BS: My land line telephone is intercepted

Subject: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 07:17 PM

For about 4 years now someone is checking my phone line. British Telecom have said they're not doing it and have changed all the wiring from the pole to my house, but it's still happening. Does anyone out there know anything about this type of thing. When I'm talking to someone a click sound is made which sounds like someone lifting an extention and replacing it immediately. It freaked out the girl in the faults department at BT when I was talking to her, I can tell you!

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 07:23 PM

Do you have an extesnion phone? could someone be picking it up, hearing that you're on the phone, and hanging up?

does it happen every time you're on the phone, or just sometimes?

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 07:28 PM

It happens even when the house is empty. It happens only sometimes, Usually in the evenings. When I report it, I get peace for about 3 weeks then it starts again. It also happens when I phone a new number that I've not dialled before. BT have given me a special mobile number to leave messages on from my mobile, but the guy never contacts me.

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 07:29 PM

one time my dad phoned me at work, and after hanging up
he picked up the phone again to call someone. He heard someone on
the line, just breathing and occasionally clearing his throat but no talking. Of course he thought it was me, but when he asked the person on the line did not respond. Suddenly he got this chill running down his back and figured someone was in the house listening on the line.
So he took a poker from the fireplace and went down in to the basement.






there was no one there.

petr


another time I picked up the phone to call a friend and heard breathing on the line, turns out my friend was calling me and the phone hadnt rang yet. What are the odds of that?

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 08:50 PM

A quick google search turned up this ... I don't know anything about any of the products listed on the link...I suppose you'd just have to try one or two and see if it helps. What you do after you've detected the tap...?? Anybody's guess. You'd have to have some way of tracing the tap. If you had a friend on the inside at BT, maybe s/he could give you some insight into what is going on.

Perhaps innocently there are some wires crossed somewhere....

Maybe have your number changed? Have the phone disconnected, wait a month or two, then re-establish service and see if the tap is still there? You could be testing one hypothesis after another from now 'til doomsday..........

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Once Famous
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 09:12 PM

There is also someone always following you.

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 10:04 PM

Just because someone is really following you or tapping your phone doesn't mean you're not paranoid!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 10:07 PM

Or, just get a mobile and give up the land line....this is scary.

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: robomatic
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 10:12 PM

it has happend to me. The phone lineman had me hooked up with a neighbor's phone. It wasn't a true 'party line' in that my phone didn't ring when the other guy was called, but if someone was doing a caller ID on me, it came up with the wrong number. I had to tell the phone people several times. Eventually it turned out that in one of the junction boxes a little tiny bit of wire was linking our two terminations. The phone guy said it was pure luck he turned it up.

You might have a similar problem.

These days when THEY want to tap you, you won't be able to tell.

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 10:30 PM

Or, it could be a Party Line....we do still have them in rural areas here.....several phones share a number....you have to listen to the ring tones to decide if it is for you.....and while you are talking any neighbor on the Party Line can pick up....to try to make a call or listen in....

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Once Famous
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 11:17 PM

Party lines seem dated in the 21st century, don't they?

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 12:42 AM

Party lines can be fun!

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Sorcha
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 12:50 AM

Paarty lines not so obsolete out here where I live......sorry, MG...we still have them. And, they ain't exactly fun parties either.

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Gervase
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 05:15 AM

It could be a physical fault in the line. Does the phone ever ring just once and then stop?
Rodents may have gnawed through the insulation somewhere, causing a temporary earthing of one of the wires.
That's one reason why, in the UK, 999 is the emergency number. The powers that be thought of 111 as being the easiest number to dial, but in the days of pulse dialling, sending three single pulses down the line was something that happened all the time, what with induction from other electric apparatus, unexpected earthing and even birds making the wires boing and rattling the connections. (see this)
It's unlikely to be sinister in origin, as modern phone intercepts are done with much more subtlety.

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: nutty
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 09:15 AM

It could just be a circuit wiring fault in the local exchange or in a junction box. (spiders, mice, snails ---- all kinds of things can cause problems)

Such faults take so much time to find that BT might find it cheaper and easier to take the action it has taken.

If it continues I would demand to speak to an engineer who knows what he is talking about rather than just someone on the end of the telephone. Or even try to get the telephone number of your local exchange and try to contact them yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 09:59 AM

Gervase's comments are pertinent. Even as far back as the late 70s, long before computer-based telephony, clicks on the line were unlikely to indicate taps. In fact rather the reverse. Lines tapped legally were likely to be "cleaned up" with new joints, insulation etc, as audible clicking on the line was liable to interfere with programmed recording gear. Taps have no need of input to the circuit, so no microphones are involved, and consequently no prospect of hearing heavy breathing etc.

With the advent of digital switching, tapping within exchanges - whether licit or illicit - has become alarmingly simple. On the ither hand, broadband, and optical-fibre passive networks between exchange and home are exceedingly hard to penetrate unofficially, because of the high cost of the optoelectronics needed to decode digitally encoded light pulses.

Almost certainly, Sal, the "local loop" to your home is not optical fibre, and has a fault in it which - as Nutty explained - could be hard to pin down. With high-voltage networks used for electricity supply, I've known faults to be pinpointed by replacing blown fuses at the substation with heavier and heavier fuses, until one fails to blow, whereupon the fault reveals itself by blowing a hole in a pavement somewhere. That can work with 11,000 volts, but not with the 50 that run in phone lines.

All you can do is keep pestering, and if you don't get a result, write to the company CEO by name, or your MP or something, from which point onwards your case will be assured of high-priority handling. But don't rely on Nutty's advice about phoning the local exchange, because the local exchange will not be staffed.

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 10:10 AM

You're quite right, the local exchange isn't staffed. It's a little house in a field! The engineer once changed my wiring with someone else's which worked for a while, then THEY caught up with me again. Yes I will keep pestering.

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 10:21 AM

At one particular house that I lived in many years ago, the phone was definitely being tapped - it might have been something to do with a rather large quantity of a certain resinous substance that we'd aquired from someone just before the police tried to bust him.

A flatmate and myself used to do a lot of night-shifts near Spitalfields meat market, and it's surprising what you can pick up in the pubs which open in the early mornings around there. One weekend, we'd invested in a huge standing-rib joint of beef (I think it cost us a double scotch) and decided to invite some friends around for apres-pub lunch on the Sunday. My flatemate's exact wording as he rung around was along the lines of "If you fancy a great joint, Come round to our pace on Sunday afternoon". When we later busted by the drug squad, they were not very happy to find no ilegal substances, but a lot of people stuffing themselves with roast beef. The fact that the police didn't know that the joint "had fallen off the back of a lorry" made it even more amusing.

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: mike the knife
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 04:38 PM

Ms Lemon,
You have obviously fallen afoul of and are under active surveillance by a persistent, yet technologically backward intelligence service. Any 3rd world intrigues recently?

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 08:42 PM

Whatcha got to hide,sweets?

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 10:56 PM

You must have heard the story of the Wall Street broker who was imprisoned for fiscal malfeasance. His old man had a veggie patch at his place on Long Island and during one of the few calls his son was allowed from detention he lamented to his boy that he missed his help and wasn't looking forward to digging up the potato field.

"For God's sake, Dad, don't dig there, that's where I hid the dough!" the young felon told him.

Well, you can't expect prison calls to go unmonitored. The very next day the feds showed up with a shovel team and went thoroughly over the potato patch.

They found nothing.

The next week his son called and left a phone message. "Sorry I couldn't be there, Dad, but I did the best i could!"

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: GUEST,Ms Lemon
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 12:05 PM

Latest update...My phone is now being monitered by the 'BT Special Faults' squad, so I'm told. Don't know if they've found anything yet tho'.

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 12:10 PM

Are you a threat to national security?
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Amos
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 12:56 PM

Robo:

That joke is older than my grandfather. It was first told about an Irish prisoner whose post to his son at home was intercepted, claiming he had buried the guns in the praty field!

A

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 09:05 PM

All phones are Monitored.

It's called Echelon.

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 07:03 AM

I now know all about Echelon. I also know that my phone, like everyone else, is tested between the hours of 18.00 and 0600. That's ok I have no objection to that. What I object to is my phone line being tested many times during a phone call.

There is a little bastard out there, (probably reading this even) who has access to BT testing equipment,and is testing my line at various times during the evening. Why?

She's mad, I hear you say. Well, I have just been talking to BT faults yet again. The young lady and I have spent an hour consulting her supervisors trying to fathom this out. She tested my line while we were talking and the 'click' was heard by her and me. Good, this is the noise I hear, so we both recognised it. It is the sound of the line being tested. Last night, while I was talking to someone on a new number that I haven't dialed before, the 'click' happened about 12 times! So who's doing it? BT faults have no record of my phone being tested at that time and can't think of a reason why it should happen.

An engineer can't come to the house because they only work between 08.00 and 17.00 and this noise happens in the evenings. He'd have to sleep here. (Hmmm sounds like fun!) The only thing I am advised to do is to phone faults the moment it happens again and they'll moniter the line for tapping. If this 'testing' is being done by an engineer, he'll be aware of everything I have said to the young lady because she has entered it into my records. That might account for why this 'click' goes quite for about 3-4 weeks each time I report it.

More follows...( I dare say)

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 01:34 PM

Last week I was on the phone with a local friend when a female voice spoke perhaps half a dozen words, obviously speaking to someone else. Odd bleed through.

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 01:48 PM

I had a slightly different problem...you know those calls where you answer the phone, and a recorded voice at the other end says 'you've won a holiday' or something? Well, i've been getting those, and as usual hanging up as soon as i realise what it is, but the phone won't hang up. I put the reciever down, but for about ten minutes afterwards when i pick it up, the voice is still talknig . Even if i unplug the phone and then plug it in again...how do they manage that? Why do they do it? And what if i needed to phone 999? It's scary...

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Blowzabella
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 02:02 PM

I had that too, BI - don't know about scary, but I did fing it bloody annoying. I have now registered my number with the telephone preference service (trawl about on the BT site) and that makes it illegal (I think) for companies like that to continue to call you, after your registration has taken effect. It was never much of a problem to me because I'm out of the house a lot, but I did find it a real intrusion when it did happen.

The registration does seem to have worked.

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: Peace
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 02:08 PM

Have you considered changing your phone number and seeing if the problem persists with a new one?

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: GUEST,j
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 05:46 AM

At work, during outgoing calls, a sports radio channel can faintly be heard - very distracting.

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: GUEST,Ian
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 07:18 PM

I was phone taped during the Miners Strike (circa 1985) and if its done right there is no way you can tell. (Unless friendly BT people tell you :))

So its most likely one bit of poor insulated metal touching another bit...

Anyway...who needs to speak to anyone now that emails here....

Ian

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 06:13 PM

If I changed my number,I'd have big problems with my little lemonade business and the organisation of the folk weekend. It'd be a blooming pain.

8)

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 01:30 PM

An update? All the wiring has been changed in the exchange again. Now when ever I receive or make a call I can't have a clean break at the end of the call, there's a tinkle and I don't have the dialling tone for about 10 seconds. If I try to phone faults at that moment the line goes dead. I'm still not convinced that it's not tapped yet.

I have reported the tinkling and they're changing the wiring again!

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: robomatic
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 02:10 PM

Sal:

What do you mean "all the wiring has been changed in the exchange"? Are you repeating something you have been told? The points of concern (most likely) for you are: The switch, any splices in the cable, the point at which your particular (pair) wires are selected out of the cable, and the connection points of your wires. Your earlier problem appeared to be an unintended short between two distinct lines.

Assuming you have a simple feed from the phone company (no business style after-market switches or fancy stuff on the line) your current problem sounds like it is coming from the 'switch' the electronic unit which makes the phone connection and breaks it off. It can only be dealt with by your phone company. The good part is that if this occurs 'every' time you finish a call it should be easy to figure out and correct.

Subject: RE: BS: My land line telephone is intercepted
From: number 6
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 02:46 PM

You mention that it's a landline, now I ask is it a cordless phone. If so, these devices can pick up signals from any of your neighbours corless phones.

sIx