From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Jul 25 14:28:04 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA27141; Sun, 25 Jul 1999 14:28:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 14:28:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907251828.OAA27141@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #251 TELECOM Digest Sun, 25 Jul 99 14:28:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 251 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance of Overlays in Calif (David Clayton) Re: Is This Legal? (John Agosta) Re: Is This Legal? (Robert Bononno) ISPs and IP_telephony (J.F. Mezei) Re: How to Identify a Wireless Number? (Dennis Metcalfe) Re: How to Identify a Wireless Number? (Danny Bateman) Re: Yet Another "Backhoe" Telecom Outage (John R. Levine) Re: Rate Centers (Adam H. Kerman) Re: 800, 888, 877, 866, 855, 844, 833, 822, 811, ??? (Steven Lichter) Synchronous Circuits Problem (Alonza Alcazar) VISA Check Cards (was Re: Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Derek Balling) Re: Moderator's View on Net Commerce (Pete Weiss) Re: Your License or Your Life (Alan Boritz) Re: The Crisis at Pacifica Radio (Alan Boritz) Call Processing Help Needed (Rashid Aquil) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance of Overlays in California Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 10:46:33 GMT Organization: Customer of Connect.com.au Pty. Ltd. Reply-To: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) contributed the following: > Joseph Singer writes: >> I'm afraid what it's going to come down to is that you're going to >> have to remember a ten-digit number rather than the seven that you >> have referred to for years. If everyone quotes their number as all >> ten digits there's no confusion at all. I'll grant you that it is ten >> digits rather than seven, but the reality is that we're moving into a >> minimum ten digit era. > What we really need to do is to go to eight digit local numbers, like > France and Japan did years ago. Australia just recently completed changing to a uniform 8 digit local numbering plan with reasonably little inconvenience. The previous numbering plan was conceived in the early 1960's and had reached the end of it's efficient usability, the new one was conceived with engineering, commercial as well as user issues in mind and should (hopefully) cope with the rapidly changing telecom situation for another 20 years. There was some minor "pain" involved, but the gains should be worth it. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: John Agosta Subject: Re: Is This Legal? Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 21:07:28 -0500 Organization: Posted via RemarQ, http://www.remarQ.com Robert Bononno wrote: > About six weeks ago I switched my LD carrier from MCI to AT&T. I > called Bell Atlantic to authorize the switch since I had blocked my > carrier after being slammed twice (by AT&T of all people). > On the latest bill I see that MCI is still charging for a) their long > distance plan and b) the Internet service fee, which comes to about > six dollars and change. I called MCI to ask about this and after being > put on hold for at least 20 minutes, a rather brusque operator > informed me that although I had switched carriers, I had never called > MCI to cancel the service. Huh? > Doesn't the act of switching constitute cancelling a service? I guess > not. I know I never had to contact any previous LD carrier to tell > them I was switching. Does anyone know what the truth of the matter > is? She cancelled my account (gee thanks) but said I was still > responsible for the charges. Apparently MCI would have been happy to > continue to bill me for a service I didn't know I (still) had. When I sign up for local service / cellular service, the telco asks me what LD carrier I want. I tell them, and they get me on board. When I tell the local telco that I want to switch LD carriers, they should handle the order appropriately. This is a crock, and I wouldn't pay. Tell your local carrier to pay 'cause they only did the job 1/2 way. If this behavior is not against the law, it SHOULD be ! -ja ------------------------------ From: Robert Bononno Subject: Re: Is This Legal? Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 18:15:18 -0400 Steven J. Sobol wrote in message: > On Fri, 23 Jul 1999 16:25:17 -0400, rbononno@erols.com allegedly said: >> About six weeks ago I switched my LD carrier from MCI to AT&T. I >> called Bell Atlantic to authorize the switch since I had blocked my >> carrier after being slammed twice (by AT&T of all people). TELECOM Digest Editor noted: >> receive the benefits of whatever plan you had been on. Whether or not >> you did continue to use them or not is anyone's guess, and whether or >> not changing the default carrier is to be treated by the former >> default carrier as a 'cancellation' of service is handled in various >> ways. You are best off notifying both the local carrier and the IXC. >> Ditto signing up for service. You can tell the local telco and not >> bother to tell the IXC, but the results are unpredictable. PAT] > You'd better tell the local telco, though, because if not it's very > likely the change won't be put through by them. At least that's my > experience. Oh, I did. I did. I called Bell Atlantic the very day I made the switch. I had to for them to unblock the LD service and I thought that by doing so they would inform MCI, etc. But I guess not. The MCI rep informed me that I could have as many LD carriers as I liked. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: She was right, you can have as many as you want. Only one can be in the position of 'dial one plus', but you can have as many different plans as you feel are appropriate for your needs. One to use in the day, one to use at night, one to use on Sunday, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: ISPs and IP_telephony Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 02:02:06 -0400 There seems to be an urge to make the internet "profitable". I have heard that telephony-over-IP is leaning towards servers instead of allowing client-to-client calls. Obviously, this is to allow someone to meter your calls and charge them, right? Is there any reason why IP telephony must go through a server? Seems to me like the internet will be moving towards a metered usage pattern just to prevent users from using unmetered client-client telephony and thus ruining the internet. I would think that ISPs could do big time damage to the traditional telcos if they allowed fixed IP adresses which would make IP telephony (client to client) a real possibility. So far, at least in my region, both cable and dsl insist on dynamic IP adresses through DHCP. The minute they relent and allow fixed adresses, the internet will take a dramatic new turn in my opinion. ------------------------------ From: dmet@flatoday.infi.net (Dennis Metcalfe) Subject: Re: How to Identify a Wireless Number? Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 00:48:52 GMT Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: dmet@flatoday.infi.net On Wed, 21 Jul 1999 16:12:24 -0400, Admin wrote: > Many of those on the list will soon come to realize that calls to > wireless phones overseas are rated at a cost much higher than a land > line call to the same country. The separate "land line" and "wireless" > rates for the same country are just beginning to show up on carrier > rate sheets. A related question ... many long distance carriers have plans which offer a set price per minute for international calls. Do they have a way to disallow high priced calls or are they eating the difference between their advertised price and the high priced calls? Right now I use WorldxChange primarily for calls to Denmark, generally to land line phones but GSM usage is quite popular over there. Anyone know? Dennis Metcalfe ------------------------------ From: Danny Bateman Subject: Re: How to Identify a Wireless Number? Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 06:12:27 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. In article , Admin wrote: > Cellphone numbers in Israel are: > +972-50, +972-51, +972-52, +972-53, +972-54 > +972-55 (not yet activated) BTW, I think area code 059 (+972-59 ?) is reserved for calls to the Palestinian Authority. Danny Bateman bateman at shani.net ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 1999 15:46:16 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Yet Another "Backhoe" Telecom Outage Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> (Did you know they pipe nitrogen all over Silicon Valley?) > Why? Keeps the smell down. ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Rate Centers Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 21:58:17 GMT Danny Burstein wrote: > There are a couple of exceptions that prove the rule (I've always > wanted to use that phrase ...). The five boroughs of NYC are a single > rate zone. Until a decade ago that meant one area code, 212, and that > initially included pagers and cell phones. . . . > Since the whole city is a "local" call for most subscribers, there's > no need for CLECs to gobble up multiple NNXs. Alas, for now they still > gobble an entire NNX, but that's better than taking many of them. And did that indeed happen? Each CLEC assigns numbers from a single rating point, or did they take multiple rating points anyway? And wireless, do they only use a single rating point? Some folks have argued for rate center consolidation to save prefixes. I would argue for limiting CLEC and wireless assignments to specific rate centers based on local distance-based call ratings. If New York is indeed a single rate zone, then no company needs more than a single rating point. ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.comstuffit (Steven Lichter) Date: 24 Jul 1999 19:18:59 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: 800, 888, 877, 866, 855, 844, 833, 822, 811, ??? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't think the people living in 801, > 802 and 803-land would would have liked that decision very much. After > the last available choices are used up in 811, hopefully we will have > gone to some entirely new numbering system. PAT] I had thought that the prefix 811 was local toll free, I know that Pacific Telephone; AKA PacificBell used to use it; and still works to contact business offices and other numbers for public contact numbers. The only good Spammer is a dead one, Have you hunted one down today? Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II and Mac. 24 hours 2400/14.4. OggNet Server. ------------------------------ From: alcazar3@my-deja.com (Alonzo Alcazar) Subject: Synchronous Circuits Problem Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 06:55:31 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. Hi! What is a synchronous circiut in bit serial mode? What other modes of synchronous circuits are there ? Thanks for any answers. Alonzo ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 15:22:40 -0700 From: Derek Balling Subject: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Enemy spies say that Robert Eden tramsitted: > Even if it is covered by the credit card rules, how many checks would > you bounce before you realized it? With credit card fraud, you have a > billing cycle to check the statement and correct errors/fraud before > your money goes away. > What most people don't seem to know, is you can get all the benefits > of a debit card without the risk by arranging for your credit card > company to draft your full balance every month from your checking > account. Combine this with a no-fee/ 25 day grace period credit card, > and you basically have a reduced risk debit card. > I refuse all of the "VISA" logo "ATM" cards my bank sends me and > insist on ATM-ONLY cards. Those cards carry lots of additional risk > with -zero- additional benefit. If my bank ever refuses to support a > non-VISA ATM card, I'll change banks. They carry zero additional benefit TO YOU. To people with less than stellar credit, who can't get a "full-blown credit card", but who ARE eligible for "Visa/MasterCard Check Cards", then it is a HUGE tangible benefit. Some non-(V/MC) ATM cards can be used in a debit fashion (via swipe at the grocery store for example) but many cannot, and those that do often impose fees and surcharges just as though the transaction had taken place at a foreign ATM. Plus there are people who simply despise credit. I know that my grandmother, for example, does not have a credit card. She absolutely refuses to even apply for one. She is of a different mindset where you didn't spend on credit. If you don't have the cash to pay for it, you don't get it, period. In today's modern world, this laudible ideal becomes impossible when everywhere you look you need a Visa or Mastercard number to transact with the world. (I challenge someone to get a rental car without a credit card ... I've never had any luck regardless of how much cash I offered to leave as a deposit). There's a lot of valid uses and benefits to a check card, above and beyond that of a standard ATM card. Your solution may work for you, but it is not by any stretch going to work for EVERYone. Why would you REFUSE the Visa Check card? That I don't understand. It still functions for all intents and purposes as an ATM card, and if you never use it as a Visa card, then you never open yourself up to the alleged problems associated with that. You could just cover up the Visa logo with electrical tape and it would function identically to the "non-Visa" ATM card you love. You should switch to Citibank though. They've claimed (to me anyway) that they have no intentions of ever offering Visa check cards ... that may have something to do with their booming credit card business though. D ------------------------------ From: pete-weiss@psu.edu (Pete Weiss) Subject: Re: Moderator's View on Net Commerce Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 09:13:56 -0400 Organization: Penn State University -- Office of Administrative Systems On Sat, 24 Jul 1999 18:17:45 GMT, Robert Eden wrote: > I refuse all of the "VISA" logo "ATM" cards my bank sends me and > insist on ATM-ONLY cards. How about a debit (POS) card with a $0 daily limit or perhaps $1 ? Pete ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Your License or Your Life Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 17:16:09 -0400 In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > WASHINGTON -- If Representative Lamar Smith has his way, your driver's > license will soon sport your Social Security number, whether you like it > or not. It may also include microchips encoded with your fingerprints > and other personal data. Funny you should mention that. Ryder Truck Rental won't rent you a truck without providing your social security number. Of course, no Ryder agent or employee will explain precisely why they need it if they have a confirmed driver's license in hand. ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: The Crisis at Pacifica Radio Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 18:01:42 -0400 In article , Greg Monti wrote: > On 17 Jul 1999, TELECOM Digest Editor > wrote: > But -- I feel Pacifica has treated the employees at its Berkeley > station very poorly. You do not just march everyone out the door > under armed guard and then change the locks on the doors. Sure we do. CBS did exactly that one day when they fired most of the on-air staff at WCBS-TV in NY recently. Their brutal manner made headlines and was even covered by the other TV stations who normally don't publicize business practices of their competition. Perhaps 17 years ago Kodak did something similar when guards marched several thousand employees out to waiting transportion at some of their Rochester, NY, plants in a mass staff reduction that put many people on the street who had been with the company for many years. I'm sure others can recall similarly poorly executed staff reductions and mass firings. It's a common business practice, perhaps more common in broadcasting, since the quality of management is not known to be particularly high. In article , Gary Novosielski wrote: > TELECOM Digest Editor wrote in Vol 19 #225: >> Its easy for me to sit here and wish a plague on both their houses; >> let them eat each other inside-out until the powerless employees >> have all but given up and Pacifica is left with a reputation that >> renders them totally impotent in the process. I am sure the >> federal government is enjoying watching it all unravel also. > Easy for you, perhaps, because you do not have a Pacifica station in > your area. > I'm fortunate to live within the primary signal area of WBAI in New > York (99.5 MHz). It is difficult to describe the sense of "ownership" > felt by listeners of these stations, but it's more than just > psychological. I'm afraid that your sense of "ownership" is entirely psychological. WBAI is a commercial operation in the literal sense. They can take your money and tell you to get lost if they so desire, and there's very little you can do about it. > We do, in fact, pay for the station and keep it on the > air from our own pockets. We also pay the salaries of the Pacifica > Board of Directors, but there is no accountability in return, and that > is what this dispute is really about. Nonsense. How do you know who pays for what if there's no accountability? > There is essentially no corporate underwriting and a pittance of a > grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, when some > right-wing Senator isn't finding a way to get it withheld this year or > next. Our stations don't get grants from Mobil, or Archer Daniels > Midland, or the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies. As a result, they > can report on the murders committed by oil companies in Nigeria, on > the collusion between government and industry in bioengineering our > food supply, and on why the U.S. has no national health care system > for its own citizens. No other outlet from ABC to ZDTV has that kind > of freedom. Oh yes they do. The big difference is that a Pacifica station will report on whatever they feel like, in a professional or unprofessional manner, whether anyone is listening or not; while a commercial station will instead use a targetted approach to reach a specific audience in as effective a manner as possible. Don't mistake freedom to be as undisciplined, unprofessional, and/or offensive as possible with the freedom to serve the public in as effective a way possible. The two don't go together. > If the recent rightward lurch of the Board goes unchecked, Pacifica > becomes just another NPR, bought and paid for by American business, > and unable to run a critical story about anything anyone might > actually need to know. If anyone "needed to know" it wouldn't make a difference if Pacifica covered a story or not, since so few people listen (check any Arbitron ratings book). You really mean YOUR need to know, not mine or anyone else's. > But if we lose what Pacifica has historically represented, it's no > exaggeration to call it the extinction of free speech on the American > airwaves, and the completion of the corporate takeover of what was > once public property. My heart bleeds for you. Really. It takes quite a bit of nerve to try and pitch support for a commercial operation that answers to no one and provides no verifiable public benefit. Strictly speaking, commercial stations are closer to really serving the public, since their performance is regularly measured, to which thier revenues are directly linked. ------------------------------ From: Rashid Aquil Subject: Call Processing Help Needed Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 12:55:48 +0100 Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America I need more info on Feature group D, ANI, KP, ST since I am working on a college project requiring this info in depth. Please where can I find it on the internet? I have been looking around but can't find documents in detail about CALL Processing and switches involved. Thanks, Rashid ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #251 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jul 26 03:42:20 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id DAA21349; Mon, 26 Jul 1999 03:42:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 03:42:20 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907260742.DAA21349@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #252 TELECOM Digest Mon, 26 Jul 99 03:42:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 252 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance (F. Goldstein) 500 & 900 Portability, Toll Free Issues, and 555 Reclamation (Oppenheimer) Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance of Overlays in California (J Nagle) Re: Is This Legal? (Denis McMahon) Re: Yet Another "Backhoe" Telecom Outage (Robert Casey) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Sean Donelan) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Scott Dawson) Re: Moderator's View on Net Commerce (Alan Bunch) Re: ISPs and IP_telephony (David Clayton) Re: ISPs and IP_telephony (James Gifford) Fan Mail For Moderator (NT Boss) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 00:06:05 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) At 02:28 PM 7/25/1999 -0400, David Clayton dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au wrote: > Australia just recently completed changing to a uniform 8 digit local > numbering plan with reasonably little inconvenience. > The previous numbering plan was conceived in the early 1960's and had > reached the end of it's efficient usability, the new one was > conceived with engineering, commercial as well as user issues in mind > and should (hopefully) cope with the rapidly changing telecom situa- > tion for another 20 years. > There was some minor "pain" involved, but the gains should be worth > it. Typical view from somebody unfamiliar with the North American Numbering Plan. Though it's worse when an American says it, since they should know better. The NANP is Different from what the rest of the world users. It is a strict DETERMINISTIC-LENGTH plan. EVERY telephone number is in a 3-3-4 pattern. Other patterns are also deterministic: X11 is 3-digits long (albeit with a few temporary exceptions in the unassigned codes in a few places). 950-xxxx is a carrier selection prefix. 1+ means that 10 digits follow, unless it's 10 which leads to 101xxxx (fixed) and some reclaimed space from the now-obsolete 10xxx codes. 0+ has a bunch of values, including 01{1} as the access code for nondeterministic international numbers. This determinism is ingrained inside the PSTN. Within the NANPA, calls are sent between switches, using SS7 (and, vestigially, inband signaling) in en-bloc format. That is, the originating switch collects the entire number before sending it along, all digits at once, to the next switch. (This determinism was pretty much a necessity in order to use crossbar switches, which formed the original AT&T direct distance dialing backbone.) In Australia, France, and most other countries, this determinism is not part of the numbering plan. Numbers in some countries are of variable length. Other countries, like Australia, haved fixed lengths that have been changed on occasion, and may not have always been uniform nationwide. In any case, the "rest of world" built its network using "compelled" signaling, in which each switch sends digits as received to the next switch, and the recipient indicateds whether or not it expects more digits. Non-NorAm SS7 carries on the tradition. Therefore the network has no real expectation of number length, and number lengths are fixed in the terminating switches. So there is no possiblity WHATSOEVER that the USA could just move to eight-digit signaling, as there is no handle for it in the current numbering plan. No such digit sequences are vacant. And as other have noted, you can't just "flag day" a network like the PSTN. It would basically collapse for weeks, and millions of lines of PBXs, which understand the 3-3-4 plan, would be off the air. It was bad enough when "interchangeable" area codes took place in 1994, with only something like 20 years' notice (though the actual date was only set a few years earlier). The ONLY handle for extending the plan is the fact that the second digit of an NPA *cannot* be a "9". So there is no area code 498. This leads to the most likely extension plan: New 4-digit NPAs are created with 9 in the second digit (4981), and/or old NPAs are converted to 4-digits by inserting the 9 (617 becomes 6917), allowing, after a year or two of "permissive" 3/4 digit NPA dialing, the old codes to become the first 3 digits of new area codes (6171, 6172). It's also likely that the 4-digit area codes will precede 4-digit prefix codes, hence a 4-4-4 plan intermixed with a 3-3-4 plan. This is properly deterministic, because the second digit's being 9 will indicate 4-4-4. So 617 might be overlaid with 6917 which would have ten times as many prefix codes. Old ones might be prefaced with 0 or 1, so 617 498 5920 becomes 6917 0498 5920 and both numbers work. Of course that requires 1+ dialing, because 691 7049 is a valid 7-digit number. Or they require 10/12 digit dialing of all numbers, as is already done in most overlay areas (sometimes with, sometimes without, the leading 1). This is all somewhat complex, but it does "work", unlike just going to 8 digits. But no matter what is done, the changes *within* the network are only the start of it. The changes required in data bases, cash registers, modems, alarms, payrolls, and other embedded code that has 3-3-4 in it will indeed give the Y2K programmers an even bigger new project to work on. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 21:16:50 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Organization: ICB Toll Free News / WhoSells800.com Subject: 500 & 900 Portability, Toll Free Issues, and 555 Reclamation From this week's ICB Behind The Scenes ... 500/900 portability has been back-burnered indefinitely ... The North American Numbering Council (NANC) has advised the Industry Numbering Committee (INC) to discontinue its work on INC Issue #154, 500/900 Portability, saying it believes that the industry has higher priorities that require its immediate attention. The issue originator, GTE, agreed to withdraw the issue as a result, and no further work on the subject is anticipated in the near term. INC is eyeballing toll free number use ... Responding to an OBF/SNAC request for INC to release 866, 855 and 844 codes to it simultaneously, INC asked SNAC to explain the rapid depletion of toll free numbers, asking for info regarding the usage of codes and why so many had been used; asked if the Guidelines for Toll Free Number Administration include any audit provisions and if so, whether an audit had been scheduled or performed; and asked SNAC to clarify its request for simultaneous release of three codes for numbering assignment. 555 battle continues to brew ... as recently discussed in the Digest, INC is now considering 555 number reclamation, even though, by all appearance, there has been no cooperation by ILECs, without which, activation is impossible. The matter was referred by INC to its Numbering Plan Area Workshop; notes from the the Workshop's July INC 44 in Toronto, incredulously state, "... a service provider's inability to effect interconnection agreements is not a valid reason for blocking the reclamation of 555 NXX." Judith Oppenheimer ICB Toll Free News, http://icbtollfree.com ICB Consulting, http://800consulting.com WhoSells800.com, http://whosells800.com ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance of Overlays in California Date: 26 Jul 1999 01:22:46 GMT Organization: Netcom dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) writes: > nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) contributed the following: >> What we really need to do is to go to eight digit local numbers, like >> France and Japan did years ago. > Australia just recently completed changing to a uniform 8 digit local > numbering plan with reasonably little inconvenience. Yes. France and Japan made the transition about a decade ago. It can be done. It would get us twenty years of stable phone numbers. The usual transition plan is that it's announced that it's going to happen about four years out. All existing numbers are translated to new ones by adding a new first digit which is the same for all existing numbers, there's a permissive dialing period of a year or two, and then a hard cutover. It would probably have about as much impact as an area code split, except that commercial software would be written to understand the transition. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk (Denis McMahon) Subject: Re: Is This Legal? Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 01:20:37 GMT Organization: E-Menu Ltd Reply-To: denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk On Sat, 24 Jul 1999 21:07:28 -0500, John Agosta wrote: > When I sign up for local service / cellular service, the telco asks me > what LD carrier I want. I tell them, and they get me on board. When I > tell the local telco that I want to switch LD carriers, they should > handle the order appropriately. This is a crock, and I wouldn't pay. > Tell your local carrier to pay 'cause they only did the job 1/2 way. > If this behavior is not against the law, it SHOULD be ! All you're doing (AIUI) is changing the preselected LD carrier that your local loop company will route to if you don't use per-call selection of a specific LD carrier for an individual LD call. You can have multiple per-call selected LD carriers. If you wanted to change the default LD carrier but keep the old default as a per-call option for weekend calls to Europe, you'd get upset if the local operator cancelled your calling plan with the old company when you asked them to switch your preselected carier to the new company. You can't have it both ways. Rgds, Denis McMahon denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk | All mail from some domains is Mob+44 802 468949 Tel/Fax+44 1705 698221 | deleted due to high UCE levels AXE-10 Engineer / Switch Tech? Join the AXE-10 Technical Mailing List. mailto:denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk for invite. No Agencies / Advertising. ------------------------------ From: wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey) Subject: Re: Yet Another "Backhoe" Telecom Outage Date: 26 Jul 1999 03:26:28 GMT Organization: NETCOM / MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. How about the time back in January 1995 at Newark Airport, when an operator of a pile driver thingie sank a metal I beam right into the main (and only) power feed for the entire airport? (except the tower had its own power). They were putting up a monorail system so people could get from one terminal to another, and the parking lots. And the power company did have the lines marked out. Not sure how the blame got sorted out. ------------------------------ From: sean@sdg.dra.com (Sean Donelan) Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: 25 Jul 99 18:24:39 CDT Organization: Data Research Associates, St. Louis MO In article , Derek Balling writes: > Mastercard number to transact with the world. (I challenge someone to > get a rental car without a credit card ... I've never had any luck > regardless of how much cash I offered to leave as a deposit). Allegedly Ralph Nader doesn't have any credit cards, yet he seems to be able to obtain rental cars. Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation ------------------------------ From: sunspace@interlog.com.placeholder (Scott Robert Dawson) Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 03:42:54 GMT Organization: Interlog Internet Services Does this 'check card' behave differently from a Canadian debit card? In Canada, there is a single nationwaide debit-card clearing system called Interac. All the banks, trust companies, credit-unions, etc belong to it. Most merchants have a terminal. When I go to buy things at a store, using my debit card, I use the *same card* I use in an ATM. I have to put in my PIN. The purchase costs me a small fee that is buried in the monthly fee for my account (50c, I think). The effect is as if I had gone to the ATM. The credit limit is the amount of money in my account. Each transaction is verified on the spot before I take the goods: no money; no sale. I heard that debit cards in the US *do not require a PIN to be used*, and this is the source of the reluctance to offer them. Is this true? Is this why they are called 'check cards'? Is it possible to buy something costing more than the balance in your account, and then get the equivalent of a bounced check?? Scott Robert Dawson, Toronto Parolu esperante! > Some non-(V/MC) ATM cards can be used in a debit fashion (via swipe at > the grocery store for example) but many cannot, and those that do > often impose fees and surcharges just as though the transaction had > taken place at a foreign ATM. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 00:09:54 -0500 From: Alan Bunch Subject: Re: Moderator's View on Net Commerce > Funny you should mention that. Ryder Truck Rental won't rent you a > truck without providing your social security number. Of course, no > Ryder agent or employee will explain precisely why they need it if > they have a confirmed driver's license in hand. How will Ryder know when I give them 172-11-7239, not my real SSN ? My son 15 is now starting decline to give his SSN; got to start 'em young to get head of the game. alabun Alan Bunch Spyder Enterprises Inc. alabun@spyderinc.com 817-329-3692 http://www.spyderinc.com Personal service at it's best ! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To *refuse* to give your SSN is one thing; to deliberatly falsify it is another. If for some reason there was an accident on the road or any reason that the car/truck rental people had a reason to review your application and found the number to be false, there could be serious legal repercussions for you. Decline if you wish; do not falsify. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: Re: ISPs and IP_telephony Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 03:58:42 GMT Organization: Customer of Connect.com.au Pty. Ltd. Reply-To: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au J.F. Mezei contributed the following: > There seems to be an urge to make the internet "profitable". > I have heard that telephony-over-IP is leaning towards servers instead > of allowing client-to-client calls. Obviously, this is to allow > someone to meter your calls and charge them, right? > Is there any reason why IP telephony must go through a server? Probably because it's one practical solution to provide the grade of service required for an acceptable real time voice connection over the 'net. I don't have a lot of personal experience with using IP telephony, but trying to get a stream of IP packets in a reliable and timely manner between any two nodes can still be a challenge. > So far, at least in my region, both cable and dsl insist on dynamic IP > adresses through DHCP. The minute they relent and allow fixed > adresses, the internet will take a dramatic new turn in my opinion. Once they implement IPv6, then everyone on the planet can have 150 IP addresses and DHCP will be redundant. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: James Gifford Reply-To: gifford@nitrosyncretic.com Organization: Nitrosyncretic Press Subject: Re: ISPs and IP_telephony Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 12:08:32 -0700 J.F. Mezei wrote: > Is there any reason why IP telephony must go through a server? A server, no. A gateway, yes. There are two components to IP telephony: getting the voice signals in and out of the IP environment, and making the connection across the network in the first place. The first part is the job of the gateway, whether it's a single-user Aplio phone or a 256-port Cisco jobbie. If you're using dedicated gateways in, say, your San Francisco and New York offices, you're likely using a WAN or VPN to carry the traffic. Each gateway has a fixed address and the gateways themselves handle all the call setup and teardown. If you're talking about point to point across the Internet, where I plug my Aplio phone into a dialup and need to call you on your Aplio phone, somewhere there has to be the equivalent of a switch that ties my unit to yours. After connection, the conversation travels directly from my unit to yours and back, but there has to be some way for the two units to locate each other. The only workable, cost-effective solution is to use a server that both units contact and say, "here I is!" Bottom line is that, while IP telephony across the Internet is "free" right now, simply because it's a parasitic use of the network. When it becomes a more significant part of the traffic (as it already is on the way to doing), someone, somewhere has to pay for that bandwidth. It'll be done by charging the end user, just as it always has. Nothing is being taken away from you, Joe User, because you can't run your telephony trunks over the public Internet. Besides, the Internet is okay for conversations where degraded audio quality and iffy call setup is acceptable -- that is, among the hobbyists and scattered families crafty enough to use IP telephony to stay in touch. But it's not suitable for general toll use or business. Call quality is an important part of business perception, and no matter how good the deal being tossed at you, if it's over a crappy phone connection, that will have negative impact. IP telephony is only succeeding (and will only succeed as a business and toll service) over private, dedicated networks or VPNs. James Gifford - Nitrosyncretic Press - gifford@nitrosyncretic.com See http://www.nitrosyncretic.com for the Robert Heinlein FAQ and information on "Robert A. Heinlein: A Reader's Companion" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 11:34:30 -0700 From: NT Boss Subject: Fan Mail For the Moderator Organization: E-Mail @ theglobe.com (http://www.globe-mail.com:80) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I received this delightful letter today sent by a reader. After thinking about it though, I realized that it is just not my work which impressed him so much, it was all the contributions made by you, the other readers which is what really counts. I've only changed a couple things in his letter: Because this is a 'G'-rated newsgroup for enjoyment by families, I had to go through and edit out all his obscenities. I have inserted the phrase (obscenity deleted) where they appeared. His subject line was only the phrase 'You (obscenity deleted)' and that did not make a lot of sense so I changed the title to 'Fan Mail'. I have not changed any of his spelling, punctuation or grammar, because I felt it would detract from this important message for all of us. PAT] ------------------------ Dear (obscenity deleted), You and your kind are much worse than all the spammers on the Internet combined. There are government and legal organizations already passing laws to take care of unsoliceted email. But . . . the spammers and anyone who wants to send you any kind of email for any reason also have legal rights. It's called the First Admendment. Why don't you go after the junk snail mail kings with equal aggressiveness. They cut down millions of trees each year to try to sell you junk. (obscenity deleted) You and your self-proclaimed vigilantes are a menace to business, commerce and democracy everywhere on Planet Earth. If you don't want email, get the (obscenity deleted) the Internet and move to a (obscenity deleted) cave. You don't own the Internet. You don't own or control anything except your own arrogance, ignorance and (obscenity deleted) stupidity. Get the (obscenity deleted) off the Internet. It's not free and it never will be. And I or you or anyone can use the (obscenity deleted)(obscenity deleted) thing for any legal purpose. If you don't like email, don't use it. If you don't want people posting to you newsgroups, don't put them on a public forum. Get the (obscenity deleted) out of your trailer park and get a (obscenity deleted) life! You and your kind are headed for a huge legal liability, not only in America, but worldwide. When you start (obsscenity deleted) with the big boys who control the planet, you're going to get hurt. A word to the wise should be sufficient. - Plato. I didn't ask for your (obscenity deleted) email in my mailbox either, but I had the choice of reading it or deleting it. You know who's driving this "the Internet is evil" train? (obscenity deleted) Idiots like you - the same type of evangelists who brought Hitler and Clinton to power and the (obscenity deleted) retailers who've been ripping us off for hundreds of years. They see the handwriting on the wall. The retail store era is dead and they're scared because you or I or anyone can now start a business for very little investment and not be their wage slaves. And that's taking money out of the military-industrial & big corporate boys pockets and they're (obscenity deleted) and afraid. And they're using people like you and organizations like yours to try to destroy commerce on the Internet and you're too (obscenity deleted) stupid and uninformed to even realize it. You don't own the Internet or any part of it. You have no rights and very little privacy in a public forum. All your information is available to anyone who wants it, thanks to the (obscenity deleted) government who says all your personal information - including your email address - is "publis information". If I or anyone wants to send you an advertisement, by snail mail, email, newsgroup, billboard or (obscenity deleted) carrier bird, that's my right. Welcome to Earth (obscenity deleted) moron. If you need to spend time fighting for a cause, help save all the babies being killed every minute of every day by mother's who are too stupid to swallow a (obscenity deleted) pill, just so some greedy (obscenity deleted) doctor can make his next Mercedes payment. Why don't you make abortion-murder illegal. It's killing human babies and destroying the gene pool. Advertisements don't kill anyone. Or how about fighting against America's oil companies who've polluted the entire (obscenity deleted) planet and who have started every major war since the 1930's and who make over ten trillion tax-free dollars a year at your expense while up to 70% of your wages are taxed by their lackeys in government. But as long as you stupid Americans have your cheap, watered down beer and your stupid football games to placate you and your tasteless, cancer causing fast food, who cares what your politicans are doing? Who care that the American CIA is selling drugs worldwide with your greedy government's blessing and financial aid? Why don't you do (obscenity deleted) something about that? NT Boss The Globe Your friendly full-service integrated online community. http://www.theglobe.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yazzum Boss ... I sure will take your advice. I really am glad to see you are part of a friendly online community as your .signature line says. After all the work I attempt to do for the net and the praise I receive from so many people, it does me good to get abused once in a while, and I thank you for writing. I am sure all the other readers thank you as well for your input here today. I am sorry that the restraints of civility prevented me from publishing your letter in its entireity without the need to censor some of your phraseology. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #252 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jul 26 14:38:04 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA13749; Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:38:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 14:38:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907261838.OAA13749@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #253 TELECOM Digest Mon, 26 Jul 99 14:38:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 253 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update #192, July 26, 1999 (Angus TeleManagement) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Matthew Black) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Darren Embry) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Robt. Wiegand) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Michael Jones) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (John B. Hines) Re: Moderator's View on Net Commerce (Pete Weiss) Re: Moderator's View on Net Commerce (Derek Balling) Re: The Crisis at Pacifica Radio (Matthew Black) AT&T Raised Fees Again (Marcy Dixon) Best Answering Machine With Caller ID? Logging Calls? (Tim Stobbe) Re: Is This Legal? (Robert Bononno) TYPO! I Have to Stand Corrected (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Master Phone "Numbers" and Email (Mark Gabriele) Toll-Free Provider Help Needed (egh@usenet.synthesizer.org) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 10:22:09 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update #192, July 26, 1999 ************************************************************ * * * TELECOM UPDATE * * Angus TeleManagement's Weekly Telecom Newsbulletin * * http://www.angustel.ca * * Number 192: July 26, 1999 * * * * Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by * * generous financial support from: * * * * AT&T Canada ............... http://www.attcanada.com/ * * Bell Canada ............... http://www.bell.ca/ * * Lucent Technologies ....... http://www.lucent.ca/ * * MetroNet Communications ... http://www.metronet.ca/ * * Sprint Canada ............. http://www.sprintcanada.ca/ * * Telus Communications....... http://www.telus.com/ * * TigerTel Services ......... http://www.citydial.com/ * * * ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** LD Reseller Files for Bankruptcy ** Bell Service Restored in Toronto ** CRTC to Increase DAL Contribution Surcharge ** Call-Net Adopts Poison Pill ** Call-Net Takes Stake in Calgary ISP ** BC's HotHaus Acquired for $414 Million ** British Telecom Buys NBTel Online Technology ** Innofone Equips Call Centers for Web Customers ** Number Portability Expands to Hamilton ** Colville to Chair Standards Body ** Look Launches Wireless TV in Ottawa, Quebec City ** Videoconferencing Reaches Northwest Ontario ** Aliant Buys NS Equipment Distributor ** QuebecTel Acquires Systems Integrator ** Financial Reports Call-Net Rogers Cantel ** Call Center Seminars in Your Office LD RESELLER FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY: Westcomm, a Toronto-based reseller, has filed for bankruptcy. Westcomm's major business was long distance; its MiFone wireless service, a distributor for the Microcell network, had about 500 customers. BELL SERVICE RESTORED IN TORONTO: Bell Canada says that service from its Simcoe St. Central Office in Toronto was fully restored late July 19, three days after the CO was hit by an electrical explosion and fire. (See Telecom Update #191) ** The 8,700 Ontario customers of Bell's PrimeLine one- number service experienced a two-hour outage July 22, during an attempt to move the service to a Y2K-ready platform. (See Telecom Update #162) CRTC TO INCREASE DAL CONTRIBUTION SURCHARGE: The contribution fees paid by Long Distance carriers include a 2% surcharge for traffic on Direct Access Lines. CRTC Telecom Decision 99-9 rules that 2% is too little. The amount of the increase remains to be determined. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/internet/1999/8045/02/d99-09.htm CALL-NET ADOPTS POISON PILL: After a sharp decline in its share price last week, Call-Net Enterprises adopted a Shareholder Rights Plan to counter the possibility of a hostile takeover. The company says it has no knowledge of any actual takeover moves. CALL-NET TAKES STAKE IN CALGARY ISP: Call-Net has bought 10% of Calgary Internet provider Cybersurf Corp. for $12 Million. Cybersurf plans to roll out free, advertising- supported Internet access across Canada, using Call-Net network services. (See Telecom Update #147) BC's HOTHAUS ACQUIRED FOR $414 MILLION: HotHaus Technologies, a Vancouver-based developer of voice-over-IP software, has been purchased by Broadcom Corp. of Irvine, California, for $414 Million. HotHaus has 70 employees; its 1998 sales were $5 Million. BRITISH TELECOM BUYS NBTEL ONLINE TECHNOLOGY: NBTel will provide its technology for online access to government services to British Telecom, which aims to have 25% of British government transactions conducted online by 2002. ** The New Brunswick telco has also launched NBTel One, which bundles long distance services with either Internet access or two calling features. INNOFONE EQUIPS CALL CENTERS FOR WEB CUSTOMERS: Innofone.Com of Vaughan, Ontario, has announced InnoButton, which lets customers using a voice-equipped PC talk to an agent while browsing a company's Web site. General availability: August. NUMBER PORTABILITY EXPANDS TO HAMILTON: Local number portability will be available in Hamilton on or about August 9, 1999. COLVILLE TO CHAIR STANDARDS BODY: David Colville, the CRTC's Vice-Chairman, Telecommunications, has been appointed Chair of CSA International, the Canadian standards organization. LOOK LAUNCHES WIRELESS TV IN OTTAWA, QUEBEC CITY: Wireless broadcaster Look Communications began service in Ottawa-Hull July 21, a month following its launch in Quebec City. VIDEOCONFERENCING REACHES NORTHWEST ONTARIO: Bell Canada has formed a partnership with ThunderVision (Thunder Bay, Ontario) to provide videoconferencing services in Kenora and six small communities of northwest Ontario, beginning in September. ALIANT BUYS NS EQUIPMENT DISTRIBUTOR: AMI Offshore, an Aliant subsidiary that provides systems and materials management for the offshore oil industry, has bought Halifax-based K&D Industries, a distributor of telecom and industrial equipment. QUEBECTEL ACQUIRES SYSTEMS INTEGRATOR: QuebecTel Group has acquired a majority stake in Zenon-Mei, a Montreal-based systems integrator with 150 employees. FINANCIAL REPORTS: During the second quarter: ** Call-Net: Revenue was $323 Million, down 5% from the previous quarter. EBITDA was $9.7 Million; the net loss was $125 Million, up from $66 Million. The number of subscribers fell 7% (residential) and 3% (business). ** Rogers Cantel: Revenue rose to $325 Million, 6.2% above last year. The net loss was $13.2 Million. The monthly turnover of customers ("churn") dropped to 1.54% from 1.87% last year. CALL CENTER SEMINARS IN YOUR OFFICE: Need to get your team up to date on tested techniques in call center management? Experts from Angus Dortmans Associates will bring their top-rated seminars to your site. Topics available include: ** Essential Skills and Knowledge for Effective Incoming Call Center Management ** What Senior Managers Must Know About Incoming Call Centers ** What Agents and Team Leaders Must Know About Incoming Call Centers ** What Suppliers Must Know About Incoming Call Centers ** Planning a New Call Center: Tips Before You Start For further information go to the Angus Dortmans seminars Web page. To discuss your specific education needs, contact Henry Dortmans at 1-800-263-4415 ext. 300 or at dortmans@angustel.ca. http://www.angustel.ca/angdort/adseminar.html HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at http://www.angustel.ca/update/up.html 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to majordomo@angustel.ca. The text of the message should contain only the two words: subscribe update To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to majordomo@angustel.ca. The text of the message should say only: unsubscribe update [Your e-mail address] =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER: All contents copyright 1999 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 225. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ============================================================ ------------------------------ From: black@csulb.edu (Matthew Black) Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: 26 Jul 1999 14:32:11 GMT In article , dredd@megacity.org says: [original message edited for brevity --matt 990726] > Why would you REFUSE the Visa Check card? That I don't understand. It > still functions for all intents and purposes as an ATM card, and if > you never use it as a Visa card, then you never open yourself up to > the alleged problems associated with that. You could just cover up the > Visa logo with electrical tape and it would function identically to > the "non-Visa" ATM card you love. Because if someone stole my VISA check card they could clean out my checking account in two seconds. With an ATM-only card, they'd be limited to $300 per day. Sure they'd need a PIN which I'd freely give someone toting a pistol. Besides, I don't like the VISA company ... perhaps someone offers a MasterCard debit card (-; -----------------------------(c) 1999 Matthew Black, all rights reserved-- matthew black | Opinions expressed herein belong to me and network & systems specialist | may not reflect those of my employer california state university | network services SSA-180E | e-mail: black at csulb dot edu 1250 bellflower boulevard | PGP fingerprint: 6D 14 36 ED 5F 34 C4 B3 long beach, ca 90840 | E9 1E F3 CB E7 65 EE BC [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One difference, Matt, between you and I is that I would NOT 'freely give my PIN' to someone toting a pistol. My answer to the person would be that if he killed me not only would he not have the necessary PIN but that he would have a murder charge to be dealt with also. I guess I would ask him what good he thought that killing me would do. He needs money, not a conviction for killing someone! I am not trying to sound self-righteous here, but pointing a gun at me does not impress me. I've had a long life, and if I get a few more years then fine, if not fine. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dsembr01@ox.slug.louisville.edu (Darren Stuart Embry) Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: 26 Jul 1999 16:51:14 GMT Organization: University of Louisville [comp.dcom.telecom] Sean Donelan wrote: > In article , Derek Balling > writes: >> Mastercard number to transact with the world. (I challenge someone to >> get a rental car without a credit card ... I've never had any luck >> regardless of how much cash I offered to leave as a deposit). > Allegedly Ralph Nader doesn't have any credit cards, yet he seems to > be able to obtain rental cars. If you call various rental car agencies and ask what their policies are on those of us without credit cards (or perhaps just check their web sites), you'll actually find that the policies vary. At least one agency I talked to, for example, will require you to produce two utility bills and your driver's license (they have to be IN YOUR NAME -- this won't work if you live in your parents' house) and then they'll let you pay with cash or a debit card. Now what I find silly is that I also can't rent a car even if I have someone else I know show up and pay with his credit card. In light of what I heard from rental car agencies on why they want people to pay with credit cards in the first place (basically they want to make sure they get their money from the card holder), that's just totally dumb. When I tried this a couple months ago, I was 25 years of age and the card holder who was going to pay was 19; I don't know if his age was a factor or not. Darren Stuart Embry. Good with pets. http://www.slug.louisville.edu/~dsembr01/ * The business practices of dominant companies like Microsoft serve to harm the computer industry and you. Protect yourself. Look for alternatives. http://www.netaction.org/ http://www.vcnet.com/bms/ http://www.linux.org/ ------------------------------ From: Robert Wiegand Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 10:36:04 -0500 Organization: Motorola CIG Derek Balling wrote: > Why would you REFUSE the Visa Check card? That I don't understand. It > still functions for all intents and purposes as an ATM card, and if > you never use it as a Visa card, then you never open yourself up to > the alleged problems associated with that. You could just cover up the > Visa logo with electrical tape and it would function identically to > the "non-Visa" ATM card you love. It functions identically to an ATM card until you have it stolen. Then there is a big difference. You don't need a PIN number to use the Check Card. By the time you get the card canceled they can clean out your checking account. Regards, Bob Wiegand bwiegand@sesd.cig.mot.com ------------------------------ From: jonesm2@rpi.edu (Michael David Jones) Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: 26 Jul 1999 09:29:25 -0400 Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY, USA sean@sdg.dra.com (Sean Donelan) writes: > In article , Derek Balling > writes: >> Mastercard number to transact with the world. (I challenge someone to >> get a rental car without a credit card ... I've never had any luck >> regardless of how much cash I offered to leave as a deposit). > Allegedly Ralph Nader doesn't have any credit cards, yet he seems to > be able to obtain rental cars. There are a lot of things in life that work differently once you become famous. Mike Jones | jonesm2@rpi.edu I have no doubt that most Unix buyers buy Unix so that they can run Unix. - an Apple spokesman ------------------------------ From: jhines@enteract.com (John B. Hines) Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 13:41:24 GMT Organization: US Citizen, disabled with MS, speaking solely for myself. sunspace@interlog.com.placeholder (Scott Robert Dawson) wrote: > I heard that debit cards in the US *do not require a PIN to be used*, > and this is the source of the reluctance to offer them. Is this true? > Is this why they are called 'check cards'? Is it possible to buy > something costing more than the balance in your account, and then get > the equivalent of a bounced check?? That seems to be the big difference, I have a Visa branded debit/ATM card, and the local grocery store will take it either as a Visa card, or as an ATM card. When used as a debit card, it doesn't require a PIN to be entered, but does require a signature. While the balance is checked immediately, as part of the debit authorization, the transaction is put thru using the standard credit card processing, so it can be a couple of days before the transaction actually hits the bank account, during which you could withdraw the money from the account. ------------------------------ From: pete-weiss@psu.edu (Pete Weiss) Subject: Re: Moderator's View on Net Commerce Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 08:01:14 -0400 Organization: Penn State University -- Office of Administrative Systems > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To *refuse* to give your SSN is one > thing; to deliberatly falsify it is another. If for some reason there > was an accident on the road or any reason that the car/truck rental > people had a reason to review your application and found the number > to be false, there could be serious legal repercussions for you. > Decline if you wish; do not falsify. PAT] Furthermore, the person whose SSN your forged could get into hot-water. Pete [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not really they wouldn't. They would have the inconvenience of seeing a lawyer perhaps, and having to sign off on an affidavit that the fraudulent activity did not carry their signature and handwriting. I think it is mean to do that to someone, to cause them all that hassle, especially if it is someone not that well educated with the knowledge of how to get a lawyer and/ or mitigate their own involvement in the matter immediatly. But once they were shown to have no part in it, they would be off the hook. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 07:10:39 -0700 From: Derek Balling Subject: Re: Moderator's View on Net Commerce At 03:42 AM 7/26/99 -0400, editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To *refuse* to give your SSN is one >> thing; to deliberatly falsify it is another. If for some reason there >> was an accident on the road or any reason that the car/truck rental >> people had a reason to review your application and found the number >> to be false, there could be serious legal repercussions for you. >> Decline if you wish; do not falsify. PAT] You are not required to tell the truth to anyone. I read a story on this a few years ago, but it was an essay on when you did/did-not have to respond accurately with your SSN. It also listed a bunch of "safe" false-SSN's. (Ones which have been surrendered by the SSA for use in things like wallet inserts, etc.). You can find that list also at http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/privacy/ssn/SSN-addendum.html#FakeNumbers ... That way if anyone DOES try to claim you were "impersonating someone else", you can point to it being a reserved SSN and you weren't impersonating anyone, that you just didn't want to give Skippy at the Ryder Truck Rental information he had no business needing. And its especially useful, because unlike "555-xxxx", that false SSN _LOOKS_ good. :) D [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are only required to tell the truth if you allow yourself to be placed under oath or affirmation to do so. There is that little problem which comes up at the bottom of the form where you sign your name stating that what you stated ahead of your signature is the truth to the best of your ability to state it. If you do not tell the truth while in fact stating that you have told the truth, then you have some potential legal problems. If you give out deliberatly incorrect information on, for example, an application for an extension of credit, it becomes mail or postal fraud -- a federal offense -- since by your statements you caused the creditor to deposit plastic addressed to you in a United States mail receptacle. Ditto wth the car rental people. If your deliberatly incorrect statements on their application form pursuade them to loan you a vehicle, and you drive the vehicle across a state line thus making the transaction inter- state in nature, you have a federal situation. If the car rental people deposit some paperwork addressed to you in a mail receptacle, now you have postal fraud as well. A good rule of thumb is this: it is okay to lie if you wish, or let's say at least there are no civil laws against it. It is also okay to affirm or be under oath if you wish. Just do not do both at the same time. The minute you sign a contract or a statement of some sort, you are bound by the terms of the contract, or the things said in the statement. Your signature essentially serves as your affirmation or your oath. PAT] ------------------------------ From: black@csulb.edu (Matthew Black) Subject: Re: The Crisis at Pacifica Radio Date: 26 Jul 1999 14:42:56 GMT Organization: Your Organization In article , aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET says: [original message edited for brevity--matt 990726] > My heart bleeds for you. Really. It takes quite a bit of nerve to > try and pitch support for a commercial operation that answers to no > one and provides no verifiable public benefit. Strictly speaking, > commercial stations are closer to really serving the public, since > their performance is regularly measured, to which thier revenues are > directly linked. Can you define "serving the public?" Does that mean serving only commercially popular demand? Should all human activity be measured by its commercial value? Most news reports are so bereft of integrity that I find them utterly useless. I hardly ever read PC week due to ZD's biased and, IMHO, incompetent reporting. From which source(s) do you get national and world news? Newspapers and the (MacNeil) Leher News Hour provide far more depth than ABC network news -- the so called most popular source. I'd love to see ABC show a negative report on Disney (short of reporting an accident like that dock cleat which killed a guest). -----------------------------(c) 1999 Matthew Black, all rights reserved-- matthew black | Opinions expressed herein belong to me and network & systems specialist | may not reflect those of my employer california state university | network services SSA-180E | e-mail: black at csulb dot edu 1250 bellflower boulevard | PGP fingerprint: 6D 14 36 ED 5F 34 C4 B3 long beach, ca 90840 | E9 1E F3 CB E7 65 EE BC [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the online edition of the news reports I publish each day at http://telecom-digest.org/news I tried honestly to only select the sources I felt were truthful and unbiased in their reporting. If users see problems with any the sources I have there, I would appreciate hearing about it. That section was expanded over the weekend to include several more online/internet resources, as well as various audio presentations from online news resources. After checking out http://telecom-digest.org/news -- and I hope you will become a regular user of the feature -- also please look into the poll question of the week at http://telecom-digest.org/vote.html where the question this week deals with your long distance carrier. You do need to accept cookies to participate, but you can dump them afterward if you wish. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Marcy Dixon Subject: AT&T Raised Fees Again Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 09:41:49 -0500 Organization: SBC Internet Services AT&T recently raised their PICC and USF fees on my residential line. They used to be $.85 for PICC and $.93 for USF. Now they're $1.51 and $.99 respectively. Do they charge business customers these fees? Is so, do they charge the same as their residential customers? ------------------------------ From: stobbe@earthlink.net (Tim Stobbe) Subject: Best Answering Machine With Caller ID? Logging calls? Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 15:18:17 GMT Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. Reply-To: stobbe@earthlink.net Will any of these machines log all incoming calls? I know there is some software available to do this, but I would have to leave my computer running 24/7 while out of town. I was considering the Microsoft phone, but I found out it will not be supported in win2000. Figures. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Robert Bononno Subject: Re: Is This Legal? Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 12:09:03 -0400 Denis McMahon wrote in message: > On Sat, 24 Jul 1999 21:07:28 -0500, John Agosta > wrote: >> When I sign up for local service / cellular service, the telco asks me >> what LD carrier I want. I tell them, and they get me on board. When I >> tell the local telco that I want to switch LD carriers, they should >> handle the order appropriately. This is a crock, and I wouldn't pay. >> Tell your local carrier to pay 'cause they only did the job 1/2 way. >> If this behavior is not against the law, it SHOULD be ! > All you're doing (AIUI) is changing the preselected LD carrier that > your local loop company will route to if you don't use per-call > selection of a specific LD carrier for an individual LD call. > You can have multiple per-call selected LD carriers. If you wanted to > change the default LD carrier but keep the old default as a per-call > option for weekend calls to Europe, you'd get upset if the local > operator cancelled your calling plan with the old company when you > asked them to switch your preselected carier to the new company. You > can't have it both ways. I'm curious. How would the local carrier know through which LD carrier to route an outgoing LD call? Unless it's a 10-10-xxx number, that is. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is the reason you can only have one choice for the default 'one plus' carrier and all the rest have to be picked using ten-ten each time you dial. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 08:56:41 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Organization: ICB Toll Free News / WhoSells800.com Subject: TYPO! I Have to Stand Corrected Lord, it must have been late -- did I write 866, 855 and 844? Please make a correction - it's 844, 833 and 822 ... sorry ... Judith INC is eyeballing toll free number use ... Responding to an OBF/SNAC request for INC to release 866, 855 and 844 codes to it simultaneously, INC asked SNAC to explain the rapid depletion of toll free numbers, asking for info regarding the usage of codes and why so many had been used; asked if the Guidelines for Toll Free Number Administration include any audit provisions and if so, whether an audit had been scheduled or performed; and asked SNAC to clarify its request for simultaneous release of three codes for numbering assignment. ------------------------------ From: gabriele@rand.org (Mark Gabriele) Subject: Re: Master Phone "Numbers" and Email Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 10:42:34 -0700 Organization: The RAND Corporation In article , Colin Sutton wrote: > What I'd like is the opposite. On my phone I would set up a shortkey > to an email address, rather than a phone number. On calling that > number my speech is sent as an attachment. When the recipient reads > the email, s/he can respond using the computer microphone (a > reply/voice option is needed) and a live connection set up. (That > ought to be possible between computers too). > Then we don't need phone numbers any more, but email addresses. The > phone number could be hidden from the user by the phone company, who > allows you to set my_phone.colin@phone_company.com to call > +61241nnnnnnnnn when the SIM card is registered. Then the phone > company can add digits to codes at will. There is a partial sort of service like this, called MyTalk.com, which is offered (for free!!) by General Magic (who created the "Magic Hat" operating system used in the early Sony PDAs). The user sets up an email account on MyTalk.com, and receives a toll-free telephone number and PIN. Any email sent to the user's MyTalk account is read to the user when they call in; and the user can send voice replies which are encoded and sent as email attachments. It's kind of a neat idea, really, and the whole thing works by natural speech commands. They have a full-up commercial system called Portico which offers more secretarial-style functionality, as well, and may be closer to what Mr. Sutton is looking for. Mark Gabriele / gabriele@rand.org "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..." -Last words of Gen. John Sedgwick, from a parapet overlooking the Battle of Spottsylvania, during the United States' Civil War. ------------------------------ From: egh@usenet.synthesizer.org (egh) Subject: Toll-Free Provider Help Needed Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 18:12:35 GMT We are looking to move from a resold tollfree service to a "tier 1" (if you will) toll-free provider. The primary reason for this is that we use US (800, 888, 877) numbers as a front end pointing to dialed numbers in the UK, which when using a reseller can entail some lengthy dead-air delays (up to 20 secs). Is there a better way of going about this than just cold-calling ATT, Sprint, etc.? Thanks for any pointers, Eric ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #253 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jul 26 19:16:07 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id TAA25792; Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:16:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:16:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907262316.TAA25792@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #254 TELECOM Digest Mon, 26 Jul 99 19:16:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 254 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Alex Bell and President Garfield's Assassination (historybuff.com reprint) Qwest LD After Merger (reedh@rmi.net) Re: Moderator's View on Net Commerce (Jack Decker) Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) (A Kamlet) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View on Net Commerce) (Jon Carpenter) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Andrew) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Steven Sobol) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. From: www.historybuff.com Subject: Alex Bell and President Garfield's Assassination Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:00:00 EDT Alexander Graham Bell and the Garfield Assassination [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My thanks to www.historybuff.com and mailto:rbrown@tir.com for this interesting report. PAT] By R.J. Brown Editor-in-Chief Some people ask me "Why bother to collect old newspapers? If I want to read dry, boring history, I can just get a history book." My answer to this is that even the best of history books leave out some mighty interesting asbpects of historical events. The only way they can be re-discovered, is through reading original newspapers published during the time of the event. The assassination of president James Garfield in 1881 is a prime example of this. James Garfield was assassinated on July 2, 1881 and lingered until September 19, 1881 when he died. The problem was that a bullet was lodged inside his chest. The two methods of treatment at the time were: (1) If the bullet had penetrated the liver (or other organs) it would mean certain death without surgery to remove it. (2) If the bullet hadn't penetrated an organ was wasn't lodged tightly against an organ at the present time, the chances of recovery were much better if they delayed the surgery until the president's condition stabilized. Therefore, finding the exact location of the bullet was very critical in the president's recovery. X-rays had not been invented yet so the only way to determine the exact location of the bullet was to do a manual probe with instruments. If they were to make continued probes to locate the bullet, it increased the risk of infection. As a result of this indecision, a most unique journalistic style arose. Newspapers across the United States printed editorial after editorial making big light of this indecision by the White House doctors. Soon, lay-people, as well as qualified medical personnel, jumped in with their opinions. The White House doctors were deluged with package after package containing such items as special herbs, teas, home remedies, poultices, as well as patent medicines. A special area was set up in the White House basement to store all the items. In addition, people with medical degrees sent lengthy letters giving their opinions on what should be done. Many of these letters were also published in newspapers. Coverage of the debate received so much attention that discussions from this angle over shadowed the current medical condition of the president. One such example of the press taking over the job of finding the answer as to finding the exact location of the bullet took place one week after the shooting. Simon Newcomb of Baltimore was interviewed by a reporter for the Washington National Intelligencer. Newcomb had been experimenting with running electricity through wire coils and the effect metal had when placed near the coils. He had found that when metal was placed near the coils filled with electricity that a faint hum could be heard at that point in the coil. The problem was that the hum was so faint that is was very difficult to hear. He suggested that he might be able to perfect his invention so that it could be used on the President but, unfortunately, he though that the perfection of the apparatus would take too long. While in Boston, Alexander Graham Bell read the newspaper account mentioned in the above paragraph of this article. Upon reading this account, Bell telegraphed Newcomb in Baltimore and offered to assist him. Further, he suggested that perhaps his own invention of the telephone was the answer he had been seeking. His telephone amplified sound made through wire! Newcomb accepted Bell's offer. Bell immediately went to Baltimore to work with Newcomb. White House surgeons spent a lot of time at the Baltimore lab witnessing the experiments. The invention consisted of two coils of insulated wire, a battery, a circuit breaker, and Bell's telephone. The ends of the primary coil were connected to a battery and those of the secondary coil were fastened to posts of the telephone. When a piece of metal was placed in the spot where the circuit breaker was, a hum could be heard in the telephone receiver. As the metal was moved further away, the hum became more faint. Five inches away was the maximum distance that a hum could still be heard. Various methods of testing the apparatus were tried. At first a game of hide and seek was played. Either Bell or Newcomb would hide an unspent bullet in their mouth, arm pit, or elsewhere on their body. The other would pass the wand over the others' body. Meanwhile an assistant would be listening on the telephone to announce (based on the hum) where the bullet was and how far away from the tip of the wand it was. Next, the experiments included spent bullets and hiding them in bags of grain, inside sides of beef and so forth. Various adjustments were made with each test. As a final test, before using it on the president, they went to the Old Soldiers Home in Washington, D.C. where they solicited Civil War veterans and lined them up in open fields. They passed the wand over each volunteer's body. As some still had bullets in their body from doing battle in the war, this provided a very close approximation of what they hoped their invention would accomplish -- locate a bullet inside a human body. In each case, the soldiers with bullets still in them, and where the bullets were, were identified. Now was the appropriate time to try the invention on the president. On July 26, Bell, his assistant Tainter, and Newcomb had an appointment at the White House. In the early evening they made their first attempt to locate the bullet using their apparatus. There were also five White House doctors and several aides present for this experiment. The president looked apprehensive as the wand was passed over his body. He expressed a fear of being electrocuted. Bell offered reassurance and tried to explain how the apparatus worked. None-the- less, Garfield's eyes never left the wand through out the experiment. The results of the experiment were inconclusive s there was a faint hum no matter where the wand was placed on the president's body. After many attempts, Bell, Newcomb and Tainter left the White House wonder just where they went wrong. Meanwhile, the press used this failure as a personal attack on Bell. The hostility of the rivalry among claimants that they (and not Bell) were the first ones to invent the telephone was at its peak at this time. Many lawsuits were already pending in the courts over this issue. The publicity over Bell using his invention to attempt to find the bullet in the president's body didn't help matters. Editorials in newspapers called Bell a "publicity seeker." Undaunted, Bell returned to the lab with Newcomb and Tainter. They ran more experiments. It still worked just fine in the lab and at the Old Soldier's Home. Bell managed to talk White House doctors into letting them come back and try again. The last day of July they went back to the White House to try again. It was the same thing again -- no matter where they placed the wand on the president's body, a faint hum could be heard. When they moved the wand away from the president's body the hum could no longer be heard. All were stumped. It worked fine on everyone else but the president. Feeling dejected, they again left the White House. Bell continued back to Boston and gave up trying to perfect the invention. A few weeks after their last attempt, President Garfield was moved to his home in New Jersey and died on September 19, 881. So what is the answer to why Bell's and Newcomb's invention worked on everyone except the president? It wasn't the president that was the problem. The problem was the bed he was in. Coil spring mattresses had just been invented. In fact, a national campaign hadn't even been started yet at the time of the assassination. The White House was one of the few that had the coil spring mattresses at the time. Very few people had even heard of them. Thus, Bell's and Newcomb's invention was detecting metal -- unfortunately they didn't realize that it was the coil springs. If they had moved him off the bed to the floor or table, their apparatus would have detected where the bullet was and likely, knowing this, the White House surgeons could have saved James Garfield's life! Send mail to mailto:rbrown@tir.com the author of this article. -------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My thanks to Mr. Brown and History Buff for this fascinating article I am sharing with you today. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Reed Subject: Qwest LD After Merger Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 13:39:02 -0600 After Qwest merges with USWest, Qwest has stated they will *not* provide LD service in USW 14 state territory. (Because USW has not proved open access yet.) What choices will people in the 14 states, with (or were planning on) Qwest as their 1+ provider, have for a .09/min, no minimum, carrier ?? Will pre-merger subscribers be "grand-fathered" ?? (or "orphaned/abandoned") Have e-mailed same question to Qwest. reed [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do let us know if you receive any satis- factory answers, or even unsatisfactory ones. In the telecom poll question for the week, reader's are asked to name their primary long distance carrier. About ten percent thus far have named Qwest. Vote or see the full results at http://telecom-digest.org/vote.html PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:53:15 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: Moderator's View on Net Commerce On Mon, 26 Jul 1999 00:09:54 -0500, Alan Bunch wrote: > How will Ryder know when I give them 172-11-7239, not my real SSN ? > My son 15 is now starting decline to give his SSN; got to start 'em > young to get head of the game. TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To *refuse* to give your SSN is one > thing; to deliberatly falsify it is another. [.....] Well, we soon may not have that option. The following was extracted from a technology-related e-mail newsletter called Tasty Bits from the Technology Front, that I received last night (the URL for the complete issue is http://tbtf.com/archive/1999-07-26.html). ... US national identity card looms in October Is this any way for the Beacon of Democracy to act? The time is fast approaching when the US government will, unless a 1996 law is amended, instruct all states to replace your driver's license with one featuring your social security number in visible and machine-readable form, and possibly your fingerprints as well [16]. Here are some of the problems that widespread, mandated exposure of your social security number could cause [17]. The law that spawned these regulations from the Department of Trans- portation is the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsi- bilities Act [18], passed in 1996. Transportation was poised to an- nounce and enforce a national driver's-license standard last year, but civil liberties groups managed -- just barely -- to enact a 1- year stay of execution for the national ID card [19]. It expires in October. Opposition groups failed last month to insert into a Trans- portation funding bill a provision overturning section 656(b) of the 1996 law. The chairman of the Immigration and Claims subcommittee of the Ju- diciary Committee, Lamar Smith (R-TX), says that creating a national ID card was never the intent of the 1996 law; he now sports a Web page [20] declaring his opposition to the very idea. But Smith has acknowledged that the regulations drafted by the Transportation Department do, in fact, establish just such a national ID. Smith's subcommittee will hold a hearing [21] on the repeal of sec- tion 656(b) on Thursday 29 July, at 9:30 a.m., in room 2226 of the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington. It would be an excel- lent time to let your representative know where you stand on issues of privacy and a national ID card, especially if your representative is a member of this subcommittee: Berman, Howard (CA, 26th district) Cannon, Chris (UT, 3rd) Canady, Charles (FL, 12th) Frank, Barney (MA, 4th) Gallegly, Elton (CA, 23rd) Goodlatte, Bob (VA, 6th) Jackson Lee, Sheila (TX, 18th) Lofgren, Zoe (CA, 16th) McCollum, Bill (FL, 8th) Meehan, Marty (MA, 5th) Pease, Ed (IN, 7th) Scarborough, Joe (FL, 1st) Smith, Lamar (TX, 21st) -- Chairman [16] http://www.wired.com/news/print_version/politics/story/20881.html?wnpg=all [17] http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs10-ssn.htm [18] http://www.networkusa.org/fingerprint/page2/fp-104-208-immigration.html [19] http://www.wired.com/news/print_version/politics/story/15635.html?wnpg=all [20] http://www.house.gov/lamarsmith/idcardhtm.htm [21] http://www.house.gov/judiciary/schedule.htm [End of excerpt] Of course, if this really comes about, our *real* SSN will be printed right on our driver's license, fully accessible to anyone that demands to see our state-issued photo I.D. before providing some service. On the one hand, I think there are some very good reasons to be concerned about this. On the other hand, if such a sweeping law passes, it will at least mean that our esteemed lawmakers will be just as vulnerable as the rest of us when they rent a car or are otherwise required to present photo I.D. for whatever reason. It's quite possible that the "law of unintended consequences" will kick in, and after a few of our lawmakers (or their friends or family) get burned, they might start to see some benefit in protecting people's privacy (hopefully they won't just exempt themselves, and let the rest of us twist in the wind). And also, maybe the general public will start to wake up and demand some privacy protections, and then those of us who have been refusing to give our SSN's for years will no longer be perceived as paranoid nut cases or something of that ilk. Trouble is, I'm not willing to bet on any of these positive benefits coming about, so I hope the law is amended or repealed before October. What should also bother us is that all legislation of this type simply tramples all over the constitutional protections for "states' rights", but as someone unknown once said, "The Constitution may not be perfect, but it's a lot better than what the government's using these days." Jack (To reply via private e-mail, make the obvious modification to my e-mail address) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And I am still hearing stories from different directions that the quietly-passed law requiring 'proper documentation' to be presented in the purchase of airline tickets is still scheduled for later next year as well. If it is only a rumor, it seems a very persistent one. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) Date: 26 Jul 1999 18:05:37 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , Fred Goldstein wrote: > This is all somewhat complex, but it does "work", unlike just going to > 8 digits. But no matter what is done, the changes *within* the > network are only the start of it. The changes required in data bases, > cash registers, modems, alarms, payrolls, and other embedded code that > has 3-3-4 in it will indeed give the Y2K programmers an even bigger > new project to work on. I believe in the not too distant future the phone itself will always encode the number being called, or people will carry around tiny address book/dialers so you just have to press "Howard" and it will go through. This will make the problem of TN encoding one level removed from users of those numbers, just like IP addresses are not really known by users of those numbers. When the great 8 -> 32 bit IP address conversion takes place, users should be fairly oblivious to it. Same for changes of area codes, splits, and whatever happens with the numbers. Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I had understood the official 'start up' of the new IP addressing scheme was earlier this month, although it may be some time before anyone notices it to any degree. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jon Carpenter Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View on Net Commerce) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:20:27 -0400 Robert Wiegand wrote: > Derek Balling wrote: >> Why would you REFUSE the Visa Check card? That I don't understand. It >> still functions for all intents and purposes as an ATM card, and if >> you never use it as a Visa card, then you never open yourself up to >> the alleged problems associated with that. You could just cover up the >> Visa logo with electrical tape and it would function identically to >> the "non-Visa" ATM card you love. > It functions identically to an ATM card until you have it stolen. Then > there is a big difference. You don't need a PIN number to use the Check > Card. By the time you get the card canceled they can clean out your > checking account. But you're protected just like you are for a credit card. This is on the MasterCard web site at http://www.mastercard.com/ourcards/consumer/wave.html: And your debit card will be good to you. You're in the driver's seat should your card be lost or stolen. If you notice your debit card missing, notify your card issuer immediately. The two major payment card companies limit your liability to a maximum of $50 and it could be as low as zero if you report your card missing immediately. But, it's up to you to safeguard your debit card and notify the issuer as soon as you discover it missing. ------------------------------ From: andrew@3.1415926.org (Andrew) Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: 26 Jul 1999 21:40:44 GMT Organization: MaTech John B. Hines (jhines@enteract.com) wrote: > While the balance is checked immediately, as part of the debit > authorization, the transaction is put thru using the standard credit > card processing, so it can be a couple of days before the transaction > actually hits the bank account, during which you could withdraw the > money from the account. With a credit card, the moment a charge is authorized, your credit line is reduced by the amount of the authorization. The moment your VISA check card is authorized, funds in your checking account are frozen to cover the authorization. The funds might sit in your account until the charge is posted, but you can't touch it and the bank won't use the frozen funds to cover any checks that might come in before the charge posts. It is standard practice for many restaurants and clubs to pre-authorize $500 on the credit cards of people who want to run a tab. The local radio consumer advocate in Atlanta, Clark Howard has gotten innumerable complaints from people who have bounced checks as a result of these large authorizations. IIRC it takes about a week for the authorizations to expire. Andrew ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: 26 Jul 1999 20:42:12 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On 26 Jul 1999 14:32:11 GMT, black@csulb.edu allegedly said: > Because if someone stole my VISA check card they could clean out my > checking account in two seconds. With an ATM-only card, they'd be > limited to $300 per day. Sure they'd need a PIN which I'd freely give > someone toting a pistol. Besides, I don't like the VISA company > ... perhaps someone offers a MasterCard debit card (-; At least one major bank does (Key Bank). North Shore Technologies Corporation http://www.NorthShoreTechnologies.net We don't just build websites; we build relationships! 815 Superior Ave. #610, Cleveland, OH 44114-2702 216.619.2NET 888.480.4NET Host of the Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail http://www.spamfree.org ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #254 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jul 27 13:42:11 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id NAA00731; Tue, 27 Jul 1999 13:42:11 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 13:42:11 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907271742.NAA00731@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #255 TELECOM Digest Tue, 27 Jul 99 13:48:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 255 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Chris Herot) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (J.F. Mezei) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View on Net Commerce) (Johnnie Leung) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Ed Ellers) Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) (D Clayton) Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) (JF Mezei) Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) (Pelliccio) Re: Yet Another "Backhoe" Telecom Outage (Anthony Argyriou) Re: Recording ADPCM Files (John S. Maddaus) Digital Big Brother Poses Threat to Consumer Privacy (Monty Solomon) A Problem About Q.822 (Simon CaiMao) Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance of Overlays in Calif (Linc Madison) Payphone Surcharges on Wrong Numbers (Carl Navarro) Re: AT&T Raised Fees Again (Matthew Black) Re: Best Answering Machine With Caller ID? Logging Calls? (Brian A Doreste) Re: How to Identify a Wireless Number? (Frank Pizer) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christopher_Herot@lotus.com (Chris Herot) Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:26:29 -0400 Even if you prefer to have your purchases deducted immediately from your account instead of enjoying the float, I would think twice about carrying a debit card. In all states your maximum liablity if your credit card is stolen is $50, even if you never report it as lost. If you do report it immediately your liability is zero. Most banks will waive the $50 in any case. The bank immediately cancels the erroneous charges and sends you a new card. With a debit card, your liability is much higher, potentially unlimited. In Massachusetts, where the state law limits your liability to $50, you still need to fight with the bank to get your money back. The presumption is that you spent it until the bank is persuaded that the card was stolen. ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 20:14:32 -0400 Scott Robert Dawson wrote: > Does this 'check card' behave differently from a Canadian debit card? Yes, very. Interac in Canada, EFTPOS in Australia (and New Zealand) use your ATM card with your ATM PIN number. In canada, Interac is an association of member banks. There is no "risk" associated with frauds and the merchant. The merchant either gets his money right away or never gets it. (money is directly transfered into his merchant account as soon as transaction is OKed). From what I was told, the VISA check card is processed/handled by merchants as credit card transactions. As such, I would assume that the merchant's credit card processing fees (% of sales) is taken out and you have the various aspects of getting an authorisation etc etc. It is unclear to me though what happens with the customer's money. I assume it is taken out right away because of the authorisation, but it is unclear who holds that money until the merchant claims it. The cardholder' bank ? VISA ? The merchant's bank ? What I found astounding in a recent trip through New York state is that at convenience stores, I saw "ATM-like" machines next to the cash registers where you could insert you card and PIN, and the amount, and for a rather large transaction fee, the owner of the ATM machine would print a receipt you could present to the merchant in lieu of real cash (assuming merchant then gets his money when he presents such a receipt?). If countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand (the later two well before Canada) can get their act together and present a unified nationwide EFTPOS network, how come the USA hasn't done it yet ? You'll note that Interac in canada is an association with loose membership requirements. (As opposed to Canadian Bankers' Association where only banks are allowed to be members). Interac has no bias towards VISA or MASTERCARD and groups institutions of both "religions". When Interac (debit) was rolled out in Canada, any merchant wishing to support it had to have its POS terminals upgraded to include the PIN pad so that the cardholder can enter his PIN. (same in other countries that have nationla POS networks). What percentage of stores in the USA have PIN pads attached to their POS terminals ? ------------------------------ From: Johnnie Leung Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View on Net Commerce) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:54:04 -0700 Organization: Netcom Jon Carpenter wrote in message: > But you're protected just like you are for a credit card. This is > on the MasterCard web site at > http://www.mastercard.com/ourcards/consumer/wave.html Okay, if someone cleaned out my checking account before I report my card missing, will the bank refund my money immediately (less the '$50 maximum liability')? And what about interest charges and penalties as a result of bounced cheques? Johnnie Leung ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 01:39:36 -0400 Andrew (andrew@3.1415926.org) wrote: "It is standard practice for many restaurants and clubs to pre- authorize $500 on the credit cards of people who want to run a tab. The local radio consumer advocate in Atlanta, Clark Howard has gotten innumerable complaints from people who have bounced checks as a result of these large authorizations. IIRC it takes about a week for the authorizations to expire." There have also been reports of this sort of thing being done by car rental companies when a customer declines the "loss damage waiver" that the companies sell as an option -- which often puts the customer very close to his credit limit, at the worst possible time. ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 10:33:35 GMT Organization: Customer of Connect.com.au Pty. Ltd. Reply-To: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Fred Goldstein contributed the following: > At 02:28 PM 7/25/1999 -0400, David Clayton dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au > wrote: >> Australia just recently completed changing to a uniform 8 digit local >> numbering plan with reasonably little inconvenience. >> The previous numbering plan was conceived in the early 1960's and had >> reached the end of it's efficient usability, the new one was >> conceived with engineering, commercial as well as user issues in mind >> and should (hopefully) cope with the rapidly changing telecom situa- >> tion for another 20 years. >> There was some minor "pain" involved, but the gains should be worth >> it. > Typical view from somebody unfamiliar with the North American > Numbering Plan. Though it's worse when an American says it, since > they should know better. ..... (Stuff cut about why it's too hard to change) > This is all somewhat complex, but it does "work", unlike just going to > 8 digits. But no matter what is done, the changes *within* the > network are only the start of it. The changes required in data bases, > cash registers, modems, alarms, payrolls, and other embedded code that > has 3-3-4 in it will indeed give the Y2K programmers an even bigger > new project to work on. I don't remembering saying anything about why the US should now change their numbering scheme, I simply pointed out that Australia just managed to change theirs with relatively little hassle. If North America want to keep old technology going as an excuse to keep the existing system, then the problems people are experiencing are just going to get worse until the inevitable change occurs. It is really just a matter of how much pain people, (and business) will endure until the situation is resolved. Most North American Telco manufacturers are making equipment which is flexible enough to be used in the other places that have made these changes, so the technology is readily available. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:57:54 -0400 Fred Goldstein wrote: > The NANP is Different from what the rest of the world users. It is a > strict DETERMINISTIC-LENGTH plan. EVERY telephone number is in a > 3-3-4 pattern. But there are exceptions when you dial internationally, the switches do pass on whatever number of digits you are dialing. Furthermore, if 3-3-4 is going to be exhausted, will North America have a choice? Sounds to me like they may have to add a digit. Perhaps begin today by adding a 0 to all telephone numbers in existence. Dialing that extra 0 won't hurt, right? And as switches get upgraded to handle 8 digits then the 0 starts to become important. Once all switches are upgraded to handle 8 digits, you can then start to issue phone numbers with a different non-0 last digit. ------------------------------ From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 00:44:13 GMT In article , kamlet@infinet.com says: > In article , Fred Goldstein > wrote: >> This is all somewhat complex, but it does "work", unlike just going to >> 8 digits. But no matter what is done, the changes *within* the >> network are only the start of it. The changes required in data bases, >> cash registers, modems, alarms, payrolls, and other embedded code that >> has 3-3-4 in it will indeed give the Y2K programmers an even bigger >> new project to work on. > I believe in the not too distant future the phone itself will always > encode the number being called, or people will carry around tiny > address book/dialers so you just have to press "Howard" and it will go > through. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I had understood the official 'start > up' of the new IP addressing scheme was earlier this month, although > it may be some time before anyone notices it to any degree. PAT] In other words, DNS'ing phone numbers. It'd still require too much money to implement. Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ From: anthony@alphageo.com (Anthony Argyriou) Subject: Re: Yet Another "Backhoe" Telecom Outage Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 00:36:31 GMT Organization: Alpha Geotechnical Reply-To: anthony@alphageo.com anthony@alphageo.com (Anthony Argyriou) wrote: >> (Did you know they pipe nitrogen all over Silicon Valley?) sunspace@interlog.com.placeholder (Scott Robert Dawson) wrote: > Why? It's cheaper than building on-site plants. Air Products has a big plant in an industrial area of San Jose or Santa Clara, real close to the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct (I was working on a project involving finding most of the lines which crossed the aqueduct.) The claim was that breaking a nitrogen line would cost on the order of a million dollars -- maybe because they're not a "public utility" and don't have the liability limitations that power, water, gas, etc., do. Imagine being the person who wrecked a major chip-maker's clean room ... Anthony Argyriou ------------------------------ From: jmaddaus@NO_SPAM.usa.net (John S. Maddaus) Subject: Re: Recording ADPCM Files Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 02:21:00 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Reply-To: jmaddaus@NO_SPAM.usa.net ctiguy@my-deja.com wrote: > So the question finally is ... does anyone know of a way to create > ADPCM sound files that sound good when played back over phone > equipment. I expect a hardware card would be the way to go, something > that can accept line-in input although if someone know of a software > package that can convert from WAV to ADPCM and take into account the > phone limitation thats playing the sounds ... that would be good too. Is it the Dialogic cards that require ADPCM or are you running "wrap-around" software that needs this format? I ran into this problem several years ago using Natural Micro Systems cards while building an IVR. We went through the trouble of hiring a voice, paying for studio grade recordings on a cassette and then discovering that the Edify software we used to create the IVR application was incapable of accepting any format voice (wav or otherwise) because all voice messages needed to be input through a phone connected to the NMS cards. The result -- we had to play our high quality voice back on a cheap tape player and record through the mic on the phone. Since our IVR was located in a noisy server room (AC, UPS, etc.) one person had to stand outside the door, dial into the IVR while the other started and stopped the recording procedure on the server. What a mess. However, I do think Edify addressed this issue in later releases so that one could simply input a wav file. Might want to check with your software vendor, or look at some of the low cost IVR development alternatives that work with Dialogic for this capability. Sorry I couldn't be of more help but I know your frustration. jmaddaus@usa.net ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 00:03:50 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Digital Big Brother Poses Threat to Consumer Privacy Deborah Solomon, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, July 26, 1999 San Francisco Chronicle It's 2001 and you're surfing the Net, looking for information on breast cancer to help your mom, who's recently found a lump. You buy a book, check out some Web sites, even go to a chat room on the subject. A few days later, your new employer has some bad news: Your health coverage has been denied because of a ``pre-existing condition'' -- breast cancer. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/07/26/BU56448.DTL ------------------------------ Reply-To: Simon CaiMao From: Simon CaiMao Subject: A Problem About Q.822 Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 09:45:42 +0800 Organization: DSET In Q.822 4.3.2.14, "In some cases the actual values set in the 'counterthresholdAttributeList' or 'gaugethresholdAttributeList' may be different from the requested values for the threshold. In this case, the next lowest threshold value supported by the managed system is used." I wondered what the "next lowest" means. For 'gaugethreshold', there couldn't be a lowest threshold. Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 03:46:16 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance of Overlays in California In article , John Nagle wrote: > dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) writes: >> nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) contributed the following: >>> What we really need to do is to go to eight digit local numbers, like >>> France and Japan did years ago. >> Australia just recently completed changing to a uniform 8 digit local >> numbering plan with reasonably little inconvenience. > Yes. France and Japan made the transition about a decade ago. It > can be done. It would get us twenty years of stable phone numbers. > The usual transition plan is that it's announced that it's going > to happen about four years out. All existing numbers are translated > to new ones by adding a new first digit which is the same for all > existing numbers, there's a permissive dialing period of a year or > two, and then a hard cutover. It would probably have about as much > impact as an area code split, except that commercial software would be > written to understand the transition. *Sigh* We go through this every few months. No, North America *CANNOT* go to eight-digit numbers. Not in any time frame like four years. Not for any reasonable cost. Think in terms of $150 billion, and THEN add in the costs to end users. In short, ------------------------------ From: cnavarro@wcnet.org (Carl Navarro) Subject: Payphone Surcharges on Wrong Numbers Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 12:04:51 GMT Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America Yesterday was the day I snapped. My 800 number is the same as the local number for American Airlines Paging at O'Hare Airport. I've had my 800 number for 12 years, so don't even think of suggesting a number change. The short story is that I now get to pay about 40 cents per call for wrong numbers from payphone customers who believe Airport paging is an 800 number. My carrier says I owe it because I'm responsible for all wrong numbers, but they can either block all payphone calls, or certain area codes. (Great, how about all payphones except from certain area codes!) Anyway, my argument is why should payphone operators benefit from mis-dialings on phone numbers that cost them nothing? This is driving up the cost of 800 service to pre-divestiture levels. Carl Navarro ------------------------------ From: black@csulb.edu (Matthew Black) Subject: Re: AT&T Raised Fees Again Date: 27 Jul 1999 14:22:12 GMT In article , thrak@swbell.net says: > AT&T recently raised their PICC and USF fees on my residential > line. They used to be $.85 for PICC and $.93 for USF. Now they're > $1.51 and $.99 respectively. Do they charge business customers these > fees? Is so, do they charge the same as their residential customers? Sprint has done the same: $1.50 for residential customers. That fee is double my monthly average IXC usage. -----------------------------(c) 1999 Matthew Black, all rights reserved-- matthew black | Opinions expressed herein belong to me and network & systems specialist | may not reflect those of my employer california state university | network services SSA-180E | e-mail: black at csulb dot edu 1250 bellflower boulevard | PGP fingerprint: 6D 14 36 ED 5F 34 C4 B3 long beach, ca 90840 | E9 1E F3 CB E7 65 EE BC ------------------------------ From: bdoreste@telecom-digest.zzn.com (Brian A Doreste) Subject: Re: Best Answering Machine With Caller ID? Logging Calls? Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 14:59:22 GMT Organization: University of Delaware On Mon, 26 Jul 1999 15:18:17 GMT, stobbe(@)earthlink.net (Tim Stobbe) wrote: > Will any of these machines log all incoming calls? I know there is > some software available to do this, but I would have to leave my > computer running 24/7 while out of town. I was considering the > Microsoft phone, but I found out it will not be supported in > win2000. Figures. Hands down, the Nortel M9516, the M9516CW with call waiting caller id, or the super phone M9617 with the USB connection to your computer are the best digital answering machines with (talking!) caller id. http://www1.nortelnetworks.com/entprods/phones/us/meridian.html Brian A Doreste school email: bdoreste 'at' copland.udel.edu 74 E Cleveland Ave Apt 2 work email: bdoreste 'at' mail.dot.state.de.us Newark, DE 19711-2247 USA Univ of Delaware Civil Engineering Undergraduate Usual disclaimers apply Delaware Dept of Transportation|Traffic Ops/Mgmt ------------------------------ From: bidscan@mypad.com (Frank Pizer) Subject: Re: How to Identify a Wireless Number? Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 16:43:36 GMT On Wed, 21 Jul 1999 16:12:24 -0400, in comp.dcom.telecom was written: > Do any of the listers have specific knowledge as to how wireless > telephone numbers (as opposed to land line telephone numbers) are > identified in Australia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, > Switzerland, Spain, the U.K., Belgium, etc.? Here in South Africa we have the following "wireless" prefixes. 081 - The old analogue radio-phones from pre-GSM cell days - so far as I know this is now run by the holders of the 082 prefix (if it hasn't been killed off) 082 - GSM network "VODACOM" 083 - GSM network "MTN" There are moves afoot for a third GSM network, and I presume this will be 084. All normal GSM cell calls in this country are "Caller pays". I'm not sure about the 081 Analogue system, but probably the same. Cheers, Frank Pizer ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #255 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jul 27 23:17:47 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id XAA23448; Tue, 27 Jul 1999 23:17:47 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 23:17:47 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907280317.XAA23448@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #256 TELECOM Digest Tue, 27 Jul 99 23:17:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 256 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (TELECOM Digest Editor) eBay Tries to Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco (TELECOM Digest Editor) USF and PICC Charges (Re: AT&T Raised Fees Again) (Linc Madison) 500 & 900 Portability, Toll Free Issues, and 555 Reclamation (Linc Madison) When/When Not to Dial '1' (Jim Sielaff) LD Tel Company ACT (Stan U.) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View on Net Commerce) (J.F. Mezei) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Pete Weiss) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Graeme Thomas) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Steven Sobol) Turkish Pre-Paid Sim Card Without Subscription and GSM (timi@casema.net) Re: No PIC Selection Question (Mike Fox) Re: "Bright Light" POP Spam Filtering: A Bad Idea (Adam Frix) Re: Last Laugh! Dead Cow DOA (Steven W. Smith) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 17:36:32 PDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The following story, and many more like it are available each day at no charge from http://telecom-digest/news which is our online daily news service. Here is just another example of how corporate America -- which as far as I am concerned has no place on the net anyway -- is seeking to pervert and completely change the way things have always been done here. The purpose of the World Wide Web has always been that everyone could be linked to everyone else. But then along came the big corporations, and they decided they would take over and have things their way. More on this after the article. PAT] W I R E D N E W S - - - - - - - - - - Universal: Don't Link to Us by Oscar S. Cisneros A Web site that aggregates links to movie trailers online has come under fire from a major movie studio that says the links infringe on its copyrights. "Every time someone posts something on the Internet it's now for public viewing and most of the time I'm just pointing to the address," said Jean-Pierre Bazinet, owner of Movie-List. "I don't see how you can copyright or make restrictions on posting an address." Bazinet, whose site features links to externally hosted movie trailers, received a letter from Universal Studios representatives asking him to cease linking to movie trailers on their Web servers. "[Y]ou are not permitted to link to other sites that contain our copyrighted material without our authorization," the company wrote. "Accordingly, you must remove all images from our films as well as links to other sites that have our servers." Movie-List's legal scuffling with Universal began almost six months ago when a Universal representative contacted Bazinet and asked him to quit using the movie studio's digitized movie previews. Bazinet had no objections and removed the trailers from his Web servers and CD-ROM collections. "Then they contacted me and said I wasn't allowed to link to any of their servers containing the trailers -- that I don't understand," he said. "I'm basically sending a user to their servers." Citing a policy against discussing legal matters in action, Universal declined to comment on the matter. Legal experts did comment, however, saying the legal landscape surrounding deep linking, or hyperlinking deep into another's Web page, is fraught with unpaved ways. "The question of deep linking is unsettled in the law right now," said David Hayes, chair of the intellectual property group at the law firm Fenwick West. Since no court has ruled on the issue, a guiding precedent has not been established to govern who has the right to link deep into the Web site of another person or company. Some major Web-site owners contend that because they have a lot invested in their pages they should dictate who can and who can't link into their site. Others, however, contend that they have as much right to direct users to a specific Web page as they do to point out a billboard on the street. "It's a pretty broad issue because, as you know, linking is ubiquitous on the Web," Hayes said. Although there are no major court decisions on record, Hayes said a series of settlements in deep linking cases have established a trend. "They were settled by the defendant agreeing to link only to the main page," he said. For example, when Ticketmaster sued Microsoft for deep linking from its Sidewalk.com site, the software giant eventually backed down. The parties settled out of court, with Microsoft agreeing not to deep link into Ticketmaster's site. Ticketmaster's main complaint was that users hyperlinking deep into its site were missing several banner ads they would have seen if they had entered through the frontdoor, Hayes said. "They felt they were getting harmed in their ad revenues -- they weren't getting as many eyeballs," he said. Microsoft, meanwhile, argued its links were a First Amendment right. Legal experts were watching as Ticketmaster and Microsoft duked it out. Had the companies fought to the end, the decision in their trial might have cleared the fog surrounding the issue. One expert watching the trial was Jeffery Kuester, an Internet law specialist who maintains his own law and technology resource page called KuesterLaw. "The Web's not the Web if you can't link," he said. But where the line should be drawn between the right to link and the right to protect one's intellectual property is for the courts to decide, he added. The trailer links on Movie-List technically point to other servers, but only mark the pages as studio content. Kuester says the average user is likely to be confused, because the trailers appear to be part of Movie-List's pages. Both Kuester and Hayes agreed that while HTML originally facilitated deep linking from one scholar's footnote to the original academic source, people shouldn't abuse it. "I think [restricting deep links] does subvert the philosophy on which the Web was founded," Fenwick's Hayes said. He pointed out that although copy machines were designed to make copies, not all reproductions are legal. Wired News is a real-time news service offering news briefs and in-depth reporting on politics, business, culture, and technology. For the most up-to-date coverage on the digital world, go to ... http://telecom-digest.org/news to read Wired News reports. Copyright 1999 Wired Digital, Inc. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So they openly admit the main problem seems to be if you go directly to their content, they are unable to bombard you with advertising messages on the way. Perhaps they are also unable to sneak that cookie at you as well. Ooooh, they have a real problem don't they! My heart bleeds for them. It would be an entirely different matter if a web site yanked the copyrighted content of some other site back to its own premises, deceptively claimed that it owned the content, etc, or if they put the content up from their own server along with their own advertising, etc. But if you put it on a web server then it is **public** and open for review by anyone who wishes to read it. Universal and a few other major corporations I could name had better come to grips with the way things work on the net. If they do not like it, they are free to shut down their web sites and vanish. One thing I hope netizens will not allow to happen is for Big Business to decide they are going to start setting the rules around here. We are seeing a lot of this already. I feel strongly enough about this issue that I am going to begin a new feature here as soon as I can called /freestuff ... and the way it will work is this: users who wish to do so can supply me with so-called 'deep page' URLs for promotion. On the /freestuff page I will link to that address. There are certain rules to be followed including (1) *do not* claim it is your own work; do not cause any copyright/patent/trademark indicia to be obliterated. (2) Do not send me anything which requires *payment*. (For example, many sites first require payment, then on reciept send you to a deep-page where the presentation is given; ie. porn sites. I do not want that.) I am not interested in depriving an author or creative person of money from the sale of their endeavor, so do not send me those. (3) Do not send me deep pages from Bank One where customer's financial records are available, etc. Yes, they are that stupid at Bank One, but I do not want to invade anyone's privacy. What you *can* send me for the /freestuff page are movie trailers, music videos, radio/television stations which have a specific URL for their .ram/.rpi/.avi output to the net, etc. Any company which has *promotional, public* material on their own web site which you feel is important to share with everyone on the net, without having to wade through a minefield of cookies, banner advertisements, Geocities style pop-up windows and the like is eligible for inclusion. Your short, one paragraph text will accompany the link as a description. It might read like this: what it is links to (what it is) at Rude Corporation. This (type of media) displays (whatever). All copyrights, trademarks, etc belong to the entities named within. Since this URL is connected to the World Wide Web, it is publicly available for viewing by netizens. Rude Corporation does not charge to view this (type of media), and does not require registration or a password to participate at its site. This link is an exercise of my free-speech, pointing to a World Wide Web resource on public display. Any commercial site which does not like my new policy here is free to use javascript to document-refer my link back to their starting page, or redirect my referrals to some snotty reply if that is how they wish to treat their visitors. Any attorney who wishes to sue me is welcome to send service to me at PO Box 765, Junction City, KS 66441-0765. Don't worry, I always sign for my mail. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 14:22:26 -0400 (EDT) From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: eBay Tries to Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Just one more reason to be very leary about e-commerce. This report appeared in http://telecom-digest.org/news on Tuesday morning. PAT] ------------------ eBay Tries To Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco 10:35 am EDT, 27 July 1999 By Bruce Simpson eBay, the online auction house is trying to hush-up reports of a scam that is forcing many people to part with their items for far less than the amount they might have otherwise received. The scam, called "bid shielding" revolves around the ability for someone to place a very high bid on an item and withdraw it just moments before the auction closes. The fraudster first makes a minimal bid, often only a fraction of what the item is worth and then, using a different identity, makes a bid for far more than the item is actually worth. They now effectively "own" the item -- since it is unlikely that anyone will outbid the higher offer. To complete the fraud, the bidder simply withdraws their high bid moments before the auction closes -- leaving insufficient time for anyone else to better their lower bid. Under the terms of the eBay service, if the low bid exceeds the seller's reserve then they are obliged to complete the sale -- possibly receiving far less than the fair market value they might otherwise have obtained. One eBay user who has fallen victim to this scam is Jason Hamilton who was so outraged that he created http://mars.superlink.net/jason/ebay/ protesting eBay's inability to adequately police this behavior. In what would appear to be an admission by eBay that they are all but powerless to solve the problem, Hamilton quotes an email from the online auctioneer that states: "PLEASE, do not give out the details of this, as it will only cause more users to try it, why add to the workload and potentially cause problems for other sellers." Hamilton believes eBay's attitude is unsatisfactory and suggests that a solution to the problem could be to disallow bidders to retract bids. eBay, although an Internet high-flyer and darling of the stock market has had numerous problems during its brief lifetime -- facing numerous hardware glitches and crashes as well as law suit for patent infringement plus NYC and federal government investigations in relation to potentially illegal transactions through its service. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 15:58:59 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: USF and PICC charges (Re: AT&T Raised Fees Again) In article , Matthew Black wrote: > In article , thrak@swbell.net says: >> AT&T recently raised their PICC and USF fees on my residential >> line. They used to be $.85 for PICC and $.93 for USF. Now they're >> $1.51 and $.99 respectively. Do they charge business customers these >> fees? Is so, do they charge the same as their residential customers? > Sprint has done the same: $1.50 for residential customers. That fee > is double my monthly average IXC usage. What I found extraordinarily galling is that Telco (101-0297, and no, I *DON'T* mean 1010-297, because not all 101 codes begin with 1010) charges a minimum of 63 cents/month/line for USF on *DIALAROUND* access! I made a whopping total of TWO calls, for a total of 22 cents, and was charged 63 cents in USF charge. I consider that consumer fraud, since Telco did not in fact contribute that 63 cents to any Universal Service Fund. (Their actual contribution was in the neighborhood of ONE CENT.) Not only that, but they retroactively billed me the USF charge for the previous billing cycle and overbilled the federal tax (4 cents tax on 22 cents billing? Wrong!). As for the PICC charge, first of all, some dialaround companies have been billing that, even though it absolutely does not apply. However, the amount was raised and will continue to increase "until the PICC and SLC cover the entire interstate portion of the cost of providing telephone service." Well, excuse me, FCC, but there is no separable interstate cost of providing my local loop. There is an FCC docket open for comments on this subject. I encourage everyone to look at "FCC Opens Inquiry into Flat-Rated L.D. Fees": ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 16:43:51 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: 500 & 900 Portability, Toll Free Issues, and 555 Reclamation In article , Judith Oppenheimer wrote: > Lord, it must have been late -- did I write 866, 855 and 844? Please > make a correction - it's 844, 833 and 822 ... sorry ... > INC is eyeballing toll free number use ... Responding to an OBF/SNAC > request for INC to release 866, 855 and 844 codes to it > simultaneously, INC asked SNAC to explain the rapid depletion of toll > free numbers, asking for info regarding the usage of codes and why so > many had been used; asked if the Guidelines for Toll Free Number > Administration include any audit provisions and if so, whether an > audit had been scheduled or performed; and asked SNAC to clarify its > request for simultaneous release of three codes for numbering > assignment. I thought that 866 was in fact next in line. I can see perhaps skipping over 855 because of the special status of 800-855-xxxx, but I still don't see the logic of opening three 8NN codes at once, especially since that would leave only two in that sequence. Even if we reserve the other 88X codes, we're still depleting the numbering space pretty rapidly. (It would also raise issues of confusion with ordinary NPAs of the form 8X8, since consumers would have to know that any code beginning with 8 and with two or more *consecutive* identical digits is toll-free, but 8X8 is not toll-free. Hawaii and Los Angeles probably won't pose much of a problem, but Asheville NC, La Jolla, and especially Trinidad & Tobago might. I got a spam today with an 828 number to buy their magnificent product, and I had to stop and think where that was; a consumer faced with 800, 888, 877, 822, 882, etc., could easily think it was toll-free.) I certainly hope that the Coca-Cola Corporation is poised to snap up 822-474-7328 and other like numbers as soon as they are available. (Left as an exercise to the reader... ;^P I'm sure you can come up with a snappier slogan, though.) My alma mater might be interested in 844-372-5867. And Alex Winter might want 833-263-2455, to get top billing for a change. ------------------------------ From: Jim Sielaff Subject: When/When Not to Dial '1' Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 18:37:27 -0400 Organization: Newsfeeds.com http://www.newsfeeds.com I work for a large nationwide company which has PBX's in several hundred US cities. My problem has to do with the task of administering local dialing rules in the individual PBX's. For example, in Miami (305) all local calls are 10D (NPA 305, 786, and part of 954) However, a portion of NPA 954 is toll and requires a '1'. Does anyone know of a searchable database which indicates a 'local' or 'toll' call from a particular NPA-NXX? I tried checking out the Bell South web site to see if they would show what is a local and toll call out of Miami -- but no luck! The local phone directory has it but it is outdated before it hits the street. James Sielaff New York, NY phoneman@bway.net ------------------------------ From: stanri@yahooREMOVETHISPART.com (Stan U.) Subject: LD Tel Company ACT Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 22:54:10 GMT Organization: @Home Network Has anyone had any experience with this long distant company, (Advanced Communications Techniques, Inc) either good or bad. http://advanced-communication.com/ Their rates seem good, and they claim good things. But in these days, who can tell Like everyone else, I hate spam. To reply, remove the "REMOVETHISPART" from the email address. ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View on Net Commerce) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 21:29:13 -0400 Johnnie Leung wrote: > Okay, if someone cleaned out my checking account before I report my > card missing, will the bank refund my money immediately (less the '$50 > maximum liability')? And what about interest charges and penalties as > a result of bounced cheques? With a true EFTPOS card, no because it is your responsability to keep the PIN secret. If however, a VISA check card can be used without a PIN number, then I would expect the bank to handle fraud losses in the ssame was as a real VISA credit card. ------------------------------ From: pete-weiss@psu.edu (Pete Weiss) Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 15:16:59 -0400 Organization: Penn State University -- Office of Administrative Systems On Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:26:29 -0400, Christopher_Herot@lotus.com (Chris Herot) wrote: > Even if you prefer to have your purchases deducted immediately from your > account instead of enjoying the float, I would think twice about carrying > a debit card. In all states your maximum liablity if your credit card is > stolen is $50, even if you never report it as lost. If you do report it > immediately your liability is zero. Most banks will waive the $50 in any > case. The bank immediately cancels the erroneous charges and sends you a > new card. Furthermore, you don't run the risk of "bounced" checks (just lack of credit) and all that that implies. (This assumes that your CC does not automatically debit your checking account at the end of the billing cycle.) Pete ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 21:43:19 +0100 From: Graeme Thomas Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) In article , Andrew writes > It is standard practice for many restaurants and clubs to pre-authorize > $500 on the credit cards of people who want to run a tab. The local > radio consumer advocate in Atlanta, Clark Howard has gotten > innumerable complaints from people who have bounced checks as a result > of these large authorizations. IIRC it takes about a week for the > authorizations to expire. It's both better and worse than that. The authorizations normally take much longer (45 days is typical) to expire. However, as soon as a real transaction goes though using the authorization code give on the initial auth, the remainder of the funds are unblocked immediately. Graeme Thomas ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: 27 Jul 1999 19:07:02 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:26:29 -0400, Christopher_Herot@lotus.com allegedly said: > With a debit card, your liability is much higher, potentially unlimited. > In Massachusetts, where the state law limits your liability to $50, you > still need to fight with the bank to get your money back. The presumption > is that you spent it until the bank is persuaded that the card was stolen. With a traditional (non-Visa, non-MC) debit card, if the person who took your card doesn't know your PIN, they're not going to get your money anyhow. North Shore Technologies Corporation http://www.NorthShoreTechnologies.net We don't just build websites; we build relationships! 815 Superior Ave. #610, Cleveland, OH 44114-2702 216.619.2NET 888.480.4NET Host of the Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail http://www.spamfree.org ------------------------------ From: Subject: Turkish Pre-Paid Sim Card Without Subscription and GSM Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 16:52:41 +0200 Hello, I would like to know how to obtain a Turkish Pre-Paid Sim card without a subscription and excluding a mobile phone. Telsim (one of the two mobile operators in Turkey) offers a "Pratik Hat starters Kit" without subscription. This can only be bought attached to a handset whose brand and model is already defined. For this mobile you have to pay extra. http://www.telsim.com.tr/ I already have a GSM suitable for DCS 900-1800 without simlock and a simcard. Thanks for answering. Timicoke E-mail Address(es): timi@casema.net Nederlands: Hallo, Graag zou ik willen weten hoe ik een turkse pre-paid pakket kan krijgen zonder een abonnement en zonder telefoon (te kopen in Turkije). Ik heb daarvoor dus alleen de Sim card met een nieuw nummer nodig. Telsim een van de twee mobiele aanbieders biedt zo'n pakket wel aan onder de naam Pratik Hat maar dan moet je gelijk een telefoon aanschaffen die zij uitkiezen en daarvoor betaal je ook nog apart. De telefoon geschikt voor DCS 900-1800 zonder sim lock heb ik al. Heeft iemand suggesties voor als ik naar Turkije ga. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 19:27:51 -0400 From: Mike Fox Subject: Re: No PIC Selection Question Ed Ellers wrote: > Linc Madison (LincMad001@telecom-digest.zzn.com) wrote: >> If you do drop it altogether, your local carrier will bill you directly >> for a monthly fee. However, it's significantly lower than $3/month." > I believe it was 53 cents/month. As of my July billing cycle, it just went up to $1.07/month (BellSouth, anyway). Mike "We're not against ideas. We're against people spreading them." (General Augusto Pinochet of Chile) ------------------------------ From: adamf@nospam.columbus.rr.com (Adam Frix) Subject: Re: "Bright Light" POP Spam Filtering: A Bad Idea Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 21:23:36 -0400 Organization: Road Runner Columbus In article , nospam@elmhurst.msg.net (nospam) wrote: > I have a problem with how they do things, as a system administrator I > block Bright Light and all similar services from any POP server under > my control. Any user who gives out their password to ANY 'untrusted > third party' has to call to find out what their password has been > changed to, or in a corp environment, has an interesting conversation > with their supervisor. You're worried about the user's password being used by unauthorized users to gain access to your network? Is that the *only* security mechanism you have for dialup? User name and password?????? Sounds lame to me. VERY lame. If security is an issue, passwords by themselves suck. Get SecurID. I can give out my network password all day long. And nobody can dial up and become me to get onto our network. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 10:45:27 MST From: Steven W. Smith Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Dead Cow DOA Granted, even the misinformed have a right to their opinions. It's my suggestion that you may want to become better informed about "Back Orifice" and the cDc. I've downloaded the application and the source code from their site. Unlike the CD, it wasn't infected with anything. If you can pry your foot from your mouth and do some checking from impartial sources, you may be surprised to find that BO2K is exactly what it's advertised to be: a management tool that's "done right", complete with source code. Note also that BO2K doesn't contain any "malicious features" that aren't included in Microsoft's own SMS software. The difference is that BO2K is many orders of magnitude smaller, tighter, more secure (3DES rather than M$'s plaintext) and best of all, Free with Source Code. I'd hoped to give you the URL to a "trade rag" style comparison of several of the comercial products that compete with BO2K but I've misplaced it -- my imprecise recollection is that SMS costs about $900 and uses 15MB or so of disk space. BO2K is free, under 1MB. BTW, wasn't it Microsoft who gave Word macro viruses their big break by distributing many thousands of infected CDs to their _paying_ customers? :-D Have a nice day, Steven W. Smith, Systems Programmer Glendale Community College. Glendale Az. syssws@gc.maricopa.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #256 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jul 28 11:22:05 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id LAA13327; Wed, 28 Jul 1999 11:22:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 11:22:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907281522.LAA13327@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #257 TELECOM Digest Wed, 28 Jul 99 11:22:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 257 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) (JF Mezei) Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) (T Horsley) Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) (L Madison) Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) (Goldstein) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View on Net Commerce) (Sam) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Geoff Dyer) Re: 500 & 900 Portability, Toll Free Issues, and 555 (Judith Oppenheimer) Secret Surfing (Ralph Seberry) Re: Yet Another "Backhoe" Telecom Outage (Geoff Dyer) Re: Assignment of Country Code for Palestine (Linc Madison) Re: Payphone Surcharges on Wrong Numbers (Linc Madison) Re: USF and PICC Charges (Eli Mantel) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 21:42:44 -0400 An addition to my suggestion of making phone numbers IP adresses: With a single IP address per "home", one could provide a whole suite of services on the single line by defining various ports. ( port xx for inbound voice calls, port yy for inbound faxes, and standard IP ports for the IP applications (pop, smtp, web etc). Tony Pelliccio wrote: > In other words, DNS'ing phone numbers. It'd still require too much money > to implement. But it is already implemented for 800 numbers, isn't it? Just a question of performance/capacity and having proper distribution. David Clayton wrote: > If North America want to keep old technology going as an excuse to keep > the existing system, then the problems people are experiencing are just > going to get worse until the inevitable change occurs. I agree. I think it might be simpler to do one big change over a period of a year or so (adding a digit) then going on with the constant number reshufflings that have become impossible to keep track of. How much do these constant changes cost industry in reprinting stationary, reprinting adresse books etc etc ? By the time the inevitable comes up and numbering must be dramatically changed, how much will industry have wasted on constant area code changes only to have to begin again with a (finally) permanent solution? Now, I am wondering. Could North America change its numbering plan to something *really* different. How about making telephone numbers IP adresses in the new IP adressing scheme? The possibilities in the future would be very interesting if smart phones were just IP nodes. ------------------------------ From: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Subject: Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) Date: 27 Jul 1999 16:44:04 -0400 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services > But there are exceptions when you dial internationally, the switches > do pass on whatever number of digits you are dialing. Hey! That would work! All we have to do is add a new country. There's the good old ordinary NANP USA that we have today, then there's the flexible dialing new and improved USA which you dial numbers in by making what looks like international calls if your number is in one version of the USA and the number you're calling is in the other. >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have suggested for quite some time that just as we have repeatedly divided existing area codes into several parts over the years we now do the same to the USA country code of '1'. For the sake of argument, put the eastern USA into 'country code' '11' and the western USA into '12'. Instead of 'country code' it would be referred to as 'zone code'. To dial within our own 'zone'just dial the seven, ten or eleven digits as always. To dial to the other zone, treat it technically like an 'international call' and dial 011 plus 11 or 011 plus 12 and the ten digit number. This would resemble what happens when someone in another country presently calls the USA: they dial the code in their country which indicates an inter- national call is being placed, plus the existing USA code of '1' and the desired ten digit number. This would take no hardware changes in the switches and very little software changing. The switches would think of it as just another 'country' that was recently dialable. Consider it a lot like the change in recent years from the use of '7' covering all of the former Soviet Union to a bunch of other codes covering the various former parts of the S.U. which now have their own codes instead. It would happen a lot the same way for the transition. Permissive dialing would allow either way of addressing ('1' or '11'/'12') to work for a period of time. After permissive dialing had ended, the remaining supply of unused codes would be parcelled out to each 'zone' for use according to the original intention for that number until the existing supply was exhausted. Then -- hopefully at least a few years away -- each 'zone' would be free to begin replicating existing codes from the other zone. This would also solve the 'what to do with the Caribbean islands' problem since instead of just having country codes 11 and 12, it could easily enough go all the way up to 19 with Canada getting one for present needs, and one to expand with; the islands getting one for present needs and one to expand with; and the USA getting the remaining five. Canada would have no complaints, since the code '1' had ceased to exist for everyone at the same time. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 17:05:51 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) In article , J.F. Mezei wrote: > Fred Goldstein wrote: >> The NANP is Different from what the rest of the world users. It is a >> strict DETERMINISTIC-LENGTH plan. EVERY telephone number is in a >> 3-3-4 pattern. > But there are exceptions when you dial internationally, the switches > do pass on whatever number of digits you are dialing. > Furthermore, if 3-3-4 is going to be exhausted, will North America > have a choice? Sounds to me like they may have to add a digit. > Perhaps begin today by adding a 0 to all telephone numbers in > existence. Dialing that extra 0 won't hurt, right? And as switches > get upgraded to handle 8 digits then the 0 starts to become > important. Once all switches are upgraded to handle 8 digits, you can > then start to issue phone numbers with a different non-0 last digit. See . Really. Please read that page before making any suggestions as to how we could go to 8-digit numbers, because most of them have already been dealt with. In short, the biggest problem with this technique is that it provides remarkably little increase in capacity, because now, instead of wasting numbers 10,000 at a time for each little CLEC in a rate center, we'd waste those numbers 100,000 at a time. The only way you get a serious increase in numbering capacity is by adding the digit to the FRONT of the existing 7-digit number. The other issue, of course, is the "once all [equipment is] upgraded" (it isn't just telco switches), because that process will take many, many years, in large measure due to amortization schedules. Doing it overnight just doesn't make economic sense. End of discussion. Bottom line: we're splitting and overlaying and adding new area codes all over the place because it is CHEAPER than moving prematurely to longer numbers. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 22:22:41 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) Volume 19 Issue 255 had a few replies to my screed against eight-digit numbers. Here's a consolidated response. (And thanks to Linc, too, for his informative web site.) > From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) > If North America want to keep old technology going as an excuse to keep > the existing system, then the problems people are experiencing are just > going to get worse until the inevitable change occurs. > Most North American Telco manufacturers are making equipment which is > flexible enough to be used in the other places that have made these > changes, so the technology is readily available. American word processors can sometimes spell-check English and French, just not both at one time. Our switch vendors may have support for Euro-code, but it's incompatible with the native mode. Nor is there need for it. > It is really just a matter of how much pain people, (and business) will > endure until the situation is resolved. There are fixes, which I've explained, that stick with deterministic length and support en-bloc signaling. Telling us we need to do it the VERY hard way, when there's a much easier way, is just foolish. > From: J.F. Mezei >> The NANP is Different from what the rest of the world users. It is a >> strict DETERMINISTIC-LENGTH plan. EVERY telephone number is in a >> 3-3-4 pattern. > But there are exceptions when you dial internationally, the switches > do pass on whatever number of digits you are dialing. Yes, but that's a specific escape-from-NANPA mechanism. It requires # dialing at the end of the number, or critical timing. Neither is # supportable for domestic calls, for various commonsense reasons. > Furthermore, if 3-3-4 is going to be exhausted, will North America > have a choice? Sounds to me like they may have to add a digit. As I noted, there will be more digits. 4-4-4 is most likely, initially with "9" in the second position of the NPA to distinguish from 3-digit NPAs, which will have to have a "permissive" time (probably in years) before they're shut off. > Perhaps begin today by adding a 0 to all telephone numbers in > existence. Dialing that extra 0 won't hurt, right? Of course it will. It's not part of the plan. And remember, we're not short of NUMBERS. We're short of PREFIX CODES. A 3-3-5 plan buys next to nothing. The short-term plan, which has already been ordered in Chicagoland and may be adopted in many places soon (if not nationwide), is to allow prefix codes to be shared among carriers based on thousands-blocks. This changes assignment from 3-3-4 to 3-4-3, dramatically slowing down code exhaust. This SHOULD have been ordered nationwide two years ago, when the software was in place to support it (at least in the tandems where it counts the most). > From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) > In other words, DNS'ing phone numbers. It'd still require too much money > to implement. Not hardly too much money -- in fact, it's already done! Local Number Portability is quite a bit like DNS. You have to distinguish between three things: NAME - how somebody is referenced by humans ADDRESS - how something is referenced by machine ROUTE - a path to get there A phone number was originally all three. The NPA or NXX was indexed into a route table, and the last four digits were the Terminal Address at the destination switch. No separate address. With 800 numbers, we got logical, albeit numeric, names. They are indexed to find a terminating carrier, who indexes them into a terminal, anywhere, with no route implications. Hence 1-800-BAR-SENT. With LNP, all local numbers are really just names. A database identifies which CO switch terminates 617-498-5920. The subscriber changes carrier and keeps the number. ------------------------------ From: Sam Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View on Net Commerce) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 22:40:48 -0400 Jon Carpenter wrote: > Robert Wiegand wrote: >> Derek Balling wrote: >>> Why would you REFUSE the Visa Check card? That I don't understand. It >>> still functions for all intents and purposes as an ATM card, and if >>> you never use it as a Visa card, then you never open yourself up to >>> the alleged problems associated with that. You could just cover up the >>> Visa logo with electrical tape and it would function identically to >>> the "non-Visa" ATM card you love. >> It functions identically to an ATM card until you have it stolen. Then >> there is a big difference. You don't need a PIN number to use the Check >> Card. By the time you get the card canceled they can clean out your >> checking account. > But you're protected just like you are for a credit card. This is on the > MasterCard web site at > http://www.mastercard.com/ourcards/consumer/wave.html: > And your debit card will be good to you. You're in the driver's seat > should your card be lost or stolen. If you notice your debit card > missing, notify your card issuer immediately. > The two major payment card companies limit your liability to a maximum > of $50 and it could be as low as zero if you report your card missing > immediately. But, it's up to you to safeguard your debit card and > notify the issuer as soon as you discover it missing. Well, you should get your $50/card back after you spend the time to explain that the card was stolen, the charges were made after the card was stolen, and the bank does its investigation. I'm sure that they'll get right on that immediately and you won't have to explain yourself ten times after waiting on hold countless times. Right. Unless you have fantastic service, this is pretty lousy, meanwhile you could even bounce a check if the money that was supposed to pay it was stolen via your checkcard. No thanks. I'll stick with regular, online (PIN) only debit cards, and credit cards. Plus credit cards give you a helluva lot more float then checkcards. Andrew wrote: > With a credit card, the moment a charge is authorized, your credit > line is reduced by the amount of the authorization. The moment your > VISA check card is authorized, funds in your checking account are > frozen to cover the authorization. The funds might sit in your account > until the charge is posted, but you can't touch it and the bank won't > use the frozen funds to cover any checks that might come in before the > charge posts. > It is standard practice for many restaurants and clubs to pre-authorize > $500 on the credit cards of people who want to run a tab. The local > radio consumer advocate in Atlanta, Clark Howard has gotten > innumerable complaints from people who have bounced checks as a result > of these large authorizations. IIRC it takes about a week for the > authorizations to expire. That is completely correct information for VISA Checkcards. For Mastercard MasterMoney offline (offline meaning that it goes through the mastercard network, not a debit network like cirrus or Honor) Cards, there is a credit line for such an occasion. Unlike VISA, MC will not lock your funds when a transaction is authorized. If you withdrawl the funds, it will use the credit line and charge you any interest as well. This is why you need to get a credit line linked for a Mastercard debit card account. That is the main difference between VISA and MC debit products. ------------------------------ From: gldyer-nospam@geocities.com (Geoff Dyer) Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 12:26:23 GMT On Mon, 26 Jul 1999 20:14:32 -0400, in comp.dcom.telecom J.F. Mezei wrote: > If countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand (the later two well > before Canada) can get their act together and present a unified nationwide > EFTPOS network, how come the USA hasn't done it yet ? It took a while in Australia. I think we had two separate EFTPOS networks back in the 80s, and my credit union ATM card wasn't usable at all outlets for a few years. The ATM networks also took a while to reach a reasonable level of integration (and I'm pretty sure there are *still* one or two minor banks whose ATMs don't accept all cards). I suspect our banking environment aided early integration. Most credit unions got their card systems integrated *very* quickly, and there are just *four* major, nation-wide banks and a handful of smaller ones (usually covering one or two states). Geoff (to e-mail me, remove any instances of "-nospam" from my address) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 09:43:02 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Organization: ICB Toll Free News / WhoSells800.com Subject: Re: 500 & 900 Portability, Toll Free Issues, and 555 Reclamation From: Linc Madison wrote: >> Responding to an OBF/SNAC >> request for INC to release 844, 833 and 822 codes to it >> simultaneously, INC asked SNAC to explain the rapid depletion of toll >> free numbers, asking for info regarding the usage of codes and why so >> many had been used ... > I thought that 866 was in fact next in line. 866 IS next in line, scheduled for April 2000, with 855 to follow in July ... fyi, SNAC had also asked that they be released simultaneously, and was turned down by the industry for operational reasons ... My posting above referred to the most recent SNAC request to INC, which is looking past 866 and 855 in 2000, to 844, 833 and 822 in 2002 ... Hence the INC reply ... Judith Oppenheimer ICB Toll Free News http://icbtollfree.com tel;cell:917 406-4298 tel;fax:209 391-9400 tel;work:212 684-7210 email;internet:joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 01:26:49 PDT From: Ralph Seberry Reply-To: ralph.seberry@computer.org Subject: Secret Surfing I experimented with your anonymous surfing offering: http://telecom-digest.org/secret-surfer.html which I liked, although I had to remember that it steals all cookies, since some pages won't work at all. In similar vein, I found some links that may be of use. "Proxys 4 All" (http://proxys4all.cgi.net) has a lot of information about proxies, including their top ten "Anonymous Proxies" at http://proxys4all.cgi.net/topten.html (sorry, TELECOM Digest didn't make it -- yet!) Another resource is at: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/research/proxies.htm which has links to all sorts of proxies, including pointers to open-source proxies from http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/research/sorm.htm#Software which you might be able to use to make yours even better. Regards, Ralph ------------------------------ From: gldyer-nospam@geocities.com (Geoff Dyer) Subject: Re: Yet Another "Backhoe" Telecom Outage Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 12:26:19 GMT On Tue, 27 Jul 1999 00:36:31 GMT, in comp.dcom.telecom anthony@alphageo.com wrote: > The claim was that breaking a nitrogen line would cost on the order of > a million dollars -- maybe because they're not a "public utility" and > don't have the liability limitations that power, water, gas, etc., do. > Imagine being the person who wrecked a major chip-maker's clean room. In Sydney, Australia, freeway construction required relocation of a short section of the PacRim cable, linking Australia to New Zealand and beyond. (A convenient zig-zag at that part of the route meant relocation was *all* that was required.) I happened to overhear an anecdote about this: Apparently the contractors contacted Telstra (cable owner, and Australia's dominant telco), wanting to know what damages would be payable in the event of problems during relocation. They were told they really didn't want to know; just don't let it happen. Upon pushing for an answer they were told by Telstra the bill would probably start at about A$ 1 million (somewhere around US$ 650,000) ... a minute. I believe extreme care was taken. Geoff (to e-mail me, remove any instances of "-nospam" from my address) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 16:30:23 GMT From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: Assignment of Country Code for Palestine In article , Betty Cockrell wrote: > I am trying to get some information on the country code assignment for > Palestine. Has one been assigned yet? Assigned, yes. Implemented, no. The new country code for Palestine will be 970, at some yet-to-be-determined date. I sent a suggestion to the Israeli Ministry of Telecommunications (or name to that effect) that the interests of long-term peace and stability in the region would best be served by having a coordinated dialing plan between Israel and Palestine, similar to the plan used in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. While it would be possible (or perhaps even required) to dial the appropriate +970 or +972 from other countries, calls between Israel and Palestine would continue to be dialed in the same manner they are today. Of course, a caller in Israel should be permitted to dial +970 to call Palestine, or +972 for the reverse. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 17:09:57 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: Payphone Surcharges on Wrong Numbers In article , Carl Navarro wrote: > Yesterday was the day I snapped. > My 800 number is the same as the local number for American Airlines > Paging at O'Hare Airport. I've had my 800 number for 12 years, so > don't even think of suggesting a number change. > The short story is that I now get to pay about 40 cents per call for > wrong numbers from payphone customers who believe Airport paging is an > 800 number. My carrier says I owe it because I'm responsible for all > wrong numbers, but they can either block all payphone calls, or > certain area codes. (Great, how about all payphones except from > certain area codes!) > Anyway, my argument is why should payphone operators benefit from > mis-dialings on phone numbers that cost them nothing? This is driving > up the cost of 800 service to pre-divestiture levels. This is just one of the reasons I remain adamant that the FCC decision to make toll-free payphone compensation a per-call charge was flat wrong. Make it a penny a minute, maybe with a nickel minimum. That way if I talk to Aunt Whatsit for an hour and a half on my calling card, the payphone owner gets a reasonable payment for use of the equipment, but if I make a twenty-second call to a pager, it doesn't drive the cost up so high that the pager company blocks payphones. It really is a simple question, but the FCC doesn't seem to be interested in creating a system that works to the benefit of the consumer. ------------------------------ From: Eli Mantel Subject: Re: USF and PICC Charges Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 04:39:05 GMT Linc Madison wrote: > ... Telco ... charges a minimum of 63 cents/month/line for USF on > *DIALAROUND* access! I made a whopping total of TWO calls, for a total > of 22 cents, and was charged 63 cents in USF charge. ... Not only > that, but they ... overbilled the federal tax (4 cents tax on 22 > cents billing? Wrong!). But the PICC and USF fees are obligations of the long distance carrier, not the customer. The carrier doesn't have to pass these charges along to you in this manner, but you have to pay tax on whatever portion they do. Thus you were billed 4 cents on an 85 cent bill, which is about right. > There is an FCC docket open for comments on this subject. > I encourage everyone to look at "FCC Opens Inquiry into > Flat-Rated L.D. Fees"... IMO, the FCC is a "partner in crime" with the long distance carriers. First, the FCC imposed the PICC fees as part of a "revenue-neutral" reduction in per-minute access fees and believed the carriers who promised to pass the rate reductions on to customers, but instead merely added the PICC fees to customer bills without necessarily lowering rates, and on top of that, the FCC gave the carriers permission to pass these charges through, without even having to file new tariffs. The precedent having been set that such government-mandated charges could be passed on to the customers as a separate line item, the carriers began playing this game of lying about the rates, treating these add-ons as if they were taxes (and I realize that the USF charge is really a tax, but that's a rant for another time) and thus not including them in their advertised rates. As for charging fixed amounts for the USF, it may just be that the marketing folks decided that too many people didn't understand this percentage add-on, especially when they already had to deal with the fixed PICC charge, so that some carriers like Telco and AT&T decided to impose it as a flat charge. Had the FCC never allowed such charges to be separately itemized, the carriers would just have buried it all in their rates along with the other costs of doing business, and we wouldn't have a situation where you can't really find out what the rates are without asking the Customer Service Reps twenty questions and probably getting the wrong answers anyway. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #257 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jul 28 13:00:29 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id NAA17426; Wed, 28 Jul 1999 13:00:29 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 13:00:29 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907281700.NAA17426@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #258 TELECOM Digest Wed, 28 Jul 99 13:00:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 258 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (Jeremy M. Posner) Suits Challenge Net Bet Debt (Monty Solomon) Internet Sites Sell Personal Info (Monty Solomon) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Steven Sobol) Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) (Alan Boritz) VISA Authorizations (Joey Lindstrom) 56k and Portmaster 3 (Jeff Dennison) Re: When/When Not to Dial '1' (Daniel Ganek) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jposner@panix.com (Jeremy M. Posner) Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 01:42:52 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So they openly admit the main problem > seems to be if you go directly to their content, they are unable to > bombard you with advertising messages on the way. Perhaps they are > also unable to sneak that cookie at you as well. Ooooh, they have a > real problem don't they! My heart bleeds for them. It would be an > entirely different matter if a web site yanked the copyrighted > content of some other site back to its own premises, deceptively > claimed that it owned the content, etc, or if they put the content > up from their own server along with their own advertising, etc. > But if you put it on a web server then it is **public** and open for > review by anyone who wishes to read it. Universal and a few other > major corporations I could name had better come to grips with the > way things work on the net. If they do not like it, they are free > to shut down their web sites and vanish. One thing I hope netizens > will not allow to happen is for Big Business to decide they are going > to start setting the rules around here. We are seeing a lot of this > already. > I feel strongly enough about this issue that I am going to begin a > new feature here as soon as I can called /freestuff ... and the way > it will work is this: users who wish to do so can supply me with > so-called 'deep page' URLs for promotion. On the /freestuff page I > will link to that address. There are certain rules to be followed > including (1) *do not* claim it is your own work; do not cause any > copyright/patent/trademark indicia to be obliterated. (2) Do not > send me anything which requires *payment*. (For example, many sites > first require payment, then on reciept send you to a deep-page where > the presentation is given; ie. porn sites. I do not want that.) > I am not interested in depriving an author or creative person of > money from the sale of their endeavor, so do not send me those. > (3) Do not send me deep pages from Bank One where customer's financial > records are available, etc. Yes, they are that stupid at Bank One, > but I do not want to invade anyone's privacy. > What you *can* send me for the /freestuff page are movie trailers, > music videos, radio/television stations which have a specific URL for > their .ram/.rpi/.avi output to the net, etc. Any company which has > *promotional, public* material on their own web site which you feel > is important to share with everyone on the net, without having to > wade through a minefield of cookies, banner advertisements, Geocities > style pop-up windows and the like is eligible for inclusion. Your > short, one paragraph text will accompany the link as a description. As someone who runs a site (that happens to have video of movie trailers, by legal arrangement with the studios), I feel compelled to take issue with some of your assertions, although I certainly agree with the brunt of them. The site I run has a very large library of video, including both original material and clips from films (again, used with the permission of the producers or distributors). When a user of our site calls up a piece of video, it comes up within some graphics on the screen. There is also some hyper-linked text along with the graphics. So, if a user were to go to the URL http://www.filmscouts.com/scripts/proj.cfm?Type=Caught&Format=RV&Rate=I&File=mys-men/sti-reuc they would see RealVideo of an interview with a couple of the actors from Mystery Men, the latest release from Universal. Under the video, would be links to pages with lists of content relating to each of the actors in the interview, as well as a link to more information about the film. I have no problem with people deep-linking directly to the page with the video, as I certainly agree that deep-linking is one of the things that makes the web great. I have spent a great deal of time and effort making as much information as possible readily available to those who enter the site from places other than the front page, as deep links from other sites do represent a very significant portion of our traffic. Someone could enter our site on any page and stumble across any number of interviews with people in whom they might be interested. (And no, we don't track specific users, just hits on specific pages.) However, when another site creates a .ram file that points to the RealVideo on our server to circumvent the graphics we use (or link to the non-embedded version of the RealVideo), they are not only sending users straight to the video in which they're interested (which is a perfectly acceptable thing to do), but they are making it impossible for that user to then find related information on our site which might similarly interest them. For example, a user might be referred to an interview with Geoffrey Rush about Mystery Men. If they go to see that video at http://www.filmscouts.com/scripts/proj.cfm?Type=Caught&Format=RV&Rate=I&File=mys-men/geo-rus then they can follow a link to http://www.filmscouts.com/scripts/person.cfm?Person=182 which has a list of all of our content relating to Mr. Rush, including two full RealVideo interviews with him, some Quicktime clips of him, as well as links to reviews of some of his films. If the link is designed to circumvent the embedded video, the user misses out on the opportunity to see the other pieces in which they might be interested. I have taken the time to design things so that there are multiple routes back to other content on the site in order to accommodate users who arrive through deep links. I would appreciate it if those sites that include deep links would not go to great lengths to circumvent those accommodations. | Jeremy M. Posner | "The internet? Is that thing still around?" | | jposner@panix.com | -Homer Simpson | | (212) 426-7967 | http://www.panix.com/~jposner/ | [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But you see, Jeremy, you are one of the good guys around here, and that is what makes this entire proposition so difficult to implement, at least in an ethical way. You are not driven by greed; you do not collect a lot of personal data and then proceed to spam everyone who visits your site; and you have gone to a lot of trouble -- believe me, I know! -- in setting up a wonderful presentation that is *best entered through the front door* and viewed in the context you have presented it. At the very least, if a user was specifically seeking some information presented on one of your deep-pages, the user should accept the entire page, and really there would be no reason not to accept the entire page since you provide all the navigation tools, etc they need, and I suppose no one visiting has to worry much about what they say or what 'evidence' of their visit they leave behind. I feel the same way here. I'd love to see everyone enter this site via the front page then go off to wherever, but it is not right in my opinion to put that sort of an obstacle in the way. Personally, I am happy to see users show up from wherever, and as a result I try to make each page stand alone on its own merits, with links to at least the front page or other often-requested pages, etc. But you and I and many other webmasters do not become obtrusive in the process. Given my 'druthers, if visiting your site meant that on my arrival you dropped a popup window right in front of me with a commercial message; you got right up in my face and told me since I had not registered at your front page you were going to drag me off there to do so before anything else; or you routinely took several minutes to load all two hundred plus graphics while I sat here cooling my heels, then my inclination would be to just go fetch your .ram, .rpm, or .avi file, and pipe it through my own plug-in on this end and save myself the bother. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 01:35:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Suits Challenge Net Bet Debt Plaintiffs say that laws ban collection via credit cards. David E. Rovella The National Law Journal August 2, 1999 Despite pending congressional legislation that would ban Internet gambling, plaintiffs' lawyers have launched a series of federal class actions aimed at holding the high rollers of the credit card industry responsible for the online gambling losses of consumers. http://www.lawnewsnet.com/stories/A3745-1999Jul23.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Lauren Weinstein phrased this very succinctly in his 'Vortex Daily Reality Report' for Tuesday, July 27. He asks how people would be foolish enough to give out their credit card number to strangers over the net and assume that the wagering site was being run honestly in any event. You can listen to Lauren's five times per week audio commentary here at this site by tuning your browser to http://telecom-digest.org/news/reality.html or by visiting his site at http://www.vortex.com and after hearing what Lauren has to say for himself that day, check out the rest of /news for interesting stories and features. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 01:59:54 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Internet Sites Sell Personal Info WASHINGTON (AP) -- Private information unwittingly released by Internet users is not protected under federal guidelines because few Web sites adhere to them, according to a study released Tuesday. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Internet-Privacy.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Whenever we link to the {New York Times} website, I am advised we are supposed to include the notation 'you are required to register' as part of each link to them. Anyway, what else is old news? PAT] ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards (was Moderator's View On Net Commerce) Date: 28 Jul 1999 04:02:56 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Tue, 27 Jul 1999 21:43:19 +0100, graeme@graemet.demon.co.uk allegedly said: > In article , Andrew > writes >> It is standard practice for many restaurants and clubs to pre-authorize >> $500 on the credit cards of people who want to run a tab. The local >> radio consumer advocate in Atlanta, Clark Howard has gotten >> innumerable complaints from people who have bounced checks as a result >> of these large authorizations. IIRC it takes about a week for the >> authorizations to expire. > It's both better and worse than that. The authorizations normally take > much longer (45 days is typical) to expire. It varies widely. Depends on which card and which processor. North Shore Technologies Corporation http://www.NorthShoreTechnologies.net We don't just build websites; we build relationships! 815 Superior Ave. #610, Cleveland, OH 44114-2702 216.619.2NET 888.480.4NET Host of the Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail http://www.spamfree.org ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: VISA Check Cards Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 06:50:37 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , Ed Ellers wrote: > Andrew (andrew@3.1415926.org) wrote: > "It is standard practice for many restaurants and clubs to pre- > authorize $500 on the credit cards of people who want to run a > tab. The local radio consumer advocate in Atlanta, Clark Howard has > gotten innumerable complaints from people who have bounced checks as a > result of these large authorizations. IIRC it takes about a week for > the authorizations to expire." > There have also been reports of this sort of thing being done by car > rental companies when a customer declines the "loss damage waiver" > that the companies sell as an option -- which often puts the customer > very close to his credit limit, at the worst possible time. That's exactly what Enterprise did to me, in addition to rejecting American Express car rental insurance coverage. Seems to be corporate policy, at least in New Jersey. ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 00:54:20 -0600 Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Subject: VISA Authorizations On Tue, 27 Jul 1999 23:17:47 -0400 (EDT), Graeme Thomas wrote: >> It is standard practice for many restaurants and clubs to pre-authorize >> $500 on the credit cards of people who want to run a tab. The local >> radio consumer advocate in Atlanta, Clark Howard has gotten >> innumerable complaints from people who have bounced checks as a result >> of these large authorizations. IIRC it takes about a week for the >> authorizations to expire. > It's both better and worse than that. The authorizations normally take > much longer (45 days is typical) to expire. However, as soon as a real > transaction goes though using the authorization code give on the initial > auth, the remainder of the funds are unblocked immediately. Here's my story, involving my Toronto Dominion Bank "GM" Visa card. A few months back, I was getting close to my credit limit -- I put most of my working expenses on the card so I tend to run it up to limit and then pay it down to zero, then repeat. Anyways, I still had about $250 clear on the card going into the final weekend before pay cycle (when I'd pay down the card to zero again). Over a four day span, I decided to gas up (four times) at a new unmanned gas station that just opened up here in Calgary, run by Esso. No cash sales at this place because there's no PEOPLE at this place -- you simply drive up, stick your credit card into the pump, wait for your authorization, then pump your gas. When yer done, you grab your receipt and drive away. Convenient, and they gave you a 1-cent per litre discount. It's also the closest station to my home. Here's the problem: when their system preauthorizes your card, they do so in the amount of $75. However, unlike the situation you describe, it takes three BUSINESS DAYS (remember, this was a weekend) for these authorizations to "expire", EVEN THOUGH at the end of the transaction, they had a lower dollar amount that they theoretically COULD send on to Visa. IE: they preauthorized me for $75, I pumped $20, so why not send along that $20 charge immediately and expire the preauthorization for $75? They don't do this. So, innocently, I filled up four times, on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. The first three days, the amounts were around $20. On Monday, I put $3.50 worth of gas in. A total of around $65, which should have left me with $185 left on my credit limit. On Tuesday morning, I went to gas up again (this time at a different station, one with actual people). I handed over my credit card, and the underpaid clerk swiped it through the machine. "I'm sorry, sir, your card's been declined." I was absolutely stunned. There's five people in line behind me trying to buy stuff, I'm standing there with a worthless piece of plastic and no way to pay for my fuel as I didn't have cash on me. Luckily, the manager walked in at that moment. I explained the situation and since he recognized me as a regular customer, he agreed to let me come back later to pay - which I did, running home for some cash and returning immediately to clear the debt. If not for that bit of luck, I'm not sure what I woulda done. I drove back home, picked up the phone, called the TD bank, and asked what's up. They told me about the multiple authorizations for $75 - and that's ALL they knew, that I'd been preauthorized for $75. They did NOT have the amounts of the EXACT charges (ie: the three $20-somethings and the $3.50). I hung up, picked up the phone again, called Esso, and screamed my freakin' head off at them. Finally I calmed down enough to realize that the guy was asking for my name and address. I gave it, and hung up, still very pissed. About a week later, an envelope arrived in my mailbox, containing two $10 free gas certificates redeemable at any Esso station (but, of course, only at Esso stations that actually had people running them, their auto-pumps don't accept 'em). The guy at Esso was very sorry, but said that's just how the banks work things and there was nothing he could do about it - indeed, I was far from the first person to phone and complain about this, but the banks pretty much had guns pointed at their heads telling 'em "this is how we'll do things". I called TD Bank back and explained to 'em what the guy at Esso said. I got lots of humming and hawing and "I'm not sure about that" and never did get a straight answer. The upshot is that nowadays, I only gas up at stations that have 24-hour attendants and I never use the "pay at the pump" option. I fill up, then head into the kiosk and pay with my plastic. Occasionally they ask me why I don't just pay at the pump. I smile and say "cuz I'm trying to save your job." :-) From the messy desktop of Joey Lindstrom Email: Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU or joey@lindstrom.com Phone: +1 403 313-JOEY FAX: +1 413 643-0354 (yes, 413 not 403) Visit The NuServer! http://www.GaryNumanFan.NU Visit The Webb! http://webb.GaryNumanFan.NU A King's favorite, lavished with jewels, is proud of her "fallen" state; it is the poor drab on the street, renting her body for pennies, who is ashamed of her trade. She is a failure and she knows it. -- Maureen Johnson, "To Sail Beyond The Sunset" (Robert Heinlein) ------------------------------ From: Jeff Dennison Subject: 56k and Portmaster 3 Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 10:38:59 -0400 Organization: Paradyne Corporation I was wondering if there is a particular dial-up string that needs to be configured in Windows dial-up networking that will allow USR (or other) modems to connect with our Portmaster 3 at 56K. All of the ports on the PM3 are set to the max speed (64k), but the max speed users are able to connect at is 28.8. The same user can connect to our corp. IBM isp account at least 44k. I have run into this in the past with other dial-in servers and it was a dial-up string that fixed the problem. Thanks for any help you may have. Jeff Dennison Paradyne Corp. ------------------------------ From: Daniel Ganek Subject: Re: When/When Not to Dial '1' Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 10:45:35 -0400 Organization: Radionics, Inc. Jim Sielaff wrote: > I work for a large nationwide company which has PBX's in several > hundred US cities. My problem has to do with the task of administering > local dialing rules in the individual PBX's. For example, in Miami > (305) all local calls are 10D (NPA 305, 786, and part of 954) However, > a portion of NPA 954 is toll and requires a '1'. Does anyone know of a > searchable database which indicates a 'local' or 'toll' call from a > particular NPA-NXX? I tried checking out the Bell South web site to > see if they would show what is a local and toll call out of Miami -- but > no luck! The local phone directory has it but it is outdated before it > hits the street. This is probably one of my biggest pet peeves about US dialing. I also live in Mass where the PUC has some really weird ideas about dialing 1 for toll calls. Mass has seven digit, ten digit and eleven digit dialing sequences. Local never dial 1, toll always dial 1; BUT if you're on a plan, toll calls aren't always toll calls!!! If a local call has a different area code you can optionally dial 1. Why can't the FCC mandate that 10 digit dialing ALWAYS works? (My other pet peeve about NYNEX (Bell Atlantic) is that the you get the SAME message when you make a dialing mistake. "Please do not dial 1 for local calls, dial 1 plus area code plus number for calls outside your dialing loacal dialing area." I, of course, can never remember if I dialed 1 or not. So I end up dialing again to figure what my original mistake was and half the time have to dial again. I remember the first time I came across this message. I dialed what I thought was a local call and got the message but hung up before she got to the second part. I kept dialing seven digits a half a dozen times.) dan ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #258 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jul 29 15:08:17 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA05504; Thu, 29 Jul 1999 15:08:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 15:08:17 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907291908.PAA05504@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #259 TELECOM Digest Thu, 29 Jul 99 15:08:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 259 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) (Al Varney) Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) (Wineburgh) Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) (J. Thomas) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (nospam@elmhurst.msg.net) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (J.F. Mezei) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (Ed Ellers) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (Cortland Richmond) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (Art Walker) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (James Bellaire) Re: eBay Tries to Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco (Gary Pratt) eBay Fraudulent Bidding Warning (David Massey) Re: eBay Tries to Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco (Kim Brennan) Re: Last Laugh! Dead Cow DOA (Kim Brennan) Re: When/When Not to Dial '1' (John R. Levine) Re: When/When Not to Dial '1' (Ed Ellers) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: varney@ihgp2.ih.lucent.com (Al Varney) Subject: Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) Date: 28 Jul 1999 16:59:54 GMT Organization: Lucent Technologies, Naperville, IL Reply-To: varney@lucent.com In article , [on using International Dialing as an NANPA growth mechanism] > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have suggested for quite some time > that just as we have repeatedly divided existing area codes into > several parts over the years we now do the same to the USA country > code of '1'. For the sake of argument, put the eastern USA into > 'country code' '11' and the western USA into '12'. Instead of 'country > code' it would be referred to as 'zone code'. To dial within our own > 'zone'just dial the seven, ten or eleven digits as always. To dial to > the other zone, treat it technically like an 'international call' and > dial 011 plus 11 or 011 plus 12 and the ten digit number. Of course, you have to deal with the problem of dialing an operator- assisted call to another "USA country code": 01 + CC + number conflicts with your 011 + 1x + number scheme. 010 + 1x + number could be used, but CC=0xx may be assigned in the future. Or you could have 11=east USA and 12=east USA w/ operator, etc. Also, a dividing line by area code/state would likely cause some LATAs to be in multiple "countries", since many LATAs cross state lines. Al Varney ------------------------------ From: Joseph Wineburgh Reply-To: jwineburgh@chubb.com Subject: Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 13:32:18 -0400 Interesting thought about the phones being IP nodes! Cisco has the beginnings of this in place with their acquisition of Selsius systems. We were just at a demo in their Edison lab and had actual conversation over both Ethernet and Frame relay networks. Of course, you will need their Ethernet switch (and NT controller box) to accomplish this. hehehe ... Oh, and the big boys (Lucent, Nortel, Siemens) don't think it will fly, either ... #JOE ------------------------------ From: jt5555@epix.net (Julian Thomas) Subject: Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 15:31:40 GMT In , on 07/27/99 at 10:22 PM, Fred Goldstein said: > You have to distinguish between three things: > NAME - how somebody is referenced by humans > ADDRESS - how something is referenced by machine > ROUTE - a path to get there > A phone number was originally all three. The NPA or NXX was indexed into > a route table, and the last four digits were the Terminal Address at the > destination switch. No separate address. In the earliest days of automatic exchanges, the exchange digits (may have been 1,2, or 3 digits) literally drove the routing (stepper switches). Julian Thomas: jt 5555 at epix dot net http://home.epix.net/~jt remove numerics for email Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! -- -- Double your drive space! Delete Windows! ------------------------------ From: nospam@elmhurst.msg.net Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us Date: 28 Jul 1999 15:21:18 -0500 Organization: MSG.Net, Inc. There are many technical mechanisms by why 'deep linking' can be circumvented, (cookies, checking the 'referer' sent by the user's browser, Java, etc), if Universal had made it _technically_impossible_ for sites to link directly to their content, I doubt this would have made the news. But rather than implement a simple technical solution, Universal is attempting to make a legal case against the remote site providing the deep links -- this is at best silly, and at worst a threat that could severely damage the concept of hyperlinks and 'the web' as a public place. >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So they openly admit the main problem >> seems to be if you go directly to their content, they are unable to >> bombard you with advertising messages on the way. Perhaps they are >> also unable to sneak that cookie at you as well. Ooooh, they have a >> real problem don't they! My heart bleeds for them. It would be an >> entirely different matter if a web site yanked the copyrighted >> content of some other site back to its own premises, deceptively >> claimed that it owned the content, etc, or if they put the content >> up from their own server along with their own advertising, etc. I have seen several cases where sites have 'inlined' graphics from sites hosted on my servers into their pages -- that is, rather than making their own local copies of graphics, and using their own bandwidth to serve them, when the user visits their page, the graphics are loaded from my page. But do I threaten to sue them? No ... Instead I use a simple Perl script to change all the references in my own pages to a new name, then replace the image they were linking to with something a little more 'interesting' :-) In a few cases the 'leech' doesn't take the hint, and changes all the references on _their_ page to point to the new name on my server. In that case I have to be a bit more tricky, and start checking HTTP_REFERRER. >> But if you put it on a web server then it is **public** and open for >> review by anyone who wishes to read it. Universal and a few other >> major corporations I could name had better come to grips with the >> way things work on the net. If they do not like it, they are free >> to shut down their web sites and vanish. Or to implement technical solutions, and we can then tolerate the inconvenience, work around their fix, or just ignore their site. This is how the Net should work -- but big business doesn't like our model, and seeks to change it to fit their own ends. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, thank you for waking up and smelling the coffee brewing. What have I been saying here for how ever long now? Please read this carefully again: *in the next two or three years -- do not hold me to a specific date or method of transition -- there will not be room on the net for you and your kind. Nor me and my kind for that matter either.* Big business is not going to allow us to continue actively on the net in the way we have traditionally used the net in general, and the web in particular. There is no room for it and you are getting in their way. The web has empowered each individual person in ways never before dreamed possible. There are many large corporations and special interests who do not like that at all. For more reading on this, please see http://telecom-digest.org/news and check this week's edition of {Atlantic Unbound}, which is the online edition -- with articles exclusive to the net not appearing in its print edition -- of {Atlantic Monthly} magazine. Read the article on what the net is doing to empower individuals. I will discuss the latest additions to http://telecom-digest.org/news in another message. Needless to say, I am quite pleased to have {Atlantic Unbound}, {BBC World News Online}, {The Christian Science Monitor Online Edition} and the same CS Monitor's Internet Audio News as just a few of the components in /news for you each day. PAT] ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 23:14:21 -0400 > Some major Web-site owners contend that because they have a lot > invested in their pages they should dictate who can and who can't link > into their site. Bullshit. (sorry for the language). They have no control over web crawlers and search engines. Besides, I fail to see why they would shun additional visitors to their site. Most companies strive to attract as many linkers as possible to increase visits/eyeballs. > Ticketmaster's main complaint was that users hyperlinking deep into > its site were missing several banner ads they would have seen if they > had entered through the frontdoor, Hayes said. For as much as I dislike banner ads, I think that this is a valid point. But from there to saying it is illegal to link to inside a web site, well, it is a long stretch. However, webmasters with a history of others deep linking into their site should get the message that users dislike their site and want to jump over the silly time wasting stuff usually found on home pages. Where I do see a problem is when documents are "stolen" from a site to appear as part of another site's page. For instance, if on my home page, I have a thumbnail for a movie trailer and when you click on it, the actual movie trailer appears on my home page but it sources directly from the studio's web site without any mention of where it comes from. For studios, it is pretty silly since they should encourage as many eyeballs as possible for their movies. But for other companies I can see why such "theft" of documents might be a problem. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In http://telecom-digest.org/news I use my own locally cached copy of the image from the supplier for users to click on. For the various audio feeds I offer, the user is able to identify each feed based on its hyperlink and choose the ones of interest. I now also offer a free download of an audio/video player for any users who do not already have one. Real.com, which is a very well-known and widely admired member of the net community encouraged me to make their free players available directly from this site, and to have their schedule of daily live netcasts available on line. While the various audio feeds I offer from suppliers of same such as BBC News, CS Monitor Radio, AP News, Vortex.com and CNN are fed through plugins of my own devising, the free player is made available for people who wish to download one as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 00:56:52 -0400 Don't forget that Universal was the first studio to sue to try to get off-air home video recording banned (Disney joined the lawsuit later). ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 11:59:25 -0700 From: Cortland Richmond Organization: Alcatel Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us If one merely LISTS a URL without linking, the result is the same. Seems to me, the people who want to stop deep linking had best arrange that their material can only be accessed from the path they wish to preserve. Cortland [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Are you trying to tell these big companies how they should be doing business? Just because they invaded the net, have caused bandwidth problems and congestion problems galore, and act like they own the place, does that give you any right to open your mouth and complain about it? LOL ... My recommendation: take the year or three remaining of relative freedom for amatuer computerists like yourself, me and others who still remain from the 'old days of the net' and be grateful for what we have left, before it vanishes also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Art.Walker@onesourcetech.com (Art Walker) Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us Date: 28 Jul 1999 18:39:37 GMT Organization: Recovering Nebraskans Clinic - Denver, CO Reply-To: Art.Walker@onesourcetech.com On Tue, 27 Jul 1999 17:36:32 PDT, TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > But if you put it on a web server then it is **public** and open for > review by anyone who wishes to read it. Universal and a few other > major corporations I could name had better come to grips with the > way things work on the net. If they do not like it, they are free > to shut down their web sites and vanish. One thing I hope netizens > will not allow to happen is for Big Business to decide they are going > to start setting the rules around here. We are seeing a lot of this > already. It sounds like the real problem is that Universal needs to configure their web server to check HTTP_REFERER values and redirect "illegal" links back to their main page. Art [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Or they could do like Ticketmaster and divert the user off to some snotty and rude 'response center' where they leave netizens feeling like two cents and as though they (the netizen) did something wrong. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 15:12:23 -0500 From: James Bellaire Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us At 11:17 PM 7/27/99 -0400, Pat wrote in V19 # 256: [from a WIRED NEWS Article by Oscar S. Cisneros] > Movie-List's legal scuffling with Universal began almost six months > ago when a Universal representative contacted Bazinet and asked him to > quit using the movie studio's digitized movie previews. Bazinet had no > objections and removed the trailers from his Web servers and CD-ROM > collections. Sounds like this particular site started out on the wrong foot. Collecting the clips for a personal use collection is one thing but putting them on CD-ROMs? They have attracted attention! > Legal experts did comment, however, saying the legal landscape > surrounding deep linking, or hyperlinking deep into another's Web > page, is fraught with unpaved ways. The next target: Search engines. The oldest 'deep linkers' around as they generally point to content pages within a site instead of home pages or section homes. > Some major Web-site owners contend that because they have a lot > invested in their pages they should dictate who can and who can't link > into their site. Others, however, contend that they have as much right > to direct users to a specific Web page as they do to point out a > billboard on the street. The problem with the deep link is it doesn't always point to the "billboard" but to the picture on the billboard. Instead of seeing the billboard for Universal's latest film, one sees just the clip. The visitor is not seeing the presentation as designed by the content provider. Some sites go out of their way to make deep links hard if not impossible. One must read the source and occasionally read javascript modules to figure out what the deep link address is. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > I feel strongly enough about this issue that I am going to begin a > new feature here as soon as I can called /freestuff ... With all the complaints about Third Voice alteration of sites this seems like another way to present content in an altered fashion. Those clips are presented as part of a larger presentation. While {Reader's Digest} works in this way, editing and sampling stories from other sources, they do it after seeking permission and cannot print in their compilation what they have not recieved permission to print. It is a sticky issue. Probably the best solution is for those who don't like deep links to use session links or referrer based links on their servers. It really messes up the cache and adds traffic to the net, but if people are unwilling to honor 'no deep link' requests then something must be done to protect their presentations. James Bellaire [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Although I do not believe the net is the place to sell things on a commercial basis, if a site has something for sale and they request that you go through their front page with your credit card in order to get referred to their deep page where the download takes place, I think that should be honored. I am not interested in ripping off creative people who have made contribu- tions to the net, even though I do not believe in many cases they are correct in attempting to sell it. That even applies for porn sites. I guess you heard we have a 'few' of those on the net. The other day someone distributed a list of the various deep page URLs where one could go to circumvent the billing mechanism on the front pages. Direct your browser to those deep pages and sure enough, there is the 'secret web cam' or whatever with the 'nude teens' doing their thing. Now I happen to think that stuff is a gross abuse of the purpose of the net and the web; but they still have the right to do their thing for the world to see and pay for. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Gary Pratt Subject: Re: eBay Tries to Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 16:08:36 -0400 > Under the terms of the eBay > service, if the low bid exceeds the seller's reserve then they are > obliged to complete the sale -- possibly receiving far less than the > fair market value they might otherwise have obtained. Whose fault is it that the reserve price was set too low? A reserve price represents the price that a person is willing to sell an item for. If the seller hasn't done their due diligence to determine the fair market value for their item, that's the seller's fault. The only reason I can think of for a seller to set a reserve price too low would be to avoid the added fee for a higher value reserve price. If that's the seller's reason, then you get what you pay for. I sell on eBay and have never had a problem with this. I've never had a bid retraction nor have I sold any item for less than the price I was willing to sell at. Based on the seller's feedback, I've sold many more items on eBay than he has. I'm not denying that there are problems with fraudulent bidders on eBay, but that doesn't absolve the seller of the responsibility to protect themselves by setting reasonable reserve prices. Gary E. Pratt Pratt Diversified Services ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 17:45:47 -0400 From: David Massey Subject: eBay Fraudulent Bidding Warning I received the following link from a member of the Antique Telephone Collectors Association club which I belong to. Some telephone collectors in our club have been ripped off on eBay due to this new scam going on on eBay and eBay has made no effort to fix the problem and in fact told the author of the link below not to spread the word because it will just cause more criminals to find out about the eBay loophole. Please read: http://mars.superlink.net/jason/ebay/ I'm always going to set a reserve price now that I read this! I have seen some people get scammed into selling very valuable things for a couple dollars because they did not set a reserve and they started the bid at a few bucks. The scam artist comes in with a hidden identity or a temporary email address and rips you off. When selling, I start my bid amount low but set a reserve amount so I'm protected somewhat from these types of frauds. Not setting a reserve is very dangerous and you are legally bound to sell your item to the highest bidder that has not retracted his/her bid. Anyway, I don't know how many of you use ebay for buying/selling but if this email keeps one of you from getting ripped off, it was worth it. David Massey ATCA Member #3525 Visit my web site "Tribute to the Telephone" at http://telecom-digest.org/tribute ------------------------------ From: kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) Date: 28 Jul 1999 17:53:02 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: eBay Tries to Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco An article written by Bruce Simpson notes: > eBay, although an Internet high-flyer and darling of the stock market > has had numerous problems during its brief lifetime -- facing numerous > hardware glitches and crashes as well as law suit for patent > infringement plus NYC and federal government investigations in > relation to potentially illegal transactions through its service. I've never liked eBay's setup. I was first exposed to online auctions through Onsale (http://www.onsale.com), and like both their interface and policies. Onsale's "Yankee" auctions have a "closing" date/time, but auctions will be extended by 10 minutes after the last bid. Which means an auction can go for a lot longer than the presumed closing time, if bids are active. Of course, I tend to use the auctions to buy stuff not sell stuff, so I can't say if Onsale's policies in regards to selling stuff are substantially similar to eBays. Kim Brennan (kim@aol.com) Duo 2300c, PB 2400, VW Fox Wagon GL, Corrado SLC, Vanagon GL Syncro http://members.aol.com/kim Duo Info Page: http://members.aol.com/kim/computer/duo ?'s should include "Duo" in subject, else they'll be deleted unread. ------------------------------ From: kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) Date: 28 Jul 1999 17:56:59 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Dead Cow DOA Steven W. Smith notes: > my imprecise recollection is that SMS costs about $900 > and uses 15MB or so of disk space. BO2K is free, under 1MB. Hmm, let me get this straight. Microsoft spent a lot of money developing a product (BO2K) and is giving it away for free. Gee, I wonder if once they have the market they won't charge for upgrades (that will somehow be incompatible with previous versions forcing others to upgrade.) We've never seen Microsoft do that before have we? Pardon my cynicism. Kim Brennan (kim@aol.com) Duo 2300c, PB 2400, VW Fox Wagon GL, Corrado SLC, Vanagon GL Syncro http://members.aol.com/kim Duo Info Page: http://members.aol.com/kim/computer/duo ?'s should include "Duo" in subject, else they'll be deleted unread. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think you misunderstood. Dead Cow is giving its product away for free is the way I understood it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jul 1999 13:46:44 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: When/When Not to Dial '1' Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Why can't the FCC mandate that 10 digit dialing ALWAYS works? Because it's ambiguous -- the switch can't tell 321-555-1234 from 321-5551. On the other hand, 1+10 is unambiguous and there's no reason it can't work everywhere. In many urban states including New York, New Jersey, and California, you can dial 1+10 for any call, and 7D for any call within your area code and it'll go through correctly, regardless of whether it's local, intra-LATA toll, or inter-LATA toll. I gather that benighted PUCs in Mass, Texas, and some other states have insisted that 1+10 not work on local calls, but I've never understood what the rationale is supposed to be. In many states 7D doesn't work for toll calls inside your area code, either, presumably to prevent people from being driven to bankruptcy by making a couple of unintended 12 cent toll calls. Phoo. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: When/When Not to Dial '1' Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 19:54:37 -0400 Daniel Ganek (ganek@radionics.com) wrote: > Why can't the FCC mandate that 10 digit dialing ALWAYS works? Why *should* the FCC mandate that local calls (that do not cross a state line) must be dialable in a certain way? How does this have a real impact on interstate commerce -- and if it does not, what business does the Federal government have telling the states what to do in this regard? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #259 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jul 29 16:23:36 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA08953; Thu, 29 Jul 1999 16:23:36 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 16:23:36 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907292023.QAA08953@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #260 TELECOM Digest Thu, 29 Jul 99 16:23:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 260 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cable Internet Products Draw Ire of Consumer Groups (Monty Solomon) World's First "Real Time PC to Fax" From bcmfax.net (S. Kaushik) AT&T Bill Dispute Help (Drew C. Morone) Bell Canada and Stentor (J.F. Mezei) Re: "Bright Light" POP Spam Filtering: A Bad Idea (nospam@elmhurst.msg.net) Re: 56k and Portmaster 3 (Matthew Black) Re: 56k and Portmaster 3 (Steven J. Sobol) Seeking Reference to Touch Tones and Music (Jennifer Martino) ITT Wiring Diagram Needed (Keelan Lightfoot) Cordless Phones Interference Problem (Alter Kollel) Re: The Crisis at Pacifica Radio (Cortland Richmond) Re: USF and PICC Charges (Linc Madison) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: Monty Solomon From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cable Internet Products Draw Ire of Consumer Groups Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 14:27:30 -0400 By Aaron Pressman WASHINGTON, July 29 (Reuters) - A leading supplier of Internet gear for the cable industry is touting products to allow cable companies to block or restrict consumers from reaching any Web site they choose, drawing sharp criticism from public advocacy groups. The revelations comes at a critical juncture for the industry, which is spending billions of dollars to roll out high-speed Internet service over cable lines while fighting national and local efforts to regulate their fledgling new product. The industry has so far blunted the calls for regulation in all but two cities across the country, in part by committing to allow their customers to reach easily any Web site anywhere on the Internet, whether owned by a cable company or not. But according to marketing materials from Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), the No. 1 maker of computer networking equipment, cable companies will be able to work behind the scenes with sophisticated software included in Cisco products to slow down and limit access to selected Web sites. Without fully cutting off access to unaffiliated sites, the technology allows a cable company to make such destinations appear much more slowly on customers' computers than preferred sites, Cisco claimed in brochures distributed at a recent cable convention in Chicago. "This is the owner's manual that they're providing to the cable industry to monopolize the Internet," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Media Education. The non-profit Washington group, along with Consumers Union, the Consumer Federation of America and the Media Access Project, sent a letter Thursday to the Federal Communications Commission calling for regulation of cable Internet services. The FCC has so far decided to monitor closely the cable Internet market of less than one million subscribers, compared with almost 40 million going online over ordinary phone lines). The latest controversy appeared unlikely to change many minds at the agency. "We share the same goals as the consumer groups and we believe that there should be an open system as well," said Debra Lathen, head of the agency's cable bureau. "Where we diverge is how you get there. We believe the market is going to mandate -- to require -- an open system." "We will be very watchful; that is our obligation," Lathen added. AT&T Corp. (NYSE: T), whose ExciteAtHome Corp. (Nasdaq: ATHM) Internet provider has used some Cisco products, pledged not to use the features to discriminate against other Web sites. "We are not in the content-management business; we're in the network management business," said spokesman Mark Siegel. Asked if AT&T would utilize the Cisco products to limit access to any Web sites, Siegel replied: "No, we don't that." A Cisco spokesman said the same technology was made available to all players, including phone companies, satellite firms and major Internet service providers. "This is consistent with Cisco's open standards philosophy and commitment to competition in the marketplace," spokesman Tom Galvin said. "This technology was designed with customers in mind who clearly want tools to protect against offensive content such as hate or obscene material." Cisco's marketing materials cited clearly commercial uses of the software, giving as an example a "push" Web site, which automatically downloads fresh news or other information to a customer's computer at set intervals. "You could restrict the incoming push broadcasts as well as subscribers' outgoing access to the push information site to discourage its use," Cisco's brochure said. "At the same time, you could promote and offer your own partner's services with full-speed features to encourage adoption of your services while increasing network efficiency." ------------------------------ Subject: World's First "Real Time PC to Fax" From bcmfax.net From: S. Kaushik Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 11:35:08 +0430 Organization: Infozech "Real Time Fax technology over IP" is finally a reality! With "True Real Time" faxing users will be able to send and receive faxes in real time and will be able to monitor actual fax delivery page-by-page directly from their desktops and receive delivery notification in the same session ! With the advent of "Real Time Fax technology" over the public Internet, the user can expect reduced lead times approaching true real time in transmitting faxes over public Internet, immediate confirmation of delivery, no quality degradation and more reliability. All this adds up to more cost savings for the user, more transparency and messages can be sent from any fax machine or Windows application throughout the world. With Real Time Fax over IP the prospective user is guaranteed about prime service, very secure transmission with new methods of encryption and high transparency to user albeit at a high network cost (controlled bandwidth-nothing less than 64 kbps leased lines) and under controlled networks since Real Time Fax sessions can not tolerate delays beyond five seconds. The above mentioned 'constraints' of Real Time Fax technology (in spite of it's inherent advantages over the traditional store-and-forward approach) has been the primary reason that Real Time Faxing has remained confined to private, dedicated and controlled networks. Infact NCAS (North Carolina State Agency) has enhanced it's infrastructure to incorporate Real Time Fax technology to improve it's overall supply chain management. For more details visit http://www.osc.state.nc.us The current scenario, however, might change very fast with the announcement last week by CMR (a Tel Aviv based company specializing in developing and supporting Real Time fax over IP technology) and bcmfax.net (California based company which focuses on providing its customers worldwide Fax over IP services through it's 66 member node operators located across 43 countries) regarding the commercial availability of world's first Real Time Fax over IP technology . For more details regarding the availability of Real Time Fax technology and services, visit http://www.bcmfax.net . Kaushik kaushik@bcmfax.net Integrated Solutions for Internet Faxing http://www.bcmfax.net ------------------------------ From: Drew C. Morone Subject: AT&T Bill Dispute Help Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 16:12:24 GMT Hi there, We had a computer that would dial a local number to back up data files. The call was made to a different area code, but it was still local (NYC area). The computer was taken out of service at that location, and moved to another location which was out of state, but still only six miles away. The people at the new location plugged everything in, not realizing that the backup process was still attempting to connect to the same number, now long distance. The system would call day and night trying to establish a connection to continue the backup. It would fail, and try again. All without anyone realizing it, until the bill came. It was around $3000.00! AT&T is the long distance carrier. This was back in February. We contacted AT&T to see if we could explain the situation, and maybe get some sort of an adjustment. - First we were told to fax the info in a letter, and attach the bill. We did this, then heard nothing for three months. In the meantime, disconnection letters came from the local telco. - Next, I talked to a very helpful person, who assured me that the situation would be looked into. She put a stop on the disconnect notice from the local telco. All looked very promising. - Two months later the disconnect notices start coming in again. We call the local telco. They've had no contact since two month's previous. We call AT&T, and are told that since it's equipment failure, there will be no adjustment. Plain and simple. Too bad. I tried to get someone there to listen to the situation, but they weren't interested. Where do I go from here? The company can't pay the bill, and will probably go under if they have to pay such a large bill. If anyone has some advice, please e-mail me. Thanks, \@/ \@/ \@/ ||| `_ _' Drew Morone ||| drew@j51.com `_ _' ||| ||| - ||| - ||| ||| ` U ' ||| ` U ' ||| [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is really very sad. Since as you described it above, the problem was entirely of your own making, the carrier really isn't required to do a thing. I wish I had an answer but I do not. It does however highlight two (of the several) absolutely cardinal rules that must always be observed if you have a computer which places its own telephone calls: (1) Get your long distance bill separate from your local bill. Lose the one service for whatever reason without losing your local service as well. (2) Before the computer is ever allowed to connect to a phone line, check, double-check and triple- check the software code to insure calls are going as directed, where directed, and when directed. Make certain you know exactly what the phone company charge is for the call. For at least the first couple of connection sessions, audit or monitor the calls closely to be sure you, the telco, and the computer are all on the same wavelength. There have been publicized cases in the past where computers attached to phone lines have created hassles both for their owners as well as in some cases innocent bystanders. In Chicago in the middle 1980's a computer used for a Fido-style BBS put through dozens of calls nightly to the residence of an elderly lady at 3:00 AM who understandably was frightened and disturbed by it. Illinois Bell traced the calls back to the system admin and disconnected his service pending a review of the whole thing. He came extremely close to getting sued. Then there was the case of the First National Bank of Chicago and its errant fax machine which insisted on making an international call to a private residence in Germany during the middle of the night, German time. That took an investigation initiated by Bundepost and completed with the cooperation of AT&T and Illinois Bell to resolve. It was reported here in the Digest in detail as older readers will recall. Before you *ever* allow any device to make telephone calls on its own, you be absolutely certain of what's going on. Or if you prefer, do not bother checking it out and wait until you get disconnected for inability to pay the bill, and sued because your computer became a nuisance to others in the community with its overnight phone calls and high pitched squeals and alternating periods of silence while trying to get others of its own kind to answer it. I am really sorry Drew, you have been given an expensive lesson to learn. Good luck. PAT] ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Bell Canada and Stentor Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 23:50:40 -0400 (I was told this, not authoritatively confirmed though.) In September, Bell Canada, (which previously operated certain services such as Envoy 100 and Inet on behalf of Stentor members) will be service all customers of these services directly, bypassing the local telcos. New account numbers will be issued to customers using these services (5 digital I was told) now that Bell will have national coverage. BC customers will receive bills from Bell Canada. This change is fairly easy as it does not involve systems which are in a widespread use and involves a single system/service at the national level (as opposed to cellular which is a association of different operators in the "mobility" brand). However, I am surprised at the speed this is happening. I was told that Bell is putting in a new accounting/billing software package to handle national coverage and is in the process of training staff on that new system. I would suspect that Datapac will be next. For that, Bell will probably have to buy assets from the local telcos. These are "legacy" systems and local telcos probably don't mind getting rid of them. (Although Datapac does figure prominently in Canada's eftpos network). It will be interesting to see how things shape up for more moderns services such as Mobility (mobile phones) and Sympatico (internet access). ------------------------------ From: nospam@elmhurst.msg.net Subject: Re: "Bright Light" POP Spam Filtering: A Bad Idea Date: 28 Jul 1999 14:45:55 -0500 Organization: MSG.Net, Inc. In article , Adam Frix wrote: > In article , nospam@elmhurst.msg.net > (nospam) wrote: >> I have a problem with how they do things, as a system administrator I >> block Bright Light and all similar services from any POP server under >> my control. Any user who gives out their password to ANY 'untrusted >> third party' has to call to find out what their password has been >> changed to, or in a corp environment, has an interesting conversation >> with their supervisor. > You're worried about the user's password being used by unauthorized users > to gain access to your network? > Is that the *only* security mechanism you have for dialup? User name and > password?????? Where did I say 'only' or 'for dialup' or 'my network'? There are many ISPs (most?) where the username and password for dialup is the same as for POP, FTP, etc. I wouldn't recommend it for a corporate RAS solution. But that doesn't change my stance on divulging passwords. > Sounds lame to me. VERY lame. If security is an issue, passwords by > themselves suck. Get SecurID. Yes, in a corporate environment a Challenge-Response (not SecurID, it has problems) mechanism is an important component of security. But for an ISP offering $20/month accounts to the average user, token access isn't going to fly. At an ISP I'm less worried about a compromised password being used to gain access (anybody with a credit card can get access) than I am worried about the account being taken over for a warez site, spamming, etc. > I can give out my network password all day long. And nobody can dial up > and become me to get onto our network. So I wear a nice suit and walk into your office while you are at lunch, or bribe somebody on the cleaning crew to plug in a Wavelan under your desk :-) Reusable passwords are never a good idea. But they are often unavoidable. ------------------------------ From: black@csulb.edu (Matthew Black) Subject: Re: 56k and Portmaster 3 Date: 29 Jul 1999 14:43:35 GMT Organization: Your Organization In article , jeff@paradyne.com says: > I was wondering if there is a particular dial-up string that needs to > be configured in Windows dial-up networking that will allow USR (or > other) modems to connect with our Portmaster 3 at 56K. All of the > ports on the PM3 are set to the max speed (64k), but the max speed > users are able to connect at is 28.8. The same user can connect to our > corp. IBM isp account at least 44k. I have run into this in the past > with other dial-in servers and it was a dial-up string that fixed the > problem. It sounds like your Livingston (Lucent) PM3 is NOT connected to a "digital" T1. V.90 requires that the server side (PM3) be connected directly to the C/O switch without going through a channel bank or any other analog to digital (A/D) conversions. A modem init string will not solve this problem. Several other possible causes include, but not necessarily limited to: 1. An older version of ComOS. The latest version is 3.8. 2. Older PM3's with 1st version digital modem cards...Livingston provided free swaps. This typically applies to PM3's that are two to three years old. 3. The PM3 supports V.90 and K56flex. It does not support the U.S. Robotics "x2" technology...make sure the modem tries connecting with V.90. If your PM3 is less than one year old or you have a support agreement, call Livingston at 800-458-9966. -----------------------------(c) 1999 Matthew Black, all rights reserved-- matthew black | Opinions expressed herein belong to me and network & systems specialist | may not reflect those of my employer california state university | network services SSA-180E | e-mail: black at csulb dot edu 1250 bellflower boulevard | PGP fingerprint: 6D 14 36 ED 5F 34 C4 B3 long beach, ca 90840 | E9 1E F3 CB E7 65 EE BC ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J. Sobol) Subject: Re: 56k and Portmaster 3 Date: 29 Jul 1999 03:25:03 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Wed, 28 Jul 1999 10:38:59 -0400, jeff@paradyne.com allegedly said: > I was wondering if there is a particular dial-up string that needs to > be configured in Windows dial-up networking that will allow USR (or > other) modems to connect with our Portmaster 3 at 56K. All of the > ports on the PM3 are set to the max speed (64k), but the max speed > users are able to connect at is 28.8. The same user can connect to our > corp. IBM isp account at least 44k. I have run into this in the past > with other dial-in servers and it was a dial-up string that fixed the > problem. I see this with some USR's and the Portmasters my customers dial into, but not all. The first thing you may want to do is make sure that x2 negotiation is turned off. If the USR modem is trying to negotiate a 56K connection, it will get nowhere trying x2. The second thing you may want to do is check http://www.56k.com. In particular, check the troubleshooting link. North Shore Technologies Corporation http://www.NorthShoreTechnologies.net We don't just build websites; we build relationships! 815 Superior Ave. #610, Cleveland, OH 44114-2702 216.619.2NET 888.480.4NET Host of the Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail http://www.spamfree.org ------------------------------ From: Jennifer Martino Subject: Seeking References to Touch Tones and Music Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 20:02:35 -0500 I would like to know if anyone could post or know where I could find musical note equivelent translations to the touch tones. Thanks, jennifer martino the web page you have reached http://www.cotse.com/twpyhr/ over 200 unique telephone sounds recordings hosted by.. http://www.cotse.com ph33r the swimming elephant ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 15:38:41 -0700 Subject: ITT Wiring diagram From: Keelan Lightfoot I am looking for the wiring diagram of an ITT phone with what I think is a line switch on it. The switch is a transparent plastic knob in the lower left hand corner of the front of the phone. The phone looks like a WE Model 500 clone. Do you have anything in a maintenance manual that looks something like this? Thanks in advance! - Keelan Lightfoot ------------------------------ From: Alter Kollel Subject: Cordless Phones Interference Problem Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 17:54:54 -0400 Speaking of 900Mhz cordless phones, we had been using a pretty old (not 900Mhz) phone in our new apartment, and kept getting awful interference - both "Martian" noises and intersected phone call on our neighbors' lines! So we've been shopping for a 900Mhz phone. Well, the BellSouth model (a cheap one) had bad clipping. And the GE model has muffled (although consistent) sound. What is wrong? What should we do? Alter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 12:57:09 -0700 From: Cortland Richmond Organization: Alcatel Subject: Re: The Crisis at Pacifica Radio I live and work in KPFA's coverage area, and while I don't share their politics, I have not been unsympaothetic to the employees in this case. However, it may be that the station cannot generate enough contributions to keep itself afloat if it caters to radical politics to the exclusion of more centrist views. If this is so, then even if -- especially if -- the employees should "win" this battle, they will have lost the war, when the station closes due to insolvency. Even a non-profit must take in enough money to pay its bills, and its management has a duty to see it can. Dying gloriously for the cause is not a viable option for a radio station. Cortland ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 14:11:17 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: USF and PICC Charges In article , Eli Mantel wrote: > Linc Madison wrote: >> ... Telco ... charges a minimum of 63 cents/month/line for USF on >> *DIALAROUND* access! I made a whopping total of TWO calls, for a total >> of 22 cents, and was charged 63 cents in USF charge. ... Not only >> that, but they ... overbilled the federal tax (4 cents tax on 22 >> cents billing? Wrong!). > But the PICC and USF fees are obligations of the long distance > carrier, not the customer. No. The PICC and USF fees are ultimately obligations of the CUSTOMER, *NOT* the IXC. There is no reason to charge these fees to the IXC, other than as a collection agent in the same respect that they collect the various taxes (excise tax, utility tax, etc.). They should only be charged in a manner where it is very clear that $X was charged to IXC Y for customer Z, and therefore Y gets to charge Z $X -- not $X + fudge factor, not average value of $X over some range of customers, not some arbitrary minimum. > The carrier doesn't have to pass these charges along to you in this > manner, but you have to pay tax on whatever portion they do. The IXC shouldn't be paying the PICC, and I shouldn't be paying the PICC through the IXC. *ANY* and *ALL* flat monthly fees for telephone service should *ONLY* be collected directly through the LEC. No exceptions, period. The only charges/fees/taxes that should be permitted to be charged through the IXC should be strictly on a percentage basis. The idea is supposedly to bring the price of local service more in line with the cost of providing it, but the FCC implementation of the idea is bizarre and unacceptable. >> There is an FCC docket open for comments on this subject. >> I encourage everyone to look at "FCC Opens Inquiry into >> Flat-Rated L.D. Fees"... > IMO, the FCC is a "partner in crime" with the long distance carriers. Except that in this case it is also a "partner in crime" with the local exchange carriers. The whole reason that the PICC exists is that the LECs didn't want it to look like their prices were increasing. > The precedent having been set that such government-mandated charges > could be passed on to the customers as a separate line item, the > carriers began playing this game of lying about the rates, treating > these add-ons as if they were taxes (and I realize that the USF charge > is really a tax, but that's a rant for another time) and thus not > including them in their advertised rates. This is a disturbing trend in other arenas as well. For example, when I rent a car now, in addition to the advertised rate and applicable taxes, I pay an additional, separately itemized fee for the license plate on the car. Literally. I'd like to see Avis or Hertz or any of the others rent me a car without the optional license and registration. Worse yet, they now charge me separately for something that amounts to the depreciation of the vehicle I'm renting. Excuse me, but what exactly is the rental rate for, anyway? > As for charging fixed amounts for the USF, it may just be that the > marketing folks decided that too many people didn't understand this > percentage add-on, especially when they already had to deal with the > fixed PICC charge, so that some carriers like Telco and AT&T decided > to impose it as a flat charge. But that's ridiculous, especially in the case of dialaround access. You just put the USF up in the "tax" section with the other taxes. The more money you spend, the more USF charge you pay. Simple. > Had the FCC never allowed such charges to be separately itemized, the > carriers would just have buried it all in their rates along with the > other costs of doing business, and we wouldn't have a situation where > you can't really find out what the rates are without asking the > Customer Service Reps twenty questions and probably getting the wrong > answers anyway. Agreed. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #260 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jul 29 19:16:15 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id TAA16641; Thu, 29 Jul 1999 19:16:15 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 19:16:15 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907292316.TAA16641@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #261 TELECOM Digest Thu, 29 Jul 99 19:16:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 261 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson The Contents of Daily E-News (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Interface Standard Set(s) to Wireless Telephone (Marcus AAkesson) Re: Recording ADPCM Files (Kevin Smeal) Unmasking Anonymous Posters (Monty Solomon) A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered (Monty Solomon) Re: VISA Authorizations (Graeme Thomas) Re: VISA Authorizations (Scott Robert Dawson) Re: VISA Authorizations (Steven J. Sobol) The ATM Debit Card Switcheroo (Lauren Weinstein) Re: LD Tel Company ACT (Aaron Woolfson) Re: When/When Not to Dial '1' (Daniel Ganek) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (Adam Frix) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (Matthew Black) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 18:05:23 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: The Contents of Daily E-News For those of you who have expressed some confusion about the way that http://telecom-digest/news is organized -- admittedly there are a lot of resources available there -- this message may help you organize your use of the service more effeciently. No one really goes through it all every day. There simply is too much there. The intent was to make a variety of resources available so that users could pick and choose what they want to see on a regular basis with an easy interface. It is my subjective version of 'the best of the net', and granted, some people may have different opinions on what should be included. Here is how it is presently organized: On calling the page http://telecom-digest.org/news the 'default' audio presentation is BBC World News Online. Users have a choice of accepting this or changing to some other audio feed, or turning off the audio feed entirely, using the player controls I have embedded on the page at the top. Instead of BBC Online , i.e. /index.html users can go direct to a different audio feed as follows: http://telecom-digest.org/news BBC World News Online (or add /index.html at the end if desired, not necessary) Five minute news report prepared for Internet use. Updated hourly around the clock, seven days per week. http://telecom-digest.org/news/ap.html Associated Press Online Their audio feed to the Internet, five minutes in length, updated every few minutes. http://telecom-digest.org/news/reality.html Lauren Weinstein's comments each day known as 'Vortex Daily Reality Report and Unreality Trivia Quiz' - usually two minutes in length, updated five times weekly, originating from his home site, vortex.com http://telecom-digest.org/news/monitor.html Christian Science Monitor Online audio news feed. The Monitor has long had a well-respected, high-calibre international shortwave radio service; now they have recently begun an Internet-only audio news feed. About three minutes in length, updated daily with a 'weekend edition' as well. http://telecom-digest.org/news/CNNhead.html CNN Headline News for the Internet. This is a continuous live audio feed they make avail- able to netizens based on their cable service. ---- no matter which of the above you choose to use as the starting point, or if you just use the default which will get you BBC, the page is identical otherwise. Any of the above audio feeds has a link available to all the other audio feeds. ---- Other features available at http://telecom-digest.org/news include: 1. This Day in History, Daily Quote, Daily Comic Cartoon, Daily Astronomy Picture, Earth Alert, and other short features. Click on the links. 2. Links to the two major stories of the day presented by CNet. Click on the pictures to go to the stories. 3. The daily edition of {Christian Science Monitor Online}, the weekly edition of {Atlantic Unbound}, and the current issue of {CNet Shopper}. Click on any of the images shown to get the full issue. News about Mother Nature and earth science things is available by clicking on the little spinning globe. 4. Clicking on the 'TELECOM Digest' logo midway down the page in the center of the screen will give you about a hundred headline links from several other online publications, as well as pictures of the news. Click on any subsequent picture or headline to read the full report, and follow the link at the top of the page to get back to the main page of the /news section. 5. Local weather is available by entering your zip code, post code or city code for anywhere, from Weather Underground, in presentations especially designed for use by netizens. 6. Clicking on the real.com logo brings up the daily schedule of netcasts available, and links to 1700 audio/video feeds for use, many of which are exclusive to the Internet. Next to it is a place to click if you wish to obtain a *free* multimedia player, or want to upgrade the one you presently are using. I understand some of you cannot fritter away your day at one site going through all the feature stories and news and audio-visual presentations I have available. Therefore, you will also find a link entitled 'quick news' (I think that is what I called it) which will give you a very quick (five or ten minutes total) cluster of news stories you can read in less than a minute each. I call this the 'Daily E-News'. By the way, updates are very fast in arriving. Within about an hour on Thursday of the gunman in Atlanta who went around the brokerage office shooting everyone dead after he lost all his money, it was online here. It is all totally automated; as soon as one of my sources puts a new item online, it immediatly becomes linked for you to see/hear/read. I hope you find this free service useful, and that you will help it to remain free. Some of the content suppliers choose to include advertising on their own links which is beyond my control, as is anything you may read on their links. Overall, I think it benefits this site a lot. I hope also I made the right choices in my decisions regarding 'best of the net'. I realize that is a very subjective thing; not all will agree with my choices. I chose to only include *electronic* media. I am not including the traditional print media except when they have a distinct service for the Internet which differs substantially from any printed service they may also operate. I was not interested in those places which stuff advertising down your throat in order to get their content nor those sites like {New York Times} which insist on making netizens register or identify themselves (cookies or otherwise) and are sometimes not very truthful in what they present. Have you ever wondered what NYT does with all that registration data they collect from netizens? So have I. Enjoy http://telecom-digest.org/news and give me feedback about any problems with links, etc. PAT ------------------------------ From: marcus.akesson@no_spam_please.home.se (Marcus AAkesson) Subject: Re: Interface Standard Set(s) to Wireless Telephone Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 21:12:34 GMT Organization: Chalmers University of Technology On Sun, 18 Jul 1999 17:11:36 -0600, D. Snow wrote: > Does anyone make an interface which will integrate a wireless > telephone with one or more standard telephone sets? Yes, Nokia, among others. > The unit would need to provide current, dialtone and ring to the sets > and control the wireless phone for number entry, send and end > functions. PremiCell from Nokia is made for the sole prpose of patching ordinary phones to the cellular network. I See the PremiCell at: http://www.nokia.com/phones/premicell/index.html This is only for GSM900/1800. Marcus ------------------------------ From: kevinsmeal@my-deja.com (Kevin Smeal) Subject: Re: Recording ADPCM Files Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 03:18:18 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. In article , jmaddaus@NO_SPAM.usa. net wrote: > ctiguy@my-deja.com wrote: >> So the question finally is ... does anyone know of a way to create >> ADPCM sound files that sound good when played back over phone >> equipment. I expect a hardware card would be the way to go, something >> that can accept line-in input although if someone know of a software >> package that can convert from WAV to ADPCM and take into account the >> phone limitation thats playing the sounds ... that would be good too. > Is it the Dialogic cards that require ADPCM or are you running > "wrap-around" software that needs this format? I ran into this > problem several years ago using Natural Micro Systems cards while > building an IVR. We went through the trouble of hiring a voice, > paying for studio grade recordings on a cassette and then discovering > that the Edify software we used to create the IVR application was > incapable of accepting any format voice (wav or otherwise) because all > voice messages needed to be input through a phone connected to the NMS > cards. > The result -- we had to play our high quality voice back on a cheap > tape player and record through the mic on the phone. Since our IVR > was located in a noisy server room (AC, UPS, etc.) one person had to > stand outside the door, dial into the IVR while the other started and > stopped the recording procedure on the server. What a mess. However, > I do think Edify addressed this issue in later releases so that one > could simply input a wav file. Might want to check with your software > vendor, or look at some of the low cost IVR development alternatives > that work with Dialogic for this capability. Sorry I couldn't be of > more help but I know your frustration. ctiguy and John - There are a couple options you can try, based on your budget, your time, and what you're trying to do: First, are you restricted to the 6k sampling rate? I know that some Dialogic cards can handle 8K ADPCM, and you might get a slightly better recording using it. The higher the sampling, the better the quality. Of course, there might be some limitations on the IVR software. Second, try a program called CoolEdit96. It's available as shareware from www.syntrillium.com, and runs about $40. It's a very handy editor that permits you record, edit, translate, convert, and customize WAV files (along with a lot of other things), including saving/converting to various ADPCM formats. It's been well worth the $40 spent. Third, try a program called VoxStudio. It's a little more expensive (about $500) and available from Parity Software (www.paritysoftware.com). VoxStudio permits you to convert from/to many telephony formats to other telephony formats, including doing batch conversions (of up to 1024 segments per batch). Finally, give Dynametrics in California a call (I believe it's www.dynametrics.com). Dynametrics sells a number of devices that will let you play and record to/from many other devices. For example, one device fits between your handset and telephone and plugs into your sound card (either play or play/record) and lets you "inject" (play ) sound files into the phone without having to go the cassette recorder route. The one thing to remember is that the device will pick up all sounds, so you will need to have some form of mute switch on the handset (or you can disconnect the handset) or use a headset like Customer Service Reps use (with a mute switch) so that the background noise is not picked up. I have been programming for 5 years and over the past two years have converted a system with about 5000 prompts to another system with a different audio file format - and these tools were invaluable in saving time. Hopefully this information will be helpful. If you have any other questions, please feel free to e-mail me. Kevin Smeal Team Leader, IVR Development ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 09:35:48 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Unmasking Anonymous Posters Oscar S. Cisneros 3:00 a.m. 29.Jul.99.PDT A new legal trend has privacy advocates up in arms: Attorneys are using subpoenas to unmask the identities of anonymous posters to online discussion forums. And the people whose identities are at stake rarely have the chance to fight back. http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/20983.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 09:41:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered July 28, 1999 By PAMELA MENDELS A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered A new breed of Internet service provider is emerging to serve the needs of parents and others who want access to an Internet free of pornography, bomb-making information, hate advocacy and other perceived ills. They are called "filtered ISPs," and they exist to make it easy for families and others to keep arguably objectionable material off their computer screens. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/07/cyber/education/28education.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 22:35:00 +0100 From: Graeme Thomas Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations In article , Joey Lindstrom writes: [ Sad story snipped ] > The guy at Esso was very sorry, but said that's just how the banks work > things and there was nothing he could do about it - indeed, I was far > from the first person to phone and complain about this, but the banks > pretty much had guns pointed at their heads telling 'em "this is how > we'll do things". There are variants about, but what typically happens is this: The authorizations happen online, at the time of purchase. The auth amount is blocked on the account. If nothing further happens, then the authorization will eventually expire, and the amount will be released. As another poster commented, the delay depends on the card and the processor, but it can be (and often is) up to 45 days. At the "end of day", the terminal uploads all its transactions to the network. That's when real money gets transferred. The merchant does not get his money until that upload happens, and your account won't get debited, either. That "end of day" processing happens whenever the merchant feels like it, although there is often something in the contract between the merchant and the acquirer to prevent the merchant from doing it too often. It sounds, from the story, as though the manager of the gas station did not do those uploads at the weekend, but waited until Monday night. It's not particularly friendsly of him, but he's within his rights. Of course, not all banks do their job properly. I know of at least one that got it wrong up till last week, because that's when I fixed their code. Graeme Thomas ------------------------------ From: sunspace@interlog.com.placeholder (Scott Robert Dawson) Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 00:46:24 GMT Organization: Interlog Internet Services On Wed, 28 Jul 1999 00:54:20 -0600, Joey Lindstrom wrote: > Here's the problem: when their system preauthorizes your card, they do > so in the amount of $75. However, unlike the situation you describe, > it takes three BUSINESS DAYS (remember, this was a weekend) for these > authorizations to "expire" This whole issue of credit holds is a little devious. It'd be interesting to find out how long Rogers Video's CC authorization would take to expire, if I ever get around to renting a DVD player from them some night. This is the kind of thing the federal and provincial governments should hold up to the light, when the banks request permission to merge, or an inquiry is conducted into gas-price collusion. Scott Robert Dawson, Toronto Parolu esperante! ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Date: 29 Jul 1999 03:28:49 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Wed, 28 Jul 1999 00:54:20 -0600, Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU allegedly said: > Here's the problem: when their system preauthorizes your card, they do > so in the amount of $75. However, unlike the situation you describe, I used to work at a BP station here in Ohio. BP preauthorizes for $35. That seems a much more manageable amount than $75 (even though, yes, I understand it's $75 *Canadian* dollars). Is Canadian gas that much more expensive? Gas here is about 33 cents per liter (that's figuring a local average of US$1.25 a gallon, and there are 3.785 liters in a gallon). North Shore Technologies Corporation http://www.NorthShoreTechnologies.net We don't just build websites; we build relationships! 815 Superior Ave. #610, Cleveland, OH 44114-2702 216.619.2NET 888.480.4NET Host of the Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail http://www.spamfree.org ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 99 20:56 PDT From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: The ATM Debit Card Switcheroo Greetings. Readers interested in additional background on the topic of VISA/MC, etc. debit/check cards and the issues involving them, may wish to click over to: http://www.vortex.com/privacy/priv.06.16 That issue (20 Nov 97) of the PRIVACY Forum Digest contained my article "The ATM Debit Card Switcheroo," which described events surrounding Wells Fargo's mass replacement of conventional ATM cards with debit (check) cards. This topic has continued to resurface in the PRIVACY Forum from time to time, of course. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein Moderator, PRIVACY Forum --- http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Host, "Vortex Daily Reality Report & Unreality Trivia Quiz" --- http://www.vortex.com/reality ------------------------------ From: telone@shout.net (Aaron Woolfson) Subject: Re: LD Tel Company ACT Date: 29 Jul 1999 19:57:59 GMT Organization: Shouting Ground Technologies, Inc. They have great customer service, always answer with a real person (no voice mail routing), have good rates, clear and understandable bills, ... seems good enough to me. Aaron Stan U. (stanri@yahooREMOVETHISPART.com) wrote: > Has anyone had any experience with this long distant company, > (Advanced Communications Techniques, Inc) either good or bad. > http://advanced-communication.com/ ------------------------------ From: Daniel Ganek Subject: Re: When/When Not to Dial '1' Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 16:33:08 -0400 Organization: Radionics, Inc. Ed Ellers wrote: > Daniel Ganek (ganek@radionics.com) wrote: >> Why can't the FCC mandate that 10 digit dialing ALWAYS works? > Why *should* the FCC mandate that local calls (that do not cross a > state line) must be dialable in a certain way? How does this have a > real impact on interstate commerce -- and if it does not, what > business does the Federal government have telling the states what to > do in this regard? A number of people misinterpreted my question. First, I meant 1+10 digit dialing. Second, I didn't mean that seven digit local dialing be abolished just that 1+10 digit dialing be an option even for a local call. It was just a couple of years ago when we had four and five digit dialing and we could still dial the whole seven digits. I don't make a lot of local calls and it drives me crazy trying to figure out whether a town is local or not. BA recorded messages are useless as I said. /dan ------------------------------ From: adamf@columbus.rr.com (Adam Frix) Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 17:17:10 -0400 Organization: Road Runner Columbus In article , nospam@elmhurst. msg.net wrote: > There are many technical mechanisms by why 'deep linking' can be > circumvented, (cookies, checking the 'referer' sent by the user's > browser, Java, etc), if Universal had made it _technically_impossible_ > for sites to link directly to their content, I doubt this would have > made the news. > But rather than implement a simple technical solution, Universal is > attempting to make a legal case against the remote site providing the > deep links -- this is at best silly, and at worst a threat that could > severely damage the concept of hyperlinks and 'the web' as a public > place. Sounds a lot like the satellite TV broadcasters, huh. And the cell phone companies. Remember? "We CHOOSE NOT TO make it technically impossible to intercept our signal, because it's cheaper to pay the lawyers and lobbyists to make it 'illegal' than to pay to develop and implement the appropriate technology." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, well I hope netizens will NOT allow the above to become commonplace on the net. We were around here doing things our way long before any of them showed up. The newcomers and their lawyers are free to play by the rules we already have here or they can go elsewhere. PAT] ------------------------------ From: black@csulb.edu (Matthew Black) Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us Date: 29 Jul 1999 22:04:33 GMT In article , Art.Walker@onesourcetech.com says: > It sounds like the real problem is that Universal needs to configure > their web server to check HTTP_REFERER values and redirect "illegal" > links back to their main page. That would stop linking. However, it would not stop people from retyping the link on their browser URL field. -----------------------------(c) 1999 Matthew Black, all rights reserved-- matthew black | Opinions expressed herein belong to me and network & systems specialist | may not reflect those of my employer california state university | network services SSA-180E | e-mail: black at csulb dot edu 1250 bellflower boulevard | PGP fingerprint: 6D 14 36 ED 5F 34 C4 B3 long beach, ca 90840 | E9 1E F3 CB E7 65 EE BC ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #261 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jul 29 20:27:25 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id UAA19780; Thu, 29 Jul 1999 20:27:25 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 20:27:25 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907300027.UAA19780@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #262 TELECOM Digest Thu, 29 Jul 99 20:27:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 262 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson PacBell PCS and IXO/TAP Protocol (Derek J. Balling) Re: A Week We Won't Forget - To the Moon (Bill Blum) Re: Cable Internet Products Draw Ire of Consumer Groups (J.F. Mezei) Re: eBay Fraudulant Bidding Warning (James Gifford) Re: eBay Fraudulant Bidding Warning (Linc Madison) Re: eBay Fraudulant Bidding Warning (Terry Kennedy) Phone Database (Dave Kitabjian) Re: Visa Check Cards (Derek J. Balling) Re: VISA Cheque Cards (Does Ralph Nader Have a Credit Card) (M. Klassen) Re: VISA Authorizations (Steven Lichter) Would Uncle Sam Like to Spy on You? (TELECOM Digest Editor) Last Laugh! More 1999 Darwin Awards (David Massey) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 17:06:21 -0700 From: Derek J. Balling Subject: PacBell PCS and IXO/TAP Protocol OK, I've got a fairly straightforward question. I'm trying to set up a page-server internally that will dial to our engineers (who all have different cell/PCS/pager providers, depending on the coverage patterns for wherever they live in the Bay Area). I've been using qpage (a GREAT little free TAP/IXO paging utility for UNIX) with much success for most of our people. I keep running into problems, however, with PacBell PCS customers. I can send pages to our CellOnePCS customers just fine, but when I try to deliver a page to PacBell PCS's modem ports, I consistently get: message rejected page failed, id=GcXy0000, from=dballing, to=testuser, parts=1 : Not accepted - MSGTRN contents format incorrect (0x00004) Since this is working for everyone else, I can only assume that I'm either (a) dialing into a port that LOOKS like a TAP/IXO port but really isn't and that I need a new number, or (b) I need to somehow "alter" the pin number or whatever is being sent in some manner that PacBell will like. I've been dialing into 1-888-600-7267, which according to www.qpage.org is the PacBell PCS port. I haven't gotten any reply from qpage's author indicating the source of this info (so I could try and track it down that way) Of course, as is usually the case with things like this, the first few front lines of PacBell customer support were just this side of useless (one of them going so far as to say no such port exists at all). :) Has anyone been able to deliver pages, via modem, to their PacBell PCS phones? (Yes, I'm aware of their e-mail gateway, that's not an option for many many reasons, not the least of which is horrible delays that seem to ensue from using it). Any assistance would be GREATLY appreciatead. D ------------------------------ From: Bill Blum Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 18:59:39 -0400 Subject: Re: A Week We Won't Forget - To the Moon Pat, just a note to say I thoroughly enjoyed this thread. Perhaps readers would like a pointer to the PBS site that has some "excellent" QuickTime VR MOVies of all six moon missions (small files, largest is 400K). Check out: To the Moon - NOVA takes you there, with 360-degree panoramas from the Apollo landings. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tothemoon/ or to the following site to get directly to the QTVR movies http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tothemoon/explore.html Bill Blum Computer Services Sr Systems Specialist CAES Griffin Campus, Ga Exp Stn (770)228-7270 fax 1109 Experiment Street Griffin, GA 30223-1797 bastille@gaes.griffin.peachnet.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks very much. I am happy to pass those along to readers. If I do any more editing to our own presen- tation here, http://telecom-digest.org/camelot-on-the-moon.html I may include on the page the links you suggest above. PAT] ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: Cable Internet Products Draw Ire of Consumer Groups Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 18:56:04 -0400 This, and that Universal issue point to me one big thing: A lot of companies jumped onto the internet bandwagon because they were just following the other sheep that were jumping off the bridge. So now, they all are so proud to announce that they are an "e-business" and so far, Wall Street has applauded all companies (except Starbucks) who went "e-business" even if it means that it won't make a profit. But my guess is that there is a growing pressure now to make these ventures profitable. And companies which are clueless on the cultural nature of the Internet are coming up with attempts to make money (or reduce losses) which go against what users want. My hope is that any such attempt will severely backfire against the company and get a huge slap from Wall Street. Once this happens once, all the other sheep will learn to behave on the net. Heard a good question the other day: Why is Amazon.COM more succesfull than Barnes&Noble.com ? My impression is that Wall Street is driving a headless run towards the internet with absolutely no clue on where it will go. It is NOT business as usual and many don't quite get it yet and try to implement business-as-usual solutions to it. My impression is that most of these new IPOs are truly virtual companies. There is such a frenzy that I should just start JF.COM and go public, put up a couple of web pages and once I get the few hundred million dollars from the IPO, I skip town leave the server running (stale content) and enjoy the money on a remote island in the South Pacific. DRKOOP.COM ? Me thinks there will be a HUGE and very hard rude awakening on Wall Street. ------------------------------ From: James Gifford Reply-To: gifford@nitrosyncretic.com Organization: Nitrosyncretic Press Subject: Re: eBay Fraudulant Bidding Warning Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 14:52:32 -0700 David Massey wrote: > I'm always going to set a reserve price now that I read this! I have > seen some people get scammed into selling very valuable things for a > couple dollars because they did not set a reserve and they started the > bid at a few bucks. The scam artist comes in with a hidden identity > or a temporary email address and rips you off. Uh ... exactly how does a seller get "scammed" into selling things too cheaply? If anyone is jumping in with both feet, placing costly items for auction without setting a reserve and obviously hasn't read the pages and pages of tips and suggestions for sellers, then I have no tears to shed for them. That there are people out there watching like a hawk for such naivete and jumping on underpriced items hardly makes them "scam artists." | James Gifford - Nitrosyncretic Press - gifford@nitrosyncretic.com | | See http://www.nitrosyncretic.com for the Robert Heinlein FAQ | | and information on "Robert A. Heinlein: A Reader's Companion" | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 14:58:31 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: eBay Fraudulant Bidding Warning Various people have written about a simple fraud scheme by which a scammer will use a second identity to put in an outrageously high bid for an item, but withdraw it at the last moment, in order to secure the item at a much lower price. The obvious question is, why does eBay allow people to retract bids at all? That's not standard procedure at any "real live" auction I've ever seen. The only way to stop this form of fraud is for eBay to make it clear to all bidders that any bid they make is legally binding and CANNOT be withdrawn. If there is some problem with the winning bid, then the auction is nullified and the seller has the option to take the next highest bid, OR to put the item up for a new auction, or to simply withdraw the item, entirely at the SELLER's discretion. End of problem. At the very least, eBay should implement a system in which, if the winning bid is retracted within the last 15 minutes of bidding, the bidding is automatically extended by half an hour, and anyone following that auction gets a nice splash-screen to notify them. Alternately, simply allow the seller the option of voiding any auction in which the highest bid was retracted. (Of course, then you get into problems of fraud on the other side -- the seller could use a second identity to put in and then retract a high bid, just to void the sale.) This business that the seller is legally bound, but the buyer is not, is ludicrous. Shame on eBay for not seeing this coming, and especially shame on eBay for not responding more promptly and prudently. ------------------------------ From: Terry Kennedy Subject: Re: eBay Fraudulant Bidding Warning Organization: St. Peter's College, US Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 22:38:28 GMT David Massey writes: > I'm always going to set a reserve price now that I read this! I have > seen some people get scammed into selling very valuable things for a > couple dollars because they did not set a reserve and they started the > bid at a few bucks. The scam artist comes in with a hidden identity > or a temporary email address and rips you off. There's some confusion here. On eBay, a "reserve" is a minimum acceptable bid amount known only to the seller. Sellers can list an item with any start- ing price they want (which is shown on the item page), without needing to make it a reserve auction. The choice of which (or both) to use is up to the seller, and depends on a number of factors. A seller might put an expensive item out with a reserve of $500 (which isn't visible to any buyers) and a starting price of $1. This is done to attract > 30 bids, which puts it in the "Hot!" category. The fact remains that these two mechanisms (reserve and initial price) exist, and are *set* by the *seller*. Unless a seller doesn't care that an item goes for an insanely low price, they will use at least one of these methods to set the level of a minimum winning bid. Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing terry@spcvxa.spc.edu St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA +1 201 915 9381 (voice) +1 201 435-3662 (FAX) ------------------------------ From: Dave Kitabjian Reply-To: dave@netcarrier.com Subject: Phone Database Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 18:11:23 -0400 Organization: NetCarrier Hello! We are looking for a datafile which will contain a complete (and updated) list of area codes, exchanges, regions (central offices), and the other areacode/exchanges to which they are "local", based on local calling plan services. A file available either as a CD or via FTP would by ideal. Can you help us? Thanks! Dave NetCarrier ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 14:52:55 -0700 From: Derek J. Balling Subject: Re: Visa Check Cards > That is completely correct information for VISA Checkcards. For > Mastercard MasterMoney offline (offline meaning that it goes through > the mastercard network, not a debit network like cirrus or Honor) > Cards, there is a credit line for such an occasion. Unlike VISA, MC > will not lock your funds when a transaction is authorized. If you > withdrawl the funds, it will use the credit line and charge you any > interest as well. This is why you need to get a credit line linked > for a Mastercard debit card account. That is the main difference > between VISA and MC debit products. Ummm, I don't think so. I had a MC debit card with no credit line. It behaved identically in all cases (that I saw) to a Visa debit card. Trust me, there was NO credit associated with that MC debit card. :) (If there were, I never would have been granted one *g*) D ------------------------------ From: Klassen@UVic.CA (Melvin Klassen) Subject: Re: VISA Cheque Cards (Does Ralph Nader Have a Credit Card?) Date: 29 Jul 1999 01:34:03 GMT Organization: University of Victoria On Sun, 25 Jul 1999 18:24:39, sean@sdg.dra.com (Sean Donelan) wrote: > Derek Balling writes: >> (I challenge someone to get a rental car without a credit card ... >> I've never had any luck regardless of how much cash I offered to >> leave as a deposit). > Allegedly Ralph Nader doesn't have any credit cards, yet he seems to > be able to obtain rental cars. Does he pay, file an expense-report, and later get reimbursed from his employer? Or, has his employer issued a "business-use-only" credit-card to him, so that his employer is renting the vehicle? Technically, he still could have no "personal" credit-card, although he has been authorized to use a "corporate" credit-card. ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.comstuffit (Steven Lichter) Date: 29 Jul 1999 03:07:22 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Here is another good one. In April of this year I rented a car from Enterprise Renta Car while mine with being repaired. My insurance paid for most of the cost and when I returned the car I paid that amount in cash. An authorization never is canceled and it does clear out, but they could enter a charge and it would go through under that authorization, which is what happened, not once but twice in two months. Each time they agency refunded the money, not issuing a credit. My bank informed me that this could keep on forever and that even if I closed the account, or opened one under a different number it still could go through. I have sent a very stiff letter to them on my feeling on that and will not be renewing my account with them, nor will I even use a credit card for renting a car unless it is a straight charge for the max the charge could be; most of the time I know what the total will be as it is only when mine is in for repair. Apple Elite II 909-359-5338. Home of GBBS/LLUCE, support for the Apple II and Macintosh 24 hours 2400/14.4. OggNet Server. The only good spammer is a dead one, have you hunted one down today? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 19:20:22 -0400 From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Would Uncle Sam Like to Spy on You? An item I thought some of you might be interested in seeing about allegations that Uncle Sugar is sticking his nose in your business once again: Here is a story from ZDnet which I recommend: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2304083,00.html "U.S. backs off private monitoring" "Under attack for its 'Cold War mentality,' the U.S. denies it plans to monitor private networks." No comments on this end; not today at least. I've already occupied too much space in the Digest for this week. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 21:02:47 -0400 From: David Massey Subject: Last Laugh! More 1999 Darwin Awards Yes, it is the 1999 Darwin Awards. For those sheltered few of you who are not fully aware of the Darwin Awards; these awards are given annually (and posthumously) to those individuals who did the most for the human gene pool by removing themselves from it. GRAVITY KILLS A 22-year-old Reston man was found dead yesterday after he tried to use 'occy' straps (the stretchy little ropes with hooks on each end) to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad trestle, police said. Fairfax County police said Eric A. Barcia, a fast-food worker, taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped an end around one foot, anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park, then jumped... and hit the pavement! Warren Carmichael, a police spokesman, said investigators think Barcia was alone because his car was found nearby. "The length of the cord that he had assembled was greater than the distance between the trestle and the ground," Carmichael said. Police say the apparent cause of death was "major trauma." An autopsy is scheduled for later in the week. LAUNCHED ON THE FOURTH OF JULY Three young men in Oklahoma were enjoying the upcoming Fourth of July holiday and wanted to apparently test fire some fireworks. Their only real problem was that their launch pad and seating arrangements were atop a several hundred thousand gallon fuel distillation storage tank. Oddly enough, some fumes were ignited, producing a fireball seen for miles. They were launched several hundred feet into the air and were found dead 250 yards from their respective seats. DON'T ASK GOD TO PROVE HIMSELF, HE JUST MIGHT A lawyer and two buddies were fishing on Caddo Lake in Texas when a lightning storm hit the lake. Most of the other boats immediately headed for the shore, but not our friend the lawyer. On the rear of his aluminum bass boat with his buddies, this individual stood up, spread his arms wide (crucifixion style) and shouted: "HERE I AM LORD, LET ME HAVE IT!" Needless to say, God delivered. The other two passengers on the boat survived the lightning strike with minor burns. CATCH A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. Big deal you may say, but there's a twist here that makes him a candidate. It seems he and a friend were playing catch with a rattlesnake. You can guess what happened from here. The friend (a future Darwin Awards candidate) was hospitalized. THEY SAY THOSE THINGS WILL KILL YOU Not much was given to me on this unlucky fellow, but he qualifies nonetheless. You see, there was a gentleman from Korea who was killed by his cell phone ... more or less. He was doing the usual "walking and talking" when he walked into a tree and managed to somehow break his neck. Keep that in mind the next time you decide to drive and dial at the same time. GIMME A LIGHT In a west Texas town, employees in a medium-sized warehouse noticed the smell of gas. Sensibly, management evacuated the building, extinguishing all potential sources of ignition-lights, power, etc. After the building had been evacuated, two technicians from the gas company were dispatched. Upon entering the building, they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To their frustration, none of the lights worked. Witnesses later described the vision of one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object that resembled a lighter. Upon operation of the lighter-like object, the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of it up to three miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter was virtually untouched by the explosion. The technician that was suspected of causing the explosion had never been thought of as "bright" by his peers. RUNNER UP A Vermont native, Ronald Demuth, found himself in a difficult position yesterday. While touring the Eagle's Rock African Safari (Zoo) with a group of thespians from St. Petersburg, Russia, Mr. Demuth went overboard to show them one of America's many marvels. He demonstrated the effectiveness of "Crazy Glue"... the hard way. Apparently, Mr. Demuth wanted to demonstrate just how good the adhesive was, so he put about 3 ounces of the adhesive in the palms of his hands, and jokingly placed them on the buttocks of a passing rhino. The rhino, a resident of the zoo for the past thirteen years, was not initially startled as it has been part of the petting exhibit since its arrival as a baby. However, once it became aware of its being involuntarily stuck to Mr. Demuth, it began to panic and ran around the petting area wildly making Mr. Demuth an unintended passenger. "Sally [the rhino] hasn't been feeling well lately. She had been very constipated. We had just given her a laxative and some depressants to relax her bowels, when Mr. Demuth played his juvenile prank," said James Douglass, caretaker. During Sally's tirade two fences were destroyed, a shed wall was gored, and a number of small animals escaped. Also, during the stampede, three pygmy goats and one duck were stomped to death. As for Demuth, it took a team of medics and zoo caretakers' to remove his hands from her buttocks. First, the animal had to be captured and calmed down. However, during this process the laxatives began to take hold and Mr. Demuth was repeatedly showered with over 30 gallons of rhino diarrhea. "It was tricky. We had to calm her down, while at the same time shield our faces from being pelted with rhino dung. I guess you could say that Mr. Demuth was into it up to his neck. Once she was under control, we had three people with shovels working to keep an air passage open for Mr. Demuth. We were able to tranquilize her and apply a solvent to remove his hands from her rear," said Douglass. "I don't think he'll be playing with Crazy Glue for a while." Meanwhile, the Russians, while obviously amused, also were impressed with the power of the adhesive. "I'm going to buy some for my children, but of course they can't take it to the zoo," commented Vladimir Zolnikov, leader of the troupe. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #262 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 30 02:52:06 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id CAA03874; Fri, 30 Jul 1999 02:52:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 02:52:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907300652.CAA03874@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #263 TELECOM Digest Fri, 30 Jul 99 02:52:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 263 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Tutorial: How to Present Audio/Video at Your Site (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered (Dave O'Shea) Re: eBay Tries to Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco (Anthony Argyriou) Re: eBay Fradulent High Roller Bidders (Michael Maxfield) Re: When/When Not to Dial '1' (Fred Goldstein) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (Derek J. Balling) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (Bill Newkirk) Feature Group D (David Koppman) British Telecom to Provide ADSL in 10 UK Cities (Paul Robinson) Re: PacBell PCS and IXO/TAP Protocol (J.F. Mezei) Payphone Documentation and Key Wanted (BMarcus826@aol.com) Re: VISA Authorizations (Steven J. Sobol) Re: VISA Authorizations (J.F. Mezei) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 01:22:22 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Tutorial: How to Present Audio/Video at Your Site I have received some notes in the past couple days asking how to go about coding a web page to include a plug-in for audio/video. I decided to prepare this tutorial for readers. Below is the code I use in my various pages. I will explain it as we look at it. You would do up your page in the usual way with desired colors, etc and then insert what follows below at the place where you want it on the page. The XMP is not part of the code, it is only used here to prevent browsers which see this message from attempting to act on it. You would start with the OBJECT ID part. <OBJECT ID=video1 CLASSID="clsid:CFCDAA03-8BE4-11cf-B84B-0020AFBBCCFA" HEIGHT=200 WIDTH=242> <PARAM NAME="controls" VALUE="ImageWindow"> <PARAM NAME="console" VALUE="Clip1"> <PARAM NAME="autostart" VALUE="true"> <PARAM NAME="src" VALUE="some .ram or .rpm file name here"> <EMBED SRC="same .ram or .rpm as above" type="audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin" CONSOLE="Clip1" CONTROLS="ImageWindow" HEIGHT=200 WIDTH=242 AUTOSTART=true> </OBJECT> <OBJECT ID=video1 CLASSID="clsid:CFCDAA03-8BE4-11cf-B84B-0020AFBBCCFA" HEIGHT=30 WIDTH=242> <PARAM NAME="controls" VALUE="ControlPanel"> <PARAM NAME="console" VALUE="Clip1"> <EMBED type="audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin" CONSOLE="Clip1" CONTROLS="ControlPanel" HEIGHT=30 WIDTH=242 AUTOSTART=true> </OBJECT> I suggest you copy it just like it is above, making only these changes as discussed below. Be careful not to change the wrong things. The first instance of HEIGHT and WIDTH is for the display picture. 200x242 gets you the little viewing window. Bear in mind some producers make things for bigger or smaller windows. If you see the picture is too squeezed together or too stretched out or whatever, adjust this accordingly, but the above should work pretty well for most things. Set it differently depending on the esthetics or layout of your web page also. If you are presenting *audio only* then set the measurements to 0x0 to have the box out of the way entirely but do not remove the reference to the box. For the controls parameter, you *must* have an ImageWindow. Do not remove it. Some of the parameters can be changed around, but not that one. Likewise, leave 'Clip1' alone. Autostart is true if you want the program to begin playing when the page is loaded; it is false if you want the user to start the program on his own. The 'src' parameter is the name of the file you wish to play. The value always needs to be an explicit path. For example, your src might be 'http://stream.ap.org/audioupdate.ram' Likewise the EMBED SRC is set equal to the same as above. Do not tamper with the MIME types following unless you know what you are doing. There is little or no reason to change them. For the ImageWindow set it to the same values as above. If you are playing audio only, set them to zero, but *do not* remove it totally. Now in the second part, (or the third occurrance) of HEIGHT and WIDTH, these values represent the size of the little control panel which appears under the picture (or alone if picture size is zero). In the example given, 30x242 fixes things so it is high enough to be easily read, and exactly as wide across as the picture above it. You can make this narrower or longer as you wish, and the exact size depends on the types of controls you intend to give your users. For the PARAM NAME 'controls' in this case, several values are possible. They are: (make sure you spell them like I have them) None The control panel is invisible, if audio/video is set to autostart, user has no control over it; it just starts playing and plays out to conclusion. Obviously if not on autostart you can't use 'None'. PlayButton On the page is displayed just two buttons, one for on and one for off. User can listen/view or not listen/view as desired. ControlPanel On and off button, and a slider which indicates how far along into the presentation you have gotten. InfoVolumePanel A little box which tells about the presentation and a volume control slider. StatusBar A little strip which says things like 'connecting' or 'network congestion'; also the amount of time the presentation has played and its total length of time. All All of the above. You can use the above in various combinations as desired, limited only to the extent they make sense in how you have them arranged. Do NOT put any space between the commas. For example, ControlPanel,InfoVolumePanel is an acceptable combination. ControlPanel,StatusBar is an acceptable combination. Make sure the 'controls' param value and the later CONTROLS do not conflict. The exact size for the controls depends on how many you display. In the 30x242 example above, a slider bar with on/ off buttons are adequately displayed. If the 'controls' param value was 'All' (and the later CONTROLS=All) then your height needs to be closer to 100, in the 90-110 range, for them all to be nicely viewable. Remember, always have ImageWindow in the top part (used for viewing) and just set the size to zero if you do not intend to view anything. The first two instances of HEIGHT and WIDTH must be the same values, whatever you pick. The bottom two instances of HEIGHT and WIDTH must be the same values, whatever you pick. If you use my example above, and limit yourself only to making changes on the PARAM NAME 'src' with a VALUE of what you want to see/hear and the line immediatly below it where you EMBED SRC to the same as the 'src' value right above it, you should be okay. And there is no harm done if you leave the ImageWindow size alone; all that will happen is if you play an audio only presentation, the little window will just stay dark throughout it all. You might like to set the PARAM NAME 'controls' to a VALUE of 'All' to see a nice looking little player control panel displayed on your screen next to the little square where the video plays out. For convenience, just cut and paste my code above onto your page, then change those few entries mentioned here. Browser variations: For both Netscape 4.01 and above, and IE4 or IE-5 you should get the same results. But if you make a slight typing error on your page, watch out! IE tries to understand what it is you want, and does pretty well at interpreting it. But Netscape gets completely confused if there is *any* error in the spelling of a PARAM NAME or its associated VALUE. Be sure and "quote" all values. Here are a few examples for the PARAM NAME 'src' VALUE= and the EMBED SRC= line right below it. But you will find thousands of these on the net. Use common courtesy in your use of the .ram and .rpm files from those locations. Do not disguise the origin of the material, nor make claims about ownership. Do not resell it or advertise around it. "http://stream.ap.org/audioupdate.ram" "http://www.broadcast.com/cnn/audioselect/cnnhn.rpm" (CNN headlines) "http://www.broadcast.com/cnn/audioselect/cnncn.rpm" (CNN programming) "http://www.csmonitor.com/audio/newscast.ram" "http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/audio/world_summary.ram" Find your own; do not use the above except as examples to help get started, and check your work. There are plenty of news and music sources to choose from. ---------------------- Now suppose you want a choice of several things available on your page, so that users can pick one or another. There are a couple of ways to go about it. One method is to make several pages, all identical in content except for the lines specifying the VALUE for PARAM NAME src and EMBED SRC. Put links to all the pages with easy to associate names for each page such as monitor.html, CNNhead.html, ap-news.html and so forth. Click on a link, go to that page and the appropriate .ram gets called. A second method, which takes a bit more work produces somewhat nicer results. In that method, you use an HTML form, in a javascript, with the form output passed by javascript to 'document.write', in the middle of the player plug-in code. It is not as hard as it sounds. Note this example: (Your form goes here, with 'radio' buttons for selections or maybe a drop-down list of options, etc). Do this in javascript with the output of the form being assigned to 'userchoice', as in userchoice = whatever the form output Now start the plugin player code: <OBJECT ID=video1 CLASSID="clsid:CFCDAA03-8BE4-11cf-B84B-0020AFBBCCFA" HEIGHT=200 WIDTH=242> <PARAM NAME="controls" VALUE="ImageWindow"> <PARAM NAME="console" VALUE="Clip1"> <PARAM NAME="autostart" VALUE="true"> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> <--! document.write("<PARAM NAME='src' VALUE="+userchoice+">"+"<br>"+"<EMBED SRC="+userchoice+" "); !--> </SCRIPT> type="audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin" CONSOLE="Clip1" CONTROLS="ImageWindow" HEIGHT=200 WIDTH=242 AUTOSTART=true> </OBJECT> <OBJECT ID=video1 CLASSID="clsid:CFCDAA03-8BE4-11cf-B84B-0020AFBBCCFA" HEIGHT=30 WIDTH=242> <PARAM NAME="controls" VALUE="ControlPanel"> <PARAM NAME="console" VALUE="Clip1"> <EMBED type="audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin" CONSOLE="Clip1" CONTROLS="ControlPanel" HEIGHT=30 WIDTH=242 AUTOSTART=true> </OBJECT> Notice we have the very same code as originally used, but this time we are letting the value for 'src' and EMBED SRC get written into the player code at the last minute. The value of 'userchoice' gets written at the last minute, on the fly to be the value for 'src' and EMBED SRC. Notice how the document.write in the example above simply writes out the very same lines as in our original example. Using document.write with the need to quote your values can get very devilish at times; make sure you start and close with a double quote, and use a single quote on both sides of the values in question. If, God forbid, you run into a situation where you need a quote within a quote to keep something clearly understood by the browser, then you use [] as a third set of quotes. Yes, open and close brackets function as open and close quotes if necessary. So now you present the user with the video screen and player controls and in addition a bunch of little 'radio buttons' above it to make a choice of what he wants to listen to or view. But using forms within javascript and passing the output value from the form to the player plug-in is a bit beyond the scope of my tutorial today, so I will not say anymore about it now. Perhaps later if readers are interested. First, try to make your own plug-in as described above with simple calls to various URLs for what you want to play. This tutorial has been presented as a public service. It is intended to help netizens obtain the audio-visuals they want from web sites where the site is otherwise ugly, or the people who run it are ugly and distempered, or where they toss advertising at you all the time and hassle you with a lot of personal questions or try and get you to register so they can spam you later, etc. It is NOT to be used as a way to cheat other honest and creative netizens, who have prepared a 'whole presentation' from being allowed to show you all of their work in the context they desire. It is NOT to be used as a way to 'sneak in the back door' at porno sites and look at pictures or listen to sounds that you did not pay at the front door to see or hear. In a future tutorial, we will look at ways to make your Personal Player a little more elegant; with a selection of choices for listening and viewing easily selectable. We will look at ways to attach your Personal Player plug-in to a file you send someone, so they can easily view or listen to the file you sent them. Thanks for reading! Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: Dave O'Shea Subject: Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered Organization: snaip.net Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 02:25:00 GMT Monty Solomon wrote in message news:telecom19. 261.5@telecom-digest.org: > A new breed of Internet service provider is emerging to serve the > needs of parents and others who want access to an Internet free of > pornography, bomb-making information, hate advocacy and other > perceived ills. They are called "filtered ISPs," and they exist to > make it easy for families and others to keep arguably objectionable > material off their computer screens. > http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/07/cyber/education/28education.html The only problem is that most, if not all, of these efforts, are complete failures. Here's a group that checked several of the best-funded and largest-selling systems, and found that they not only fail to block most of the "offensive" sites, but the DO block a number of educational, useful, and well-policed sites. http://www.censorware.org/press/press_07-28-99.html Think of it as putting Barney Fife in charge of the nation's highway system. The results are not going to be pretty. ------------------------------ From: anthony@alphageo.com (Anthony Argyriou) Subject: Re: eBay Tries to Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 02:12:27 GMT Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: anthony@alphageo.com kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan) wrote: > I've never liked eBay's setup. I was first exposed to online auctions > through Onsale (http://www.onsale.com), and like both their interface > and policies. Onsale's "Yankee" auctions have a "closing" date/time, > but auctions will be extended by 10 minutes after the last bid. Which > means an auction can go for a lot longer than the presumed closing > time, if bids are active. > Of course, I tend to use the auctions to buy stuff not sell stuff, so > I can't say if Onsale's policies in regards to selling stuff are > substantially similar to eBays. I had the opposite reaction to Onsale -- their policies seem to be set up to favor the seller more than eBay. The "yankee auction" is different from a traditional Dutch Auction in that you pay what you bid, even if the clearing price is much lower. Allowing auctions to stay open overtime is also calculated to increase the price the seller gets. I don't want to have to sit at my computer, hitting re-load over and over to keep trying to get something I want (IIRC, there is no limit to the amount of time an auction can be extended, as long as there's a new bid every five minutes). On eBay, I win, or I lose. When it's over, it's over (unless there was a crash ...). If I had several items of computer equipment, I think I'd prefer Onsale (unless their commission is higher), but for buying, I like eBay, and will only go to Onsale if prices are better. Anthony Argyriou ------------------------------ Subject: eBay Fradulent High Roller Bidders Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 19:42:48 PDT From: tweek@netcom.com (Michael Maxfield) Gary Pratt wrote: > Whose fault is it that the reserve price was set too low? A reserve > price represents the price that a person is willing to sell an item > for. If the seller hasn't done their due diligence to determine the > fair market value for their item, that's the seller's fault. Sorry Gary, but you don't understand the word FAIR. A seller has the right offer his item for competative bidding. Even if the seller set his reserve price at a level he is willing to sell the item for, other willing buyers are not allowed to enter their competitive bid under such a scenario. Think this through ... Seller posts an item for a min $5 bid, and item for which $50 might be the highest ever expected on the free market. Buyer A comes along and bids $5 for the item. Buyer A obtains a second account as buyer Z and bids $75. Buyer B comes along, willing to go up to $20 on such and item, sees the $75 bid and exclaims "I ain't that crazy. No Way!" Buyer C comes along and while willing to pay upwards of $30, also goes running away upon seeing the outrageous bid. Buyer Z returns before the end of the auction and retracts the $75 bid, and as Buyer A is able to get the item for the opening bid of $5. Is that fair? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 22:18:43 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: When/When Not to Dial '1' At 01:00 PM 7/28/1999 -0400, Daniel Ganek wrote: > Why can't the FCC mandate that 10 digit dialing ALWAYS works? You have it wrong. They should mandate that *11* digit dialing ALWAYS works. You can't make 10-digit work, because it's ambiguous: Is that a prefix or an area code you're dialing? If you dialed 508-905-9901, does it stop and 508-9059 because 508's a valid local prefix? The whole point of the 1+ was to separate the two. Of course it became known as a toll prefix, so in many areas it is, but you *must* use the 1+ to distinguish between a prefix and an area code. Only in some areas do they "protect" local area codes from being used as prefix codes, and that gets harder and harder. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 19:54:38 -0700 From: Derek J. Balling Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us > In article , Art.Walker@ onesourcetech.com says: >> It sounds like the real problem is that Universal needs to configure >> their web server to check HTTP_REFERER values and redirect "illegal" >> links back to their main page. > That would stop linking. However, it would not stop people > from retyping the link on their browser URL field. Yeah it would. if ($ENV{'HTTP_REFERER'} !~ /^http://[^/]*universal.com/?) { print "Location: http://www.universal.com/\r\n\r\n"; } else { provide_data(); } A null string (no referer, e.g., bookmark or braindead browser) triggers the first case. A bad referer triggers the first case. Only a referer which starts "http://" contains any number of characters (other than "/") followed by universal.com, with an optional "/" following it will be accepted. (Anything past the optional "/" is ignored by that regular expression.) And the world is a better place without paying lawyers lots of money to be jerks. Reference: _Mastering_Regular_Expressions_, Jeffrey E.F. Friedl, O'Reilly and Associates. And I'm not just recommending it because he sits in the cubicle next to me, I'm saying it because aspiring web developers who write in Perl should read it, know it, live it, so they can do things like that above instead of relying on lawyers. D ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 23:26:39 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com I believe this was also because they were partners (through MCA) in the Laserdisc system and wanted to sell Alfred Hitchcock movies to everyone. Ed Ellers wrote in message ... > Don't forget that Universal was the first studio to sue to try to get > off-air home video recording banned (Disney joined the lawsuit later). ------------------------------ Subject: Feature Group D From: eldot@sdf.lonestar.org (David Koppman) Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 01:22:18 GMT I was wondering how I would go about making a Feature Group D request and get a special use CIC? I suppose you could almost consider this a request for proposals ... needed, 1-900, 10-1xxxx, 800-calling card; no equipment; billing done by provider, per second on provider side, six-second on user side. I've got too much information here not to be doing anything with it. eldot@sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org ------------------------------ From: rfc1394a@aol.com (Paul Robinson) Date: 30 Jul 1999 01:46:28 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: British Telecom to Provide ADSL in 10 UK Cities In a story announced on Silicon.com British Telecom will offer ADSL in the UK's 10 largest cities by upgrading 400 exchanges by March, 2000. The first 67 exchanges will be done by October of this year. The cities to be served will include 'Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow and London'. Fixed prices will start at 40 per month for the service. 'BT will offer services through BT Interactive but all the major service providers including AOL, Sky and MSN will also have the opportunity to provide their own bundled services. BT CEO Sir Peter Bonfield, said competition will create "a whole raft of new and innovative offerings".' BT is not considered a responsive company according to some analysts, thus this may provide a benefit for other companies who might be more agressive in their marketing of the always-on connectivity service. Paul Robinson ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: PacBell PCS and IXO/TAP Protocol Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 21:11:23 -0400 Derek J. Balling wrote: > I keep running into problems, however, with PacBell PCS customers. I > can send pages to our CellOnePCS customers just fine, but when I try > to deliver a page to PacBell PCS's modem ports, I consistently get: > message rejected > page failed, id=GcXy0000, from=dballing, to=testuser, parts=1 : Not > accepted - MSGTRN contents format incorrect (0x00004) PACbell run GSM mobile phones. TAP sends an SMS message to the phone NUMBER. So the destination should be in +1aaannxxxxx format. (the + may be optional). Also, remember that contents are limited to 160 characters. ------------------------------ From: BMarcus826@aol.com Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 21:32:20 EDT Subject: Payphone Documents and Key Wanted I have an AT&T payphone that I would like to convert for use in my home. Looking for information, also need to locate a key to open the telephone. Would appreciate any suggestions. ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Date: 30 Jul 1999 00:30:01 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Thu, 29 Jul 1999 00:46:24 GMT, sunspace@interlog.com.placeholder allegedly said: > This is the kind of thing the federal and provincial governments > should hold up to the light, when the banks request permission to > merge, or an inquiry is conducted into gas-price collusion. Gas-price collusion ...? The oil companies don't have any control whatsoever over the bank policies and the policies set by the cc processors. I don't agree with their pricing policies either, but it's irrelevant to this discussion. I feel much the same way as you do. On the other hand, as a credit card merchant, I understand the occasional need to hold off sending an authorized transaction to be processed. My thoughts on how the situation could be made better: (a) if there is a hold time, the law should require that all credit card processors and banks make the funds unavailable for the *same* amount of time no matter which card, bank or processor is used. (b) on occasions when an authorized transaction can't be processed immediately, a separate type of authorization should be required and the merchant should be required to make the customer aware that a certain percentage of their credit line will be unavailable for X days. On Wed, 28 Jul 1999 22:35:00 +0100, graeme@graemet.demon.co.uk allegedly said: > That "end of day" processing happens whenever the merchant feels like > it, although there is often something in the contract between the > merchant and the acquirer to prevent the merchant from doing it too > often. On the other side of the coin, processors try to encourage merchants not to wait. My company gives better discount rates to those people who send batches daily, before a certain time of day. This has benefits to both the merchant and the customer, in my opinion. > It sounds, from the story, as though the manager of the gas > station did not do those uploads at the weekend, but waited until Monday > night. It's not particularly friendsly of him, but he's within his > rights. Right, but ... I'm surprised there was a long wait. Again drawing from my experience working for BP: This particular station was one of the first in Ohio to have pay-at-the-pump. The technology has changed since then, but the process should still be the same: BP's EPOS (electronic point-of-sale) terminals, which are also in use at many other service stations, automatically transmit the batch once every 100 transactions. At a busy station like the one where I worked, this can end up being three or four batches per day. I wonder how busy this particular Esso station was. North Shore Technologies Corporation http://www.NorthShoreTechnologies.net We don't just build websites; we build relationships! 815 Superior Ave. #610, Cleveland, OH 44114-2702 216.619.2NET 888.480.4NET Host of the Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail http://www.spamfree.org ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: Re: VISA Authorizations Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 20:59:39 -0400 I don't drive, so this does not affect me. However, in self-serve automated stations, I would have thought that one would have entered the credit card, punched in a maximum amount, and then an authorisation taken for that amount only (with the gas pump stopping at that amount). ? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #263 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 30 15:10:20 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA25804; Fri, 30 Jul 1999 15:10:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 15:10:20 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907301910.PAA25804@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #264 TELECOM Digest Fri, 30 Jul 99 15:10:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 264 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Bring Us Broadband (Monty Solomon) Book Review: ISDN and Broadband ISDN With Frame Relay and ATM (Rob Slade) Is Cisco Choking Broadband Pipes? (Monty Solomon) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered (Adam Frix) Re: World's First "Real Time PC to Fax" From bcmfax.net (Richard Shockey) Re: eBay Fradulent High Roller Bidders (James Gifford) Re: eBay Fradulent High Roller Bidders (Carl Navarro) Re: eBay Fraudulant Bidding Warning (Matthew Black) Re: eBay Tries to Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco (Craig Williamson) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 01:22:27 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Bring Us Broadband http://www.netaction.org/monitor/mon40.html#broadband Published by NetAction Issue No. 40 July 29, 1999 Bring Us Broadband A high-stakes debate is taking place in communities throughout the United States, and the outcome will determine how soon -- and under what conditions -- high-speed Internet access is offered via broadband cable. NetAction is launching a campaign to educate consumers about the advantages of competitive deployment of high-speed Internet access. On one side of the debate is AT&T, which until 1984 was the nation's monopoly telephone company, and still controls more than half of the long distance market. On the other side is America Online (AOL), the nation's largest Internet service provider, allied with GTE and the Regional Bell Operating Companies. AOL is also financing No Gatekeepers, a coalition of consumer groups backing AOL's position. As a longtime consumer advocate, I've seen my share of corporate posturing, but the unholy alliance of AOL, GTE, and the Bells raises hypocrisy to new heights. Under the guise of a call for "open access," these companies have launched a massive lobbying campaign to convince federal, state and local officials, as well as consumers, that AT&T should be forced to provide its competitors with access to the broadband cable network it is spending over $100 billion to deploy. In essence, AT&T's competitors want to benefit from the company's investment without risking their own capital. It's a sweet deal for AT&T's competitors. And by couching this lobbying effort as a call for "open access," AOL and its allies have managed to convince a few local officials and consumer groups that it's also good for consumers. Nothing could be further from the truth. GTE and the Bells are the very same companies that have maintained monopoly control of local phone service by using every regulatory and legal trick in the book to avoid opening their own networks to competitors - as they were mandated to do three years ago when Congress enacted the Telecommunications Act of 1996. And AOL is the company that recently declared its millions of customers "off limits" to instant messaging via software provided by companies other than AOL. If that's an example of AOL's commitment to "open access," consumers have good reason to be worried. That's why Internet users who want competitive choices in high-speed Internet access should support the "hands off" approach to Internet regulation that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has used for nearly 30 years. As a recent FCC Working Paper pointed out, this "hands off" approach is working. See: . The Bells and GTE have for years had the technical ability to offer high-speed Internet access over the phone network via digital subscriber line (DSL) service. But they didn't start offering their own high-speed Internet service until competition began to emerge via broadband cable modems. Then, when competition finally developed, the telcos enlisted AOL's help in demanding that government regulate the new technology. This is nothing more than a ploy to slow down competition for both Internet access and local phone service. NetAction does not believe regulation is necessary to ensure that consumers have choices in high-speed Internet access. Wireless technology is being developed, and competition from cable broadband is already motivating local phone companies to offer DSL service at competitive prices. The "forced access" being advocated by AOL, GTE, and the Bells will simply delay competition and effectively deny consumers the benefits Congress promised when it passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. That's why NetAction is launching Bring Us Broadband, an Internet outreach campaign to educate consumers about the advantages of competitive deployment of high-speed Internet access, and alert consumers to opportunities to speak out against proposals to regulate access to cable broadband that threaten to delay the introduction of competitive high-speed Internet service. The Bring Us Broadband campaign, at: , includes background on the issue, information on how to speak up, and links to other resources. We are also inviting Internet users to subscribe to a new email alert list, Broadband Briefings. Subscribers will be alerted to opportunities to speak out before local, state, and federal officials as they consider this issue. To subscribe to Broadband Briefings: Send an email message to: majordomo@netaction.org In the message body, type: subscribe broadband Copyright 1999 by NetAction/The Tides Center. All rights reserved. Material may be reposted or reproduced for non-commercial use provided NetAction is cited as the source. NetAction is a project of The Tides Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 08:43:53 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "ISDN and Broadband ISDN with Frame Relay and ATM" Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKISFRAT.RVW 990513 "ISDN and Broadband ISDN with Frame Relay and ATM", William Stallings, 1999, 0-13-973744-8 %A William Stallings ws@shore.net %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1999 %G 0-13-973744-8 %I Prentice Hall %O 800-576-3800 416-293-3621 201-236-7139 fax: 201-236-7131 %P 542 p. %T "ISDN and Broadband ISDN with Frame Relay and ATM" When Stallings' name is on the cover, you generally know two things: 1) the book is a textbook. 2) the book is a classic reference in the field. Chapter one is an introduction, both to the book as a whole, and to the drive towards broadband communications. Part one is an overview of the basic concepts in digital communications. Chapter two looks at analogue and digital information. The problems and protocols of the subscriber line are reviewed in chapter three. The fundamental ideas of networking are explored in chapter four. Part two turns to the specifics of ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) itself. Chapter five lays out the foundations for ISDN, making a number of points that generally get lost in the "gee whiz" over high speed Internet access. The architecture and components are given in chapter six. Details are provided, in chapters seven to eleven, on the physical layer, data link layer, network layer, services, and Signalling System Number 7. The relation of frame relay to ISDN is discussed in part three. Chapter twelve talks about frame mode architecture, and the reduction in overhead as compared to packet switching such as X.25. Congestion is a part of any packet network, and chapter thirteen looks at the various answers provided by frame relay. Part four moves on to broadband ISDN. The overall architecture is reviewed in chapter fourteen. Chapter fifteen looks in detail at the protocols, starting to consider ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and SONET (Synchronous Optical Network). Part five deals more particularly with ATM. Chapter sixteen deals with components and performance. Traffic and congestion issues are covered in chapter seventeen. Ancillary material for use in a course is well prepared and presented. Most chapters have a summary, suggestions for further reading, and exercises. The questions are well thought out, and sometimes very thought provoking indeed. Some chapters have appendices, giving additional content related to the topic at hand. A Web page at http://www.shore.net/~ws/ISDN4e.html provides further elements for use by instructors. Solid coverage of a hot topic. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1999 BKISFRAT.RVW 990513 ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@sprint.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. - Mark Twain http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 23:40:09 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Is Cisco Choking Broadband Pipes? By Elizabeth Wasserman WASHINGTON - As Cisco Systems helps build broadband Internet access through the nation's cable systems, the company isn't just dreaming about giving cable companies a way to speed access to certain Web sites and slow access to others. They're bragging about it. http://www.thestandard.com/articles/display/0,1449,5699,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 19:54:38 -0700 From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us Derek J. Balling > That would stop linking. However, it would not stop people >> from retyping the link on their browser URL field. > Yeah it would. > if ($ENV{'HTTP_REFERER'} !~ /^http://[^/]*universal.com/?) > { > print "Location: http://www.universal.com/\r\n\r\n"; > } > else > { > provide_data(); > } > A null string (no referer, e.g., bookmark or braindead browser) triggers > the first case. A bad referer triggers the first case. Only a referer which > starts "http://" contains any number of characters (other than "/") > followed by universal.com, with an optional "/" following it will be > accepted. (Anything past the optional "/" is ignored by that regular > expression.) That seems to work pretty well. I tried it last night on test.html, a page of mine where I conduct experiments and debug my work before putting my work on line. But I propose a different scenario. Suppose I do not even try to go to the page at all, but merely aim for the .ram and .rpi wherever it happens to be located at the site? In other words, he says stay off of his deep pages without permission. Come to the top page, worship me and my advertisers, turn over your identity and pay the fee demanded; then *I* will pass you to the deep page where the plugin is established so that you can watch the movie I have. But I respond that I do not need his deep page with his plugin (and probably more advertising) any longer. I have my own player on a sort of 'utility page' stored on my own computer, since on a mailing list I belong to, the moderator gave everyone some free, and simple code for building a player of their own yesterday. Now I just need to browse his directories, note the path to his .ram files and go from there. I have seen lots of stuff like you suggest to keep people off of pages where they were not (prematurely) wanted. How do you keep people out of your directories and keep them from latching your .ram and .rpm files and feeding them through their own players? I don't think you can, but correct me if I am wrong. You may suggest keeping them pretty well hidden with obscure names, and that would slow things down a little, but not stop it entirely. Consider a porn site as one example. This is just an example, but you can see the basic idea. Site XXX has movies available after you pay with your credit card. Now site XXX is like all the others of its kind; it spams everywhere, offering 'free' admission. You get there and find out what they meant to say was free admision to their front page, and a 'trial membership' for $3.95 for a couple days to look at everything else. Unless you specifically cancel that trial membership within a day or so, it converts to a full membership with a monthly charge of some outrageous amount billed automatically to your credit card each month. So I say okay, and use some credit card with five dollars left in credit on it, or maybe I send the guy a money order for the trial membership or whatever and get allowed into of his pages. Maybe I use a regular VISA 'debit card' and then tell my bank to stop payment on subsequent charges from this guy after the intial 'trial membership'. I take that three day period or however long he allows for trial mem- bers and use it to go through every single page he has available. I right click on every page, and examine his page source closely. I make written notes of the path and file name of every .ram I see on those pages. Soon I have a long list of all his .ram and .rpm files available, with the absolute path name to each. I also make note of all his web cam files (I forget the suffix for those files off hand) and keep those on my list. Now I set up my web page with the free plugin code the moderator gave out yesterday, with a script that 'fills in the blanks' for EMBED SRC based on the link chosen or the radio button pushed or whatever, and I tell everyone you can secretly watch the nude teens as they frolic right here, without getting hassled about your credit card and stuff. For that matter, what prevents anyone from going to Universal.com and right clicking on their pages, reviewing their source closely and noting all the .ram addresses and doing the same thing? What prevents you from right-clicking my pages or me right-clicking yours? There is available some javascript which disallows right-clicking and there is the HTML instruction 'NOSAVE' which helps a little, but even if I have to play out his .ram during my three-day trial period, I am going to be able to manually copy all those things seen in the browser address bar am I not? So these folks say 'stay off our deep page'; my answer is I do not need your deep page, I have a page of my own. Shoot me down. Tell me why it won't work. PAT ------------------------------ From: adamf@columbus.rr.com (Adam Frix) Subject: Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 07:13:09 -0400 Organization: Road Runner Columbus In article , Dave O'Shea wrote: > The only problem is that most, if not all, of these efforts, are > complete failures. Here's a group that checked several of the > best-funded and largest-selling systems, and found that they not only > fail to block most of the "offensive" sites, but the DO block a number > of educational, useful, and well-policed sites. > http://www.censorware.org/press/press_07-28-99.html Why do people call this "censorship"? When a parent stops his child from seeing and reading things that the parent feels are not in the best interests of the child, that is most assuredly NOT "censorship". It's called parenting. Too many people in this world seem to think that everyone should be allowed to see and read whatever he wants -- children included. Worse, too many of those people are nosy busybodies who want to insert themselves between the parent and the child, as if they know better than the parent and are more capable of making that particular decision for the child. Censorship, my foot. Parenting. ------------------------------ From: rshockey@ix.netcom.NsSPaM.com (Richard Shockey) Subject: Re: World's First "Real Time PC to Fax" From bcmfax.net Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 15:47:32 GMT Organization: Shockey Consulting LLC S. Kaushik wrote: > "Real Time Fax technology over IP" is finally a reality! > With "True Real Time" faxing users will be able to send and receive > faxes in real time and will be able to monitor actual fax delivery > page-by-page directly from their desktops and receive delivery > notification in the same session ! > Fax over IP services through it's 66 member node > operators located across 43 countries) regarding the commercial > availability of world's first Real Time Fax over IP technology . For > more details regarding the availability of Real Time Fax technology > and services, visit http://www.bcmfax.net . Readers of this list should be very very skeptical of this commercial. I've lost count of the Internet Fax service providers out there claiming true real time fax over IP and I have yet to find any that have a reliable or profitable business model. In any scenario it requires a gateway from the GSTN fax machine to the Net and then back to the recipients fax machine or some form of "black box" connecting two machines, usually in a proprietary manner. Almost all of these networks and black boxes are proprietary in one form or another since the vendors have never been able to agree among themselves on interoperabllity or agree on settlements. In both cases the capital cost structure of the gateway network or the total cost ownership of the black boxes don't offer too much real savings unless you are sending huge volumes to a select list of international destinations. Even then corporate buyers should interrogate vendors closely about what network protocols are used. In the real time GSTN Fax world there is only one standard and that is ITU T.38 which is based on H.323. The store and forward ITU T.37 [ actually developed in the IETF as RFC 2305 ] model is nothing more than emailing a MIME attached TIFF file (RFC 2301) to a recipient and requesting receipt using either DSN or MDN notification. Its clean, simple, quite reliable, but yes its not realtime. You can actually buy machines now that allow you to essentially scan to e mail from such vendors as Panasonic, Konica, and Hewlett Packard and there will be a flood of them announced later this year. For more info on the T.37 standards go to: http://www.imc.org/ietf-fax Some of us are looking very seriously at the use of the Internet Print Protocol (IPP) as the basis for a true real time end to end IP facsimile service model. What is fax if not "remote printing". IPP which is based on HTTP transport offers numerous advantages for the transmission of fax like documents over IP networks. Security (TLS/SSL), receipt and notification, very high quality, color, etc. If you are technically minded check it out at: http://www.pwg.org/ipp Regular fax machines are not going to go away ... but there is a lot of work underway to move fax traffic off the GSTN permanently. Richard Shockey Shockey Consulting LLC 8045 Big Bend Blvd. Suite 110 St. Louis, MO 63119 Voice 314.918.9020 FAX 314.918.9015 Internet E-Mail/IFAX rshockey@ix.netcom.com eFAX 815.333.1237 ------------------------------ From: James Gifford Reply-To: gifford@nitrosyncretic.com Organization: Nitrosyncretic Press Subject: Re: eBay Fradulent High Roller Bidders Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 08:53:25 -0700 Michael Maxfield wrote: > Seller posts an item for a min $5 bid, and item for which $50 might be > the highest ever expected on the free market. > Buyer A comes along and bids $5 for the item. > Buyer A obtains a second account as buyer Z and bids $75. > Buyer B comes along, willing to go up to $20 on such and item, sees > the $75 bid and exclaims "I ain't that crazy. No Way!" > Buyer C comes along and while willing to pay upwards of $30, also goes > running away upon seeing the outrageous bid. > Buyer Z returns before the end of the auction and retracts the $75 > bid, and as Buyer A is able to get the item for the opening bid of $5. > Is that fair? No, but it's also not the way eBay works. Buyer A's bid sets the visible bid at $5.00. Buyer Z's bid sets the visible bid at $5.50 (with a max of $75). Buyer B's bid sets the visible bid at $20.00 (with a max of $75). Buyer C's bid sets the visible bid at $30.00 (with a max of $75). Buyer Z retracts his bid. High bidder is left at Buyer C's bid of $30. There is no way for Buyer B and C to know that the hidden bid is an astronomical amount. They bid the highest they're willing to go. They may or may not care to follow up when their reasonable bids don't make them high bidder, but their bids are still recorded and valid if Buyer Z's bid is retracted. No, it's not "fair" that this can be done. But a reasonable starting price and reserve on the item protect the seller from being scammed out of the item. There are so many bidders on eBay that almost nothing goes for a killer price any more -- at best, it's low-fair, and often, it's higher than a reasonable straight-out sale price. Quit complaining because (on eBay as everywhere else) the unwary can get their ass bitten. | James Gifford - Nitrosyncretic Press - gifford@nitrosyncretic.com | | See http://www.nitrosyncretic.com for the Robert Heinlein FAQ | | and information on "Robert A. Heinlein: A Reader's Companion" | ------------------------------ From: cnavarro@wcnet.org (Carl Navarro) Subject: Re: eBay Fradulent High Roller Bidders Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 15:09:08 GMT Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America On Thu, 29 Jul 1999 19:42:48 PDT, tweek@netcom.com (Michael Maxfield) wrote: > Gary Pratt wrote: >> Whose fault is it that the reserve price was set too low? A reserve >> price represents the price that a person is willing to sell an item >> for. If the seller hasn't done their due diligence to determine the >> fair market value for their item, that's the seller's fault. > Sorry Gary, but you don't understand the word FAIR. > A seller has the right offer his item for competative bidding. Even if > the seller set his reserve price at a level he is willing to sell the > item for, other willing buyers are not allowed to enter their competitive > bid under such a scenario. > Think this through ... > Seller posts an item for a min $5 bid, and item for which $50 might be > the highest ever expected on the free market. > Buyer A comes along and bids $5 for the item. > Buyer A obtains a second account as buyer Z and bids $75. > Buyer B comes along, willing to go up to $20 on such and item, sees the > $75 bid and exclaims "I ain't that crazy. No Way!" > Buyer C comes along and while willing to pay upwards of $30, also goes > running away upon seeing the outrageous bid. > Buyer Z returns before the end of the auction and retracts the $75 > bid, and as Buyer A is able to get the item for the opening bid of $5. > Is that fair? We must be bidding different auctions :-). In the eight months I've been bidding on eBay, I've retracted bids twice, one was done for me, and never seen one retracted on the stuff I've purchased. I've been offered items as the runner-up, but I find eBay to be pretty fair. If the scenario you've described happens a lot, I just haven't seen it. Carl Navarro ------------------------------ From: black@csulb.edu (Matthew Black) Subject: Re: eBay Fraudulant Bidding Warning Date: 30 Jul 1999 15:38:16 GMT In article , terry@spcunb.spc.edu says: > There's some confusion here. On eBay, a "reserve" is a minimum > acceptable bid amount known only to the seller. Sellers can list an > item with any start- ing price they want (which is shown on the item > page), without needing to make it a reserve auction. > The choice of which (or both) to use is up to the seller, and > depends on a number of factors. A seller might put an expensive item > out with a reserve of $500 (which isn't visible to any buyers) and a > starting price of $1. This is done to attract > 30 bids, which puts it > in the "Hot!" category. > The fact remains that these two mechanisms (reserve and initial > price) exist, and are *set* by the *seller*. Unless a seller doesn't > care that an item goes for an insanely low price, they will use at > least one of these methods to set the level of a minimum winning bid. I see a failure by many to recognize that bid withdrawal are unfair to the seller. When the bidding for my item is illegitimately upped by a fictitious bidder, other people are less likely to submit valid bids. If an inflated bid is retracted, I'd be stuck with a lower bid. It's true, a reserve ensures the lower bid meets my minimum requirements. However, I would not be afforded the opportunity for honest competetive bidding because the scam bidder deterrs other honest bidders. In a live auction, a bid cannot be retracted once the paddle has been raised and recognized. -----------------------------(c) 1999 Matthew Black, all rights reserved-- matthew black | Opinions expressed herein belong to me and network & systems specialist | may not reflect those of my employer california state university | network services SSA-180E | e-mail: black at csulb dot edu 1250 bellflower boulevard | PGP fingerprint: 6D 14 36 ED 5F 34 C4 B3 long beach, ca 90840 | E9 1E F3 CB E7 65 EE BC ------------------------------ From: Craig.Williamson@ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM (Craig Williamson) Subject: Re: eBay Tries to Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco Organization: NCR Date: Fri, 30 Jul 99 12:28:34 GMT In article , Gary Pratt wrote: > The only reason I can think of for a seller to set a reserve price too > low would be to avoid the added fee for a higher value reserve > price. If that's the seller's reason, then you get what you pay for. > I sell on eBay and have never had a problem with this. I've never had > a bid retraction nor have I sold any item for less than the price I > was willing to sell at. Based on the seller's feedback, I've sold many > more items on eBay than he has. > I'm not denying that there are problems with fraudulent bidders on > eBay, but that doesn't absolve the seller of the responsibility to > protect themselves by setting reasonable reserve prices. Well I skip many auctions because it has a reserve price. If you won't sell it for a certain price then start the bidding at that price. I often wait till the reserve has been met then decide I don't want it that badly. If you want $50 for it then start the bidding at $50. Don't hid behind the reserve. Craig Williamson don't step on it." Craig.Williamson@ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM -Alf craig@toontown.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM (home) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #264 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 30 17:19:11 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA00964; Fri, 30 Jul 1999 17:19:11 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 17:19:11 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907302119.RAA00964@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #265 TELECOM Digest Fri, 30 Jul 99 17:19:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 265 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AirTouch Launches All-Digital Mobile Internet Service (Monty Solomon) E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" (Rowena Macaraig) Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) (C Navarro) Re: World's First "Real Time PC to Fax" From bcmfax.net (Thor L. Simon) Re: AT&T Bill Dispute Help (David Esan) Re: Phone Database (Jerry Harder) Call Waiting Signal Variations (paul1@nospam.com) Re: eBay Tries to Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco (Daniel Ganek) Re: USF and PICC Charges (John Harris) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 13:25:29 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AirTouch Launches All-Digital Mobile Internet Service http://www.app.airtouch.com/apps/plsql/pr_view.get_rel?p_rel_id=1540 Jonathan Marshall (415) 658-2209 AIRTOUCH LAUNCHES ALL-DIGITAL MOBILE INTERNET SERVICE Net Access is fastest wireless data service offered by a major U.S. cellular carrier-and includes a direct connection to Internet San Francisco, CA -- AirTouch Cellular today launched Net Access, an all-digital service that lets travelers and mobile workers cut the tether to their desktops and access the Internet, online services or corporate networks while on the go. Armed with a laptop computer and a data-ready AirTouch digital phone, customers in Michigan, Salt Lake City and Seattle can now enjoy the freedom and convenience of Net Access, the fastest and most convenient wireless information service offered by a major U.S. cellular carrier. AirTouch plans to extend the service across most of its footprint by the first quarter of next year. Users at airports, client sites or even the beach can now send and receive e-mail, files and faxes; access their company's intranet; update contacts and schedules; and use the Internet to check a customer's Web site, monitor news and stock prices and review airline schedules-all without having to plug into a telephone line. Net Access is the first of several planned Mobile Internet offerings from AirTouch. Products coming soon will include wireless portal services that work with handheld smart phones and personal digital assistants to facilitate a variety of mobile messaging, information and e-commerce services. "In today's fast-paced world, Net Access will help you stay in touch, manage information more productively and balance your life," said Arun Sarin, CEO of the U.S./Asia-Pacific region of Vodafone AirTouch Plc, AirTouch's parent company. "It promises to be as revolutionary for personal information access and management as cellular was for voice communications." Unlike previous wireless data access services, Net Access doesn't require an expensive wireless modem. It works with new data-ready digital phones such as the sleek, lightweight and inexpensive Qualcomm 860 Thin Phone, which AirTouch is the first cellular carrier to offer. (Compatible handsets from other vendors will be available later this year.) The phone, connected to your laptop with a simple serial cable (available from AirTouch), is all you need-the service requires no other hardware or special software. Net Access provides a speedier and much more reliable connection than older analog-based wireless services. The service offers the fastest data throughput commercially available from any major U.S. cellular or PCS carrier and is more than adequate for text-based applications such as e-mail or most Web browsing. In addition, Net Access connects you directly to the Internet exceptionally fast-typically in fewer than 10 seconds, according to our tests, compared to as much as 30 seconds for dial-up access from your desktop. "With its promise of broad geographic coverage, Net Access will be an invaluable tool for many professionals and business people who can't afford to wait to access vital information," said Andrew Seybold, mobile communications analyst and publisher of Andrew Seybold's Outlook. "The service is affordable, easy to use, and will set customers free from the tether of telephone lines while they're on the go." The service is priced for now at the same airtime rates as voice communications. While connected to Net Access, customers can use the minutes they already have in their monthly bundle. About AirTouch AirTouch serves 9 million U.S. cellular and PCS customers on a proportionate basis. Its ventures operate in 25 states and 22 of the top 30 U.S. markets, including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle. AirTouch is part of Vodafone AirTouch Plc, the world's largest wireless communications firm, based in the United Kingdom. It has mobile operations in 24 countries on five continents, with more than 31 million proportionate customers. For more information, visit the AirTouch web site at www.airtouch.com. Copyright 1998, 1999 AirTouch Communications, Inc. Website Disclaimer and Terms and Conditions ------------------------------ From: Rowena Macaraig Subject: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 02:35:13 PDT A friend e-maied this to me. I'd like to share it with you guys. U.S. House of Representatives 1207 Longworth House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515-4611 Phone: (202) 225-2931 Fax: (202) 225-2944 Please read the following carefully if you intend to stay online and continue using email: The last few months have revealed an alarming trend in the Government of the United States attempting to quietly push through legislation that will affect your use of the Internet. Under proposed legislation the U.S. Postal Service will be attempting to bilk email users out of "alternate postage fees". Bill 602P will permit the Federal Govt to charge a 5 cent surcharge on every email delivered, by billing Internet Service providers at source. The consumer would then be billed in turn by the ISP. One congressman, Tony Schnell AE has even suggested a "twenty to forty dollar per month surcharge on all Internet service" above and beyond the government's proposed email charges. Washington D.C. lawyer Richard Stepp is working without pay to prevent this legislation from becoming law. The U.S. Postal Service is claiming that lost revenue due to the proliferation of email is costing nearly $230,000,000 in revenue per year. You may have noticed their recent ad campaign "There is nothing like a letter". Since the average citizen received about 10 pieces of email per day in 1998, the cost to the typical individual would be an additional 50 cents per day, or over $180 dollars per year, above and beyond their regular Internet costs. Note that this would be money paid directly to the U.S. Postal Service for a service they do not even provide. The whole point of the Internet is democracy and non-interference. If the federal government is permitted to tamper with our liberties by adding a surcharge to email, who knows where it will end. You are already paying an exorbitant price for snail mail because of bureaucratic efficiency.It currently takes up to 6 days for a letter to be delivered from New York to Buffalo. If the U.S. Postal Service is allowed to tinker with email, it will mark the end of the "free" Internet in the United States. Note that most of the major newspapers have ignored the story, the only exception being the Washingtonian which called the idea of email surcharge "a useful concept who's time has come" (March 6th 1999 editorial.) Don't sit by and watch your freedoms erode away! Send this e-mail to EVERYONE on your list, and tell all your friends and relatives to write to their congressman and say "No!" to Bill 602P. It will only take a few moments of your time, and could very well be instrumental in killing a bill we don't want. Kate Turner Assistant to Richard Stepp, Berger, Stepp and Gorman Attorneys at Law 216 Concorde Street, Vienna, VA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You know, I have some real problems with this item. For one, I do not know of any legislative numbering scheme which would include a number like '602P'; if there is, maybe someone can advise me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I seem to remember seeing this item before elsewhere on the net, where it was exposed as a fraud. Can anyone help out on this? Obviously if it is true it needs publicity, and if it is false, it likewise needs to be picked apart and exposed. Let's bring it to light either way. The trouble is, there is legal precedent for the US Postal Service to charge a fee for services they did not perform. It comes from that bit of law which gives the Postal Service the exclusive right -- really a legalized monopoly -- on the handling of First Class mail. They have no such monopoly on parcels, freight shipments, etc. But where a bit of text written on a peice of paper in a sealed envelope is concerned, they can, and sometimes have do insist on the right to be the exclusive carrier of same. It is quite rare that they do this, but readers may recall a few years ago when Postal Service sued Federal Express and demanded (1) an audit of all 'overnight letters' Fedex had delivered in the past few years and (2) demanded payment of (I believe) twenty- five cents for each such 'overnight letter' using the claim that the post office had been deprived of its money. The one exception was if the document was marked 'Urgent' or 'Emergency' or similar. In those cases the post office has to -- by its regulations -- let someone else handle the delivery. So they literally audited all of Fedex's delivery receipts, etc and those where the shipper had failed to mark the delivery 'urgent' were to be assessed the fee. I do not know if Fedex paid or not, or if they settled with USPS for some amount of money. I do know it caused a terrible stink at the time and as a matter of public relations USPS backed off on doing the same to other private delivery services. None the less, they have the legal right to claim a monopoly on the delivery of first class mail, which is any time written correspondence in a sealed envelope transfers between two people, or a company and a person, etc. They rightfully claim under the law that any mail receptacle -- even the one you bought and paid for attached to the front door of your house -- is their property and may not be used for any purpose except for mail delivered by the post office. If I come to visit and find you not at home and wish to leave a note saying I was there, I am not allowed, under the law, to place that note in your mailbox unless I affix a first class postage stamp to the note. The newspaper carrier cannot use that box. The Jehovah Witnesses cannot leave their literature there. No one can use that box by your front door except the postal carrier or anyone who wishes to attach a postage stamp to whatever they place inside the box. No common carrier is allowed under the law to deliver First Class mail other than the postal service or use its receptacles without payment of the fee, the exception being 'urgent' items for immediate delivery, and even then it has to be handed to someone and not just left in a receptacle. So there is precedent; it could happen if they wanted it to happen, although I am sure there would be not only a lot of litigation about it, but a terrible stench in the public nostrils as well. But Rowena, I smell something bad here already. Something is not coming out right. Anyone care to pursue it? By the way, at the post office I go to, I believe I saw a notice saying the postal service now offers internet access. Am I mistaken on that? PAT] ------------------------------ From: cnavarro@wcnet.org (Carl Navarro) Subject: Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 14:41:39 GMT Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America On Tue, 27 Jul 1999 17:05:51 -0700, Linc Madison wrote: > In article , J.F. Mezei > wrote: >> Fred Goldstein wrote: >>> The NANP is Different from what the rest of the world users. It is a >>> strict DETERMINISTIC-LENGTH plan. EVERY telephone number is in a >>> 3-3-4 pattern. >> But there are exceptions when you dial internationally, the switches >> do pass on whatever number of digits you are dialing. >> Furthermore, if 3-3-4 is going to be exhausted, will North America >> have a choice? Sounds to me like they may have to add a digit. >> Perhaps begin today by adding a 0 to all telephone numbers in >> existence. Dialing that extra 0 won't hurt, right? And as switches >> get upgraded to handle 8 digits then the 0 starts to become >> important. Once all switches are upgraded to handle 8 digits, you can >> then start to issue phone numbers with a different non-0 last digit. > See . Really. Please read that > page before making any suggestions as to how we could go to 8-digit > numbers, because most of them have already been dealt with. > In short, the biggest problem with this technique is that it provides > remarkably little increase in capacity, because now, instead of wasting > numbers 10,000 at a time for each little CLEC in a rate center, we'd > waste those numbers 100,000 at a time. The only way you get a serious > increase in numbering capacity is by adding the digit to the FRONT of > the existing 7-digit number. > The other issue, of course, is the "once all [equipment is] upgraded" > (it isn't just telco switches), because that process will take many, > many years, in large measure due to amortization schedules. Doing it > overnight just doesn't make economic sense. End of discussion. I keep screaming this. Amortization is for big business. Ma and Pa don't give a crap about this because 90% of their equipment is not store and forward. My Panasonic or Comdial or Lucent is going to accept 11 or 12 or 15 or 16 digits and dutifully dial them out. The CO is going to accept the digits because Nortel makes switches that have software upgrades (oops, sorry about my GTD-5 CO :-). That just leaves Mr. Big Business who has a 15 year old PBX (read Rolm) that is looking for 10-digit ARS strings. A small part of the problem is vanity numbers. 888 got used up in a hurry from companies that had to duplicate their 800 numbers in the 888 exchanges. What a nightmare if we go to 8 digits. (FLOWERS 1-0?) Maybe the old days were better. Take the number the telco gives you or go without :-). > Bottom line: we're splitting and overlaying and adding new area codes > all over the place because it is CHEAPER than moving prematurely to > longer numbers. Portability is going to solve one problem. I can hardly wait for the problems it creates. Of course by then, EVERYBODY will have flat-rate 6.9 cents per minute calling to everywhere, including across the street. It might happen. Carl Navarro ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: World's First "Real Time PC to Fax" From bcmfax.net Date: 30 Jul 1999 13:40:41 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , S. Kaushik wrote: > "Real Time Fax technology over IP" is finally a reality! > With "True Real Time" faxing users will be able to send and receive > faxes in real time and will be able to monitor actual fax delivery > page-by-page directly from their desktops and receive delivery > notification in the same session ! Why is this commercial advertisement appearing in the TELECOM Digest? FWIW, free software has provided this functionality for *years*. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That wasn't a commercial advertisement, it was a press release. Don't you see me sitting here with a straight face as I say that? Seriously, that's how it arrived in my mail. I remember a time years ago when I actually used to try and seriously investigate the validity of press releases I received before printing them. Maybe I should find some time in my schedule to start doing so again. Oh, and FWIW, 'free software' is something we are not supposed to talk about on the internet of the future. Corporate-operated web sites will see to it that what software you need is made available at the appropriate price. PAT] ------------------------------ From: davidesan@my-deja.com Subject: Re: AT&T Bill Dispute Help Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 17:44:58 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. In article , Drew C. Morone wrote: > system would call day and night trying to establish a connection to > continue the backup. It would fail, and try again. All without anyone > realizing it, until the bill came. It was around $3000.00! AT&T is > the long distance carrier. I'm sorry, I'm missing something here. How can AT&T charge for calls that were not completed? Why were the calls not completed? If you were in 212 (NYC) calling (718) NYC that would be a local call, but dialed 1+718+XXX+XXXX. Attempting to complete that call from say 201(NJ), should result in a completed call. In which case you owe AT&T the money, because you used their services. Am I missing something? David Esan Veramark Technologies desan@veramark.com ------------------------------ From: Jerry Harder Subject: Re: Phone Database Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 10:27:16 GMT Organization: @Home Network Try among others www.tariffs.com, www.ccmi.com, and www.valucom.com. Good luck, Jerry Harder remove spamnein from address to reply ------------------------------ From: paul1@nospam.com Subject: Call Waiting Signal Variations Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 13:12:36 GMT Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Are call waiting signals different between carriers or even within different areacodes/exchanges/prefixes of the same carrier? I am a Bellsouth customer in Atlanta trying to figure out why call waiting won't interrupt my modem connection. ------------------------------ From: Daniel Ganek Subject: Re: eBay Tries to Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 15:24:05 -0400 Organization: Radionics, Inc. Craig Williamson wrote: > In article , Gary Pratt > wrote: >> The only reason I can think of for a seller to set a reserve price too >> low would be to avoid the added fee for a higher value reserve >> price. If that's the seller's reason, then you get what you pay for. >> I sell on eBay and have never had a problem with this. I've never had >> a bid retraction nor have I sold any item for less than the price I >> was willing to sell at. Based on the seller's feedback, I've sold many >> more items on eBay than he has. >> I'm not denying that there are problems with fraudulent bidders on >> eBay, but that doesn't absolve the seller of the responsibility to >> protect themselves by setting reasonable reserve prices. > Well I skip many auctions because it has a reserve price. If you > won't sell it for a certain price then start the bidding at that > price. I often wait till the reserve has been met then decide I don't > want it that badly. If you want $50 for it then start the bidding at > $50. Don't hid behind the reserve. Reserve prices are useful when you don't know the value of the item. From the bids you receive you can determine what you can realistic expect and then make a decision on whether to sell it at that price. For example, I got this favorite widget which I think is worth $100; but I have a funny feeling that other people might not agree with me. So, I put it up for $25 with a $100 reserve. Bidding goes up to $50. Now, I have a better idea of what I can get for it AND I have a couple people who are interested in it. If I had put it up with no reserve for $100 no one would have bid and then where would I be??? Reserve prices are very common in any type of auction. dan ------------------------------ From: John Harris Reply-To: Subject: Re: USF and PICC Charges Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 10:01:53 -0500 In article , Linc Madison wrote: > No. The PICC and USF fees are ultimately obligations of the CUSTOMER, > *NOT* the IXC. There is no reason to charge these fees to the IXC, > other than as a collection agent in the same respect that they collect > the various taxes (excise tax, utility tax, etc.). They should only be > charged in a manner where it is very clear that $X was charged to IXC Y > for customer Z, and therefore Y gets to charge Z $X -- not $X + fudge > factor, not average value of $X over some range of customers, not some > arbitrary minimum. Ultimately, of course, the end user pays for all services in whatever format they are presented and whatever conduits they pass through. However, IXCs are free to set their toll rates, both fixed and variable in whatever manner they see fit. The PICC and USF fees are no different than the wages they pay their employees or maintenance costs etc. Just another cost of doing business that must be recovered if the IXC is to make a profit. If I were an IXC, I would probably price the same way they have. It is most rational to retain the fixed/variable nature of costs in pricing as much as possible. However, it must be understood that the LECs did not raise their charges. In fact they have decreased. When discussing the PICC specifically this was a rebalancing in which fixed loop costs are being recovered through the PICC instead of variable access charges. The LECs reduced access charges by the same amount of dollars that PICCs were forecast to generate. If the IXCs have passed on the fixed costs without reducing the variable per minute charges (as we know many of them have done), the IXCs are the ones who have in effect raised prices to end users. Look at AT&Ts profit for 2Q99, up 48%!! > The IXC shouldn't be paying the PICC, and I shouldn't be paying the > PICC through the IXC. *ANY* and *ALL* flat monthly fees for telephone > service should *ONLY* be collected directly through the LEC. No > exceptions, period. The only charges/fees/taxes that should be > permitted to be charged through the IXC should be strictly on a > percentage basis. It would be more rational for the end user to pay these fixed charges but the FCC lacked the political will to do this. They preferred to hide behind the IXCs and LECs. Like all politicians, they would like to get something for nothing. >> IMO, the FCC is a "partner in crime" with the long distance carriers. > Except that in this case it is also a "partner in crime" with the local > exchange carriers. The whole reason that the PICC exists is that the > LECs didn't want it to look like their prices were increasing. Nope, the IXCs are the ones putting money in their pockets in this case. See the discussion above. >> As for charging fixed amounts for the USF, it may just be that the >> marketing folks decided that too many people didn't understand this >> percentage add-on, especially when they already had to deal with the >> fixed PICC charge, so that some carriers like Telco and AT&T decided >> to impose it as a flat charge. > But that's ridiculous, especially in the case of dialaround access. > You just put the USF up in the "tax" section with the other taxes. The > more money you spend, the more USF charge you pay. Simple. I agree 100% ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #265 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 30 23:50:19 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id XAA13978; Fri, 30 Jul 1999 23:50:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 23:50:19 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907310350.XAA13978@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #266 TELECOM Digest Fri, 30 Jul 99 23:50:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 266 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: eBay Fraudulant Bidding Warning (Tony Pelliccio) Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered (Art Walker) Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered (Stephen Satchell) Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered (Richard Freeman) Censorware Isn't Parenting (John R. Levine) Text Message, Redux (Derek J. Balling) Modem Bumping, (was Re: Call Waiting Signal Variations) (Danny Burstein) Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) (L Madison) Re: USF and PICC Charges (Linc Madison) Re: Payphone Documents and Key Wanted (Bill Horne) This Week's Poll Question (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. 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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: nospam.tonypo1@nospam.home.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: eBay Fraudulant Bidding Warning Organization: Providence Network Partners Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 22:23:42 GMT In article , gifford@ nitrosyncretic.com says: > David Massey wrote: >> I'm always going to set a reserve price now that I read this! I have >> seen some people get scammed into selling very valuable things for a >> couple dollars because they did not set a reserve and they started the >> bid at a few bucks. The scam artist comes in with a hidden identity >> or a temporary email address and rips you off. > Uh ... exactly how does a seller get "scammed" into selling things too > cheaply? If anyone is jumping in with both feet, placing costly items > for auction without setting a reserve and obviously hasn't read the > pages and pages of tips and suggestions for sellers, then I have no > tears to shed for them. > That there are people out there watching like a hawk for such naivete > and jumping on underpriced items hardly makes them "scam artists." This is exactly why you set a reserve price on Ebay. Make it what you want and you'll get it. Anything else is gravy. I've recently sold two pieces of equipment at their reserve price and I'm happy about it. We also bought equipment at it's reserve and are quite happy with it. == Tony Pelliccio, KD1S formerly KD1NR == Trustee WE1RD ------------------------------ From: Art.Walker@onesourcetech.com (Art Walker) Subject: Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered Date: 30 Jul 1999 22:13:21 GMT Organization: Recovering Nebraskans Clinic - Denver, CO Reply-To: Art.Walker@onesourcetech.com On Fri, 30 Jul 1999 02:25:00 GMT, Dave O'Shea wrote: > Think of it as putting Barney Fife in charge of the nation's highway system. > The results are not going to be pretty. Just wait until said ISPs realize that a "black-list" system isn't going to work as they'd like. The next step will be a "white-list" system that only allows access to those sites that meet a strict code of conduct (a "hays code" of the Internet, if you will). The step after that will be when a company with enough resources to bully content providers (Wal-Mart perhaps) decides to get into the act. Art ------------------------------ Subject: Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered From: satch@concentric.net (Stephen Satchell) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 22:45:33 GMT Organization: SBC Internet Services The problem as I see it is that parents are not willing to do the job of parenting, wanting instead to leave it to "someone else" -- preferably at no cost to them, the parents. This is one reason I believe that the family organizations are so interested in censorship of certain material inappropriate for children: it relieves the parents of one more aspect of the parenting job. Then again, when have prohibitions of any kind ever worked in a democracy? We tried prohibiting consumption of alcohol, we tried prohibiting consumption of certain classes of drugs, we are working toward trying to prohibit possession (and do prohibit use) of firearms, and on, and on, and on. Where have those prohibitions gotten us? How do you think organized crime got its start in the United States? When? But this is comp.dcom.telecom, so I'll just close by saying that the design of the Internet itself works against any attempt to prohibit access to questionable material. A network designed to cope with a nuclear incident doesn't even blink when you try to put up barriers at other than the ultimate point of access: the child's computer. (And let's leave the discussion of computers in libraries and school classrooms for another time, shall we?) adamf@columbus.rr.com (Adam Frix) wrote in : > In article , Dave O'Shea > wrote: >> The only problem is that most, if not all, of these efforts, are >> complete failures. Here's a group that checked several of the >> best-funded and largest-selling systems, and found that they not only >> fail to block most of the "offensive" sites, but the DO block a number >> of educational, useful, and well-policed sites. >> http://www.censorware.org/press/press_07-28-99.html > Why do people call this "censorship"? When a parent stops his child > from seeing and reading things that the parent feels are not in the > best interests of the child, that is most assuredly NOT "censorship". > It's called parenting. > Too many people in this world seem to think that everyone should be > allowed to see and read whatever he wants -- children included. > Worse, too many of those people are nosy busybodies who want to insert > themselves between the parent and the child, as if they know better > than the parent and are more capable of making that particular > decision for the child. > Censorship, my foot. Parenting. ------------------------------ From: rfreeman@netaxs.com (Richard Freeman) Subject: Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered Date: 30 Jul 1999 20:42:13 GMT Organization: newsread.com ISP News Reading Service (http://www.newsread.com) On Fri, 30 Jul 1999 07:13:09 -0400, Adam Frix wrote: > In article , Dave O'Shea > wrote: >> The only problem is that most, if not all, of these efforts, are >> complete failures. Here's a group that checked several of the >> best-funded and largest-selling systems, and found that they not only >> fail to block most of the "offensive" sites, but the DO block a number >> of educational, useful, and well-policed sites. Actually, it seems the article that you referenced deals more with filtering software than filtering ISPs. The software approach generally runs as a proxy on a local machine and filters content at your machine. This is obviously bypassable by a resourceful child. Likewise, the need for constant updates in software like this almost certainly renders this solution barely effective. The ISPs that do filtering, however, generally filter at the router level - so that packets from filtered sites don't even make it to your modem - rendering the filter unbypassable (without the conspiracy of an external proxy, which is more difficult for a child to arrange unless he has contacts outside his ISP with access to computers to act as servers). Since only one filter is in place for an entire ISP it is now feasible to give this filter intensive monitoring. Most of these ISPs will respond to requests to unfilter sites that got accidentally included within a short period of time, and will add sites to the filter even more rapidly as they are reported (in addition to automatic addition of new sites). They are often a superior, but frequently more expensive, alternative to filtering software. They also will probably run much faster, since routers are designed to filter content and the filtered material doesn't even clog up your phone connection (nothing more wasteful than downloading a 25k webpage which doesn't end up getting displayed because it fails a filter test). Admittedly, keeping up with new porn sites on the Net has to be a tough battle -- I'm sure they can't get everything. However, the fact that this material requires considerably more effort to obtain probably will be appealing to parents who might desire to use it. Similar strategies would be appealing to corporations who don't want to spend their money on bandwidth to see it filled with "business-unrelated" material. Many companies have already had to do this to stop proliferations of things like the star-wars trailer which who-knows-how-many people downloaded. In the end it isn't censorship - the person paying for the bandwidth has the right to decide what goes over it. Any adult can purchase their own T1 line to their house if they don't like their employers policies. Richard T. Freeman - finger for pgp key 3D CB AF BD FF E8 0B 10 4E 09 27 00 8D 27 E1 93 http://www.netaxs.com/~rfreeman - ftp.netaxs.com/people/rfreeman ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jul 1999 16:42:21 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Censorware Isn't Parenting Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Why do people call this "censorship"? When a parent stops his child > from seeing and reading things that the parent feels are not in the > best interests of the child, that is most assuredly NOT "censorship". > It's called parenting. If that's what censorware did, you might be able to call it parenting, although expecting a computer to be a babysitter is a pretty poor form of parenting in my book. But it doesn't -- all of the censorware I've ever looked at uses an unpublished list of keywords and URLs to try and block out stuff that's naughty, for some ill-defined version of naughty. It all misses a lot of stuff that anyone would agree was inappropriate for children, and the keywords gratuitously block unrelated pages, e.g., a filter for dirty words blocks mycology pages that talk about shitake mushrooms, or a filter on "breast" blocks both pages of chicken recipes and pages about breast cancer detection and treatment. But even worse, all the censorware I've seen also comes with a hidden political agenda. A lot of it silently blocks pages that are critical of censorware. See for example the widely blocked www.peacefire.org. Many also have right-wing political or religious agendas, which would be fine if they told their customers up front, but they don't. The sane model for a kid-friendly Internet is the children's room at your local public library, where the librarians start with empty shelves and choose books that they believe are appropriate for their users. One of my back burner projects is to start with a well-crafted list of URLs, like my friend Jean Polly's "Internet Kids and Family Yellow Pages" and make a web proxy or something that provides those URLs. There's no hidden agenda there -- you can read the book and see all of the URLs in her list. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 12:30:21 -0700 From: Derek J. Balling Subject: Text Message, Redux OK, first off, a big thanks for the answer to my PacBell PCS question. :) Got it up and working in no time after that ... thus ... I'm back. After having climbed up three levels of ignorance at GTE Wireless, getting referred to a local GTE Wireless store, and having the Wireless store's internal tech support tell them "We can't give out that info because it would enable them to get free air-time", I'm hopelessly lost when it comes to the topic of GTE Wireless Messaging. (This TRULY pains me, mostly because I used to work for GTE, and to think that ANYONE would think an IXO modem number should be considered "company confidential" sickens me). OK, so again the number I have for GTE is 800-483-2340, except that under any number of possible pin permutations I gave it (7d, 10d, 11d), all of them returned: page failed, id=GdS30000, from=dballing, to=gte_test, parts=1 : Record not found for ID: 000000000nnnxxxx Of course, I can go to the web page and deliver the page "just like that", so either I'm dialing into the wrong system to deliver the page, or they've got a wonky pin format. Any thoughts from those with experience out there? I'm thinking about grabbing the page at http://www.qpage.org/phone-numbers.html and updating it to also include all the "pin nuances" of the digital phone set, since that method is becoming so prevalent these days. If I get the ambition to do it, I'll send it to Pat for publication on the TD site. :) D ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (Danny Burstein) Subject: Modem Bumping, (was Re: Call Waiting Signal Variations) Date: 30 Jul 1999 18:20:54 -0400 In paul1@nospam.com writes: > Are call waiting signals different between carriers or even within > different areacodes/exchanges/prefixes of the same carrier? I am a > Bellsouth customer in Atlanta trying to figure out why call waiting > won't interrupt my modem connection. Yes, there are different call waiting signals, but read on: There are two considerations here. The first is what type of signal you're getting from the central office when the call comes in; the second is _how your modem reacts_ to it. Signalling: The earlier CO switches (we're going way back here in telco time, to the mid 1970s) such as the #1ESS, were very klunky. If a call came in to you while you were talking to someone else, you'd momentarily drop the connection to the caller, hear a very loud KERCHUNK/BUZZ/KERCHUNK, then you'd get back to the call. If you didn't switch to the new caller, then about 10 seconds later you'd hear another KERCHUNK/BUZZ/KERCHUNK. Oh, and the person you were speaking to would hear the kerchunks ... The same thing would happen, of course, if your first connection was via a modem. Oh, in addition to the loud noise and interference, many switches also added in a "current reversal" on the phone wires. So ... when you combine these features, you'd almost always wind up with the modem dropping the first call. Most of the more recent switches use a softer approach. Instead of a grating noise, you get a "gentle tone" (that's the term the RBOCs use.) The person on the other end doesn't hear anything (well, actually, they hear a 'dropout' i.e., if you were talking to them, you'd fade out for a half second). Which gets us to the second part -- modem responses. In the bad old days, any short loss of signal, or interference, could cause a modem to hang up. Newer modems (i.e. anything within the last 10 years or so) have error correcting protocols built in, so a short loss of signal will _not_ hang it up. Rather, the modems will just treat it as a short interference burst and, once it clears, will resend the packets. So.. in short: old modem with old central office switch: you're bumped off new modem with new central office switch: you stay on new modem/old CO | old modem/new CO... it'll vary All is not lost. While you can't do much about your CO switch, there are things you can do about the modem's sensitivity. For example, the factory default setting may be to allow a full second of 'loss of carrier' (which is what the "gentle tone" causes) before it hangs up; you can reset it to 1/10th of a second. Similarly, you can kill off error correction. (note that this is not as dangerous as it sounds ... most connections to the internet are done via "point-to- point-protocol", which has its own error correcting methods) So ... the final answer is: you can _probably_ tweak some settings on your modem to make it recognize call waiting and hang up. Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 15:58:07 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: NANPA Extension (was Re: How to Increase Public Acceptance) In article , Carl Navarro wrote: >> See . Really. > [ ... ] >> The other issue, of course, is the "once all [equipment is] upgraded" >>(it isn't just telco switches), because that process will take many, >> many years, in large measure due to amortization schedules. Doing it >> overnight just doesn't make economic sense. End of discussion. > I keep screaming this. Amortization is for big business. Ma and Pa > don't give a crap about this because 90% of their equipment is not > store and forward. My Panasonic or Comdial or Lucent is going to > accept 11 or 12 or 15 or 16 digits and dutifully dial them out. The > CO is going to accept the digits because Nortel makes switches that > have software upgrades (oops, sorry about my GTD-5 CO :-). That just > leaves Mr. Big Business who has a 15 year old PBX (read Rolm) that is > looking for 10-digit ARS strings. No, no, no, no. Amortization is for EVERY business. Basically, every business that makes enough money to support even one full-time person has amortization schedules on its equipment. And it isn't just someone with a 15-year-old PBX that will have problems with 8-digit local numbers, or especially a mix of 7- and 8-digit numbers. Just about every PBX sold in North America would at least require reprogramming to deal with it, and a whole lot of them, even sold a lot less than 15 years ago, will require replacement. The bottom line remains that doing it overnight just doesn't make economic sense, and that really is the *END* of the discussion. There is nothing more to say. We WILL NOT go to longer numbers in North America until we get MUCH closer to exhausting the 10-digit numbering space we are currently using, and there's NO POINT suggesting how we could do it. Yes, area code splits and overlays are a pain for everybody. However, it is a HUGE mistake to think that just adding a digit to phone numbers would be anything other than a far BIGGER pain for everybody, so stop your whining and get used to adding area codes. (On the other hand, what we CAN do to minimize the crush of new area codes is to push HARD on the FCC and state PUCs and ILECs to implement thousands-block number pooling *NOW* and look into full number pooling in the medium term (five or ten years), so that we don't run out of AREA CODES in 2007 or so.) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 16:03:11 -0700 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: USF and PICC Charges In article , John Harris wrote: > Ultimately, of course, the end user pays for all services in whatever > format they are presented and whatever conduits they pass through. > However, IXCs are free to set their toll rates, both fixed and > variable in whatever manner they see fit. The PICC and USF fees are > no different than the wages they pay their employees or maintenance > costs etc. Just another cost of doing business that must be recovered > if the IXC is to make a profit. > If I were an IXC, I would probably price the same way they have. It > is most rational to retain the fixed/variable nature of costs in > pricing as much as possible. Exactly my point. There is ZERO fixed cost associated with the USF on a per subscriber basis, so why charge a fixed minimum for it? On the monthly bill I referred to in my earlier message, the actual amount that Telco paid in USF charges was around ONE CENT, but they billed me SIXTY-THREE cents. That is not rational. >> Except that in this case it is also a "partner in crime" with the local >> exchange carriers. The whole reason that the PICC exists is that the >> LECs didn't want it to look like their prices were increasing. > Nope, the IXCs are the ones putting money in their pockets in this case. > See the discussion above. That still doesn't change the fact that the LECs didn't want to have the charge show up on their bill. I stand by my statement. This whole fiction that the PICC represents the "interstate portion" of the fixed cost of providing the local loop is absurd and needs to be squashed like a bug. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 18:43:02 -0400 From: Bill Horne Organization: Place Clue Here Subject: Re: Payphone Documents and Key Wanted BMarcus826@aol.com wrote: > I have an AT&T payphone that I would like to convert for use in my > home. Looking for information, also need to locate a key to open the > telephone. Would appreciate any suggestions. Well, there's several things to think about: If you're interested in using this as a curio, without it actually demanding money, all you'll need to do is set it for loop start and dial tone first. Most "fortress" phones have this option, but I'll defer to others for the specific wiring. Lockbox keys vary from phone to phone, but the "service" keys for the upper half are fairly common. You can buy them from Lucent for a reasonable fee, or just chat up your friendly phone repairman. However, if you're trying to use this as an actual "pay" phone, things get complicated really fast: it'll have to be a "business" line, and might require ground start service (depending on the vintage of your phone). Also, unless you have a phone with "smart" cards in it, you'll be limited to paying "operator assisted" rates for any call that doesn't involve actual cash: not a great way to win friends and influence party guests, but a VERY good way to teach the youngsters the value of a Quarter. As it happens, I know a guy that curbed his children's calling in this way: he wound up getting cell phones for himself and his wife, with the kids limited to the pay phone! Of course, the usual "ring twice and hang up" games soon followed, but he told me it was worth it just for the way it taught the kids to organize their time and do their talking face-to-face. Not only did his phone bill go down (believe it or not), but he said the kids even started making an agenda before calling anyone! Good luck: HTH. Bill Horne http://lynx.dac.neu.edu/b/bhorne/index.html (remove ".nouce" from username to reply. Sorry.) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 18:03:33 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: This Week's Poll Question This week, the poll question has to do with the amount of money you spend on Directory Assistance charges. What percentage of your entire telecom bill each month is for using 'information' to get the number you wish to call? See http://telecom-digest.org/vote.html to participate or read results. Javascript/cookies required to participate; cookies may be disposed of at any time. The cookie merely records the fact that your computer was used to vote one time in the current poll. Last Week's Results: You were asked who is your primary long distance carrier. There was no clear majority. The plurality went to 'other', meaning a variety of smaller, lesser-known carriers. AT&T came in second. Other ...... 29 percent AT&T ...... 26 percent LCI/Qwest .. 18 percent Sprint ..... 10 percent MCI ........ 8 percent Frontier ... 8 percent Results do not equal 100 percent due to rounding. Since the telecom-digest.org poll is not conducted in a scientific or precise way, no authoritative statement can be given from the results. Participate in voting or review the results as they accumulate by visiting http://telecom-digest.org/vote.html PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #266 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jul 31 01:48:06 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA17504; Sat, 31 Jul 1999 01:48:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 01:48:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907310548.BAA17504@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #267 TELECOM Digest Sat, 31 Jul 99 01:48:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 267 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Its An (Old!) FAKE: E-mail Legislation Bill 602P (Lauren Weinstein) Re: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" (Mark Brader) Re: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" (Jason Fetterolf) Re: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" (Herb Stein) Re: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" (George Yanos) Re: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" (Gary Ansok) Re: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" (Heywood Jaiblomi) Re: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" (Jon Carpenter) Yet Another Bogus Chain Letter, (was E-mail Legislation) (John R. Levine) AT&T to Raise Business Rates (Babu Mengelepouti) Tripp Indicted For Taping (Monty Solomon) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (nospam@elmhurst.msg.net) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (Jeremy M. Posner) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (Derek J. Balling) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (David B. Horvath, CCP) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 Jul 99 21:16 PDT From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: It's An (Old!) FAKE: E-mail Legislation Bill 602P Greetings. Before anyone gets started, let's nip this one in the bud. That message going on and on about "Bill 602P," the Postal Service, and e-mail, is *totally* bogus. It keeps reappearing every few months, and is sent around the net like a chainletter. (Rule of thumb: Whenever you receive "alarming" info via e-mail that has been forwarded around from person to person with loads of headers, and you haven't heard about it from any "normal" source, it's probably untrue.) There's some speculation that the purpose of the original rumor was to encourage people to lobby against a bill with a somewhat similar designation, but on an entirely different topic. Rather than spend space here detailing the many fallacies in that text, I'll instead refer readers to some URLs that deal with this and similar bogus rumors that fly around the net OVER and Over and over ... See: http://www.acns.nwu.edu/world/hoaxes-and-rumors.html http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html#emailtax --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein Moderator, PRIVACY Forum --- http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Host, "Vortex Daily Reality Report & Unreality Trivia Quiz" --- http://www.vortex.com/reality ------------------------------ From: msbrader@interlog.com (Mark Brader) Subject: Re: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" Date: 30 Jul 1999 20:34:14 -0400 Organization: - > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You know, I have some real problems > with this item. For one, I do not know of any legislative numbering > scheme which would include a number like '602P'; if there is, maybe > someone can advise me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I seem to > remember seeing this item before elsewhere on the net, where it was > exposed as a fraud. Can anyone help out on this? ...] One word: . BEFORE POSTING, please! Synopsis: No such congressman, no such lawyer, no such law firm, no such address, no such legislation, no such bill number possible, no such editorial in the Washingtonian (they even put a page on their web site to say so); and all of these bogus US-specific references are in there because they were substituted for original Canada-specific ones that were equally bogus. Mark Brader | "Relax -- I know the procedures backwards." Toronto | "Yeah, well, that's a quick way to get killed." msbrader@interlog.com | -- Chris Boucher, STAR COPS My text in this article is in the public domain. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 21:17:52 -0400 From: Jason Fetterolf Reply-To: jason@itw.com Subject: Re: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" Organization: Apollo Concepts Well, this scam-o-the month is really easy to de-bunk. Just attempt to *call* the great law firm at the bottom ... Yeah, yeah , yeah... > Don't sit by and watch your freedoms erode away! Send this e-mail to > EVERYONE on your list, and tell all your friends and relatives to > write to their congressman and say "No!" to Bill 602P. It will only > take a few moments of your time, and could very well be instrumental > in killing a bill we don't want. A handy lil' investigation via phone disc, the postal svc web site, and other directory services will reveal that there is: NO Richard Stepp, NO law firm in that area by the name Berger, Stepp, and Gorman, and.... 216 Concorde Street DOES NOT EXIST in Vienna, VA! > Kate Turner > Assistant to Richard Stepp, > Berger, Stepp and Gorman > Attorneys at Law > 216 Concorde Street, Vienna, VA Boy, some people ought to get a life rather than spin these fearful yarns!!! Adios, Jason ------------------------------ From: herb@herbstein.com (Herb Stein) Subject: Re: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 03:04:16 GMT Organization: newsread.com ISP News Reading Service (http://www.newsread.com) Pat- I believe the 602P number is a reference to a Canadian bill. And it doesn't fly there either. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 215-3584 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 22:19:07 CST From: George Yanos Subject: Re: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You know, I have some real problems > with this item. For one, I do not know of any legislative numbering > scheme which would include a number like '602P'; if there is, maybe > someone can advise me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I seem to > remember seeing this item before elsewhere on the net, where it was > exposed as a fraud. Can anyone help out on this? Obviously if it is > true it needs publicity, and if it is false, it likewise needs to be > picked apart and exposed. Let's bring it to light either way. Some well meaning new e-mail user at UIC sends it around once every couple of months. I've seen it several times. I have absolutely no reason to think that it has any basis in fact, except ... Long ago there was a law allowing the Post Office *department* (that long ago) to charge a stamp's value to private courier messages that fit into the definition of "first class mail". I don't think they have actually tried to collect it for many, many, years. George Yanos 708-205-6788 GYanos@uic.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: USPS did get in a fight with Federal Express a few years ago and tried to hit on them for 25 cents each times the number of overnight letters delivered for a two or three year period which did not have the word 'urgent' written on the delivery receipt or other paperwork. You see, the federal government is so pushy and arrogant about so many things, it is not beyond the realm of possibility they would pull something like that in their ongoing effort to put the internet in the hands of its rightful owners, the large corporations in America. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Gary Ansok Subject: Re: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" Date: 30 Jul 1999 15:21:12 -0700 Organization: TRW Inc. Reply-To: Gary.Ansok@trw.com It's a piece of "faxlore", the same scare story that's been around for years. Except now instead of the FCC levying a charge, it's the US Postal Service. Before this story was around to warn us about the US Congress considering a Bill 602P, practically the exact same story was going around that the Canadian parliament was considering Bill 602P. The story had Canada Post instead of the US Postal Service, of course, and still had Tony Schnell, Richard Stepp, and Kate Turner -- then with Canadian references and addresses (even the street address was 216 Bay Street). Neither the US Congress or the Canadian Parliament uses a bill numbering scheme that would number a bill "602P". The Washingtonian has specifically denied ever printing such an editorial, and both Canada Post and the US Postal Service deny any involvement. There's more information at http://www.snopes.com/spoons/faxlore/internet.htm and http://www.urbanlegends.com/ulz/emailtax.html Gary Ansok ------------------------------ From: heywood@gloucester.com (Heywood Jaiblomi) Subject: Re: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 22:38:55 GMT Organization: Redundancy and more of it Hi Pat! It has been exposed as a fraud in several versions, all of which use the same name for the law firm, and 602P for the bill number, neither of which I am told does exists I didn't find this firm in a search in Vienna, VA. > Kate Turner > Assistant to Richard Stepp, > Berger, Stepp and Gorman > Attorneys at Law > 216 Concorde Street, Vienna, VA Nulla meretrix est melior quam longaeva meretrix ------------------------------ From: Jon Carpenter Subject: Re: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 19:26:39 -0400 > From: Rowena Macaraig > Subject: E-mail Legislation "Bill 602P" > Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 02:35:13 PDT > A friend e-maied this to me. I'd like to share it with you guys. > U.S. House of Representatives > 1207 Longworth House Office Building > Washington, D.C. 20515-4611 > Phone: (202) 225-2931 Fax: (202) 225-2944 Pat, This is absolutely NOT true, and in fact the Postal Service itself says so. See http://www.usps.gov/news/press/99/99045new.htm. Jonathan Carpenter carpenter@bsr.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder what/who is in the 1207 Longworth location and at the US Capitol switchboard (202-225) phone numbers? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jul 1999 18:12:52 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Yet Another Bogus Chain Letter, (was E-mail Legislation) Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > A friend e-maied this to me. I'd like to share it with you guys. Here's a helpful tip: never, ever, pass along an e-mail chain letter. They're all bogus. Every one. 100%. I've never seen one that was real, the few that started real got a life of their own long after the issue was moot and have been circulating, zombie-like, year after year. This particular one about "alternate postage fees" is a fake from top to bottom as you easily could have discovered by calling any of the phone numbers in the message. > Kate Turner > Assistant to Richard Stepp, > Berger, Stepp and Gorman > Attorneys at Law > 216 Concorde Street, Vienna, VA Uh, huh. Visit http://www.cfc.dnd.ca/emailtax.html where you'll find the exact same warning about Canada Post, from the peripatetic Kate Turner at Berger, Stepp and Gorman in Toronto. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So maybe it is an international law firm with offices in both Canada and the USA ?? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 17:11:54 -0700 From: Babu Mengelepouti Reply-To: dialtone@vcn.bc.ca Organization: US Secret Service Subject: AT&T to Raise Business Rates In one of AT&T's all-too-common 3"x2" ads in the {Seattle Post- Intelligencer}, AT&T announced that they are raising most business 800 rates by 4.9%. Rates in Alaska will increase by 9.9%, and calling card surcharges will increase by 60%. This is all effective 8/2/1999. It's beyond comprehension to me why rates are increasing by such a substantial amount, when access charges have been cut. It will be interesting to see if other carriers follow AT&T's lead. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 23:17:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Tripp Indicted For Taping Linda Tripp faces up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, after she was indicted Friday on two counts of illegally taping phone conversations with Monica Lewinsky. http://www.lycos.com/news/flash/lindatripp.html ------------------------------ From: nospam@elmhurst.msg.net Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us Date: 30 Jul 1999 17:09:54 -0500 Organization: - In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > That seems to work pretty well. I tried it last night on test.html, a > page of mine where I conduct experiments and debug my work before > putting my work on line. But I propose a different scenario. Suppose I > do not even try to go to the page at all, but merely aim for the .ram > and .rpi wherever it happens to be located at the site? The web server software can be configured to protect any files on the server, including .ram or .rpi, restricting the serving of files based on any criteria a good programmer can imagine. I've done it on several sites to protect graphics from being 'inlined', where a remote site causes _their_ page to load _my_ graphics from _my_ server, costing me bandwidth everytime somebody visits them. It's not difficult. I bill by the hour :-) > I have seen lots of stuff like you suggest to keep people off of pages > where they were not (prematurely) wanted. How do you keep people out > of your directories and keep them from latching your .ram and .rpm > files and feeding them through their own players? I don't think you > can, but correct me if I am wrong. It is difficult for the average user of a web site hosting service to configure the server to keep people out of directories and prevent linking directly to binary data files, but it is not at all difficult for the person who configures and runs the server software to enforce rules of this nature; this functionality is built into the latest Apache. > For that matter, what prevents anyone from going to Universal.com and > right clicking on their pages, reviewing their source closely and > noting all the .ram addresses and doing the same thing? What prevents > you from right-clicking my pages or me right-clicking yours? There is > available some javascript which disallows right-clicking and there is > the HTML instruction 'NOSAVE' which helps a little, but even if I > have to play out his .ram during my three-day trial period, I am > going to be able to manually copy all those things seen in the browser > address bar am I not? No. There are good technical means by which to prevent this. What you can do is make your own local copies of the complete contents of the files, then you can do what you like with your local saved data, and never touch his web site. > So these folks say 'stay off our deep page'; my answer is I do not > need your deep page, I have a page of my own. If you want to host the complete binary data files on your server, you could get away with this until the copyright lawyers come after you, but there are good technical solutions to keep unauthorized people from accessing your server except in the way you choose. ------------------------------ From: jposner@panix.com (Jeremy M. Posner) Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 22:20:58 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > I have seen lots of stuff like you suggest to keep people off of pages > where they were not (prematurely) wanted. How do you keep people out > of your directories and keep them from latching your .ram and .rpm > files and feeding them through their own players? I don't think you > can, but correct me if I am wrong. The trick is not to use text files as your .ram and .rpm files, which can even save work in the long run if you have a lot of RealVideo. If all of your RealVideo is located on a single server, just create a CGI script that dynamically creates the .ram or .rpm file based on the query string. All you need to do is make sure that you feed the browser the content type audio/x-pn-realaudio as opposed to text/html. This method has three advantages, two of which are advantageous even if you don't want to take any precautions against people linking directly to your .ram files. First, you no longer need to create a new .ram file every time you add a new video file to your site, you merely need to create the proper query string. Second, if you have to move your RealVideo to another server, you only need to change that information in the CGI script, rather than each of the .ram files. (Of course, this is a minimal concern, as it's pretty easy to GREP through the .ram files and fix that.) Finally, it would be very easy to write the CGI script so that it only generates the .ram file if the referring URL is from your own site. In other cases, it could send a plain old html page saying whatever you want people to see. So, if you were to dissect the source for the page at http://www.filmscouts.com/scripts/proj.cfm?Type=Caught&Format=RV&Rate=I&File=mys-men/mac-kin you would find that instead of a reference to an .rpm file where the embedded video appears, there is a reference to a PERL script instead. Of course, this doesn't stop people from reading your .ram files and creating their own which point to your RealVideo files. To do that, you'd probably have to do some server-level tinkering. | Jeremy M. Posner | "The internet? Is that thing still around?" | | jposner@panix.com | -Homer Simpson | | (212) 426-7967 | http://www.panix.com/~jposner/ | [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, how hard is it to write a .ram file to start with? They are only one line long, and function like a kind of re-director to where the true file is located. Be sure and quote the entire line, and be sure to include an embedded carriage return or ASCII (13) on the end of the line. The best way to describe the purpose of a .ram file is this: Normally you say to your browser 'go to address X, fetch the contents and return them to me'. When playing an audio/video file, you say to the browser, 'go to .ram at address X and ask him where to find the audio/video file.' The reasons for this are technical and a little boring, but the thing is you want the file to show up streaming rather than to show up and try to just load itself on your hard drive. That is over-simplifying it, but you get my point. So maybe the solution is that when someone shows up at your site and wants to see a movie, not only do you *not* link them to the other guy's deep page, you link them to your own .ram file which points at the other guy's .rpm file. If there are a choice of things to be viewed, then I use my own CGI to create the .ram files on the fly. At least using my own CGI I don't have to worry about his CGI kicking me out for coming from the wrong direction. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 16:47:12 -0700 From: Derek J. Balling Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us >> if ($ENV{'HTTP_REFERER'} !~ /^http://[^/]*universal.com/?) >> { >> print "Location: http://www.universal.com/\r\n\r\n"; >> } >> else >> { >> provide_data(); >> } >> A null string (no referer, e.g., bookmark or braindead browser) triggers >> the first case. A bad referer triggers the first case. Only a referer which >> starts "http://" contains any number of characters (other than "/") >> followed by universal.com, with an optional "/" following it will be >> accepted. (Anything past the optional "/" is ignored by that regular >> expression.) > That seems to work pretty well. I tried it last night on test.html, a > page of mine where I conduct experiments and debug my work before > putting my work on line. But I propose a different scenario. Suppose I > do not even try to go to the page at all, but merely aim for the .ram > and .rpi wherever it happens to be located at the site? > In other words, he says stay off of his deep pages without permission. > Come to the top page, worship me and my advertisers, turn over your > identity and pay the fee demanded; then *I* will pass you to the deep > page where the plugin is established so that you can watch the movie I > have. > But I respond that I do not need his deep page with his plugin (and > probably more advertising) any longer. I have my own player on a sort > of 'utility page' stored on my own computer, since on a mailing list I > belong to, the moderator gave everyone some free, and simple code for > building a player of their own yesterday. Now I just need to browse > his directories, note the path to his .ram files and go from there. > I have seen lots of stuff like you suggest to keep people off of pages > where they were not (prematurely) wanted. How do you keep people out > of your directories and keep them from latching your .ram and .rpm > files and feeding them through their own players? I don't think you > can, but correct me if I am wrong. Sure, you use the same code above. You configure your server to, on ANY request for that file (be it JPG, GIF, RAM, RM, whatever), to check the referer against "known good" referers (your own domain for example). If it doesn't match (or is undefined, which by definition doesn't match), then you simply reject the request (401 Access Forbidden). > Now I set up my web page with the free plugin code the moderator gave > out yesterday, with a script that 'fills in the blanks' for EMBED SRC > based on the link chosen or the radio button pushed or whatever, and > I tell everyone you can secretly watch the nude teens as they frolic > right here, without getting hassled about your credit card and stuff. But you can't duplicate the referer. (Well, you CAN but it is exceedingly more difficult, and you certainly couldn't do it on a public web page). > Shoot me down. Tell me why it won't work. See above. :) In theory: Yes, you can build a custom download agent in Perl that tells the web server whatever you want the referer to be. Not a problem. I have done it on a number of occasions during the lifetime of the Dilbert web site. :) But this only works in the singular. You had access to download the data, and you still have access to download the data. That's a client-side solution. In practice: It doesn't allow someone coming to your site to get that data, because they will still have a referer of "Your site" and not "Universal" (or wherever). The only way a browser will hit your site but have a referer of "Universal" is is (a) they hacked their browser code, or (b) there are some VERY evil DNS games being played wherein a local DNS server to both you and them is pretending YOUR server is actually a "Universal" web server. D ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 18:58:06 EDT From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us On Thu, 29 Jul 1999 19:54:38 -0700, our esteemed moderator wrote in response to Derek J. Balling who responded about 'illegal links': >> A null string (no referer, e.g., bookmark or braindead browser) triggers >> the first case. A bad referer triggers the first case. Only a referer which >> starts "http://" contains any number of characters (other than "/") >> followed by universal.com, with an optional "/" following it will be >> accepted. (Anything past the optional "/" is ignored by that regular >> expression.) > That seems to work pretty well. I tried it last night on test.html, a > page of mine where I conduct experiments and debug my work before > putting my work on line. But I propose a different scenario. Suppose I > do not even try to go to the page at all, but merely aim for the .ram > and .rpi wherever it happens to be located at the site? and talks about method of finding URL's of deep pages defeating referer checks (deleted) ending up with: > So these folks say 'stay off our deep page'; my answer is I do not > need your deep page, I have a page of my own. > Shoot me down. Tell me why it won't work. Coded properly, you'll never see the direct references to the content (.jpg, .ram, .etc). A typical (simple) image source looks like: --------------------------------- This one displays a simple grey bar (or a row of dashes if you have "load-images" turned off). I can code it a litte differently and execute a CGI-BIN instead of serving up the image: Within the script tracker.gif (which can be Perl, Korn Shell, a C program binary executable, whatever), it can check the passed URL, the referer, time of day, IP, or many other parameters! The trick is that ".gif" is not holy! It would be better if it returns a data item of that type (in case the browser makes any assumptions). The code in tracker.gif (in Korn Shell) looks something like: echo "Content-type: image/gif" echo "" # cat cat ../gif/sgrey.gif Unless I configure my web server incorrectly, you'll never see the real tracker.gif file. And I can name the file I send to you (sgrey.gif) anything I want. I could have it in .gif format and name it .jpg (which will confuse your browser). I could encrypt it on disk and unencrypt (a simple XOR or ROT13) it for transmission. I could put it in a directory that is not directly accessible to the web browser/server (a CGI script runs as the owner of the file). I'm sorry Pat, but there are ways of hiding anything. ObDisclaimer: this works well under UNIX, NT may be a bit different. David B. Horvath, CCP dhorvath@cobs.com Consultant, Author, International Lecturer, Adjunct Professor (also: dhorvath@arcnow.com, dhorvath@dca.net, davidh@decus.ca, and many other places) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There may be ways to hide everything, but if I come (legitimatly) into your deep page and see you are playing a movie, then I am going to right-click you and see what you are about. As I then proceed to source your page, I notice .gif after .gif but nary a file name ending in a 'traditional' suffix used for audio/video stuff and logic would dictate that you had things hidden away. I am going to start pulling those alleged .gif files back to my site while I have an opportunity to do so, in order to examine them a little better. Everything can be reverse-engineered given the patience to do so. It becomes a matter of whether the inquiring party's patience and interest expires before he finds the answer, in which case your secret remains hidden. There is a limit to the return for one's investment of anything, be it money, time, or intellectual pursuit of someone else's property. As long as there are umpty-million sites with .ram files sitting around openly, unhidden from anyone who takes the trouble to source the page or do a raw dump of the HTML, why go to the extra trouble of trying to get yours; unless your movies are really hot, and extra-exciting, but I doubt they are. :) In any event, I would be too tired and brain-dead afterward to enjoy them anyway ... LOL ... and as was pointed out, you can usually save them on your own computer anyway and save the hassle of trying to pick the lock on the other guy's door. Even if they set the file so that 'recording' it to your disk as it plays out through the media player is not an option, as the evil German nazi doctor in that comedy series on television would say, 'Vee have our ways to get vhat vee want.' I've noticed that if you keep your 'Windows Temporary Internet Files' and the temporary file space which is part of your user profile in Windows clean -- as you should anyway, since you never know who is going to come knocking at (or down, take your pick) your door these days -- that finding those files stashed away in there in the process of being them being buffered, etc is pretty easy. Using something like Windows Explorer, copy them safely into some other directory, renaming them to something that makes sense to you. You cannot physically move the file while an instantiation of the browser is going on; windows won't let you do it because it has the file 'busy', trying to display it. The catch is, you have to get in there right away, while the player is busy with its buffering then make a copy and take it away to safety. As a worst case scenario, when windows occassionally does not cooperate, you can always go into DOS, go back there and get the file yourself and hustle away with it. Still, an awful lot of work for a movie when so many sites take no pains to hide theirs at all and present better quality, more pleasant web sites to begin with. But it should tell you something sad about the overall condition of our internet these days when we even have to plot our strategies like this. I am sure it is not what Tim Berners-Lee had in mind in the earliest days of his project. Have a nice weekend! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #267 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jul 31 18:34:03 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id SAA14536; Sat, 31 Jul 1999 18:34:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 18:34:03 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907312234.SAA14536@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #268 TELECOM Digest Sat, 31 Jul 99 18:34:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 268 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (Peter Corlett) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (Steven J Sobol) Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us (David B. Horvath, CCP) Re: AT&T Bill Dispute Help (Leonard Erickson) Re: AT&T Bill Dispute Help (Denis McMahon) Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered (Dale Neiburg) Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered (Leonard Erickson) Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered (Alan Boritz) Re: ADSL Pricing and Service in Europe (Ronald J. Bartle) Re: This Week's Poll Question - Directory Assistance (Colin Sutton) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: abuse@verrine.demon.co.uk (Peter Corlett) Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us Date: 31 Jul 1999 19:56:56 GMT Organization: B13 Cabal David B. Horvath, CCP wrote: > > Within the script tracker.gif (which can be Perl, Korn Shell, a C program > binary executable, whatever), it can check the passed URL, the referer, > time of day, IP, or many other parameters! You don't even need to go to the effort of changing the URLs of all your images to that CGI script, since Apache can be configured to run any part of your site through a CGI filter - indeed, the directory "/cgi-bin" is not special -- it's merely configured by default to run any programs within it as a CGI script. Essentially, you configure Apache to make "/images", or files ending in .gif, go through a CGI script. The CGI script then automagically does all the dirty work in checking referers and then decides whether or not to serve the image. Naturally you insert an Expires header unless you want people to load your pictures repeatedly on each page making your site slower and increasing the bandwidth load, but otherwise, that's about it. With a bit of lateral thinking, you can find out the specifics of how to do this from the Pony Book ("Apache" from O'Reilly.) I've actually done similar to this, since I essentially ended up being sysadmin for a large UK news site. Our client discovered somebody linking into the site within a frameset and then passing it off as their own, or at least had some official sanction. It also broke the design as their frameset wasn't large enough. 30 minutes later, I'd written a Perl script, configured Apache, and visitors coming from that pirate's server found they were now getting a rude message instead of where they thought they were going. The link in question disappeared AFAIK, no lawyers required. The script is also gone, to make the site a bit faster, but it's ready and waiting for the next freeloader to try to grab a bit of the action and the glory. ------------------------------ From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steven J Sobol) Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us Date: 31 Jul 1999 16:59:08 GMT Organization: North Shore Technologies Corp. 888.480.4NET On Thu, 29 Jul 1999 19:54:38 -0700, ptownson@telecom-digest.org allegedly said: > I have seen lots of stuff like you suggest to keep people off of pages > where they were not (prematurely) wanted. How do you keep people out > of your directories and keep them from latching your .ram and .rpm > files and feeding them through their own players? I don't think you > can, but correct me if I am wrong. I haven't tried this (just thought it up), but it probably will work. ** Change file permissions on the .ram file so that the webserver can't read it. Generally the user account used to run the webserver is nobody (on a UNIX/Linux/*BSD box), or IUSR_machinename (on a Windows box, where "machinename" is the NetBIOS name of the server). ** In fact, make sure to disable global read/write access, and enable read access for only one user. ** Create a CGI script that runs as that user. The CGI outputs the correct MIME type for the file, then does a binary read and just passes the output through the server to the user's browser. It takes a little work -- and requires CGI access -- but should do what you're talking about. North Shore Technologies Corporation http://www.NorthShoreTechnologies.net We don't just build websites; we build relationships! 815 Superior Ave. #610, Cleveland, OH 44114-2702 216.619.2NET 888.480.4NET Host of the Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail http://www.spamfree.org It really bothers me that there is an IRC channel called #jarjarsex. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 08:38:19 EDT From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: Re: Universal Says: Do Not Link to Us On Fri, 30 Jul 1999 18:58:06 EDT, I wrote: > Within the script tracker.gif (which can be Perl, Korn Shell, a C > program binary executable, whatever), it can check the passed URL, the > referer, time of day, IP, or many other parameters! > I'm sorry Pat, but there are ways of hiding anything. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There may be ways to hide everything, > but if I come (legitimatly) into your deep page and see you are > playing a movie, then I am going to right-click you and see what you > are about. As I then proceed to source your page, I notice .gif after > .gif but nary a file name ending in a 'traditional' suffix used for > audio/video stuff and logic would dictate that you had things hidden > away. I am going to start pulling those alleged .gif files back to my > site while I have an opportunity to do so, in order to examine them > a little better. Everything can be reverse-engineered given the > patience to do so. It becomes a matter of whether the inquiring party's > patience and interest expires before he finds the answer, in which > case your secret remains hidden. Actually, you won't be able to see the *actual* .gif files. You won't be able to pull the CGI-BIN scripts (because they execute on the host -- web server). What you would get when you attempted to pull those files is the actual image -- but not its location. By coding the script properly, I can check the URL of the page that references it. If the page is not what I expect (http://www.YYYY.com/my_page.html for example), I can send you a default image that says "no deep links". No matter which *apparent* .gif file you attempt to download, you actually execute the script ... > There is a limit to the return for > one's investment of anything, be it money, time, or intellectual > pursuit of someone else's property. As long as there are umpty-million > sites with .ram files sitting around openly, unhidden from anyone who > takes the trouble to source the page or do a raw dump of the HTML, > why go to the extra trouble of trying to get yours; unless your movies > are really hot, and extra-exciting, but I doubt they are. :) In any > event, I would be too tired and brain-dead afterward to enjoy them > anyway ... LOL ... and as was pointed out, you can usually save them > on your own computer anyway and save the hassle of trying to pick the > lock on the other guy's door. My approach only prevents "deep linking" where your page shows my content using *my* bandwidth. You detailed some of the ways of saving the content once they appear on *your* screen. But saving the content and showing it elsewhere is "copying". By *copying* my content to your web page (which is a little different from the copy in your cache or explictly saved to your hard drive (right-click|save image) ), you may be violating copyright laws. That is something completly different. That can't be *prevented*, only punished when caught. David B. Horvath, CCP dhorvath@cobs.com Consultant, Author, International Lecturer, Adjunct Professor (also: dhorvath@arcnow.com, dhorvath@dca.net, davidh@decus.ca, and many other places) ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: AT&T Bill Dispute Help Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 03:09:26 PST Organization: Shadownet Drew C. Morone writes: > We had a computer that would dial a local number to back up data > files. The call was made to a different area code, but it was still > local (NYC area). The computer was taken out of service at that > location, and moved to another location which was out of state, but > still only six miles away. The people at the new location plugged > everything in, not realizing that the backup process was still > attempting to connect to the same number, now long distance. The > system would call day and night trying to establish a connection to > continue the backup. It would fail, and try again. All without anyone > realizing it, until the bill came. It was around $3000.00! AT&T is > the long distance carrier. And this is a perfect example of *why* "1+ equals toll" is a good idea. If this had happened here (Portland, Or), with a move to Vancouver, WA (about three miles away from where I sit), the result would have been a failure to connect. In Portland, you'd have been dialing something like 503-Nxx-yyyy. Which is the correct way to make a local call now that we have an overlay. But from Vancouver, that would get an intercept, because you have to dial long distance as 1+NPA-NXX-YYYY. So the call wouldn't complete. > This was back in February. We contacted AT&T to see if we could explain > the situation, and maybe get some sort of an adjustment. And as you discovered, since it wasn't *their* fault *you* are stuck with the bill. BTW, one thing puzzles me. You say that the backup would fail and the system would redial to attempt to continue. *Why* did it fail? If it *hadn't* I daresay that you'd have had a much smaller bill. That makes *two* failures on your end. And there's a third. There should have been a routine that sounded an alarm after a set number of failures in a row had occured. Heck, my Fidonet mailer will do *that*. Three connects followed by a failure to transfer data trigger an "Undialable" status line on the screen *and* lock out that number until I *manually* review the setup. And yes, the number of "bad" connects is configurable. > I tried to get someone there to listen to the situation, but they > weren't interested. Alas, they are in the right. They are *not* responsible for your mistakes. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk (Denis McMahon) Subject: Re: AT&T Bill Dispute Help Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 20:40:10 GMT Organization: E-Menu Ltd Reply-To: denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk On Thu, 29 Jul 1999 16:12:24 GMT, Drew C. Morone wrote: > We had a computer that would dial a local number to back up data > files. The call was made to a different area code, but it was still > local (NYC area). The computer was taken out of service at that > location, and moved to another location which was out of state, but > still only six miles away. The people at the new location plugged > everything in, not realizing that the backup process was still > attempting to connect to the same number, now long distance. The > system would call day and night trying to establish a connection to > continue the backup. It would fail, and try again. All without anyone > realizing it, until the bill came. It was around $3000.00! AT&T is > the long distance carrier. Hmm, The anwering system was unplugged and moved to a new location. What was answering the phone on the old number? Didn't the system give warnings about the failure to complete the backup? Who was being paid to look after the system? Why didn't they re-configure it? Did the people who arrange for the other system to move provide appropriate notification? Did someone fail to act on it? Rgds Denis McMahon denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk | All mail from some domains is Mob+44 802 468949 Tel/Fax+44 1705 698221 | deleted due to high UCE levels AXE-10 Engineer / Switch Tech? Join the AXE-10 Technical Mailing List. mailto:denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk for invite. No Agencies / Advertising. ------------------------------ From: Dale Neiburg Subject: Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 14:53:28 -0400 In TELECOM Digest #264, Adam Frix wrote: >> The only problem is that most, if not all, of these efforts, are >> complete failures. Here's a group that checked several of the >> best-funded and largest-selling systems, and found that they not only >> fail to block most of the "offensive" sites, but the DO block a number >> of educational, useful, and well-policed sites. >> http://www.censorware.org/press/press_07-28-99.html > Why do people call this "censorship"? When a parent stops his child > from seeing and reading things that the parent feels are not in the > best interests of the child, that is most assuredly NOT "censorship". > It's called parenting. > Too many people in this world seem to think that everyone should be > allowed to see and read whatever he wants -- children included. > Worse, too many of those people are nosy busybodies who want to insert > themselves between the parent and the child, as if they know better > than the parent and are more capable of making that particular > decision for the child. > Censorship, my foot. Parenting. Fair enough, but the issue here isn't having the parents make decisions. It's third parties who are taking advantage of parents' computer illiteracy to sell *their* filters ... which probably don't work as the parents would like. Same problem with in-home filtering software. As far as I know (and I'd be delighted to be told I'm wrong), there's no filtering software that allows me to set my own filters, or even to find out what filters the writer is using. I'm forced to trust the writer, and from the reviews I've seen the writers usually allow their own prejudices to rule (an avid Republican will block Democratic sites, and so on). Dale Neiburg ** NPR Satellite Operations ** 202-414-2640 I'm the guy...who put the "fun" in "dysfunctional"! ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 03:33:48 PST Organization: Shadownet adamf@columbus.rr.com (Adam Frix) writes: > In article , Dave O'Shea > wrote: >> The only problem is that most, if not all, of these efforts, are >> complete failures. Here's a group that checked several of the >> best-funded and largest-selling systems, and found that they not only >> fail to block most of the "offensive" sites, but the DO block a number >> of educational, useful, and well-policed sites. >> http://www.censorware.org/press/press_07-28-99.html > Why do people call this "censorship"? When a parent stops his child > from seeing and reading things that the parent feels are not in the > best interests of the child, that is most assuredly NOT "censorship". > It's called parenting. > Too many people in this world seem to think that everyone should be > allowed to see and read whatever he wants -- children included. > Worse, too many of those people are nosy busybodies who want to insert > themselves between the parent and the child, as if they know better > than the parent and are more capable of making that particular > decision for the child. > Censorship, my foot. Parenting. The problem is that in the guise of "helping the parents" these services *are* censoring things. Many censor sites based on *political* or even *personal* agendas not mentioned to their customers. Parents could use some help. But it's going to *require* that they *learn* something about the net, especially about the inherent weaknesses of both "keyword filtering" and of depending on the opinions of some nameless employee as to what is or isn't "appropriate" for their children to see. A good start would be supplying a keyword filtering service with the parent having control of the keyword list. And a *thorough* explanation of why some keywords are bad choices. I'd recommend have the explanations pop up automatically when attempting to enter a poorly chosen keyword. Preferably with a list of the sort of "ok" sites that would get blocked. For example, attempting to enter "sex" would point out that it amounts to a total block of sites dealing with biology, medicine or law. Another useful feature would be some sort of site rating service that could manage to maintain it's objectivity. And finally, I think the *simplest* method of dealing with "kids on the home system" would be to have the system maintain a list of the sites the kids attempted to access, and allow the *parent* to approve them individually. That way the *parent* would have to review the site at least superficially. I doubt that'd sell. It's more work than most parents seem willing to put in. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 12:41:18 -0400 Organization: Dyslexics UNTIE In article , Art.Walker@ onesourcetech.com (Art Walker) wrote: > On Fri, 30 Jul 1999 02:25:00 GMT, Dave O'Shea > wrote: >> Think of it as putting Barney Fife in charge of the nation's highway system. >> The results are not going to be pretty. > Just wait until said ISPs realize that a "black-list" system isn't going > to work as they'd like. > The next step will be a "white-list" system that only allows access to > those sites that meet a strict code of conduct (a "hays code" of the > Internet, if you will). > The step after that will be when a company with enough resources to > bully content providers (Wal-Mart perhaps) decides to get into the act. You mean like Disney in New York's Times Square? (no kidding) In article , adamf@columbus.rr.com (Adam Frix) wrote: > In article , Dave O'Shea > wrote: >> The only problem is that most, if not all, of these efforts, are >> complete failures. Here's a group that checked several of the >> best-funded and largest-selling systems, and found that they not only >> fail to block most of the "offensive" sites, but the DO block a number >> of educational, useful, and well-policed sites. >> http://www.censorware.org/press/press_07-28-99.html > Why do people call this "censorship"? Because it is? > When a parent stops his child > from seeing and reading things that the parent feels are not in the > best interests of the child, that is most assuredly NOT "censorship". > It's called parenting. No, it's a very poor excuse for AVOIDING parenting. > Too many people in this world seem to think that everyone should be > allowed to see and read whatever he wants -- children included. We're naturally curious. It's a fact that no one can control all environments to which a child may be exposed. Just because you may have an obligation to protect a child's interest doesn't mean that we share it with you. > Worse, too many of those people are nosy busybodies who want to insert > themselves between the parent and the child, as if they know better > than the parent and are more capable of making that particular > decision for the child. No, it's not that simple. Too often the measures taken in the interest of "parenting" infringe upon the rights of others. > Censorship, my foot. Parenting. If "parenting" were done properly, there would be no need for censoring content for children. ------------------------------ From: Ronald J. Bartle Subject: ADSL Pricing and Service in Europe Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 20:41:09 +0200 Organization: [Posted via] Interactive Networx I sometimes wonder - considering we are living supposedly in democracies with a market or social-market ecconomies, why European Netizens are prepared to put up with mediocre roll-out achievements and over-the-top pricing for the new broadband offerings. Intertnet via the widely used cable-tv systems in Germany here for instance is something for the future with not even concrete plans made known. The latest news is that dt.telekom wants to divest itself of the tv-cable network and is having trouble finding a competent buyer. Thie hardly sounds like the big boom is about to dawn on us all with affordable fast cable-based net access somehow. On the other side of the cable|adsl divide, Dt. Telekom - still largely the local-call/net-access local carrier had anounced dometically available partial coverage for the so-called T-DSL for July'99 which on 1.7.99 - was just put back a bit with a murmer.. and has now been taking concrete orders from domestic consumers for a few days on line - (but after 72hrs or more one is wating for the confirmation from them ...) and one will be _releaved_ to be getting 100hrs of online time via the proscribed t.-online isp for a package price (IDSN+T-DSL-100hrs/T-online) of appx 250DM/Month (appx. 165,-US$/Month.) Compare this note on ADSL services in California: "... SBC also said it plans to cut service prices in order to compete more directly with cable modem access, which has taken an early lead in the consumer market. Prices will start at $39 for the DSL service alone, or $49 with Internet service through the Baby Bell's ISP ..." So, my question is, "Why do we put up with it!?" Where are the enterpreneurs, and if they are out there but the regulators are in the way. The regulator here in Germany for instance is paid to a large extent out of the Federal Govts. 72% share in the (ex?) state-monopoly Dt Telekom AG - is there not a need for a major lobby of consumers to make thier voice felt and get real action on this matter before Europe falls so far behind the US/UK in on-line matters - just cos of the exhorbitant cost of connects.. that the disparity of expectations and results could lead to social/geo-political problems in the future!? Wake up folks! Commander Ron Bartle snuffy@snafu.de Royal Air Force war veteran. Operating small B & Breakfast in Berlin - single dad - hobby journalist - http://www.snafu.de/~snuffy ------------------------------ Reply-To: Colin Sutton From: Colin Sutton Subject: Re: This Week's Poll Question - Directory Assistance Organization: Siemens Building Technologies Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 21:32:12 +1000 TELECOM Digest Editor wrote in message: > This week, the poll question has to do with the amount of money you > spend on Directory Assistance charges. What percentage of your entire > telecom bill each month is for using 'information' to get the number > you wish to call? Directory Assistance is free in Australia. With the advent of the mobile 'phone, the usage of the service increased so much that the cost started to hurt, but we still don't have to pay. Instead the phone company plays an advertisement after you make your request and before you are told the number. Regards, Colin Sutton [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So your answer to this week's poll question would be 'less than 5 percent'. Other readers who have not answered this week's poll question and reviewed the results to date are invited to do so at http://telecom-digest.org/vote.html Javascript and a cookie are required, to insure that each computer is used to vote only one time, but the cookie may be disgarded as you wish afterward. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #268 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jul 31 19:04:03 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id TAA15830; Sat, 31 Jul 1999 19:04:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 19:04:03 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199907312304.TAA15830@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #269 TELECOM Digest Sat, 31 Jul 99 19:04:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 269 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Tripp Indicted For Taping (Lisa Hancock) Re: Tripp Indicted For Taping (Eli Mantel) Re: Unmasking Anonymous Posters (Adam H. Kerman) Re: When/When Not to Dial '1' (Leonard Erickson) Re: AT&T to Raise Business Rates (John B. Hines) Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered (Jack Decker) Re: eBay Tries to Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco (Walter Dnes) Re: eBay Fradulent High Roller Bidders (Alan Boritz) Re: eBay Fraudulant Bidding Warning (Andy Etherington) Court Aids Schools on Net (Monty Solomon) Real Competition in the Local Loop? (marten@landstrom.pp.se) Re: Call Waiting Signal Variations (Joseph Singer) Re: When/When Not to Dial '1' (Dave Close) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Tripp Indicted For Taping Date: 31 Jul 1999 20:57:26 GMT Organization: Net Access BBS > Linda Tripp faces up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, after > she was indicted Friday on two counts of illegally taping phone > conversations with Monica Lewinsky. I think this is an issue of (1) personal privacy and (2) illegal search and seizure. I think people should have a reasonable expectation that their communications will be kept confidential per the law. A police officer (or anyone else) can't simply sneak into your house and go through your personal belongings because they feel like it. A private citizen as no right whatsoever to do so. A police officer must have a court issued search warrant first. IMHO, Tripp was a private citizen, attempting to conduct a law enforcement effort. She was acting like a vigilante, and violated the law doing so. IMHO, Tripp was not trying to "cover herself" as she claims. Rather, she was attempting to (1) get dirt for her book agent, and (2) nail the president. I don't see these as acceptable motivations to knowingly violate the law. (The newspaper reported that she was charged because she had been advised what she was doing was illegal and continued to do so.) ------------------------------ From: Eli Mantel Subject: Re: Tripp Indicted For Taping Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 07:34:14 GMT Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com) wrote: > Linda Tripp faces up to five years in prison and > a $10,000 fine, after she was indicted Friday on > two counts of illegally taping phone conversations > with Monica Lewinsky. I don't get the idea behind laws that prohibit a person from taping a phone conversation to which they are a party without first getting the consent of everybody on the call. I understand the concept of "reasonable expectation of privacy" in a phone conversation, but once you tell somebody something, then it's only as private as they choose to make it. If I start getting threatening calls, depending on the state I'm in, I'm not allowed to covertly tape those calls without first getting a court order? So that when I testify against this person in court, the best corroborating evidence won't be available? What valid public purpose do such laws serve? ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Unmasking Anonymous Posters Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 18:48:49 GMT Monty Solomon wrote: > A new legal trend has privacy advocates up in arms: Attorneys are > using subpoenas to unmask the identities of anonymous posters to > online discussion forums. And the people whose identities are at stake > rarely have the chance to fight back. > http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/20983.html I read the story. (Why are these brief wired stories broken up into three parts?) It mentioned that MSN and AOL "voluntarily" warn their customers when they have received a subpeona to reveal their records. But Yahoo doesn't. Does Yahoo owe their users anything? Is there an expectation of privacy? Does a contractual obligation exist? Are users relying on specific representations or promises? I glanced at Yahoo's privacy policy: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/privacy/ Yahoo accounts were free. This doesn't seem like a consumer issue to me. Here's the relevant language: With whom does Yahoo! share my information? As a general rule, Yahoo! will not disclose any of your personally identifiable information except when we have your permission or under special circumstances, such as when we believe in good faith that the law requires it or under the circumstances described below. Please see Privacy Policy ... Other: Yahoo! may also disclose account information in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be violating Yahoo!'s Terms of Service or may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) Yahoo!'s rights or property, other Yahoo! users, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities. Yahoo! may disclose or access account information when we believe in good faith that the law requires it and for administrative and other purposes that we deem necessary to maintain, service, and improve our products and services. That language is written broadly enough to guarantee that a Yahoo user has no right to privacy at all. However, the article also discussed that among the personal information Yahoo discloses is credit card account numbers. That IS a violation of consumer privacy. It may be a violation of rights given to consumers under federal law. ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: When/When Not to Dial '1' Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 02:41:04 PST Organization: Shadownet Ed Ellers writes: > Daniel Ganek (ganek@radionics.com) wrote: >> Why can't the FCC mandate that 10 digit dialing ALWAYS works? > Why *should* the FCC mandate that local calls (that do not cross a > state line) must be dialable in a certain way? How does this have a > real impact on interstate commerce -- and if it does not, what > business does the Federal government have telling the states what to > do in this regard? Because it'll save business travellers from having to reconfigure their dialing directory for every city they visit. And it'll make it possible to configure PCs with support numbers to dial that will work *everywhere* without them having to be toll free numbers. And, contrary to what another poster said, anybody who works with equipment that automatically dials numbers benefits from a "1 means toll" setup. It means that if you mstakenly configure a non-local prefix as local you won't get hit by large charges due to dozens (or even *hundreds*) of calls to a number you thought was local. With the combination of both, folks who don't care about the extra charges can just always dial 1. The ones who do can leave it off on calls they expect to be *local*, and have them bounce when they *aren't* local. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: jhines@enteract.com (John B. Hines) Subject: Re: AT&T to Raise Business Rates Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 13:31:20 GMT Organization: US Citizen, disabled with MS, speaking solely for myself. Babu Mengelepouti wrote: > It's beyond comprehension to me why rates are increasing by such a > substantial amount, when access charges have been cut. It will be > interesting to see if other carriers follow AT&T's lead. Is an increase in the tariff, or in the actual rate that you pay on their plan? Lately, a lot of the base tariffs rates, those which all those "save 50% off" ads are based on, but fewer people actually pay these days, since they are all on savings plans, including AT&T. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 23:22:25 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: A New Breed of ISP Emerges: Filtered On Fri, 30 Jul 1999 07:13:09 -0400, adamf@columbus.rr.com (Adam Frix) wrote: > In article , Dave O'Shea > wrote: >> The only problem is that most, if not all, of these efforts, are >> complete failures. Here's a group that checked several of the >> best-funded and largest-selling systems, and found that they not only >> fail to block most of the "offensive" sites, but the DO block a number >> of educational, useful, and well-policed sites. >> http://www.censorware.org/press/press_07-28-99.html > Why do people call this "censorship"? When a parent stops his child > from seeing and reading things that the parent feels are not in the > best interests of the child, that is most assuredly NOT "censorship". > It's called parenting. > Too many people in this world seem to think that everyone should be > allowed to see and read whatever he wants -- children included. > Worse, too many of those people are nosy busybodies who want to insert > themselves between the parent and the child, as if they know better > than the parent and are more capable of making that particular > decision for the child. > Censorship, my foot. Parenting. It is parenting if the parent actually takes the time to see what the child is accessing on the Internet, and offers parental input. It is not parenting if the parent relies on a piece of software to determine what the child may or may not view, that was written by some commercial organization that may have quite unique ideas about what is appropriate viewing material for others. "Parenting" implies some level of parental involvement. These programs exist so that parents don't have to get involved. Parents who use this type of software are no better than parents who park their kids in front of the TV as a surrogate babysitter, then complain that the government should dumb down all TV to be appropriate for viewing by a five year old. They want any solution other than one that involves confronting their own children about what they're looking at. I am at a loss to figure out how they consider that "parenting." The problem with this kind of "parenting" is that you don't really train the child to be discerning. So what happens when the child goes to a friend's home and watches TV or uses a computer? What if they are using a computer at a school, library, or other location where filtering software isn't in use? For that matter, what if the child figures out how to disable the filtering when you aren't around? Many kids know more about computers than their parents think they do. It seems to me that if you can't trust you child not to be visiting porn sites (or whatever you find objectionable), maybe you should be sitting there with him every minute he is on the 'net, instead of being parked in front of the TV in another room watching "Baywatch". THAT would be "parenting." By the way, I am NOT one of those who necessarily sees "censorship" as a dirty word. There are some types of so-called "censorship" that are really simply attempts to uphold some community or moral standards, and I don't always see that as a bad thing (I know some people think anyone should be allowed to say anything at any time to anyone, and I simply do not agree with that). But I still think that "filtering" software is a poor substitute for real parenting, and when you use it it's like sending a telegram to your kids saying that you don't trust them, but you also don't care enough to watch over them yourself, and you're willing to let a piece of software act as a surrogate. Jack ------------------------------ From: waltdnes@interlog.com (Walter Dnes) Subject: Re: eBay Tries to Hush-Up Fraudulent Bidding Fiasco Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 06:03:41 GMT Organization: Interlog Internet Services > The scam, called "bid shielding" revolves around the ability > for someone to place a very high bid on an item and withdraw it > just moments before the auction closes. > The fraudster first makes a minimal bid, often only a fraction > of what the item is worth and then, using a different identity, > makes a bid for far more than the item is actually worth. They > now effectively "own" the item -- since it is unlikely that > anyone will outbid the higher offer. [...deletia...] > In what would appear to be an admission by eBay that they are > all but powerless to solve the problem, Hamilton quotes an email > from the online auctioneer that states: > "PLEASE, do not give out the details of this, as it will only > cause more users to try it, why add to the workload and > potentially cause problems for other sellers." Am I missing something glaringly obvious? Here's my analysis of the problem ... and the obvious solution. Problem: a) assume item is worth $100 fair market value; b) very early on fraudster puts in $50 bid; c) immediatetly thereafter, fraudster puts in $200 bid; d) ***EBAY WILL NOW NOT ACCEPT A BID BELOW $201***; e) at the last minute, fraudster withdraws $200 bid and the $50 bid becomes the high bid, i.e. the selling price; The problem could b