The Ultimate Little Black Book

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Source: Washington Post


One Firm Routes All Phone Calls in North America

Once upon a time, there was one telephone company. Routing phone calls was pretty straightforward.

Now there are hundreds, and it's much more complicated. Whenever someone dials a phone, texts on a cellphone or punches in a Web site on a laptop, chances are the connection will rely on a central database that belongs to a Northern Virginia firm.

...

Sterling-based NeuStar is the carriers' digital directory for all phone calls in North America. More than 800 telephone companies have numbers in the database. NeuStar assigns blocks of available telephone numbers to carriers. It also manages the directory for common short codes: five- or six-digit codes that people punch into their cellphones to take part in sweepstakes or to vote for game-show contestants, for instance. And about one out of every four Internet transactions is routed using a NeuStar database, as NeuStar handles traffic for domains that include .biz, .us, .org and .info.

NeuStar's databases are so powerful that the FBI a few years ago sought direct, unfettered access to one containing 310 million phone numbers in the United States and Canada. The telephone companies that pay NeuStar to run the database denied the FBI's request, but they did allow NeuStar to create a site where authorized law enforcement officials with court orders can obtain carrier information on telephone numbers.

Washington Post

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/04/AR2008050401719.html?hpid=moreheadlines

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1. Darn, I thought this was a post about the DC madam spilling the beans. n/t