• s3c0nd (unregistered)

    HA

    i see what you did there

    captcha: valetudo to cop or give a valetude, in italian

  • Chompan (unregistered)

    You had me at FaxBack.

  • Jose Correia (unregistered)

    well his only fault was to cater for an exception? i mean even if he sent a fax manually to india then the same problem would occur?? where's the WTF?

  • Ian (unregistered)

    So what if the fax failed at sending the error report, so it sent an error report, which then failed, so it sent another report, which then failed, so it sent another report...

  • iSucker (unregistered)

    For some reason, I expected for two fax machines to get into an infinite loop of FaxBacks leading to death, destruction and twitter outages.

  • everythingdaniel (unregistered)

    Wait, so dial '9' to get out, so the outside world only sees '11'? Or the internal phone system recognizes 911 internally and forwards it? Makes no sense to me...

  • hello (unregistered)

    Dialing 911 when calling India is fairly common. I believe 9 signifies an international call and 11 is India's country code.

  • Timothy Baldridge (unregistered)

    I'm pretty sure that large corporations are required to support 911 on all phones. What if the place was being robbed and the closest phone was the fax machine? You go dial "911" only to find it's disabled on that phone? I can believe that that sort of thing would be allowed by the local authorities.

    When I worked in the IT department of a smallish campus once, we were required to report to the authorities where exactly each line originated. So when some one called 911 we weren't allowed to just say "{Campus Name}" we had to put "{Campus Name} Administration Building Room #42"

    So in reality this is just a bug no-one noticed. What they should do is have a special case exception for when the user needs to dial India, for instance: 9911... of course then the Fax machines would need to support that in the call-back routines as well.

  • concerned citizen (unregistered)

    So how do you dial India?

  • (cs)

    Fact: The country code for India is 91.

    If there is a flaw here, it's with the PBX. The rest of the story is just fluff.

  • thatsodd (unregistered)

    That is a little odd. International access requires dialing 011 first, then the country code is 91 for India, then area codes etc. So the fax back should have been 9-011-91....

  • 911, What's your faxback? (unregistered) in reply to everythingdaniel
    everythingdaniel:
    Wait, so dial '9' to get out, so the outside world only sees '11'? Or the internal phone system recognizes 911 internally and forwards it? Makes no sense to me...
    Yes, some phone systems make the assumption that if a "user" dials 911, but the internal system requires a 9 to get an outside line, that the user meant 9-911 and it's an emergency. (the assumption being that in the event someone needs 911, they'll dial that my habit, not 9-911).

    Captcha - laoreet - when a rope is used to fax back to the cowboy.

  • Timothy Baldridge (unregistered) in reply to everythingdaniel
    everythingdaniel:
    Wait, so dial '9' to get out, so the outside world only sees '11'? Or the internal phone system recognizes 911 internally and forwards it? Makes no sense to me...

    But on the other hand, are you going to remember to dial 9911 when there's someone dieing on the floor next to you?

  • (cs)

    Maybe that's why I have to dial "99" to get an outside line at work. It pretty much solves this whole problem.

  • Hello caller, you're on the fax (unregistered) in reply to iSucker
    iSucker:
    For some reason, I expected for two fax machines to get into an infinite loop of FaxBacks leading to death, destruction and twitter outages.

    Had this happen. User wanted their email forward to their home account. Someone sent them an attachment, their home account refused it as to large and replied WITH the attachment to the work email, which saw the incoming email, forward it, with the original attachment still there to the home account, which again refused it since was obviously still to large, etc.

    Only time I've seen an ISP refuse an email with attachment and reply with the attachment still attached.

    captcha: bene - theer done that.

  • (cs)

    That exception is right, there must be an exception for emegency calls, and emergency numbers are choosen is a way that you can safely make exceptions for them.

    It seems that the article comes from the US, and it wasn't India's code that was creating the problems (it being 91, not 11), but the fact that the fax somehow forgot to deal the 0 before the US long distances code, that is 011.

    But, ok, let's blame the telephony system for doing everything right... The code couldn't have a bug.

  • MuTaTeD (unregistered)

    To dial out to India or any other international location you need to dial 00 or 01, so you would be required to dial 9-00-91-(city code)-(phone number)

  • Jimmy McJimbo (unregistered)

    If 2 faxback machines try to talk to each other over an erroneous line, a whole tree could be destroyed. Also a timewarp could be created, sending us back to 1972.

    oppeto - Oh, Pete'o.

  • Lincoln (unregistered) in reply to 911, What's your faxback?
    911:
    Yes, some phone systems make the assumption that if a "user" dials 911, but the internal system requires a 9 to get an outside line, that the user meant 9-911 and it's an emergency. (the assumption being that in the event someone needs 911, they'll dial that my habit, not 9-911).

    IIRC, most phone systems installed in the past 5+ish years are required to support just dialing 911, for exactly that reason.

    Unlike the late '90s phone system at my high school that required dialing *9--wait for a "district" dialtone--9--wait for an "outside" dialtone--911 to place an emergency call (try remembering that in a mild state of panic)

  • Chuck Berry (unregistered)

    Isn't relying on Caller ID the problem? That might just not work right internationally. And the fax machines header line can be user-(mis-)configured.

    PS: What do I do with the captcha if I am a robot?

  • Tristor (unregistered)

    It's required by law in the US as part of the implementation of E911 that all phone systems dial directly to 911 on that number sequence without being required to send an interrupt for an outside line.

    This is why anybody not entirely retarded uses 8 on their phone system to get an outside line instead of 9 to prevent accidents while complying with the law.

  • Abdiel (unregistered)

    And here was I waiting the whole time for them to connect two FaxBack machines and inevitably get an error somewhere in the middle, causing them to fax each other in an infinite loop.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Stripping the problem to its core, who cares if a fax fails to send? Who really needs a failsafe for a corrupt fax? This is what you get for fixing problems that don't exist - real problems start turning up as a result.

    [Try #2]

  • Sanderman (unregistered)

    This whole thing could have been avoided by using 0 as the dial-out digit. What emergency number starts with a 0? None.

    I didn't even know other people used other digits for dialing out. No wonder it's confusing.

  • silent d (unregistered)

    The obvious solution here is a phone keypad that goes to 11.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Chuck Berry
    Chuck Berry:
    Isn't relying on Caller ID the problem? That might just not work right internationally. And the fax machines header line can be user-(mis-)configured.

    PS: What do I do with the captcha if I am a robot?

    Exactly this. When you get a call from a foreign country it tends to get domesticated so that it looks like a domestic number. For example, you call from 1-555-555-5555 in the US to the UK, in the UK it might appear as 0555 5555555, which is obviously wrong. So presumably their FaxBack gets a number which it is unable to tell is actually international and tries to call it back. And, even if the caller ID didn't try and mangle the number into the local format, it's still not going to include YOUR international access code (011 in the US, I think 00 in the UK) because the caller didn't enter that, it's not part of the phone number.
    I'm not sure if there is a reliable way to tell if a number presented by your caller ID is international or not.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Sanderman
    Sanderman:
    This whole thing could have been avoided by using 0 as the dial-out digit. What emergency number starts with a 0? None.
    Totally incorrect. Autralia uses 000 for all their emergency services. Want to know who else uses 0 as the first digit of their emergency numbers? Here's an incomplete list:

    Azerbaijan Belarus Christmas Island Cocos Islands Egypt Georgia Kazakhstan Latvia Lithuania Norfolk Islands Tasmania

    ... I could go on but I'm sure you get the point.

  • legal weasel (unregistered)

    Really, TRWTF is Caller ID not being brillant enough to represent the incoming number in the manner required to call it back, despite it being served from the same telco systems that require the access codes. Very few 'merkins know how to dial for international access, and it's often just as stupid when using a landline phone's built-in Caller ID to call back a long distance number (dial 1 first). [Cellphones just assume 10-digit-dialing to everywhere these days, making it a little more rational, really. But they have to accomodate users who still dial 1.]

    Of course, we're too cheap to spring for Caller ID and often suffer from faxes that misidentify the 'transmitting station,' so I was expecting that to be the WTF once the 911 calls were mentioned.

    [Ever notice that you can walk away from a fax while it scans, but even email-as-a-PDF scanner appliances force you to stand around until the document finishes scanning? Progress! And if any of you kids are in the embedded no-filesystem space, that'd be a niche worth filling. Though I honestly can't remember if the Samsung we got for a satellite office was finally smart enough to let you enter the destination address first.]

  • antifaxback (unregistered) in reply to Abdiel
    Abdiel:
    And here was I waiting the whole time for them to connect two FaxBack machines and inevitably get an error somewhere in the middle, causing them to fax each other in an infinite loop.

    That WTF will be posted in about 2 weeks when it happens. This 911 thing is just the first of the dramas they will encounter.

  • AC (unregistered) in reply to Timothy Baldridge
    Timothy Baldridge:
    So in reality this is just a bug no-one noticed. What they should do is have a special case exception for when the user needs to dial India, for instance: 9911... of course then the Fax machines would need to support that in the call-back routines as well.

    Until there is an emergency, and a user frantically dials 9-911, expecting that he still has to dial a 9 to get an outside line to 911.

  • (cs) in reply to Timothy Baldridge
    Timothy Baldridge:
    But on the other hand, are you going to remember to dial 9911 when there's someone dieing on the floor next to you?

    Dialing 9911 won't get you the emergency services. So remember the new number.

    0118 999 881 999 119 725... 3

  • the beholder (unregistered) in reply to Chuck Berry
    Chuck Berry:
    PS: What do I do with the captcha if I am a robot?
    A tattoo

    http://www.myapokalips.com/public/cartoons/021_Robot_Tattoo.png

  • Wolfan (unregistered) in reply to AC

    I would think that both would work, No?

    Surprisingly this didn't end in someone getting charged with a felony; which is what it is when you call 911 falsely (at least in the US), and not surprisingly it took 3 times for the cops to stay around until they found out why the 911 call.

    Some of these WTFs are getting to seem like someone is just writing them and not real stories, losing some of their oomph.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to AC
    AC:
    Timothy Baldridge:
    So in reality this is just a bug no-one noticed. What they should do is have a special case exception for when the user needs to dial India, for instance: 9911... of course then the Fax machines would need to support that in the call-back routines as well.

    Until there is an emergency, and a user frantically dials 9-911, expecting that he still has to dial a 9 to get an outside line to 911.

    That will still get you to the emergency services. 911 and 9911 should both work.

  • Ave (unregistered) in reply to Lorne Kates
    Lorne Kates:
    Timothy Baldridge:
    But on the other hand, are you going to remember to dial 9911 when there's someone dieing on the floor next to you?

    Dialing 9911 won't get you the emergency services. So remember the new number.

    0118 999 881 999 119 725... 3

    SCORE!

  • Anon (unregistered)

    TRWTF is all the different emergency numbers in different countries. They ought to have big signs at all points of entry saying what the emergency number is for the benefit of visitors. I wonder how many visitors have been lying bleeding in the street wondering why their countries emergency number doesn't work here.

    In the very dim distance past, I remember being stuck while playing Police Quest (don't remember which installment), at one point you needed to call the police on a pay phone, but, not living in America, I was unaware that I needed to dial 911.

  • Neville Flynn (unregistered)

    Now all they need is a system that will fax back "Oh, I see" when it receives an error fax.

  • Krunch (unregistered) in reply to Mcoder

    India prefix is +91 but New Delhi area is 11, which makes 9111. However if I understand the setup correctly, it should have dialed 9 011 9111... which shouldn't cause any problem unless you forgot the zero but then it would happen for any international call, not just New Delhi or India.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%2B91#Fixed_.28landline.29_numbers

    This story reminds me of my US colleagues who have no clue how to dial an international number.

  • ratis (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Chuck Berry:
    Isn't relying on Caller ID the problem? That might just not work right internationally. And the fax machines header line can be user-(mis-)configured.

    PS: What do I do with the captcha if I am a robot?

    Exactly this. When you get a call from a foreign country it tends to get domesticated so that it looks like a domestic number. For example, you call from 1-555-555-5555 in the US to the UK, in the UK it might appear as 0555 5555555, which is obviously wrong. So presumably their FaxBack gets a number which it is unable to tell is actually international and tries to call it back. And, even if the caller ID didn't try and mangle the number into the local format, it's still not going to include YOUR international access code (011 in the US, I think 00 in the UK) because the caller didn't enter that, it's not part of the phone number.
    I'm not sure if there is a reliable way to tell if a number presented by your caller ID is international or not.

    At least for me, I get the full international number on my caller ID, I know this since some retard in somalia is trying to get me to call backs o they can charge ridiculus amounts for the call. Its wholly annoying getting some retard on my line. Otoh, I've taken up leaving the phone unhooked when they call me. :) So they almost entirely stopped calling me now. Hehe.

  • Ave (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    AC:
    Timothy Baldridge:
    So in reality this is just a bug no-one noticed. What they should do is have a special case exception for when the user needs to dial India, for instance: 9911... of course then the Fax machines would need to support that in the call-back routines as well.

    Until there is an emergency, and a user frantically dials 9-911, expecting that he still has to dial a 9 to get an outside line to 911.

    That will still get you to the emergency services. 911 and 9911 should both work.

    which means, surely, that it is impossible to call India

  • (cs) in reply to Wolfan
    Wolfan:
    Surprisingly this didn't end in someone getting charged with a felony; which is what it is when you call 911 falsely (at least in the US)

    There's no criminal liability without mens rea, which an idiotic faxing script designed by an idiot cannot be said to have.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Ave
    Ave:
    Anon:
    AC:
    Timothy Baldridge:
    So in reality this is just a bug no-one noticed. What they should do is have a special case exception for when the user needs to dial India, for instance: 9911... of course then the Fax machines would need to support that in the call-back routines as well.

    Until there is an emergency, and a user frantically dials 9-911, expecting that he still has to dial a 9 to get an outside line to 911.

    That will still get you to the emergency services. 911 and 9911 should both work.

    which means, surely, that it is impossible to call India

    No, pay attention. To call India (in the US from a phone with 9 for an outside line) you would dial:

    9 011 91 ......

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to legal weasel
    legal weasel:
    Really, TRWTF is Caller ID not being brillant enough to represent the incoming number in the manner required to call it back

    I think at least part of the blame would have to go to caller id box / phone manufacturers that decided that you couldn't possibly need more than 10 digits could you? I've not seen many caller id's that are even capable of displaying the full number for an international call.

  • (cs) in reply to Ave
    Ave:
    Anon:
    That will still get you to the emergency services. 911 and 9911 should both work.
    which means, surely, that it is impossible to call India
    It probably means that the stupid fax script doesn't recognize what an international number looks like. Typically they're written with a leading “+” (which means to dial whatever is necessary to get out of the local domain to the global one; it varies between countries).

    But the whole concept of “fax back on error” is broken anyway. As is putting the fax machine on an internal line. And faxing isn't much better at all in the first place. Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail…

  • The other guy (unregistered) in reply to Lorne Kates

    This is better than the system where I used to work, where neither 9911 or 911 would reach the emergency services. Nobody had os course tested this so we only found when we had a real emergency..... mobil phones worked....

  • (cs)
    "What if the sender’s fax machine can’t detect that there was a problem? We should fax back an error report!”

    Isn't this analogous to "log a 'Cannot connect to database' error to the database exception log"?

  • nick (unregistered)

    Surely TRWTF is that the emergency operator didn't realise that it was a fax machine calling?

    Also, most emergency numbers work in most countries. I could dial 112, 999 or 911 and all end up with emergency services in the UK.

  • Tom Woolf (unregistered) in reply to Ian
    Ian:
    So what if the fax failed at sending the error report, so it sent an error report, which then failed, so it sent another report, which then failed, so it sent another report...

    A coworker had a similar situation with email that almost took our servers down. She left town with an automated "I'm not in the office" reply set up. She also received daily emails from an online coupon company. Her "I'm not in the office" was responded to with "Do not reply to this email address, it is not monitored", which in turn received the "I'm not in the office"...

    9,000 sent and 9,000 received emails later, her email account was shut off.

    Shortly thereafter, we upgraded to an email system that recognized when it had already responded with one "out of office" email and did not send a 2nd (or 3rd, or 9,000th).

  • (cs) in reply to Ave
    Ave:
    Lorne Kates:
    Timothy Baldridge:
    But on the other hand, are you going to remember to dial 9911 when there's someone dieing on the floor next to you?

    Dialing 9911 won't get you the emergency services. So remember the new number.

    0118 999 881 999 119 725... 3

    SCORE!

    Best comment yet! They really need to make a new season.

  • Nibh (unregistered) in reply to silent d
    silent d:
    The obvious solution here is a phone keypad that goes to 11.

    WIN!

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