🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <8602110631.AA14409@ucbvax.berkeley.edu> Ralph.Hyre@IUS2.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>As I understand it, CNA stands for Called Number Authority.  The phone company
>keeps a list of number-person correspondences, which are available in many
>cities by simply calling (presumably) secret phone number.  (The CNA operator
>answers and says 'Number, please?', you give number, they give name.)  The
>general public does not/is not supposed to have access to this information.

Most cities of any size have a "city directory."  This is distinct from
the usual phone book and is produced by one of a number of city
directory publishers for banks, real estate agents, and other
commercial users.  It contains business and government listings,
demographic information, and lists of individuals.  I believe at least
a few of these directories have multiple listings by different
sequences, including by street address and by telephone number.

I recall a movie in which the villain's henchmen were after a witness
to a crime.  They locate her former employer and tried to get her
address by claiming they had found something that belonged to her.  The
employer refused to reveal the address but did call her.  The evildoers
wrote down the number dialed and looked it up in the city directory.
So, in this far-fetched instance at least, there is potential for abuse
of such a listing.

At times there may be a potential benefit.  I trust you will keep the
following story to yourself.  One place I worked allowed employees to
make personal long distance calls for which we later made
reimbursement, after the bill came.  On one occasion I called Source
EDP (an employment agency) in Atlanta to get their free salary survey,
just for the heck of it.  I forgot to write down the number on my long
distance log.  The bill came.  No one claimed the call.  So the
bookkeeper called the phone company to find out what name went with the
number.  "Who called Source EDP?" we were asked.  I confessed and paid
up, and assumed that was the end of the matter.

Not so, however.  Evidently suspecting I was hunting for a new job (I
really wasn't) my employer soon gave me a *very* substantial raise and a
promotion.  It's an ill wind that blows nobody good!
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
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