Reply #34: Kip - if it were the gov't, you wouldn't know it. They would tap in at

[leveymg]

the ISP for internet, and at a phone company switching office for your voice communications.

Believe me,there would be no tell-tale stripped wires, hissing, static, echoes, clicks, or any other way of knowing your phone is being tapped -- a guy climbing the phone pole in front of your house and attaching a tap line went out in the 1960s.

Sometimes, however, real e-mail monitoring and spam operations interfere with your service, and delivery can be interrupted or blocked without explanation. You might get a delivery failed message if you e-mail yourself from a remote location. The MAILER DAEMON has a code that tells you why delivery failed, and you can check that with your e-mail company. I had that problem a month ago, and AOL told me that my service had been blocked because there had been multiple complaints about messages sent from my e-mail address. I don't mass e-mail or send spam. That probably happened because of a virus attack that turned my computer into a slave --pretty common problem.

Another time, I had a MAILER DAEMON that kicked back from a message sent from my address to the Turkish Embassy in DC -- I have never e-mailed the Embassy of Turkey. That one was pretty creepy.