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Old 13th May 2020, 9:50 pm   #45
Pellseinydd
Heptode
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Flintshire, UK.
Posts: 707
Default Re: The space in the STD codes

Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard_FM View Post
I did read about a court case where someone was caught chain dialling, but the GPO lost the case because the judge said they hadn't done enough to safeguard the system.

I can't quite remember the details.
There were successful court cases over the years and the GPO did go to lengths to prevent the 'fraudulent use of the system'.

A Group Switching Centre would have a number of incoming routes which were restricted on what they could dial out to. For instance dialling from Chester (0244) to Wrexham was 93 which was barred from incoming STD calls. When it arrived in Wrexham, it wasn't possible to dial other GSCs by dialling 9X which were not within the Chester local call area such as 94 for Oswestry (0691) 30 odd miles from Chester or 96 for Whitchurch (0948) 20 plus miles from Chester. There was a way around sometimes by dialling a local code 81 from Wrexham to a dependent UAX such as say Ruabon UAX14, the dialling a 9 back to Wrexham GSC followed by the 93 for Oswestry. Ruabon of course was allowed access to Oswestry. But speech got fainter and fainter the further you went. Pre-STD, dependent UAXs also had 'call barring' on some of their outgoing junctions achieved by strapping in the junction relay set. Also both pre/after STD introduction, the outgoing 'local' access was limited by 'grading' on the incoming selectors.

To say the GPO didn't make the effort to prevent the fraud wasn't quite true - ill informed prosecuting lawyer! There certainly were successful cases, the big one in Bristol (?) where the engineer had 'modified' the exchange to get free calls by dialling a certain code which gave NU tone but you ignored that and just carried on dialling but meter pulses weren't sent back to the callers line meter. I believe it was held at the Old Bailey in London.
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