In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Strowger has not been operational for twenty plus years.

You must have been waiting all those 20 years to deliver that little gem. But you missed the point. Strowger invented Strowger to prevent data carriers [OK speech] from involving themselves in the business of customers. Which is why it was an apposite mention in relation to Phorm.

In reply to a post by DFScale:

You must have been waiting all those 20 years to deliver that little gem.

"Strowger, an undertaker, was motivated to invent an automatic telephone exchange after having difficulties with his telephone service. He became convinced that the manual telephone exchange operators were deliberately interfering with his calls, leading to loss of business."

Just googled that little gem as I don't have the excellent in depth knowledge like Zarjaz.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Strowger has not been operational for twenty plus years.

But what a wonderful system it was

My (deceased) brother worked as an engineer in the GPO exchanges as his first job. One day he took me in to show me the racks of them chattering away. Utterly fascinating to me.

He happened to spot someone doing the handset rest trick to dial a number without paying. (I forget the detailed explanation). He took delight in two or three times just knocking it out on the penultimate digit. In the end the "hacker" gave up. No doubt trying again later of course.

IIRC it would have been from a public telephone box. Does that make sense?

In reply to a post by pluralist:

My (deceased) brother worked as an engineer in the GPO exchanges as his first job. One day he took me in to show me the racks of them chattering away. Utterly fascinating to me.

He happened to spot someone doing the handset rest trick to dial a number without paying. (I forget the detailed explanation). He took delight in two or three times just knocking it out on the penultimate digit. In the end the "hacker" gave up. No doubt trying again later of course.

IIRC it would have been from a public telephone box. Does that make sense?

Yes possibly from an old phone with buttons A and B.

IIRC It was the Caterham exchange which was very useful if you knew how to benefit from ringing it.

Yes, it was in the days of buttons A & B.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

He happened to spot someone doing the handset rest trick to dial a number without paying. (I forget the detailed explanation).

A.K.A. "tapping the number". The sound in the exchange of someone doing so was immediately recognisable. The days before subscriber trunk dialling when you could make trunk calls at the cost of a local call, provided you knew every local exchange prefix and had the patience/ability to dial huge numbers without error

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Strowger has not been operational for twenty plus years.

1995 ! Although that was the BT PSTN. I belive Hull kept them a while longer and there may still be some in some "private" UK networks.

In reply to a post by MHC:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Strowger has not been operational for twenty plus years.

1995 ! Although that was the BT PSTN. I belive Hull kept them a while longer and there may still be some in some "private" UK networks.

Yep, mine was a conservative estimate… there was still the equipment, awaiting recovery, in Borne End exchange , when I started, that was 26 years ago. I guessed it was still working somewhere.

The story I was told, was that the kit went to Africa where it carried on doing its thang.

Indeed. It was.

But:"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"