One place I worked had these US government customers, that were so "hush-hush" we weren't allowed to know what their names actually were (obviously some sort of intelligence agency or military project–although we had other customers of that nature where we were allowed to know their names). They were just "US Government A", "US Government B", etc. I personally never had anything to do with any of them, but a colleague in Support got a ticket from one of them once. He wanted to call the customer, but couldn't find their phone number in the support system. So he updated the support ticket to ask for a contact number, and was told "we aren't allowed to tell you our phone number; you tell us your desk phone number and we'll call you". (Support engineers weren't supposed to give customers their desk phone numbers, but my colleague understood that this kind of super-special customer was an unwritten exception to that rule.) Literally a secret government telephone number?
Lots of great stuff here.<p>> In the 1950s, a small city might have only one or two dozen trunks for outbound long distance calls. This means that only one or two dozen simultaneous calls outside of the city could be connected.<p>What this usually meant in practice was not that you'd get a "fast busy" and have to try again later, but that the only way to get a trunk (make a long distance call) was to call the operator and book ahead -- the operator would call you when a trunk was finally available to you, possibly hours later.<p>Even when this infrastructure was built out domestically, it remained for international calls in the US into the early 70s at least.<p>> In the UK, where telephone service was a state enterprise until 1984 and the first and second World Wars created a more expedient need, some type of basic telephone prioritization scheme has long been in place. Through WWII and the Cold War it was a simple one: in cases of emergency, all local loops not flagged as being required for emergency service would be disconnected. This had the dual benefit of freeing capacity for government traffic and denying an invading enemy the use of the telephone network.<p>These dual benefits were both true and terrible.<p>During the 1983 Grenada invasion, a navy commando's comms broke down, but famously one of them was able to use his phone card to call back to the USA and call for air support (<a href="https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2023/october/phone-call-home-grenada-legend" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2023/o...</a>). So yes, enemies do use existing infrastructure they encounter.<p>But more to the point, we learned from all sorts of disasters (not just 9/11) that a lot of useful comunications happens <i>ad hoc</i> and if you cut off people from calling their spouse to check in ("are you OK? Do you have the kids with you?") you also cut off important unplanned communication ("Hey, this is hospital X. We're out of type a blood -- can wer get some from you or send some patients your way?")<p>> During the Cold War era, an attack on the US was assumed to be a nuclear one, and most likely an all-out nuclear campaign. The end result is that civil defense in the UK tended to be viewed as a practical system oriented around sustaining operations during an attack, while civil defense in the US was viewed as more of a theoretical exercise in preparation for reconstruction.<p>Despite the constitution's claim that the government should "provide for the common defense" it seems that most people interpret that as meanig <i>uncommon</i> threats (atomic war) and not common ones like fires and floods. As a result there is no defense in depth at a national level, so the main tools the government has are either bureaucratic (not a bad thing, gives us FEMA and the like) or with teams equipped for invading a resisting country.<p>> and although users might have to wait a while it is expected that after taking their phone off-hook they would get a dial tone eventually.<p>I wonder how many people know this. I'd think most people's response would be to toggle the hook, or just keep retrying. Which would just send them to the back of the queue.
In 1989, I worked on a software upgrade to a nuclear power plant. We were adding digital displays to the control room. I needed a place to work and they stuck me in the disaster response room. Definitely amongst the weirdest place I've been placed to work. Besides the rack of level a hazmat suits, there was also a shelf with phones that directly dialed first responders and government officials. They did pointedly ask me not to pick up any of those phones. I did always wonder how they worked technically.
I currently carry a GETS card in my wallet, along with a second WPS-enabled iPhone. My agency instructs us to place a test call to the GETS/WPS "Familiarization Line" on a monthly basis to ensure we are able to connect successfully (and I suppose to also become comfortable with the process should we ever need to use it in a true disaster).<p>As the article mentions, we also have the app pushed out to all of our phones that can place outgoing calls with prioritization, but it only automatically keys in your PIN and the number you wish to reach after calling the dial access number. It's more of a convenience feature for those not wanting to manually enter the long string of digits for GETS. The app offers three modes to dial out: WPS, GETS, WPS+GETS. I always thought the WPS+GETS method seemed redundant, but I'm glad the author made the distinction on why stacking both methods makes sense.
<p><pre><code> The labels on these buttons, FO, F, I, P, for Flash Override, Flash, Immediate, and Priority, directly reflected the nuclear C2 scheme at the time.
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Wait... was this the inspiration for Crash Override's handle in Hackers? The more I look, the cooler that movie gets.
If you're into this kinda thing check out Ringway Manchester:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@RingwayManchester/videos">https://www.youtube.com/@RingwayManchester/videos</a>
I remember in the early 90s other kids and I somehow knew that if you used a payphone and dialed 550-(last 4 digits of the payphone), it would call itself back and ring. Or there was some ANI (?) number where you would call and it would tell you the number you're calling from. I wonder how we knew that stuff, and where that kind of info is now....
I'm not sure I understood this bit:<p>> For example, if I needed to reach Comcast in a genuine internet emergency, I would dial *2721710627438712345678901218009346489. This is so incredibly convenient that the government offers a phone app for WPS/GETS users just to do the dialing for you.<p>Why wouldn't a user just save that in their phone's address book? Even ancient GSM phones allowed for pre-programmed numbers which included waits, pauses, and DTMF tones.<p>Interestingly, GSM does allow for priority of emergency calls (112, 999, etc).
IIRC, the SIM can make a priority request to be connected to the emergency services. The network could disconnect a non-emergency call to free up the air interface.<p>Of course, in a mass event everyone dials 999 and can't get through anyway.
There is a parallel emergency communication system in the US - SHARES.[1] It's ham radio type equipment for first responders. 5MHz HF radio has enough range that you can get through to a distant station even if telephony is completely down. It's not used much, and has very limited capacity (5 channels) but Homeland Security has a few staffed stations so that some place isolated by a hurricane can call somebody.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/programs/shared-resources-shares-high-frequency-hf-radio-program" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/programs/shared-resourc...</a>