WASHINGTON (AP)-Telephone companies are declaring war on thousands of college 
students,professionals, and even prisoners who get into the telephone network 
illegally and ring up a half billon dollars in unpaid calls a year.

  Companies are changing the software as well as the hardware in their netwoeks 
to try to block calls, and they are offering amnesty programs on college 
campuses for students to fess up and pay up.

  They also are working with federal authorities to prosecute call-sell 
operators who are using stolen authorization codes and electronic devices to 
break into the network and sell calls to all parts of the world at drastically 
dicounted prices.

  "We look at it as a major problem, and it's definately well worth going after 
this half billion dollars," said Rami Abuhamdeh, executive director of the 
industry-sponsored Communucations Fraud Control Association. (CFCA)

  "In any industry, if you don't do anything about it, it's only going to fet 
worse."

  Computer-literate college stuents are among the biggest offenders and their 
campuses are breeding grounds for large-scale theft.

  Authorization codes get passed around quickly, allowing students to phone 
home for free, telephone company security officials say.

  "That's something we're going to have to deal with because college students 
have inquisitive minds and they like to do things like challenge the network,"
said Neal Norman, security manager for AT&T.
  
  MCI officials say they recently pursuaded 1,000 students at North Texas State 
University in Denton, Texas, to turn themselves in and pay about $100,000 for 
the illegal calls they made.

  At American University in Washington, D.C., 400 students turned themselves in 
and are being billed for about $25,000 so far, MCI spokesman John Houser said.

  Computer hackers -- including doctors, lawyers, and some housewives -- who 
search computer files for authorization codes are another problem.

  Abuhamdeh says their heaviest damage is in selling the codes or posting them 
on BBSs.

  The Hackers themselves usually don't make as many calls as ither groups, 
including prisoners, he said.

  "Prisoners have a lot of time on their hands and they're very innovative. And 
unfortunately in a lot of places, they have access to phones continually," 
AT&T's Norman said.

  In on case, Norman said, a prisoner called a hospital, identified himself as 
a doctor and asked to be connect to another number in the hospital. When that 
number answered, he asked to be switched to the hospital operator, whom he 
asked to connect him to an outside line to for a long-distance call.

  Companies are using sophisticated computer technology to identify patterns of 
illegal calling, which are often traced to operations run by "call selllers."

  "They make $2,000 a week selling calls, and that's tax free," said Martin 
Preede, a special agent for corporate security at NY Telephone Co. But He 
warned that phone companies are actively tracking down such operations and 
prosecuting.




Typed in from a local newspaper. Article was written in late April.

Courtesy of The Wiz Kid.