Flowperson,flowperson wrote:I've also noticed that even old VCR players will dial up a seven digit number when a tape is initiated. If you get real close to your speakers you can hear it sometimes.
What's being dialed, and who wants to know what's being watched, and for what reason ?
This is going to be more information than one would have wished for, but....The tones on the VCR tape are from the automated manufacturing process. In mass production, the program video and audio are not recorded onto tape in a VHS shell, they are recorded onto very large open reels that hold many multiple copies of the program back to back. The continuous loop master, that is used to record the back to back material onto the reels, has a series of tones at the end of the program (or beginning; it’s really the same point since the master is an endless loop, with the beginning of the tape spliced to the end). These tones are used by the loaders that load the empty VHS shells with the pre-recorded tape. The tones tell the loader where the end is, so that it stops loading the shell, cuts the tape, splices the end to the clear leader in the shell, and then pulls in the next empty shell and starts loading it, and on and on it goes. Stamping out CD’s and DVD’s is much simpler.
On the other hand though, I totally agree with you on the eavesdropping. I just automatically assume that all email and all phone conversations are monitored. Not necessarily by humans but by the Eschelon / Carnivore computers. I wonder if this forum rates high enough to be actually monitored by humans?
GV