Wednesday 24 August 2011

Why Caution is Required for Fax Machines

Something interesting happened at work last night. I was hearing rumors of the police poking around, and then I heard the explanation.

It seems someone using a fax machine had dialed 9-1-1 instead of #-1-1, which presumably was a shortcut to one of the other machines in the building. And so the machine dialed. And when it didn't get a fax machine on the other end of the line it could send to, it paused for a bit and tried again. Several times. And 911 calls with hangups still get checked out. So enter the police, and the building security, and they finally figured out what happened, and had to get in touch with the sender and tell them to stop the fax machine. It seems to have been a complete mistake, so I hope whoever it was gets off with a warning.

One of my other colleagues mentioned a similar thing seems to have happened once with a phone in her office. Proof enough that care in dialing and verifying the number on the display screen are more important than one might think.

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