in the
    card key note). 
    
    Obviously, it is in the interest of the employer that employees
    don't spend excessive time/money on private phone calls from the
    office. If the mutual trust is there, it's probably better if I
    can use my office phone for my private calls. If the trust is not
    there, it is fairly easy to prevent me from making any (it is not
    uncommon in many German companies that you cannot make *any* outside
    calls from your phone other than through the operator). However,
    if the employer allows me to do private calls from the office phone,
    I don't think e.g. my manager should be able to find out what numbers
    I've called.
    
    Also, similar to the card key problems, this information is pretty
    worthless unless you can lock your phone in some way while you are
    not in the office. The records can only tell what phone number was
    called from which phone, but not *who* did the call.
    
    Unless, of course, you combine the phone call & security system
    databases... :-) you wouldn't be guilty of calls made from your
    phone when you're not in the office.
    
    On the legal side, I'd think that utilizing recorded phone numbers
    is illegal in many countries under various phone privacy laws. I
    don't know if such a case has been contested in a court in Germany,
    but as John mentioned, there are other laws that cover the collection
    of person-related data on employees which also relates to this problem.
    
    The telephone equipment in e.g. DECpark Munich is able to record
    each individual call including the number. The summary records that
    are delivered to CC managers contain the total cost of calls per
    employee (or, rather, phone number). I have no problem with this.
    

    When I first came to DEC, this was presented to me as another case
    of "do the right thing".  To me that means limiting my personal
    calls to the necessary ones.  I'm sure DEC would rather pay for
    me to call my dentist over the state line for 1 1/2 minutes to make
    a dental appointment than have me drive home and back to make the
    same call during business hours!  Twice in the last year I've gotten
    calls from my mother to "please call back right away" and I have,
    but I kept the calls under 5 minutes each.  
    
    One acquaintance I knew called her child care person (over the state
    line) 2-3 times per work day.  Her management did not question this.
    Another acquaintance at DEC had to justify all her long distance
    calls in writing.  Another acquaintance waited to get to work to
    make personal long distance calls because his management had told
    him to "feel free" to do that.

Well, at IBM the management kept VERY close track of phone calls. Not that
I was trying to abuse the system, but a few times I guessed wrong whether a
call was local or not. At the end of the month my manager would call me
into his office and point out the long-distance calls and direct me to
petty cash where I would reimburse the IBM corporation for a few $.50
calls.
                                                                  
Then there is also the apocryphal story of the IBMer who while in a
restricted lab room called a buddy at Hewlett Packard. As the story goes,
IBM put in the extra effort to find out where the number went and fired the
guy. 

    RE: long-distance calls ...
    
    The policy I've always operated under was this:  Long distance calls
    for personal reasons on the company's bill (office or credit card
    are really only justified if the company's fault you couldn't make
    it a local phone call.  For instance, calling home during travel,
    calling a friend about a missed appointment because you got held
    up at work, things like that.  If it would have been a toll call
    you had to make anyway, the company shouldn't have to pay for that.
    
    Most people I know (including myself) make occasional toll calls
    from the office, usually brief, for convenience's sake.  It probably
    makes up about one percent or less of the time I spend on the phone
    for business reasons, so I tend to consider it unavoidable overhead.
    If nothing else, the company gets a much better rate than I do!
    The thing that irks me a *lot* more than people making toll calls
    on the company is people who spend half their time on the phone
    talking to their kids, mom, babysitter, etc., especially while
    there are other calls ringing unanswered or on hold!  They may
    be just local calls, but the company is losing a lot of man-hours
    and probably a few customers because of this, at least in our office.
    I realize we all have to make some sacrifices to the god of two-job
    households, but this is getting out of hand ...
    
    Geoff

>    If nothing else, the company gets a much better rate than I do!

A lot of the attitude about making personal long-distance phone calls from
work comes from the mistaken belief that the company gets *much* better rate.

Once upon a time this was true.  Until the mid-70s, WATS lines were flat rate,
so a little bit of abuse would only cost a company the lost use of the lines.

This is no longer the case.  The best reduction a company gets is now a discount
of about 30%.  For calls to Canada and overseas, the max discount is 10-15%, and
may be zero depending on where you're calling from.

In Europe there are generally no discounts at all for business telephone users.

/john

    re .7
    
    FYI - in the UK. businesses pay *more* for their phone lines than
    private customers; and the rates vary with time of day;
    from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm is "peak", and very expensive;
    from 8:00 am to 9:00 am and 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm is "standard", and
    quite expensive;
    from 6:00 pm to 8:00 am is "cheap rate", and just expensive.
    
    As you can imagine, no "private" calls are made from home between
    9:00 and 1:00pm.............
    
    Peter.
    

    About a year ago someone called me and I wasn't at my desk and the
    message was to call this person back collect.  At least in MRO at
    that time you could not make a collect call from the phone on your
    desk.  The DEC operator told me I would have to go find a pay phone
    somewhere.  I have an unrestricted phone (for the US).  Don't know
    if this is still true or not.  Hmmm, if you can't make collect calls
    wonder if one can make credit card calls (where you don't call an
    800 number)?

re .9

There are a number of reasons for restricting your access to an outside
operator:

1. DEC policy prohibits the use of DEC calling cards from DEC facilities.
   A cost center being visited is supposed to pick up the cost of calls a
   visitor has to make rather than cause DEC to incur higher calling card
   costs.  Some cost center managers (or other pseudo-conscientious dopes)
   ignored this policy, saving their own budget but wasting real dollars.

2. Some people would place person-to-person calls, thinking they were saving
   the company money.  In reality, you can play telephone tag 10-20 times
   before a domestic pern-to-person call is a win over a direct-dialed call.

3. If a phone allows access to the U.S., but not Canada or overseas, being
   able to call an operator bypasses that restriction.

4. A (possibly misguided) belief that *all* personal calls should be placed
   from the payphones in the lobby.

/john

    
    
    RE .6
    
    > If nothing else, the company gets a much better rate than I do!
    
    If the company is paying for your calls, then obviously it is you
    who is enjoying the better rate.
    
    

    I think that by making people who might make PERSONAL credit card
    calls take a hike to the pay phone is encouraging them to just make
    the call at their desk at DEC's expense.  I'll bet the percentage
    of probable DEC calling cards from DEC facilities is way less than
    personal calls.  Of course to get around this calling card restriction
    one can get a credit card where one calls an 800 number such as
    Sprint or MCI.
    
    BTW:  Since in almost all cases it appears as though non AT&T companies
          charge less for credit card calls why does DEC issue AT&T
          cards?  From a TT phone a Sprint call costs $0.55 + the call
          where as AT&T charges $0.80 + the call.  Not a big savings
    	  but every little bit helps.  Of course punching in all those
    	  numbers for a Sprint or MCI call can be a real pain.
    

It is true that the inability to make AT&T card calls from your desk is an
inducement to steal from DEC.

Sprint's billing problems more than outweigh the savings on calling card calls.
When did Sprint drop the surcharge from .60/call to .55/call?

And on intra-state calls in Massachusetts and many other states, the telco card
surcharge is less than Sprint's.

Also, at the moment, Sprint is 1 cent/minute more expensive than AT&T.

/john

    I distinctly remember being told that *informally* as long
    as you do not excede your group limit for personal phone
    calls (which in our group I think it  was $50) there should 
    be no problems.  Of course the employee is expected to use
    his discretion for all personal calls.
    
    Take it easy, (RUMI) �.

    	Why not use your personal VISA card for charging calls?  Then,
    you get the best  both worlds...you can pay for the call, and you:don't
    have to drive home to call in an emergency.
    
    KMP

>< Note 694.15 by BAHTAT::PATTERSON "support your boys overseas!!" >
>                                 -< use VISA >-

 >   	Why not use your personal VISA card for charging calls?  Then,
 >   you get the best  both worlds...you can pay for the call, and you:don't
 >   have to drive home to call in an emergency.
   
    How? I use Visa, and live in England like you, but I've never heard of
 this service before. Would seem like a great idea if you wanted to use a
call box in the street and didn't have any change either.

	Craig

DIGITAL's Telephone Network	AYOV18::DTN				  379
PBX and Business Phone Sys.	DELNI::PBX				  483
Telecommunications Industry	KYOA::TELECOM_INDUSTRY			 2214
Telephones			BTO::TELEPHONES				 2196
Telephones (Cellular)		CADSYS::CELLULAR			 2208
Electric/Electronics/Phone	CSOA1::ELECTRO_HOBBY			 1208

	Some of these issues may be better served in one of these conferences.

			Alfred

    There is a way to make a credit card call from your office and it
    is easy.  You can dial the local access number for a long distance
    company or you can dial the 800 number for credit card calls.  For
    example:
    
    Local access (9 + local number)
    
    	950-0xxx where xxx is the LD code
    
    800 access (8 + 800 number)
    
    	800-877-8000 for Sprint; I assume other services have them also
    
    	/s/	Roger
    

re .-1

Doesn't work for AT&T.

re VISA

It would be just as easy as parking in your badge-numbered parking space.

re .16

they've been around in airports for about a year now, but I've 
never seen them elsewhere in the UK

Peter

        *Some* pay phones allow you to use VISA and other credit cards to
        place calls.  Like Peter Dunn, I've seen them in airports, and
        even in some hotels, but never in a DEC facility.  They may not
        even be provided by the "standard" telephone companies, but by
        some special company that accepts VISA and charges a premium. 
        
        As far as I know, there is no way to use your VISA or any other
        non-telephone company credit card for AT&T operator assisted
        calls, although I've never tried it. 
        
        HOWEVER, the point here is that it would be very convenient to be
        able to place such calls from the phone on your desk, instead of
        having to go to a pay phone, without having to use an outside
        (AT&T or whatever) operator.  I don't know about you, but my desk
        phone isn't a pay phone, and there's no "VISA" access pay phone in
        my facility. 
        
        Will the DTN switches allow you to key all the digits to use one
        of the external access numbers?  If so, then perhaps keying in the
        AT&T access code would allow you to use your AT&T credit card for
        calls placed from a Digital facility. 
        
        Tom

I repeat:

There is no way to reach the AT&T or local telco operator position system from
many DEC facilities, for reasons mentioned earlier in this reply.

There is no way to place an AT&T or local telco calling card call without going
through an AT&T or local telco operator position system.  Even when dialing the
calling card number yourself, the call proceeds through the operator position
system.  You would be able to escape to an operator and place calls charged to
DEC which your normal phone class of service does not allow.

/john

    	Look in USA Today, they have a list of phone numbers, in about
    20 countries or so, that can be called & VISA used.  Moderator,
    these VISA calls often are business calls and you get them charged
    to your monthly bill that comes in the mail.  Then, you can show
    an itemized call list of business calls.  Also, in some planes you
    can make VISA calls.  To the USA it's done just as you break land
    over Gander on inbound to Logan.  You can arrange meetings when
    the flight officer tells you the exact landing time & it saves people
    waiting hours & hours if your're late out of Paris, London, etc.
    
    Keith 

OK, please tell us a number that will work from someone's desk in the U.S.
for a call within the U.S., and a number that will work in the U.K. for a
call within the U.K.

Also, compare the price for using this service with the price for using a
telephone company calling card (which also provides itemized billing).

/john

    Last year I urgently needed to reach an AT&T operator to make a
    call while I was working late.
    
    I called the front desk at ZKO and someone in security gave me a
    special 5 digit code which I had to dial.  I had no trouble getting
    this information; it didn't seem classified.  The person I spoke
    to said that this was the way to get an outside AT&T line from my
    office.
    
     

    	Oh, & there are other cards, too.  BA has a card that was in
    last months' magazine put in back of the seats on the NYC flight
    that allowed a person to call a British operator directly.  The
    calls are very expensive, but to some it's the only possible way
    to keep in touch.  I don't know how that would work with a tele-credit
    card.  Can you call Portugal the same way?  
    
    Keith

re .-2

That may be true for ZKO, but at HLO there is absolutely no way to get to an
AT&T operator.

Ken, the 800 number from the U.S. for getting a BT operator will let you use
a BT card to call to the UK from other countries, and nowhere else.  There are
similar numbers for calling to the U.S. when outside the U.S.  In all cases,
when calling a BT or AT&T operator, you must use a BT or AT&T calling card.

The question here is how to reach an AT&T operator from your desk at DEC in
the U.S., alternately, how to reach an operator from some other company who
will charge a call to a VISA card from your desk at DEC.

I contend that in most cases (with the notable exception of the former "secret"
and now widely publicised ZKO/MKO code) you're stuck with using Sprint or some
other alternate long distance service when calling from your desk in most of
DEC's phone systems in Massachusetts.

    I *know* that this can be changed: when I complained about this
    inability to dial 8-0-<number> for an AT&T operator/calling card tone
    when the new NT phones went in at PKO, I contacted Maynard
    Telecommunications and after a few months of trying to figure things
    out, they made it work.  This was a few years ago, of course, but
    technically it should be possible.
    
    (Unfortunately, here in DSG no one seems to know who to contact or
    cares very much, but it can be done.)

Right:  There's no technical problem; it's merely a case of local facility
policy.

Maynard decided to trust employees to not do stupid things.

In HLO, the facility operators won't connect you for any reason, even to get
free services from an AT&T operator.

    
    Ive always been VERY careful about long distance calls. I use
    MY personal MCI card when I call long distance from work, just as
    I would from a friends house or payphone.....it is RUDE to run up
    ANYBODYS bill for your personal calls.....
    
    
    interesting fact:
    
    I made a bunch of calls about 6 months ago, when I was planning
    my out-of-state wedding. I used my MCI card, and dialed a local
    number for the MCI uplink. This is a number that is *FREE* from
    home or a payphone anywhere in the US and CANADA....
    ......................so I felt sure that it wouldnt be charged
    to DIGITAL.
    
    WRONG!                                       
    
    DEC got charged something like 30 cents per minute! NOTE that
    this is a call that would be FREE from a payphone, or from anyone
    elses phone.  My management was very nice about the whole thing,
    considering the circumstances, etc, but I was SHOCKED. I learned
    at this time that even *800* numbers are charged when calling from
    a DEC office.....
    
    THIS IS MY OPINION ONLY, NOT THE OPINION OF DIGITAL:  ;^)
    DIGITAL (and maybe other businesses, I cant say) appear to be getting
    severely RIPPED OFF for these calls. From my perspective, a
    toll-free number is a TOLL FREE NUMBER! somebody-who-shall-remain
    nameless is making a fortune: they charge a business a lot of $$$
    for an 800 number and then charge YOUR business for making the
    "toll free" call.
    
    QUESTION TO LAWYERS/LEGAL-TYPES:
    Is that legal? Id think maybe DEC could file suit to collect
    the erroniously billed amounts. Bet it would be a LARGE amount!
    
    

    Re:.30
    Was that a phone bill from outside, or something computed by MIS?
    Sometimes there's a difference.
    
    Hotels, though, often charge for 800 calls.  And any service that
    takes VISA cards (in the US) is probably going to rip you off anyway;
    there's currently a scam (becoming outlawed state by state but still
    legal for interstate calls, thanks, Ron)  called "Alternative Operator
    Service" which allows companies to charge ANYTHING for calls to
    whatever bill (your phone bill, VISA, etc.) that you tell them the
    account number for.  Many restaurants, hotels, etc., have these
    "counterfeit" pay phones; NEVER give your AT&T card number to ANY
    telco operator who doesn't identify as AT&T or the LOCAL telephone
    company (i.e., New England Tel.) or you may get a surprise! 
    
    Re: .0, in the US, itemized per-call billing is the norm. Our home
    phone bills are itemized, as are most business bills.  And it's
    common, and normal, for companies to bill these back by extension.
    Digital is retiring its own software product for that, P/FM, but
    there are dozens of competitors.
    
    Where I work, it's "do the right thing", and I routinely call home
    from my desk phone.  It's not local, but when Digital puts its
    facilities in outbacks like Littleton, they shouldn't expect "bread
    and milk" calls to be local.  Fortunately, they don't.

re .30

If the number you called was 950-xxxx, there was no charge to DEC, just an
internal billing error dealing with funny-money between your cost center
and either your facility's Telecomms department or Digital Telecom.

/john

RE  A few back (Covert)

HLO used to have dial-0 access on many phones, until they discovered 
it cost more, even if the service wasn't used.  So CCs restricted most 
of the phones to save $$.  If there is a need, all it takes to get 
dial-0 access is the proper signature on a telecomm form.

//j

    For what it's worth, some of us in the NWD spend hours riding ferries
    every day commuting to residencies.
    
    These ferries have cellular pay phones on them...that *ONLY* take
    MASTERCARD, VISA, or American Express.  Fortunately, some managers
    let their specialists use these phones and charge the calls back
    on their expenses.
    
    Doug

re .-2

Yes.  In Hudson, Dial 0 access is part of international (011+) access.  The
local facility charges your cost center a higher rate for a line which allows
international access, because the itemized billing does not (or did not at
some time in the past) charge your cost center for any international calls made.

/john