[trimmed 'cause i don't wanna try to fix the "malformed" quotes]

 JK> Yes indeed.. not sure how Ward twisted that event to Malcolm's
 JK> case.

yeah, i'm not either...

 JK> 000- in Malcolm's zone could easily be blocked by nodes
 JK> in Australia..

exactly... just as 911 (and others like it) are done in Z1...

 JK> 1-areacode-555-0000 was an unknown entitity, previously "safe"
 JK> for this particular node,

only due to blind luck...

 JK> and still safe for users of my phone company.. and probably
 JK> many others in the states.

i wouldn't count on that at all... in fact, as has been reported several
times, there is, in NA, a series of 100 numbers specifically placed aside
for uses such as this... originally, this sequence was set aside for the
movie and TV industries to use when they state phone numbers in their
entertainment shows... the sequence starts with 555-0100 and ends with
555-0199... this sequence is required to be specifically programmed by
telecos to "go nowhere at no cost"... this carries thru all NA
areacodes as well as the toll free stuff (ie: 800-555-0100)...

 JK> I'm not saying people should use that sequence, but the
 JK> situations in Malcolm's case and this node's case were
 JK> very different.

you got that right... it also takes only a small bit of research to
determine these numbers... i don't have access to the URL (for those
internet based/capable systems/sysops) at the moment, but the NANPA (North
American Number Planning Association, IIRC) group has all this and a lot
more info available on their web site... in fact, at least one system in
fidonet was releasing information on this stuff via a file distribution
echo... i'm still connected to that area and their system but because the
updates are manual, they come sporadically... note that this distribution
did not contain the NANPA stuff but only specific results for certain areas
of NA based on the published NANPA data...

)\/(ark