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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com

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Speaker 1: where smart happens. Join Josh and Chuck, the guys who

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Speaker 1: bring you stuff you should know, as they take a

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Speaker 1: trip around the world to help you get smarter in

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Speaker 1: a topsy turv economy. Check out the all new super

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Speaker 1: Stuff Guide to the Economy from house stuff Works dot com,

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Speaker 1: available now exclusively on iTunes Hi. A Marshall brain with

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Speaker 1: today's question, is it possible to detect if someone is

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Speaker 1: illegally using my phone line? It is possible and relatively

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Speaker 1: easy for someone else to tap into your landline phone,

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Speaker 1: especially if you live in a dorm or an apartment building.

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Speaker 1: If someone has access to the wire, they can connect

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Speaker 1: a phone to it and use your line. It's pretty rare,

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Speaker 1: though for one thing, the penalty for doing it is stiff.

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Speaker 1: It's also relatively easy to detect, and in general, phone

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Speaker 1: wires are not that easy to get to because they're

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Speaker 1: hidden inside walls. However, it's not unheard of. There are

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Speaker 1: two possibilities. The perpetrator can create a permanent splice into

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Speaker 1: your wire, in which case you would be able to

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Speaker 1: see if the splice is there by tracing the entire

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Speaker 1: length of the wire, or the perpetrator can clip in

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Speaker 1: intermittently at a junction box. This is what a telephone

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Speaker 1: repair person does when testing your line. In that case,

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Speaker 1: there's no physical evidence, it's fairly easy to catch someone

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Speaker 1: doing this. One thing you can do is get a

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Speaker 1: tape recorder for phone calls. The recorder is completely automatic

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Speaker 1: and starts recording as soon as anyone picks up any extension,

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Speaker 1: which would include an extension tapped into your line. It

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Speaker 1: captures both sides of the conversation. You could listen to

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Speaker 1: the tape and probably get a good idea of who

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Speaker 1: is tapped in. Hooking into a phone line like this

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Speaker 1: is as you would expect a federal offense. Once you

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Speaker 1: have evidence that it's occurred, turning it over to the

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Speaker 1: phone company or a police department for prosecution is the

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Speaker 1: correct path to follow. One easy solution to this problem

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Speaker 1: is to eliminate the landline and use a cell phone instead.