Post by blogmywiki / Redsky

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Printout's gossip column in June 1981 taking a pop at the journalist Duncan Campbell (not to be confused with the journalist Duncan Campbell.) While the calls may not have been automatically transcribed, is it not interesting that back then phone calls were being routinely tapped & digitised?

Duncan Campbell's New Statesman story about computers at the Government's phonetapping centre automatically transcribing intercepted calls caused a political storm last year. It was all non-sense, of course, despite endorsement by such luminaries as PW's Guy Kewney. What actually happens is that calls are intercepted at the subject's local exchange and routed to the Pimlico centre. There the speech is digitized and stored on disk. This means that calls can be retrieved instantly for playback without having to wind through miles of tape recordings. Transcription is via the time honoured method of headphones and typewriter. Ironically it has been Campbell's own friends on the Loony Left who have been most inconvenienced by his

aug 31, 2025, 8:05 am • 1 0

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Yes, I rather think that story misses the point, in its keenness to bash Campbell (the Secret Society/Zircon one, not the one who married Julie Christie).

aug 31, 2025, 8:12 am • 1 0 • view