York Telephone Research Articles

1950s New York Was a Wiretapper's Dream: Eavesdropping flourished after WW II, aided by legal loopholes, clever hacks, and “private ears”

On February 11, 1955, an anonymous tip led two NewYork Police Department detectives and two New York Telephone Company investigators to an apartment on the fourth floor of a residential building at 360 East 55th Street in midtown Manhattan. In the back bedroom of the unit, the group discovered a cache of stolen wiretapping equipment that turned out to have direct lines into six of New York City's largest telephone exchanges: PLaza1,3, and 5; MUrray Hill 8; ELdorado 5; and TEmpleton 8. The connections blanketed an area of Manhattan running from East 38th Street to East 96th Street, a swath of the city's most expensive real estate.

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No AccessUrology PracticeBusiness of Urology1 Jan 2022Reply by Authorsis a reply to letterEditorial Commentary Alexis R. Steinmetz, Jacob Gantz, Kevin Fiscella, and Edward M. Messing Alexis R. SteinmetzAlexis R. Steinmetz http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5833-851X Department of Urology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York Supported in part by Urology Care Foundation Residency Research Award and Kahlert Foundation. Equal study contribution. More articles by this author , Jacob GantzJacob Gantz Department of Urology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York Equal study contribution. More articles by this author , Kevin FiscellaKevin Fiscella Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York More articles by this author , and Edward M. MessingEdward M. Messing ‡Correspondence: Department of Urology, University of Rochester Medical Center, 601 Elmwood Ave., Rochester, New York telephone: 585-275-9273; FAX: 585-273-1068; E-mail Address: [email protected] http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0985-7065 Department of Urology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York More articles by this author View All Author Informationhttps://doi.org/10.1097/UPJ.0000000000000268.02AboutFull TextPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareFacebookLinked InTwitterEmail "Reply by Authors." Urology Practice, 9(1), pp. 54–55 © 2021 by American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsRelated articlesUrology PracticeOct 5, 2021, 12:00:00 AMEditorial Commentary Volume 9Issue 1January 2022Page: 54-55 Advertisement Copyright & Permissions© 2021 by American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc.MetricsAuthor Information Alexis R. Steinmetz Department of Urology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York Supported in part by Urology Care Foundation Residency Research Award and Kahlert Foundation. Equal study contribution. More articles by this author Jacob Gantz Department of Urology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York Equal study contribution. More articles by this author Kevin Fiscella Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York More articles by this author Edward M. Messing Department of Urology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York ‡Correspondence: Department of Urology, University of Rochester Medical Center, 601 Elmwood Ave., Rochester, New York telephone: 585-275-9273; FAX: 585-273-1068; E-mail Address: [email protected] More articles by this author Expand All Advertisement PDF DownloadLoading ...

All Powerful? How the FBI's Request of Apple to Unlock an iPhone Using the All Writs Act Fails the New York Telephone Test

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Breaking iPhones Under CALEA and the All Writs Act: Why the Government Was (Mostly) Right

During the investigation of the 2015 San Bernardino shooting, the government asked a district court to order Apple to draft code that would bypass the password protection system of one of the shooters’ iPhones. A number of experts opined that the All Writs Act (AWA) and the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) prohibited the court from issuing the order. This request was preceded by the holding of a New York District Court, which found that those statutes indeed did protect Apple from such compulsion. Although sympathetic to Apple, I argue that those experts and the New York court misinterpreted CALEA, and that the government’s interpretation of that statute was correct. The court’s ultimate ruling in favor of Apple, however, was the right one based on the discretionary factors governing the AWA’s applicability, set forth by the United States Supreme Court in United States v. New York Telephone Co.

New York Telephone Conversation; or, Gandhi’s Last Act Glass, ‘Evening Song’ (Gandhi),Satyagraha

New York Telephone Conversation; or, Gandhi’s Last Act Glass, ‘Evening Song’ (Gandhi),<i>Satyagraha</i>

The Public Communications Department at New York Telephone

Bob general manager of Public Communications at New York Telephone (PubCom), leads a five-year transformation of his organization from a backwater, laissez-faire operation into a high-performance business unit. Before the divestiture of AT&T, in 1984, PubCom had suffered from low morale, poor management, and inadequate information. introduction of competition into the pay-telephone market in 1986, however, forced PubCom to learn how to compete against an aggressive group of vendors that installed and serviced customer-owned, coin-operated telephones. This case presents the major pieces of PubCom's strategy, including the right data, embracing innovative technological solutions to improve service and customer satisfaction, committing to quality, and using a catchballing planning process (also known as Hoshin planning). At the end of the case, Bellhouse reflects on the key elements of his managerial and leadership philosophy, and the new general manager must decide how she will lead the PubCom unit and utilize its organizational and technological capabilities to meet the next round of competitive challenges. Videotape #8224, The New York Telephone Company: An Interview with Bob Bellhouse, and CD-ROM #2004, NYNEX, are designed for use with this case.

Race on the Line: Gender, Labor, and Technology in the Bell System, 1880-1980 (review)

Race on the Line is one of the best historical studies so far on the anatomy of racism. Venus Green demonstrates how the Bell System, aided by labor unions and compliant workers, bent technology to serve its white corporate interests. Focusing on telephone operators, Green argues that the dominant culture's racial and gender ideologies saturated the development and deployment of telephone technology and the organization of work. Intrigued by the patterns of gender and race segregation she observed while working for the New York Telephone Company between 1974 and 1990, she undertook this study as a graduate student at Columbia. Her scholarly skills combined with her personal experience make this book special.

The Challenge of Worker Education Programmes

In this paper the author describes one example of a partnership between a corporation and a public institution of higher learning. NYNEX, formerly the New York Telephone Company, and Empire State College of the State University of New York came together to form a unique partnership – the Corporate/College Program. This partnership was created to respond to the needs of the corporation to upgrade their workforce during a period of rapid transition. The author summarizes the primary features of the Program, and outlines some of the benefits and difficulties which have arisen as a result of trying to build a working partnership between the academic and corporate worlds.

An analysis of asymmetric demand response to price changes: The case of local telephone calls

Asymmetric demand responses to price changes are not an observable implication of classical demand theory, which predicts that consumers will react to a small price increase in much the same way as they do to a small price decrease. Yet applied researchers have long speculated that consumers are more sensitive to price increases than they are to price decreases. In addition, recent empirical studies generally support the theory of asymmetric demand responses. We construct a dynamic model based on data gathered from monthly telephone bills for 128 New York Telephone customers over a five-year period. Our results support the conclusion that customers react more quickly and strongly when prices go up than they do when prices go down.

TRENCHING AND STREET TREES: LOCAL CO-OPERATION AND LIAISON

Summary The arrival of the NEW YORK AND NEW ENGLAND TELEPHONE CORPORATION (NYNEX), the third largest telecommunications company in the world to construct ducting for TV cables within the London Borough of Bromley was seen as a major threat to the street trees of the urban environment. The problems that were experienced—over 30 per cent of the street trees were exposed to some sort of damage—and how the contracting company were made to ensure that its operations did not put the trees at risk and that its supervising and manual grades were expected to use their skills to minimise damage to trees is described in detail by the Highway Engineer of the Borough.

Utilities Cannot Pass to Ratepayers the Cost of Charitable Contributions

In 1970, the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) changed its policy to allow recoupment from ratepayers of corporate sums given as charitable donations. The New York Telephone Co. and Rochester Gas and Electric Co. took advantage of the PSC's empowerment and sought retrieval of costs expended as contributions to numerous charities, including politically and religiously active organizations. Joseph Cahill, a customer, challenged this forced funding of organizations engaged in activities and causes contrary to his political or personal beliefs, of religious institutions that expounded beliefs inconsistent with his own, and of organizations that promoted the right to abortion, to which he was opposed. The lower courts ruled for Cahill.

Stress containment through meditation

Summary After demonstrating the effectiveness of meditation training for stress reduction in an occupational setting, the Medical Department at New York Telephone adopted a semi‐automated training program in this technique as part of the company's regular Employee Health Maintenance Program. The meditation training program has been implemented in all company branches throughout the state of New York and is presently available to all employees within the company who, in the opinion of the medical staff, are suffering from stress and are suitable candidates for meditation training. Over 3,500 individuals have been through the program.

You Could Reach Out and Touch Someone—But Your Fingers Couldn't Do the Walking

To the Editor.— Since Judith O'Toole 1 refers to the New York telephone directory of 1848, Alexander Bell should have been informed he was about 40 years late with his invention.

Total Network Data System: Central Office Equipment Reports for Stored Program Control Systems

Stored Program Control System Central Office Equipment Reports (SPCS COER) is one of the earliest of the family of Operations Systems. Deployed on a centralized time-shared system, it produces engineering and administrative reports for Stored Program Central Office Equipment. This paper describes the user needs that motivated the design of SPCS COER. It traces the development of the system from a joint experiment of Bell Laboratories and the New York Telephone Company's Manhattan Engineering Department to the present system serving over 2800 electronic central offices from three centralized Amdahl V6 computers. We explain the functional system design from the user's point of view and outline the structure of the software, emphasizing the “tools” approach that is central to the development. The project management featured a research and development style, which we call the “whole-job” approach and discuss in some detail. Finally, we explore possible future directions for the project.

Randomized controlled trial of a nonpharmacologic cholesterol reduction program at the worksite

Under experimental clinical conditions diet modification has been shown to reduce serum cholesterol levels. This paper reports such a positive response to a nonpharmacologic, behavioral education program at the worksite. Employees at the New York Telephone Company corporate headquarters were assigned randomly to treatment and control groups. Treatment consisted of an 8-week group cholesterol reduction program conducted during employee lunch hours. It comprised a multiple-treatment approach—food behavior change techniques combined with nutrition education, physical activity planning, and self-management skills. The treatment group showed substantial change compared with the control group at the program's completion. Those treated displayed a significant 6.4% reduction in total serum cholesterol (266 mg% average at baseline) as compared with control subjects with a corresponding decrease in high-density lipoprotein levels. A significant increase in nutrition knowledge and moderate weight loss were also documented for this group. The magnitudes of a participant's baseline serum cholesterol level and his/her reduction in percentage of ideal body weight were positively and independently correlated with percentage changes in serum cholesterol levels. Over the same period, decreases in high-density lipoprotein levels and no changes in serum cholesterol, weight, and nutrition knowledge were observed for the control group. Overall, participants in the treatment program successfully reduced the coronary heart disease risk factors of elevated cholesterol and weight. Directions for future study are suggested.

8) Managing the health of the employee: Collings, G.H., Jr. New York telephone co., New York, NY, U.S.A. J. Occup. Med. 24(1), 15–17, 1982

In summary, we now visualize the ideal preventive-health program as one which identifies target subpopulations with precision; intervenes in those populations with selectivity based on anticipated yield; modifies and tailors each intervention to maximize its individual effectiveness; and delivers the whole program through health-care delivery machinery that can itself be managed for maximum efficiency. This cannot be done without sophisticated information processing capability which permits the individualization of intervention. Consequently, most prevention and health maintenance efforts in the work setting are, for a time at least, going to have to be satisfied with less than ideal characteristics and less than optimum cost-effective ratios. That does not mean that there is nothing that can be done, or that all current programs are obsolete, or that no results can be achieved. It does mean that professionals and managers who are planning and directing such programs will increase their success to the extent that their programs can be made consistent with the principles involved, to the extent that all programs can be tailored to fit individual employee circumstances, and to the extent that the whole health-care management effort can be integrated into one smoothly functioning, efficient system.

Non-ionizing radiation: Fact and fiction

Public awareness of the “potential health hazards” of RF and microwave radiation dates from the disclosure, in 1972, of Russian irradiation of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Previously, so-called “death rays” had been relegated to the pages of science fiction. This concern was heightened a few years later by a series of expose-type articles by Paul Brodeur, which appeared in the New Yorker magazine. While it is certainly not a scientific journal, the New Yorker reaches a highly intelligent and decisive element of the general population. These articles were soon followed by the publication (in 1977) of Brodeur's sensational book, “The Zapping of America,” wherein he contended that the entire U.S. population was immersed in a toxic sea of unhealthy radiation. Most recently, in June 1980, a New York State Compensation Board, ruling that a New York Telephone Company technician had died of a disease labeled as “Microwave Sickness,” caused a rash of articles in the public press with such headlines as: “Panel Says Mcirowaves Were Fatal “(Newsday, March 3, 1981) and “Microwaves: Are They a Peril?” (The New York Times, April 21, 1981).

Balancing in Labor Law Preemption Cases: New York Telephone Co. v. New York State Department of Labor

Balancing in Labor Law Preemption Cases: New York Telephone Co. v. New York State Department of Labor

Special report: The Great New York Telephone Fire: The Bell System marshaled its impressive resources to assess and repair damage in record time

On February 27, 1975, at approximately 12:15 a.m., a fire broke out in a New York Telephone Company central office, located at 13th Street and Second Avenue in New York City's Borough of Manhattan. The fire, which started in the building's basement cable vault, raged out of control, damaging or totally destroying millions of dollars worth of telephone equipment. The result: an unprecedented, total telephone communications blackout in the affected subscriber area, and its environs, disrupting service to over 160 000 residential and business subscribers.

Women at Work: Two Classic Studies Which Indicate How Far Women Have Come: The Long Day by Dorothy Richardson, and inside the New York Telephone Company

Women at Work: Two Classic Studies Which Indicate How Far Women Have Come: The Long Day by Dorothy Richardson, and inside the New York Telephone Company