From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jan 27 01:20:00 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i0R6Jxg25275; Tue, 27 Jan 2004 01:20:00 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 01:20:00 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200401270620.i0R6Jxg25275@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V23 #41 TELECOM Digest Tue, 27 Jan 2004 01:20:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 41 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Google Targeted by Pranksters; Web Site, Bloggers Skew Results (Solomon) New Virus Infects PCs, Whacks SCO (Monty Solomon) Cablevision a Top Bidder For Wireless Licenses (Monty Solomon) Online Reference to Reach Milestone (Monty Solomon) Cablevision's VOOM Bids For Wireless Licenses (Monty Solomon) Re: Spoofing a "Bounced" E-Mail Error Message? (Jeffrey Mattox) Re: Spoofing a "Bounced" E-Mail Error Message? (Paul Vader) Re: Spoofing a "Bounced" E-Mail Error Message? (Nick Landsberg) Re: Spoofing a "Bounced" E-Mail Error Message? (Barry Margolin) Re: Protect Yourself From Deceptive, Malicious Web Sites (H.E. Schaffer) Re: Wireless Home Networks (yeltrabnhoj@email.com) VoIP and Cell Service - Room for Synergy? (A Mathgrad) Err, Umm, Rumor was Re: The Most Hated Company In Tech (Danny Burstein) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk is definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: Monty Solomon From: Monty Solomon Subject: Google Targeted by Pranksters - Web Sites, Bloggers Skew Results Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 17:38:49 -0500 Verne Kopytoff, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, January 26, 2004 Who among the many candidates running for president is unelectable? George W. Bush -- if the search results on Google can be believed. His biography is the first result to appear on Google for the Web query "unelectable." It's just one in a long list of similarly bizarre results on the search engine over the years that are the result of manipulation, not their relevance. Called Google bombs, these are pranks engineered by Web site operators and creators of Web logs. They take advantage of the way Google ranks search results to get certain Web sites listed higher for specific queries than they otherwise would be. That's why President Bush's biography also appears as the top result for the search query "miserable failure." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/01/26/BUG3M4GVDS1.DTL ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 22:21:56 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New Virus Infects PCs, Whacks SCO By Robert Lemos Staff Writer, CNET News.com A mass-mailing virus quickly spread through the Internet on Monday, compromising computers so that they attack the SCO Group's Web server with a flood of data on Feb. 1, according to antivirus companies. The virus -- known as MyDoom, Novarg and as a variant of the Mimail virus by different antivirus companies -- arrives in an in-box with one of several different random subject lines, such as "Mail Delivery System," "Test" or "Mail Transaction Failed." The body of the e-mail contains an executable file and a statement such as: "The message contains Unicode characters and has been sent as a binary attachment." http://news.com.com/2100-7349-5147605.html See also ... http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.novarg.a@mm.html http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=description&virus_k=100983 http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/virus/story/0,10801,89449,00.html http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/01/26/HNmydoom_1.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50582-2004Jan26.html http://slashdot.org/articles/04/01/27/0038234.shtml http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,114460,00.asp [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I got three of those 'test' messages with 'unicode characters' in my mail here at massis Monday evening, but just tossed them out. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 18:01:50 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cablevision a Top Bidder For Wireless Licenses NEW YORK, Jan 26 (Reuters) - VOOM, the satellite TV service set to be spun off from New York-area cable company Cablevision Systems (NYSE:CVC), is the top bidder for licenses to build a U.S. wireless video and data network, according to Federal Communications Commission figures. The network would use an emerging technology called MVDDS, nor Multichannel Video Distribution and Data Service, which operates within the same spectrum of broadcast frequencies as satellite television services like DirecTV and DISH Network. But it is transmitted from local microwave towers, allowing the broadcast of local channels and two-way high-speed data. Satellite broadcasters, who oppose the technology, say their spectrum is too crowded, diminishing the quality of their product. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=40310951 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 23:26:07 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Online Reference to Reach Milestone By Dan Gillmor Mercury News Technology Columnist Sometime in the next few days or weeks, one of the world's most comprehensive online reference sites will publish its 200,000th article. More accurately, one of the site's contributors will publish the article. Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), an encyclopedia created and operated by volunteers, is one of the most fascinating developments of the Digital Age. In just over three years of existence, it has become a valuable resource and an example of how the grass roots in today's interconnected world can do extraordinary things. Almost anyone can be a contributor to the Wikipedia. Almost anyone can edit almost any page. (Only serious misbehavior gets people banned.) Thousands of people around the world have added their expertise, and new volunteers show up every day. It defies first-glance assumptions. After all, one might imagine, if anyone can edit anything, surely cyber-vandals will wreck it. Surely flame wars over article content will stymie good intentions. And, of course, the articles will all be amateurish nonsense. Right? Well, no. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/7793099.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 18:42:44 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cablevision's VOOM Bids for Wireless Licenses By Michael Learmonth NEW YORK, Jan 26 (Reuters) - VOOM, the satellite TV service set to be spun off from New York-area cable company Cablevision Systems (NYSE:CVC), is the top bidder for licenses to build a U.S. wireless video and data network, according to Federal Communications Commission figures. The network would use an emerging technology called MVDDS, nor Multichannel Video Distribution and Data Service, which operates within the same spectrum of broadcast frequencies as satellite television services like DirecTV and DISH Network. But the MVDDS signal is transmitted from local microwave towers, allowing enough bandwidth for hundreds of channels and high-speed Internet service. Satellite broadcasters had initially opposed the technology and some are suing in federal court to stop it, claiming the spectrum is already too crowded and that local microwave antennas would interfere with their signals from space. But the participation of VOOM in the auction gives additional clues to the nascent satellite broadcaster's strategy. Cablevision and its visionary founder, Charles Dolan, have been roundly criticized by analysts for the venture, a high-definition satellite service that requires viewers to buy a receiver for $749.99. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=40313078 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 14:29:04 -0600 From: Jeffrey Mattox Subject: Re: Spoofing a "Bounced" E-Mail Error Message? Pat: [Please do not publish my email address -- too much spam already.] You wrote: > TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Really not a problem at all. > I use a software package called 'Mail Washer' which does that. > ... Anything you tell Mail Washer to bounce and blacklist gets > returned to the sender with a very realistic looking notice from > postmaster@your.site saying no such user. ... PAT] This particular feature of Mail Washer will do more harm than good. An truly invalid email address is reported to the SMTP server during the actual connection when the email is sent. The SMTP protocol tells the sending machine that the address is invalid and the message body never even gets sent. When you send a "bounce" message yourself in reply to a spam, it's just another email going over the Internet and it will be totally ignored by the spammer. Spammers don't include a valid reply address anyway, so your bounce message will likely just generate another bounce message (a reply to your bounce) causing even more traffic. Even if spammers get your bounce message, they'd know it was faked because it didn't come during the SMTP connection when the spam was sent. In fact, your faked bounce message is a *positive indication* that your address is valid because you got the spam!! The Mail Washer web site says : "... the bounced messages look exactly like a returned mail message you would receive if you sent an email off to a wrong address. There is no way the spammers can tell it is not genuine." But that is wrong! Spammers can tell because the bounce message comes as a delayed email (which they will ignore) rather than a refused connected by the SMTP protocol. With spammers using every trick they can to get emails through spam filters, why would anybody believe they would be fooled by a faked bounce message? Besides, spammers aren't interested in cleaning their lists. It's a waste of their time because it costs them nothing to keep the bad addresses. Damn them! The companies that are advertising this "feature" of their product are either idiots or (more likely) are hoping to impress people with a feature that sounds good, but, in fact, is detrimental. Jeff ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: Spoofing a "Bounced" E-Mail Error Message? Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 21:51:31 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations me@privacy.net writes: > How difficult would it be to spoof a message that seemed like it came > from an ISP's mail server? I'd like this technique to discourage some > people from sending mail to me. It's actually pretty trivial -- send a message to a whacko address on your ISP's mailserver, and mimic the resulting bounce message that gets sent to you. If you're doing this for specific people that you actually know and don't like, it's harmless enough. However, DO NOT be tempted to use this against spammers. All you'll be doing then is sending random messages to addresses that either don't exist, or don't belong to the spammer. The only way to bounce a spam is during the SMTP conversation while the message is coming in, and even then in most cases the spammer isn't paying attention to the responses anyway. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: Nick Landsberg Subject: Re: Spoofing a "Bounced" E-Mail Error Message? Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 22:23:14 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Pat, Two questions regarding "Mail Washer": 1. Does it (or something similar) run under OS-X? 2. What does it cost? Inquiring minds want to know. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Mail Washer runs under various flavors of Windows with (at least) Outlook Express. It is a free download you can get by Googling for it. I did not read all the specs, so it may well work with other OS' and mail clients as well. But note what two other correspondents tonight just said about it: Jeff and Paul both think no one is fooled by the bogus daemon, certainly not professional spammers and innocent third parties could get harmed by a flood of mail returned to them they did not send. All that being considered, I still like the idea of being able to have all my incoming mail lined up in single lines where I can make a single click to have it go away if the sender is not recogized or the subject sounds 'fishy' to me. That is, in cases like SBC where they make absolutely no attempt to help with the problem at all. In the case of Cable One however, they at least round up all *they* perceive to be spam and viruses, and isolate it for me in a separate file, where, after cursory examination one click gets rid of the entire batch. Even Yahoo does a better job of attempting to isolate spam than SBC does! Another good program to look at for isolating spam into its own folder right out of the mail sever is 'Cloudmark' which is a plug in tool to integrate with Outlook Express. If Mail Washer or Spam Assassin does not catch it for some reason, then Cloudmark usually will. Like the other two, Cloudmark is trainable; it adds two new buttons to the Outlook Express desktop where you can pass a piece of mail in to your regular delivery or not as desired. PAT] DaveC wrote: > How difficult would it be to spoof a message that seemed like it came > from an ISP's mail server? I'd like this technique to discourage some > people from sending mail to me. > The message doesn't have to be perfect, just such that to the > untrained eye it looks like the recipient's address (mine) doesn't > exist and the host mail server is informing the sender of such. > Suggestions? > Thanks, > DaveC > me@privacy.net > This is an invalid return address > Please reply in the news group > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Really not a problem at all. I use a > software package called 'Mail Washer' which does that. When you want > to receive your email, instead of using your email client, you use > Mail Washer. It POPS into your various accounts, grabs all the mail > and displays only a line of each item; who from, date and subject. > Then you train it what you consider spam and what is legitmate, and > you click little boxes next to each piece of mail for accept, spam, > blacklist, and bounce. Then you click 'process mail'. The mail > accepted is brought to your mail client and displayed in the usual > way. Mail which is considered spam just disappears from the servers > when you confirm your click by processing mail. Anything you tell Mail > Washer to bounce and blacklist gets returned to the sender with a very > realistic looking notice from postmaster@your.site saying no such > user. You do have to work to set it up properly at first, since > sometimes on outgoing mail you need to 'authenticate user' with a > password, etc to be able to send mail through a particular server. > And of course some email arrives with a bogus return address to start > with, so you have to take care on mail you simply want to destroy > undread versus that you want to blacklist and bounce. Not a bad > program however; its easier to get rid of several dozen pieces of > junk with a check mark on a single line instead of having to accept > all the mail, scan through it and zap what is junk. And it saves > your own wastebasket file from having to fill up and then get > emptied out. PAT] -- "It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" - A. Bloch ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Spoofing a "Bounced" E-Mail Error Message? Organization: Looking for work Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 23:05:07 GMT In article , DaveC wrote: > How difficult would it be to spoof a message that seemed like it came > from an ISP's mail server? I'd like this technique to discourage some > people from sending mail to me. The Macintosh OS X Mail program has a built-in "Bounce" command, that sends a fake bounce message for the selected messages. -- Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA ------------------------------ From: hes@unity.ncsu.edu (Henry E Schaffer) Subject: Re: Protect Yourself From Deceptive (Spoofed), Malicious Web Sites Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 23:16:10 +0000 (UTC) Organization: North Carolina State University In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 833786 > Steps that you can take to help identify and to help protect yourself > from deceptive (spoofed) Web sites and malicious hyperlinks > SUMMARY > When you point to a hyperlink in Microsoft Internet Explorer, > Microsoft Outlook Express, or Microsoft Outlook, the address of the > Web site typically appears in the Status bar at the bottom of the > window. After you click a link that opens in Internet Explorer, the > address of the Web site typically appears in the Internet Explorer > Address bar, and the title of the Web page typically appears in the > Title bar of the window. > However, a malicious user could create a link to a deceptive > (spoofed) Web site that displays the address, or URL, to a legitimate > Web site in the Status bar, Address bar, and Title bar. I have received *many* pieces of UCE (aka spam) which use this type of link -- and make it look as if you are going to Microsoft's web site -- but take you some place else. I set up a demo -- if you want to see how this can happen go to: http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/gn/ex/spoof.html I've checked it with IE, and sure enough it claims that you are at www.microsoft.com. A couple of other browsers show that there is more to the URL. > This article describes steps that you can take to help mitigate this > issue and to help you to identify a deceptive (spoofed) Web site or > URL. > http://support.microsoft.com/?id=833786 Phoo! While that article gives some decent advice (such as look for the locked symbol) most of the advice is so burdensome that I suspect that *very few* users would (or could) follow it. For example, since scammers can use SSL, the suggest that even if the locked symbol appears that you chould check the name on the digital certificate for SSL. Another example -- they say that you shouldn't click on a URL, but instead "type the URL of your intended destination in the address bar yourself" Sure -- especially when there is a "link" and one would have to bring up the HTML source, find the link, then read it off and type it in! Do they really think that this type of advice is sufficient? --henry schaffer hes _AT_ ncsu _DOT_ edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess for many people, it is quite sufficient. Truely, some links to URLs are outrageously long and cumbersome to type in. As you know, some URLs go on for eighty to one hundred characters in length, or more. People need to learn that Microsoft, various banks, etc do NOT send you email telling you to 'please click here and verify your account information.' People need to learn that the only way you EVER go to one of those sites is if you, yourself originate the inquiry. What scares me a little however is that Microsoft has some perfectly legimate way to 'tickle' the bit in your computer to notify you that Windows Update has something for you. Then the next time you attempt to use your browser, you get diverted (legitimatly) to Windows Update to receive the file. What happens when some bad person (a) gets his hands on the mailing list of people who want to be notified legitimatly by Microsoft of new security issues, then (b) proceeds to send a 'tickle' to all those users and (c) figures out some way to divert them to a malicious but very well counterfieted web site purporting to be Windows Update. The amateurs out there now who send those 'here is your latest update' file only fool the really new, novice users. Imagine the fun when (a), (b) and (c) above get accomp- lished and only a *very trained, very experienced* user notices there is something 'not quite right' about that 'Windows Update' page, but by that time the bad man has already started dumping all over your hard drive. We are all at the mercy of users who are smarter than ourselves unfortunatly. PAT] ------------------------------ From: yeltrabnhoj@email.com Subject: Re: Wireless Home Networks Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 00:46:26 GMT Organization: (reverse to reply) (John Bartley, K7AAY, Portland OR) On Fri, 16 Jan 2004 15:37:34 -0500, Michael Quinn wrote: > The recent articles on DSL availabilty prompted me to check with > Verizon yet again to see if Verizon had at last made DSL available in > my neighborhood in Northern VA. I was pleasantly surprised to see > that they had, and with a little bit of searching discovered a > wireless hub and small wireless USB adaptors at buy.com on sale for > about $35 each. The wired versions -- either conventional NIC cards > using CAT 5 cable or the HPNA stle which use phone lines are both more > expensive and the former of course entails running and terminating > cables. BYTE.COM noted in their CES report of Tuesday afternoon: Powerline networking, aka HomePlug, has been "going to happen" for over a decade, but appeared to be headed nowhere -- the same nowhere that phone-line networking fell into. But, while we weren't looking, the HomePlug Powerline Alliance (HPPA) quietly built momentum for their "no new wires" products, which run over your house's existing power lines. CES saw a good number of HomePlug interoperability demonstrations in the HPPA's booth, far more than we would have predicted. Intellon was touting the cost to build HomePlug into existing products at as little as $10 in parts, far lower than today. Panasonic has put its name behind HomePlug as well, particularly for in-home hi-def streaming. But not with the current standard. Current HomePlug (1.0) runs at 14 Megabits/second (Mbps), a respectable speed for Internet surfing but hopelessly inadequate for streaming. The upcoming HomePlug AV standard promises greater than 100 Mbps throughput, "faster than any flavor of Wi-Fi," aimed especially at moving Hi-definition television (HD) between your set-top box and a TV in a different room. One of the main silicon players in this business is Intellon, whose "PowerAV" chips will probably play a major part in the eventual standard. Expect HomePlug AV products late in 2004, with the same plug-it-in-and-it-networks practicality as HomePlug 1.0. Just after CES, the HPPA announced some new heavy hitters for its board of directors, including ComCast and Earthlink. Looks like a bandwagon, only time will tell how big. -- Nobody but a fool goes into a federal counterrorism operation without duct tape - Richard Preston, THE COBRA EVENT. ------------------------------ From: me3141592654@netscape.net (A Mathgrad) Subject: VoIP and Cell Service - Room for Synergy ? Date: 26 Jan 2004 09:55:08 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I was wondering whether there is a natural 'fit' between VoIP services and Cell Phone services. My friend operates a business from her home and spends a hefty amount each month for telecom and related services: 1) Business line with message manager, caller id ($80) 2) Fax-to e-mail for incoming faxen $10 (formerly used second business line at $60/month) 3) Cell phone ($35) 4) Home Phone ($45) 5) Cable company broadband ($60) She pays more than $230 Canadian for services that should be profitable at half of that. (These are rough $ estimates) It would make sense for her cell provider to offer her an add-on VoIP connection that works with her cell service. Calls could be received at the office, mobile phone or answering machine according to her schedule. IP-calls would not require extra wireless infrastructure and would leverage the providers investment in connections with the PSTN. At the cost of an add-on DID number and an extra RJ-11 port on the computer her residential service could share the broadband connection and shift the revenue stream from the phone company to the cell company. The cell companies could leverage their installed base and existing network into the much larger market of 'wired' telephony with the addition of some VoIP software, IP connections and some aggressive marketing. We know 'The Phone Company' will never do this because it destroys their current revenue models. ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: Err, Umm, rumor was Re: The Most Hated Company In Tech Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 22:30:16 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In Monty Solomon writes: (excerpted) > The Most Hated Company In Tech > SCO's huge Linux suit against IBM is a long shot that may yield > nothing but bile. > And McBride has even received death threats. One was so unnerving that > SCO's security had a sharpshooter in the room when McBride spoke at a > tech conference in Las Vegas in December. > http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_05/b3868104_mz063.htm Even though it's a Business Week article, I'd find that part of the story quite a bit unlikely. Sharpshooters are not hired nor placed in pulic environments that casually. Confirmation anyone? _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ 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, Yahoo Groups, 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-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-330-6774 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@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. 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Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. In addition, gifts from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert have 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 fifty 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. If you donate at least fifty dollars per year we will send you our two-CD set of the entire Telecom Archives; this is every word published in this Digest since our beginning in 1981. 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. End of TELECOM Digest V23 #41 *****************************