Phone and cell phone service are becoming so cheap today, the necessity for a "blue/brown box" is probably not worth the time or legal implications. With VOiP already in full swing and high speed internet service readily available, cheap "phone service" can be just a click or two away. High speed data transmission has a number of checks and balances to maintain data integrity. We're not sending data at 300 or 1200 baud anymore.
Pete, wa2cwa On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 18:17:16 +0000 "Donald Chester" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > >Actually this provides additional advantages to the Utility > Companies > >even if you don't subscribe to the internet service. A modem could > be > >hung on your electric, gas, or water meters, plugged into an AC > outlet, > >and now all meter readings could be done back at their facilities > via the > >BPL internet connection, eliminating the services of electric, gas, > or > >water meter readers. > > Wonder how long before some would develop and put on the market > bootleg > "brown boxes" -remember the "blue boxes" in the 80's that allowed > one to > illegally bypass the phone co.'s billing and make free phone calls? > These > things would take over and alter the data stream to the utility > company and > illegally reduce your bill. Or if you happened to transmit over the > air at > the critical moment and your signal caused data loss and scrambled > the data > so that you or a near by resident erroneously got a ridiculously > high > utility bill for services you did not use. > > Incidentally, Apple Computers got its start as a garage enterprise > that > produced blue boxes, and once they gained some capital, decided to > go legit > and put together the first personal computer, that started a > technological > revolution, even though the machine was extremely crude by today's > standards. ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the Internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the Web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!
