From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 16 21:41:25 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iAH2fO418558; Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:41:25 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:41:25 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411170241.iAH2fO418558@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 #551 TELECOM Digest Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:41:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 551 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Al Qaeda Defies Saudi Manhunt With High Web Profile (Lisa Minter) Radio Goes Digital (Lisa Minter) Google Finds its Way Onto Cellphones (Monty Solomon) C-SPAN: LoC/The Digital Future (Monty Solomon) Hi, Vonage User Here (Scott V) Great Deals on Headsets (Steve) SBC to Announce VoIP Tests (Telecom dailyLead from USTA) Re: Chechen Rebel Web Site Reopened (Bob Goudreau) Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders (jmeissen@aracnet.com) Re: Inexepnsive Remote Forwarding by Auto Attendant Over Vonage (Aujoe) Re: Wired News: American Passports to Get Chipped (Scott Dorsey) Re: Vonage Tech Support Dead? (DevilsPGD) Re: Satellite Receiver Calling Out Over VOIP? (DevilsPGD) Last Laugh! The Parrot (Lisa Minter) 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 are 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter Subject: Al Qaeda Defies Saudi Manhunt with High Web Profile Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 14:03:06 EST Despite the killing of top contributors, including one of its leading Web magazine editors Issa Saad bin Oshan, the group has continued to publish its two widely distributed magazines regularly for the past year. "It's testament to the strength of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia that they've been able to bring out the magazines twice a month for a whole year despite very heavy losses," said Paul Eedle, a London-based analyst who closely follows Qaeda sites. "This shows how a small group can continue a campaign using the Internet. Before the days of the Internet a group would pretty much fade from view if they were reduced in numbers like al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia," he said. Oshan ran Sawt al-Jihad (Voice of Holy War) -- the most important vehicle for disseminating the group's ideas in which he detailed how Saudis could take up the armed struggle against the United States. He called on Muslims to evict "crusaders" from the cradle of Islam and praised comrades fighting pro-U.S. rulers. Another key publication is Muaskar al-Battar (Battar Camp), an al Qaeda guerrilla manual named after a favorite sword of Prophet Mohammad which disseminates knowledge about the use of arms and explosives and how to kill officials and citizens of the U.S. Oshan was killed in a raid by Saudi security forces on a hideout that led to the discovery of the head of Paul Johnson, the American hostage who was killed by his Qaeda captors in Saudi Arabia in June. Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia has waged a massive manhunt, killing or arresting some 17 of the 26 most wanted militants. "I have been astonished by the magazines' continuity, even though their content has suffered lately. This is one of the best media campaigns by a terrorist group," said an analyst from a European defense studies institute who declined to be named. London-based Islamic activist Yasser al-Sirri said a small group of followers may be helping publish the magazines under the control of Saudi al Qaeda leaders. The magazines often carry interviews with senior militants vowing to fight until death. RECRUITING THROUGH MAGAZINES? US authorities have tried to block access to the magazines and other Islamist sites to curb the spread of their ideas. But analysts say the ability of the magazines in actually mobilizing al Qaeda sympathizers is debatable. "It's a very big leap from reading militant texts, posting messages and sympathizing to actually acting. I think that leap normally requires a personal contact," Eedle said. The defense analyst added: "The Internet may seem as a fantastic virtual meeting place, but it cannot replace a training camp." The magazines prompted alarm among some security experts, who say militants were turning the Web into a virtual classroom. One posting showed how to use a mobile phone in a bomb attack, a method used in blasts that killed 191 on Madrid trains in March. Israeli analyst Reuven Paz said Islamists had more success in winning over youths than Arab nationalists or socialists. "The Islamists create through the Internet a 'culture of the oppressed'," said Paz, an expert on Islamist movements. But American authorities claim the fears may be exaggerated and that most of the material was propaganda. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Reuters News Service. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Radio Goes Digital Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 14:04:25 -0500 (EST) Patrick Norton - ExtremeTech Radio hasn't changed much in the past couple of decades. Sure, there was the big switch from mechanical pushbuttons, knobs and cable-driven needles to electrical pushbuttons and digital LCD screens. Stereo AM made its less-than-stunning debut. On the car audio front, a typical head unit's gone from being a radio to being a radio with a built-in cassette deck, to being a radio with a built-in CD player. That said, AM and FM radio tuners have definitely gotten better, a fact I realized when I drove an ancient Toyota with a genuine factory radio from the late '70s, and no cassette or CD player, a few months ago. Radio stations, I noticed, haven't changed all that much, except that more of them sound exactly the same. What has changed for the better is that radio is finally going digital, at least in part. First with the introduction of satellite radio a couple of years ago and now, earlier this year, with the introduction of HD Radio has started to make serious leaps and bounds for the first time since the '70s. The two systems are both digital, but that's about all they have in common. The newest is HD Radio, developed by iBiquity Digital. It promises to bring CD-quality FM and static-free AM to any station that licenses (and implements) the technology. Along with crystal-clear music or talk radio, it also can do things such as deliver data over your car stereo's head unit, including the name of the band you're listening to, news tidbits or even stock quotes. Satellite radio offerings from XM and Sirius each distribute more than a hundred channels of music, info and entertainment via satellite, everywhere in the United States. The coverage even spills over into a fair chunk of Mexico and Canada. Want to listen to one classical station in your car when you drive from San Francisco to Long Beach Island, N.J.? Satellite radio can do that, at least until you pass through a good-sized tunnel; then it cuts out until you're out the other side. Just want to enjoy commercial-free music while you're commuting? Both satellite providers offer more than 60 different channels. Sound good? It does to me. These new digital radio formats have me fired up about radio again. Just for fun, let's get a little deeper and see if we can't dig up a few more diamonds in the world of digital radio. We're bound to uncover a few lumps of coal, too. Satellite Radio: Did We Mention the Monthly Fee? Let's get the first gotcha of digital radio out of the way: Both XM and Sirius charge a monthly subscription fee. Barring a bulk purchase of multiple months (or years) at once, you'll be paying $9.99 per month for XM or $12.95 per month for Sirius. You'll also need an XM or Sirius tuner, most likely a satellite radio that plugs into your car or home stereo, or some kind of box that brings satellite radio to the XM- or Sirius-ready head unit that's already in your car. While there are many car stereos that can add in a satellite radio module, our favorite tuner forms are portable and lend themselves to easy movement from the car to the house. Delphi's XM-compatible Delphi XM Roady2 earned an Editors' Choice award from PC Magazine for its iPod-like size and built-in FM modulator. That means no carrying around extra cables or cassette adapters, since you can use your FM radio to pick up the signal from the Roady2. Its modular build means you can also use it in a portable, Walkman-style carrier, or in a home base station. The Roady2 is a touch smaller than its comparable Sirius tuner, the Sirius Sportster. One advantage the Sportster offers: When you set it for your favorite football team, it'll display its logo on the monitor and automatically change the channel when your team starts playing a game. Both of those satellite radio tuners can be had for less than $100 on sale, plus the monthly fee. ($9.99 for XM or $12.95 for Sirius.) If you're willing to spend about $200 more, you can get a boom box complete with AM/FM tuner and CD player that you can pop your XM tuner into. You can read more about it in PC Magazine. On the new-car front, more manufacturers committed to putting compatible head units into new cars (Daimler-Chrysler and Ford offer Sirius, while Honda and GM favor XM). Sirius has some hi-fi manufactures, such as AudioVox and Kenwood making radios for your home stereo. But XM has the lead in portable hardware, with the announcement of Delphi's MyFi, the first portable, self-powered satellite radio. It's expected to ship this December for $349. What Do You Get for the Monthly Fee? In exchange for that monthly fee, you get an amazing array of programming. XM offers 68 commercial-free music channels out of 130 total channels. Sirius, which started the commercial-free music craze, offers 65 music channels from 120. Both offer similar music programming (dedicated channels for just about everything from dance music to bluegrass), along with a range of news and entertainment channels. We won't get into the other offerings too deeply here, except to say that XM has exclusive rights to Major League Baseball and NASCAR Radio, while Sirius holds the keys to NFL football, National Public Radio and, in 2006, Howard Stern. What Is HD Radio, Anyway? While satellite radio's dedicated content channels and commercial-free music are probably pulling people away from AM and FM radio (albeit slowly, since XM and Sirius combined have roughly 3 million listeners, and there are tens of millions of radio listeners in the United States), HD Radio is designed to improve your experience with your favorite local stations. It's a nationwide standard, chosen by the FCC in 2002. Your HD Radio will work anywhere in the United States. Assuming you have HD Radio being broadcast in your area. (More on that in a moment.) HD Radio is essentially iBiquity's IBOC (In-Band On-Channel) Digital Audio Broadcasting technology. It essentially sandwiches the regular analog transmission with a pair of sideband transmissions. These digital transmissions don't interfere with stations nearby on the dial but still manage to carry a high-quality audio copy of the regular analog broadcast, and can carry additional information the station wished to add in. (The ubiquitous example of stock quotes has been mentioned, but things such as track titles and artists' names are most common.) Because the signals are split across two different frequencies, intelligence in the tuner can work them against each other and work around some of the traditional analog reception problems such as multipath interference (when your tuner picks up the same signal at different times after it's been bounced around, say, the buildings in your downtown area) and other causes of distortion. iBquity debuted the first HD Radio receiver back in January, and they're still fairly rare. According to iBiquity's site, JVC, Kenwood, Panasonic and Boston Acoustics all offer HD Radio receivers. We've had to work to find them for sale in local electronics stores, and with the suggested retail on a car head unit at $700 to $800, they're a bit spendy. The Boston Acoustics Receptor will cost closer to $149.) There are a fair number of HD Radio stations broadcasting, at least according to iBiquity's map of HD Radio stations. Here in San Francisco, there are a fair number of HD radio stations on the air in a wide range of formats, from AM news to jazz stations to the lone local classical and country stations. Should you purchase an HD Radio? We'd start by checking iBiquity's map to find out whether any of your favorite stations are already broadcasting in HD. Then we'd try to find a local shop (or one of the engineers at that radio station) to give us a demo of the HD sound. If you like it and you can afford the tuner, it should be a nice upgrade. But don't worry if you don't want to spend the money: Analog radio isn't going away anytime soon. Patrick Norton has written more than 500 product reviews for print and online media and loves off-road racing. Patrick is best known for answering the toughest tech questions, giving product-purchasing advice and smashing dead PCs with a sledgehammer during a four-year stint when he co-hosted "The Screen Savers" on TechTV (now G4techTV), an hour-long, live TV show for geeks. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance Tech Tuesday and Reuters News Service. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:44:34 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Google Finds its Way Onto Cellphones Search engine company quietly launches service By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff | November 15, 2004 Google has come to cellphones -- the cheap ones, not just the fancy color-screen models with Web access. Over the last month, the popular search engine company has quietly turned on a new service that lets people use most newer cellphone models to get snippets of information by sending short text messages to a special five-digit number, 46645, which spells GOOGL on a phone keypad. People looking for a list of pizza or Chinese restaurants in Back Bay, for example, just have to send the message "pizza 02116" or "Chinese 02116." Within 10 seconds or so, Google shoots back one or more text messages listing restaurants with addresses and phone numbers from its Google Local page. Related services from Google let users get a phone number by sending a message containing the desired person's first and last names and city, area code, or ZIP code; they can also use Google's Froogle shopping site to get a price quote by sending a text message with "price" followed by the item's name or Universal Product Code number. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/11/15/google_finds_its_way_onto_cellphones/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 19:24:25 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: C-SPAN: LoC/The Digital Future http://www.c-span.org/congress/digitalfuture.asp LIBRARY OF CONGRESS The Digital Future SERIES DESCRIPTION Beginning Monday, November 15, 2004 until March 2005, C-SPAN will televise live a series of discussions hosted by the Library of Congress' John W. Kluge Center. The series will examine how the digital age is changing the most basic ways information is organized and classified. The goal is to educate the public on the what the digital age means to their lives. The events will include a featured speaker, followed by a panel discussion, and a question and answer session with the audience at the venue, and C-SPAN television viewers. Our viewers will be invited to email questions to the experts. ------------------------------------------------------------- SERIES SCHEDULE 2004 Monday, November 15 David Weinberger, one of North America's best known experts on "blogging" and coauthor of the bestselling book, "The Cluetrain Manifesto" (2000). Weinberger is also author of "Small pieces, loosely joined: a unified theory of the web" (2002), a frequent commentator on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" and "Here and Now," and has been published in many magazines including Wired and the Harvard Business Review. rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/digital/digitalfuture111504.rm Monday, December 13 at 6:30pm ET Brewster Kahle, digital librarian, director and cofounder of the Internet Archive Kahle will explain how and why capturing material on the Web is important and discuss the challenges of selecting pertinent content. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 2005 Monday, January 31 at 6:30pm ET Brian Cantwell Smith, dean of the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto Smith, the author of "On the Origin of Objects," combines degrees in computer science and philosophy and is an expert on the interdisciplinary convergence brought about by orgitization. His talk is titled, "And Is All This Stuff Really Digital After All?" Monday, February 14 at 6:30pm ET David M. Levy, professor at the Information School of the University of Washington Levy is the author of "Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age," and he will discuss the shift of the experience of reading from the fixed page to movable electrons and the effect that has had on language. Thursday, March 3 at 6:30pm ET Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society Lessig is the author of "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" and an expert on the issues of copyright and "copyleft." He is the inventor of the revolutionary concept and application Creative Commons, which invites the right to use material under specific conditions. Monday, March 14 at 6:30pm ET Edward L. Ayers, dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia Ayers is the author (with Anne S. Rubin) of "The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War" on CD-ROM. Among the questions Ayers will address are the implications for the creation and distribution of knowledge in today's digital environment. Monday, March 28 at 6:30pm ET Neil Gershenfeld, director of the Center for Bits and Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Gershenfeld is the author of "When Things Start to Think." His new concept Internet Zero (0) proposes a new infrastructure for the existing Internet that would give an IP address to all electronic devices - from light bulbs to Internet addresses and URLs - and interconnect them directly, thereby eliminating much intermediating code and server technology. His topic is "From the Library of Information to the Library of Things." Copyright 2004, National Cable Satellite Corporation ------------------------------ From: Scott V Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:27:16 -0500 Subject: Hi, Vonage User Here Hi all, I use Vonage. I use an ATA and Linksys router with a cable modem. I love the sound quality of vonage and I hope that telephone companies go this way to get rid of standard phones. Well not get totally rid of it but get more households using it because its a great service. Later all, Scott ------------------------------ From: Steve Subject: Great Deals on Headsets Organization: BellSouth Internet Group Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 18:05:00 -0500 Now available for the first time in the US. Direct connect headsets for Nortel, Mitel, Toshiba, NEC, Samsung, 3Com, ESI, Panasonic and many more keyset models. Manufactured and sold internationally for almost 5 years, these professional quality call center grade are now available at a fraction of the cost of their Plantronics and GN Netcom competition. Check them out at: http://tdiheadsets.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 12:56:16 EST From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: SBC to Announce VoIP Tests http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17535&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * SBC to announce VoIP tests BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Adelphia Communications sets $17.5 billion minimum bid * Report: Comcast's VoIP plans picking up steam * Yahoo!, EarthLink beef up their anti-spam barrier USTA SPOTLIGHT * Order Phone Facts 2005 and Broadband Facts together and save! EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Electric companies see multiple advantages to BPL REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Lucent faces bribery allegations Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17535&l=2017006 http://www.dailylead.com/usta/usta_passiton.jsp ------------------------------ From: Bob Goudreau Subject: Re: Chechen Rebel Web Site Reopened Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 14:30:00 -0500 [Please remove my address from both this message and from the Digest's Table of Contents.] > BobGoudreau@withheld wrote: >> either Lisa or Reuters made a typo. >> And indeed, www.kavzazcenter.com comes up fine in my browser. > Thanks, Bob, but "kavzaz"??? > D**n those typos! But, we know what you mean :-) D'oh! I had to go and make a whole *new* typo! :-( Of course I meant www.kavkazcenter.com BTW, I googled the original misspelled domain name ("kavkavcenter. com") and found lots of hits on the Reuters article that Lisa originally cited. So the original confusion was Reuters' fault all along. Lisa (unlike me) was at least able to type correctly! Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders Date: 16 Nov 2004 18:40:25 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: At the Independence Cinema over on 8th > and Laurel Streets, ... They do show about ten minutes worth of > advertising (mostly for local merchants) before the movie starts, > interspersed with reminders that no smoking is allowed, follow the > rules, etc, to give you a chance to eat your five dollar little > skimpy bucket of popcorn and your little cup of beverage. Ha! We should be so lucky. We also get the ads and the promos for the concession stand before the movie. I don't mind them, the ads are mostly local content and it helps fill the time until the show starts. But then, at the scheduled start time for the showing they run anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes of honest-to-god commercials straight from your TV set. John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com John Meissen john@meissen.org Think Logically / Act Intelligently / Question Authority ------------------------------ From: goyalmanuj@gmail.com (Aujoe Partnership) Subject: Re: Inexepnsive Remote Forwarding by Auto Attendant Over Vonage Date: 16 Nov 2004 12:19:27 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Vish, I don't know what you mean by 'inexpensive'. But if you are looking at spending about $10-30/per month; there is a better solution for you at www.aujoe.com It greets your callers in your name; transfers the calls to multiple parties and takes messages if they can't take the calls themselves. ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Wired News: American Passports to Get Chipped Date: 16 Nov 2004 14:57:14 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Marcus Didius Falco wrote: > New U.S. passports will soon be read remotely at borders around the > world, thanks to embedded chips that will broadcast on command an > individual's name, address and digital photo to a computerized reader. > The State Department hopes the addition of the chips, which employ > radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology, will make > passports more secure and harder to forge, according to spokeswoman > Kelly Shannon. Great idea! Now the bad guys can build bombs that explode when they detect nearby American passports! It's just the thing to ensure Americans' safety abroad. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Vonage Tech Support Dead? Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:05:44 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com In message no_email_address@hotmail.com (Sara Garland) wrote: > I got an automated ticket # by email immediately, but no human yet. Let me know if you get a human ... I know what "Cheese" is, and I know what "Whiz" is... ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Satellite Receiver Calling Out Over VOIP? Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:05:44 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com In message Hemant Shah wrote: > I am considering gettting VOIP service at home (probably Vonage), I > also have 2 dish network receivers (one is a DVR) at home and they > are connected to a land line. Dish network said that I have to have > the receivers connected to the phone line, otherwise I have to pay > extra per month per receiver (I think it is $5 per month per > receiver). > Will the satellite receiver be able to dial out over VOIP? Probably yes, as long as you have Vonage configured to use it's highest quality. Try adding *99 as a dialing string if your run into problems. I'm running BEV (Bell ExpressVu) here, which uses the same gear as Dish, and my receivers all dial in without difficulty. I know what "Cheese" is, and I know what "Whiz" is... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 16:50:22 PST From: Lisa Minter Subject: Last Laugh! The Parrot A young man named John received a parrot as A gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird's mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity. John tried and tried to change the bird's attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to "clean up" the bird's Vocabulary. Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even ruder. John, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute. Fearing that he'd hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John's outstretched arms and said "I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I'm sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior." John was stunned at the change in the bird's attitude. As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird continued, "May I ask what the turkey did to cause what happened to him?" HAPPY THANKSGIVING! ------------------------------ 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. 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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 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. 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 #551 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 17 20:17:23 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iAI1HMW02057; Wed, 17 Nov 2004 20:17:23 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 20:17:23 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411180117.iAI1HMW02057@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 #552 TELECOM Digest Wed, 17 Nov 2004 20:17:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 552 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Film Trade Group Files Anti-Piracy Suits (Monty Solomon) Bank of America: Aiming Higher (Monty Solomon) The Drive's on For Digital Radio (Monty Solomon) In Texas, 28,000 Students Test an Electronic Eye (Monty Solomon) Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech (Monty Solomon) Motorola Further Expands Global Support for MediaCipher (Monty Solomon) SBC to Announce TV Deal With Microsoft (Telecom dailyLead From USTA) VMWI Questions About SDT and FSK (Bryan Apple) SBC Plans to Roll Out Internet Phone Service in 2005 (Lisa Minter) Andy Abramson: SBC Seems to Be Hedging (Lisa Minter) Somewhat Off Topic But a Must Read (Jack Decker) Email Read in Automated Phone Call? (Karim T) Soyo IP Phone (nightsurfer) 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 are 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:53:43 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Film Trade Group Files Anti-Piracy Suits By GARY GENTILE AP Business Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A trade group representing seven major movie studios filed a first wave of lawsuits against individuals they say are offering pirated copies of films using Internet-based peer-to-peer file-sharing programs. As part of a larger effort to combat piracy, The Motion Picture Association of America also said it would soon make available a computer program that sniffs out movie and music files on a user's computer as well as any installed file-sharing programs. The MPAA announced the federal court suits Tuesday, but did not say how many defendants were sued or where the lawsuits were filed. The group also did not immediately make available a copy of the complaint. One lawsuit, obtained by The Associated Press, targets 18 individuals and was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in St. Louis. Other lawsuits are believed to have been filed in New York, Philadelphia and other areas with large concentrations of high-speed Internet customers. Such connections are required to download the massive movie files. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=45063818 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 22:41:06 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Bank of America: Aiming Higher By Mel Duvall Bank of America spent $47 billion to acquire FleetBoston to get a stout presence in New England and New York. The bank will spend tens of millions to convert its 1,500 branches onto its Model Bank platform, so it can provide the same services nationwide. But previous conversions have not gone well. Can it really become a bank of all America? http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1397,1720795,00.asp ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 23:38:21 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Drive's on For Digital Radio By Bill Griffith | November 14, 2004 Outside of replacing tubes with transistors, it's the first major improvement in radio as we know it in 80 years. High-definition radio is a technology that sneaked up on us. But it's about to go mainstream. An HD radio broadcast offers CD-quality sound on the FM band and brings FM stereo-quality sound to the AM band. But the programming is exactly what we're used to getting for free, with commercials paying the freight. At WBZ in Boston, where the broadcast end of the technology has been up and running for a year, engineering manager Mark Manuelian said the sound quality is remarkable. http://www.boston.com/cars/articles/2004/11/14/the_drives_on_for_digital_radio/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:45:40 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: In Texas, 28,000 Students Test an Electronic Eye By MATT RICHTEL SPRING, Tex. - In front of her gated apartment complex, Courtney Payne, a 9-year-old fourth grader with dark hair pulled tightly into a ponytail, exits a yellow school bus. Moments later, her movement is observed by Alan Bragg, the local police chief, standing in a windowless control room more than a mile away. Chief Bragg is not using video surveillance. Rather, he watches an icon on a computer screen. The icon marks the spot on a map where Courtney got off the bus, and, on a larger level, it represents the latest in the convergence of technology and student security. Hoping to prevent the loss of a child through kidnapping or more innocent circumstances, a few schools have begun monitoring student arrivals and departures using technology similar to that used to track livestock and pallets of retail shipments. Here in a growing middle- and working-class suburb just north of Houston, the effort is undergoing its most ambitious test. The Spring Independent School District is equipping 28,000 students with ID badges containing computer chips that are read when the students get on and off school buses. The information is fed automatically by wireless phone to the police and school administrators. In a variation on the concept, a Phoenix school district in November is starting a project using fingerprint technology to track when and where students get on and off buses. Last year, a charter school in Buffalo began automating attendance counts with computerized ID badges -- one of the earliest examples of what educators said could become a widespread trend. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/technology/17tag.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:51:36 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech EFF White Paper Reports on Collateral Damage to Free Expression in the Fight Against Spam San Francisco - Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) released a white paper (HTML - PDF) describing the effects of anti-spam technologies on free speech. "Noncommercial Email Lists: Collateral Damage in the Fight Against Spam" focuses on how groups running noncommercial email lists are being harmed by anti-spam techniques. The paper grew out of EFF's efforts to help MoveOn.org, human rights groups, parents' groups, and others, deliver email messages in the face of barriers that are aimed at stopping spam but that also stop wanted messages. = http://eff.org/news/archives/2004_11.php#002097 = http://www.eff.org/wp/?f=SpamCollateralDamage.html = http://www.eff.org/wp/SpamCollateralDamage.pdf ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 01:46:14 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Motorola Further Expands Global Support for MediaCipher Technology, Announces First Chinese License Agreement with DVN Technology Limited The Agreement Enables DVN to Deploy Digital Cable Set-Tops Using the Motorola Conditional Access Technology BEIJING, Nov. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) today announced the signing of a MediaCipher(R) license agreement with DVN Technology Limited, an affiliate of DVN (Holdings) Limited ("DVN", HKSE stock code: 0500), China's leading technology services provider of state-of-the-art digital TV broadcast platforms. The agreement will allow DVN to expand its customer base by creating new opportunities with network operators that support the Motorola MediaCipher conditional access technology. By licensing its MediaCipher technology to DVN, Motorola is providing a new opportunity for network operators to deploy advanced digital set-tops with a secure conditional access system in China -- using either an embedded or the SmartCard version of the MediaCipher technology. This greater choice in set-top selection will expand opportunities available for consumers to experience digital video in their homes. Currently deployed in more than two thousand headends worldwide, Motorola's MediaCipher technology is one of the industry's most robust and secure conditional access technologies. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=45065804 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 13:51:28 EST From: Telecom dailyLead From USTA Subject: SBC to Announce TV Deal With Microsoft Telecom dailyLead from USTA November 17, 2004 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17564&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * SBC to announce TV deal with Microsoft BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Motorola to acquire MeshNetworks * Private equity firms make preliminary offer for Grupo Auna * Verizon considers relocation * Inside pole-climbing school USTA SPOTLIGHT * USTA Webinar: Phone Facts & Telecom Trends, The 2005 Roadmap! EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Verizon Wireless offers "ring-back" tones REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Bush renominates Adelstein * Film studios sue alleged Internet movie swappers http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17564&l=2017006 http://www.dailylead.com/usta/usta_passiton.jsp Legal and Privacy information at http://www.dailylead.com/about/privacy_legal.jsp SmartBrief, Inc. 1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005 ------------------------------ From: bha@offsite.com (Bryan Apple) Subject: VMWI Questions About SDT and FSK Date: 17 Nov 2004 10:57:36 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have some questions about the proper implementation for VMWI. Specifically, I have CallVantage VOIP with a DLINK DVG-1120M, but I think this issue is somewhat generic. I have posted some messages on the VOIP forum at DSLreports.com, but they don't seem to be a very technical bunch over there. Maybe this group has some old-time telco folks that know how things are supposed to work! In my VOIP environment there are 3 parts to this. The VOIP provider also offers VoiceMail, and they send status messages to my TA (telephone adapter) to control the VMWI and SDT. The DLINK TA provides the FXS interface to my phone, and it generates the FSK and SDT based on the status as provided my the VOIP provider. Effectively it acts as the CO or PBX. Finally, the phone must detect the SDT or FSK and turn on/off the VMWI indicator. I realize that different phones may do this somewhat differently. I believe that phones will only go off-hook on their own to check for SDT under two circumstances: 1) after a call has been completed; 2) after an un-answered ring. But with FSK I would think the signaling could be PUSHED down the phone line at any time (as long as the line is idle). My problem is that my DLINK TA will only send the FSK to set/clear the VMWI after the phone has gone through an off-hook->idle cycle. Of course that would be the same requirement needed to detect SDT, so it seems to me they have not implemented FSK very well. This becomes especially problematic when you can change the status remotely - by dialing into VM from another phone, or accessing via the web, listening to VM, which then sends the status change to the TA, but the TA fails to pass that information along via an FSK signal. This seems wrong to me. Do I have an accurate understanding of SDT and FSK signaling for VMWI? Can anybody tell me if other implementations send FSK signaling independent of a SDT detection event? What do Telcos that offer VM do? What about PBX's? What about other VOIP adapters? Details of a little test I performed: 1) Call comes in to CallVantage, they notify the TA with CRCX (hd), TA says OK; 2) No answer, DLCX, TA says OK, RQNT(hd), TA says OK; 3) Caller leaves message and CallVantage notifies TA with RQNT S=vmwi(+), not sure why but they send this again, TA says OK; 4) I waited for at least 5 min, the TA never put the FSK signal on the local line to turn on the VMWI; 5) I pick up the local phone, hear the SDT, after hanging up the FSK signal is put on the line; 6) TA sends NTFY, they say OK, they say RQNT, TA says OK, they say MDCX with S=mwi, TA says OK; Same after the VM has been cleared (I deleted it via the web interface); 7) CallVantage sends RQNT S=vmwi(-), TA says OK; 8) I wait at least 5 min, the TA never put the FSK signal on the local line to turn off the VMWI; 9) I pick up the phone, SDT is gone, after hanging up the FSK signal is put on the line. bha ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 12:17:39 -0500 Subject: SBC Plans to Roll Out Internet Phone Service in 2005 http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0411170321nov17,1,4327377.story?coll=chi-business-hed By Rob Kaiser, [Chicago] Tribune staff reporter. Bloomberg News contributed to this report Responding to competitive threats to its core business, SBC Communications Inc. said Tuesday it will begin offering Internet-based phone service early next year. The service, which would only be available to the company's DSL customers, comes as rival carriers Verizon, AT&T and newcomers like Vonage roll out similar services known as VoIP, for voice over Internet protocol. "We understand that IP is the future," SBC Chief Executive Edward Whitacre said Tuesday at an industry conference in New York. By offering Internet phone service, SBC hopes to keep competitors from poaching its customers with lower prices and new features such as the ability to block calls, receive voice mails as e-mails and set call forwarding instructions from any Web connection. SBC said Tuesday it will offer the service in the 13 states it serves, including Illinois. The company, which already offers Internet phone service to businesses, is running trials for residential service in Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas and San Antonio. It did not disclose how much its service will cost, although rivals charge between $20 and $40 a month for unlimited local and long-distance calls. [Comment: SBC is still thinking like a big phone company. Why only offer the service to their own DSL customers? That's just giving business away to other companies that have more ubiquitous coverage.] Full story at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0411170321nov17,1,4327377.story?coll=chi-business-hed ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 12:39:49 -0500 Subject: Andy Abramson: SBC Seems to Be Hedging This is from Andy Abramson's blog, at: http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2004/11/sbc_seems_to_be.html In what is clearly meant to be both a hedge against losing money to VoIP competitors by slowing them down by charging them more, SBC has also at the same time made a move that could potentially make their VoIP service less costly. In a tariff filing today, SBC wants to charge ISP's more if they terminate calls on their network according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110065122384576170-search,00.html?collection=wsjie%2F30day&vql_string=sbc%3Cin%3E%28article%2Dbody%29 (Subscription Required) Sadly, this is so typical from a company that seeks total control and ownership of the pipe and the customer and which sees their competition not being the other telcos and next generation VoIP providers, but also the cable MSOs. Yesterday I called all this an arms race. Now it's turning into economic warfare as well. Smartly, FCC Chairman Michael Powell has already announced he's looking into this. Don't also be surprised if this is also bargaining chip by SBC to establish some preferred provider relationships with ISP's and MSO's to get more of the data traffic as well as voice calls moving over their networks. While Level 3, MCI, Qwest, Broadwing and AT&T have significant if not the most traffic, SBC has also built out their own IP network, and that's a network that needs filling up. It would not be out of the realm of possbility that companies working with SBC get some sort of incentives and all this is a rouse to get them there ... In the meantime it's important that all of the VOIP companies and the ISP's band together to work to stop what is meant to be clearly another square on SBC's Monopoly Board game. ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 22:55:47 -0500 Subject: Somewhat Off Topic But a Must Read Folks, You need to read this article: http://wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,65704,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2 Issues related to TiVO and file sharing networks aside, please note that if "fair use" is ever legislated out of existence, many of the web pages and news sources you depend on will disappear, including much of the content of this mailing list. As you know, I often post excerpts from an article to permit you to decide if the entire article is worth reading, or to highlight one or two important points made in the article. If "fair use" ceases to exist, I might or might not be allowed to post links to the articles but I wouldn't be able to quote any portion of the articles, so I probably wouldn't bother at all. You should be very concerned when your elected representatives attempt to take away any of the rights you currently enjoy, but especially when it is done solely to benefit large mega-corporations who already feel they somehow deserve part of every paycheck you receive. For many years I have been opposed to the practices of telephone monopolies but it appears that congress may be about to create a new privileged class of corporations, namely those large enough to buy politicians (which are now apparently acting as mere puppets for these industries - not all of them, but if enough do it then the big corporations get their way, and we lose even more of our rights and freedoms). In addition to the article I linked to above, there is commentary on BroadbandReports.com here: http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/56780 On a somewhat personal note, I actually wonder why I still bother doing things like this (posting news to these groups) sometimes -- in a way I feel like we are all arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Of course I hope I am wrong, and if I didn't have that hope I would have probably stopped doing this months ago. And if I told you why I would believe something like that, some of you would question my sanity and others (those who DON'T believe everything they hear on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX) might wonder why it took me so long to wake up. But since this isn't a political or social forum, I'll stop there and say no more. How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: karimatmariano@yahoo.com (Karim T) Subject: Email Read in Automated Phone Call? Date: 16 Nov 2004 21:42:24 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Does the following technology exist: When someone sends an email to me, I want to receive a phone call which reads out the content of the email. Thanks guys! Karim T [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you are a subscriber to America On Line, they offer a feature which allows you to use the phone to receive email by listening to it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevem@soyousa.com (nightsurfer) Subject: Soyo IP Phone Date: 16 Nov 2004 16:36:52 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Z-Connect Telephone: The only VoIP telephone solution with zero monthly fees and 150 ready-to-use FREE minutes! Start saving money now on local, long-distance and international calls with SOYO's Z-Connect VoIP telephone. Simply plug the Z-Connect phone into your high-speed DSL or cable modem connection for instant broadband capabilities, with zero monthly fees, zero set-up fees, zero service contracts, zero software configuration and zero hidden charges. No computer or adapter is necessary, and the first 150 minutes of airtime are free. Peer-to-peer calling is always free, and extremely low rates are offered for local, long-distance and international calls. shop.soyousa.com ------------------------------ 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: 620-402-0134 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. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.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 * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2004 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE JUST 65 CENTS ONE OR TWO INQUIRIES CHARGED TO YOUR CREDIT CARD! REAL TIME, UP TO DATE! 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Please contact Jay Boyington for additional information at 405-744-9000, mstm-osu@okstate.edu, or visit the MSTM web site at http://www.mstm.okstate.edu ************************ 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. 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 #552 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 17 21:47:32 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iAI2lV803060; Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:47:32 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:47:32 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411180247.iAI2lV803060@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 #553 TELECOM Digest Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:47:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 553 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Texas Officials Wary of Plan to Hunt by Internet (Lisa Minter) Movie Studios Start Suing Web File Swappers (Lisa Minter) Congress May Act on Internet Piracy Bill (Lisa Minter) Telecom Shows Sparkles Of Life (Marcus Didius Falco) Verizon and Sprint to Cut Fee For Cell Phone (Marcus Didius Falco) Smart ID Cards Track Students (Lisa Hancock) Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate (Dan Lanciani) Re: SBC to Announce VoIP Tests (Tony P.) Re: Vonage Tech Support Dead? (Tony P.) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Mark Reichert) Re: Last Laugh! Purely Spam! MY PRESENTATION TO YOU (Dan Lanciani) 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 are 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter Subject: Texas Officials Wary of Plan to Hunt by Internet Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:39:18 EST HOUSTON (Reuters) - Hunters soon may be able to sit at their computers and blast away at animals on a Texas ranch via the Internet, a prospect that has state wildlife officials up in arms. A controversial Web site, http://www.live-shot.com, already offers target practice with a .22 caliber rifle and could soon let hunters shoot at deer, antelope and wild pigs, site creator John Underwood said on Tuesday. Texas officials are not quite sure what to make of Underwood's Web site, but may tweak existing laws to make sure Internet hunting does not get out of hand. "This is the first one I've seen," said Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wildlife director Mike Berger. "The current state statutes don't cover this sort of thing." Underwood, an estimator for a San Antonio, Texas auto body shop, has invested $10,000 to build a platform for a rifle and camera that can be remotely aimed on his 330-acre southwest Texas ranch by anyone on the Internet anywhere in the world. The idea came last year while viewing another Web site on which cameras posted in the wild are used to snap photos of animals. "We were looking at a beautiful white-tail buck and my friend said 'If you just had a gun for that.' A little light bulb went off in my head," he said. Internet hunting could be popular with disabled hunters unable to get out in the woods or distant hunters who cannot afford a trip to Texas, Underwood said. Berger said state law only covers "regulated animals" such as native deer and birds and cannot prevent Underwood from offering Internet hunts of "unregulated" animals such as non-native deer that many ranchers have imported and wild pigs. He has proposed a rule that will come up for public discussion in January that anyone hunting animals covered by state law must be physically on site when they shoot. Berger expressed reservations about remote control hunting, but noted that humans have always adopted new technologies to hunt. "First it was rocks and clubs, then we sharpened it and put it on a stick. Then there was the bow and arrow, black powder, smokeless power and optics," Berger said. "Maybe this is the next technological step out there." Underwood, 39, said he will offer animal hunting as soon as he gets a fast Internet connection to his remote ranch that will enable hunters to aim the rifle quickly at passing animals. He said an attendant would retrieve shot animals for the shooters, who could have the heads preserved by a taxidermist. They could also have the meat processed and shipped home, or donated to animal orphanages. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Reuters News Service. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What is an 'animal orphanage' as referred to in the last paragraph of the story? I also wonder what will happen (when the man gets his high speed internet connection) if someone logs in, then manipulates the gun in such a way as to cause injury or death to another hunter. What if he did that in a wilfull way and used a bogus login to cover his tracks? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Movie Studios Start Suing Web File Swappers Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:40:03 EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood film studios filed suit against online video file swappers in federal courts across the United States on Tuesday, making good on a promise to punish computer users they claim are violating copyright laws. The move against people who copy and trade illegal copies of movies and TV shows is part of broad effort by the industry's chief lobbying group to stem copyright piracy it says costs studios billions of dollars annually. A Motion Picture Association of America spokesman said suits were filed across a broad spectrum of the United States, but declined to say how many. Earlier this month, when the MPAA announced it would begin filing individual "John Doe" lawsuits, the number of expected suits was widely reported to be in the hundreds. The film industry is using the "John Doe" method, identifying swappers by numerical Internet addresses, because an earlier court ruling said Internet service providers did not have to provide names of their customers. The MPAA said illegal file swapping could cost a person found guilty up to $30,000 in fines for each film. The music industry has sued more than 5,000 people in their efforts to stem illegal downloading, copying and sharing of digital music files online via peer-to-peer, or P2P, networks. The movie industry has been slower to use the courts than the music industry. Films and TV shows require huge digital files that take a long time to download, and few consumer homes have the necessary high-speed hardware. However, as more broadband cable and telephone lines are installed to households, the threat increases. Already, the MPAA claims that illegal copying of videotapes and DVDs for sale in black markets worldwide costs it more than $3.5 billion annually. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Reuters News Service. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Congress May Act on Internet Piracy Bill Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:40:59 EST By David McGuire, Staff Writer The entertainment industry is pushing Congress to approve a bill that could send thousands of Internet music and movie downloaders to jail, but the legislation faces opposition from groups that say it would unfairly punish consumers. The package combines eight bills that the entertainment industry supports as part of a large-scale effort to crack down on the rampant spread of piracy on the Internet. The bill also would criminalize using a video recorder to copy films while they are still in the theater, and allow the Justice Department to file civil lawsuits against song-swappers. The bill is one of many that Congress could consider as it convenes today for a post-election lame-duck session, but sources familiar with the legislation said that it is impossible to predict whether lawmakers will act. Opponents of the bill fear that its supporters will slip it into one of the massive legislative packages that Congress often passes at the end of the year. "We take nothing for granted," said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based civil liberties group. "There's not a lot of time, but if you look away for a second, this bill can just shoot through." Public Knowledge has joined the Consumer Electronics Association, Verizon, the American Conservative Union and other groups in opposing the package, which so far has steamrolled toward passage with little opposition. Music and movie industry officials said that Congress already has shown its support for the measures in the bill. "It's not like these bills came out of nowhere. All of these bills had been passed by one house or another," said David Green, vice president for technology and new media at the Motion Picture Association of America. One of the most contentious measures in the package, the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act, won approval in the House of Representatives earlier this year. The PIRATE Act sailed through the Senate. The first bill would allow prosecutors to seek jail terms of up to five years for people who make 1,000 or more songs available for download on peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa and eDonkey. The PIRATE Act would allow the Justice Department to seek civil damages against illegal file sharers. Under current law, the Justice Department only can prosecute criminal copyright violations. If the package became law, prosecutors no longer would have to prove that a suspect willfully distributed illegally copied files. This is a problem, opponents said, because most Internet file-sharing software is designed to automatically share the contents of people's music libraries with other members on the network. This means that people with more than a thousand songs on their computers could face jail time even if they never intended to share their music, they said. "It's really unprecedented in our copyright law to send somebody to jail unless they've done something willfully," said Sarah Deutsch, vice president and associate general counsel at Verizon Communications. "Since so many digital devices today hold thousands and thousands of songs, hundreds of thousands if not millions of people will face liability." Green said that prosecutors would still have to prove that defendants knew they were illegally sharing the files. The copyright package is almost a consolation prize for the entertainment industry, which spent much of this year urging Congress to pass the Induce Act, an attempt to drive song-swapping networks out of business by exposing them to monetary damages for inducing people to illegally share files. The Induce Act failed after a broad group of free-speech advocates, technology companies and Internet service providers complained that the measure could inadvertently target popular, legal devices like the iPod. The recording industry has seen its sales and profits plummet as the popularity of peer-to-peer file swapping has risen. Compact disc sales fell from a high of $13.2 billion in 2000 to $11.2 billion in 2003, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, which put much of the blame on an exponential increase in file sharing. CD sales bounced back in early 2004, but have not reached their previous high levels, the RIAA said. In addition to stumping for stiffer copyright laws, the recording industry has sued more than 6,000 suspected song-swappers since September 2003. The major Hollywood studios so far have avoided a similar fate, in part because it is more time-consuming to download feature-length films. Still, they are working to prevent a similar siphoning off of their profits. Earlier this month, MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman announced that the association will sue people suspected of Internet movie piracy. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Washington Post Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:51:28 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Telecom Shows Sparkles Of Life http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49775-2004Nov14.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49775-2004Nov14?language=3Dprinter Wireless, Security Firms Lead Rebound By Yuki Noguchi Washington Post Staff Writer Five years ago, Cable & Wireless USA Inc. promised to link businesses through ribbons of fiber-optic cable connecting every major point on the globe. E.spire Communications Inc. vowed to build its own network from scratch to bypass the local phone giants. Corvis Corp. pledged its equipment would widen the Internet into a massive data superhighway. All were launched in the Washington area in the 1990s. All are gone today. Now, a new generation of companies -- smaller, with more modest goals -- is surfacing to take their place. Frederick's Qovia Inc. is helping business clients install and manage voice-over-Internet phone systems. Bluefire Security Technologies of Baltimore designs software to protect wireless devices from hackers. Software from Fairfax-based Nexus Innovative Systems Co. audits companies' telecommunications bills. After four years of painful decline, the area's telecommunications business is starting to come back. The newer telecom companies are largely focused on such growth areas as wireless communications and security software. Many are small. And most get by without the dollars that used to flow from venture capital funds or from going public. Washington will continue to be a major center for telecommunications, analysts and investors say. The area is rich in technologists, lawyers, venture capitalists, skilled workers and the federal regulators of the telecommunications industry. But the telecommunications industry won't be the local economic driver it was during the 1990s, analysts say. Local employment in the industry hit 50,200 in March 2001, and venture investments in local telecommunications topped $1 billion in 2000. At last report, 33,700 people were working in the local telecommunications sector as of September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The area's venture investment in telecommunications dropped to $81.7 million last year, according to data from the MoneyTree survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers/Venture Economics/National Venture Capital Association. "I see promising players, but if you're looking for the next Google, I don't know that we know what that is yet for this area," said Charlie Thomas, former chief executive of Net2000 Communications and founder of investment firm Claris Capital. But, he added, some companies clearly will be driving the next generation of work because they have developed strong expertise in niches that will be important in the communications industry. Thomas singled out Reston's Nextel Communications Inc., and the District's XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. -- the latter not a communications company, but one with expertise in the use of satellites. It was satellite technology that launched Washington's telecommunications sector back in the 1960s, when Comsat Corp. and Intelsat Ltd. were created. Comsat was chartered in 1962 as the government's representative on Intelsat, an international satellite partnership. For decades Intelsat was the only U.S. satellite link to the rest of the world, and the effort spawned a rich pool of telecommunications experts in Washington, who went off to start or staff other companies. In 1972, William G. McGowan relocated his company, MCI Inc., to 17th Street NW in Washington, realizing a key part of MCI's success would be lobbying Congress and regulators to open long-distance calling to competition. In 1984, a court-ordered breakup of AT&T Corp.'s phone monopoly took effect, allowing MCI and others to compete head-on. The area continued to draw scrappy competitors in the 1990s. Nextel set up shop in Reston. Ciena Corp. started its business in Linthicum. But the region's true telecom boom came after the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed new companies to compete against the regional Bell phone companies in the local phone market. The rich talent pool and proximity to the FCC attracted companies at the same time investors were willing to pour money into telecom and technology companies. "A couple of years ago, Washington D.C. was the major location nationwide, and just about every one of the competitive players were here," said Tom Koutsky, a Washington-based lawyer who has worked in the industry since 1994. In the spring of 2000, the stock market collapsed under the weight of massive overbuilding and overspending. When the market reversed course, Washington's telecom sector fared badly. One by one, familiar local names like Net2000 , Teligent Inc., PSINet Inc. and Winstar LLC, and smaller companies such as CityNet Telecommunications Inc. and Velocita Corp. shut down. The losers even included such former stalwarts as MCI and XO Communications Inc. Both weathered a trip through bankruptcy court to emerge diminished. The bankruptcies, sales and restructurings have left Washington's telecommunications industry much smaller. And if the Federal Communications Commission maintains its more hands-off approach to oversight and=20 regulation, it may reduce the incentive of telecom companies to be based in the Washington area, said Jeff Kagan, an independent industry analyst based in Atlanta. The local telecom companies that survived and those that have recently rebounded are focused -- like companies nationwide -- on the areas expected to be big sectors of growth in the coming years, including wireless technologies and phone service over the Internet. The Washington region boasts few industry-leading players in these fields but rather has numerous smaller companies trying to develop business in niches that big companies have ignored. In the wireless field, Nextel is the biggest local player, with more than 15 million customers. It is the smallest of the five national wireless carriers, but it is popular because of its "push-to-talk" walkie-talkie service. The company, with a network that was cobbled together from walkie-talkie licenses bought from taxi-cab dispatch operators, continues to develop new technologies and grow. In addition, Nextel and other telecommunications companies, like MCI, have become a breeding ground for a new generation of local entrepreneurs. "I think you've got multiple telecommunications companies in addition to Nextel, all of whom have spun off or graduated people who are able to address the shortcomings that big companies aren't nimble enough to address," said Michael Riemer, a former Nextel executive who left two years ago to work at Trust Digital in Tysons Corner. Trust Digital, which recently received $3.1 million in funding from Core Capital Partners LP, a Washington investment company, makes software to protect wireless phones from hackers and viruses. Bluefire Security is developing similar technology in Baltimore. It recently received an undisclosed amount of funding from Motorola Inc., Nextel's biggest supplier of phones. Columbia's Sourcefire Inc. sells customized software that detects potential intruders trying to break into private corporate databases. LCC International Inc. of McLean builds and maintains wireless networks. And TeleCommunication Systems Inc. of Annapolis provides instant messaging service for wireless telephones. Inphonic Inc., a Washington company, is an online reseller of wireless phones. In addition, a small cluster of WiFi companies, which offer wireless Internet connections, has appeared in the Washington area. District-based DC Access, Baltimore-based Oneder LLC, and Germantown-based RapidDSL & Wireless all offer some flavor of the service, which is aimed at giving small business or residential customers access to a high-speed wireless Internet connection without going through a traditional cable or phone company. Others cater to a narrower audience. Reston-based LinkSpot Networks Inc. offers wireless connections in RV parks around the country. Most of those are small companies that have yet to generate a profit but they say their subscriber base is growing. Another area expected to experience rapid growth is phone service over the Internet. That field is now dominated by Vonage Holdings Corp., a New Jersey company. Many of the big phone companies, including MCI, Verizon Communications Inc., and AT&T, are also moving into the Internet phone business, as are cable giants like Cox Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp. But some local companies are also making an aggressive play for this business. McLean-based Primus Telecommunications Group Inc. offers Internet phone service. Qovia sells products that monitor Internet phone systems. And Vienna's SunRocket Inc., started by former MCI executives, was recently launched to offer consumers Internet phone service. Many other companies have been carving out smaller niches. For instance, Nexus Innovative Systems, Rivermine Software and Vibrant Solutions Inc., all based in Fairfax, sell software to help businesses audit and manage their telecommunications bills. Others, like Reston-based XO Communications and Talk America Holdings Inc., sell local and long-distance service in competition with the large phone companies. MCI, even in its diminished state, continues to be a major player. One of the biggest drivers of the local telecommunications industry today is the surge in federal dollars to telecommunications firms for writing communications software and designing networks. This money has gone, not only to giant defense contractors like Northrop Grumman Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp., but also to hundreds of smaller companies, like Apogen Technologies in McLean. "Around the [Capital] Beltway there are at least 500 companies that are doing some work with the government, doing telecom," said Thomas, of Claris Capital. That has helped cushion the blow caused by the telecom bust. As some companies, such as MCI, continue to struggle with massive losses, others like LCCI, have started to make a comeback. "If you asked me what happened to telecommunications in the area, I'd say that it's regrouping," said John Siegel, a partner at Alexandria-based Columbia Capital. "You have a lot of extremely talented people in this market. That's why I think there's an opportunity here." Copyright 2004 The Washington Post Company *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Washington Post Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:25:47 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Verizon and Sprint to Cut Fee For Cell Phone Service Note that this is effectively another cut in the price of cellular service. Sometimes they cut the price by adding minutes or adding features. This time they're cutting fees. Right now, for most carriers, the fees are $4 to $5 per month, which can be a very substantial percentage (10 to 15 per cent or even a bit more) of an average bill (under $50). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52986-2004Nov15.html Verizon and Sprint to Cut Fee For Transferring Cell Numbers By Yuki Noguchi Washington Post Staff Writer Verizon and Sprint wireless customers will get a small break on their bills soon. The companies have decided to eliminate or reduce a 40-cent-per-line monthly charge imposed to allow customers to transfer their phone numbers to new carriers. The small surcharge has provided the companies with tens of millions of dollars in extra monthly revenue, and Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS Group said they don't need as much to continue offering the number transfer service. Starting with bills scheduled to go out next week, Verizon Wireless will eliminate the number transfer fee for its 42 million customers. Sprint PCS, the nation's third-largest national cellular carrier, will cut its fee to 25 cents effective this month. Sprint PCS had initially charged $1.10 for the service before a reduction to 40 cents in June. Cell phone companies charge regulatory fees to comply with various government rules requiring them to offer services such as emergency 911 calling from a wireless phone. Allowing customers to transfer their number between carriers is one of those government requirements. "In this heavily taxed industry, we do not advocate adding anything unnecessary or extraneous to our customers' monthly bill," Dennis F. Strigl, chief executive of Verizon Wireless, said in a statement. Verizon Wireless is also looking to hone its appeal to customers. "I think without a doubt it makes us more competitive, when you look at some of the fees that some of these other companies charge," said John Johnson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless. Sprint PCS spokeswoman Lisa Ihde said the company is always evaluating its fees but not with the intention of using its fee structure as a marketing tool. The Federal Communications Commission does not set a limit on how much cell phone carriers can charge customers to cover the cost of complying with rules. Cingular Wireless, which recently acquired AT&T Wireless Services Inc., charges between 56 cents and $1.25 a month, depending on the state, to cover number transfers and 911 calling. AT&T Wireless customers will continue to pay a $1.75 monthly fee until Cingular unifies the two networks. T-Mobile USA Inc. charges its customers 86 cents for number transfer and 911 calling. Nextel Communications Inc. charges $1.55 a month to cover all of its regulatory fees. "We call on all wireless providers to reduce or eliminate these fees as well," said Janee Briesemeister, director of a cell phone consumers rights project at the Consumers Union. "We've always questioned whether the fees being charged for number portability were covering the actual costs of switching phone numbers or were simply being charged to pad profits." Copyright 2004 The Washington Post Company *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance Washington Post Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Smart ID Cards Track Students Date: 17 Nov 2004 12:45:08 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com The New York Times reported that a school district is using sophisticated monitoring systems to track students throughout the day. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/technology/17tag.html?oref=login&8hpib When I was a kid there was a little concern about abduction; we were often warned never to talk to strangers. But our parents' biggest worry seemed to be us getting hit by a car if we jumped into the street without looking. It seemed pedestrian safety lectures were the biggest item. During my first two years of high school, we had a strict student corridor patrol. You were not allowed in the halls, and those kids were brutal. During the last two years, they abolished that patrol and discovered there wasn't any problem with an honor system. If someone had to visit their locker or other business during lunch or study hall, we could do so; we were just expected to be quiet and not create any noise. It worked out very well. Most kids didn't create problems. Indeed, many past disturbances were from the corridor patrol themselves. I realize in handling large groups of people, especially in crowded space-short conditions, that rules and procedures are necessary to keep things orderly and prevent trouble. But I also think reasonable training and faith in people works well too as long as people don't try to take advtg of the system. Too many stupid petty rules aren't good. I am not too thrilled with this dawn-to-dusk ID card checking. Will a kid get detention if he happens to be in corridor "B" instead of corridor "A"? Will the cards turn into timeclocks to track lateness and absence? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 03:12:34 EST From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate jdj@now.here (jdj) wrote: > There is a stressed out twisted-knickers type on slashdot "suggesting" > that spam be responded to, including spam sent to bad addresses, to cost > spammers money. > It's been suggested before and was instantly squelched without > comment, except to accuse the poster of being a troll. Interesting. I didn't realize that this was considered a bad thing. My filters respond to every (seemingly) spam message with a note indicating how to bypass the filter if in fact the mail is not spam. (Actually they do this only once per sender per some months, but you get the idea.) I really can't just dump (seeming) spam in the bucket since there are a few false positives. But I get 1500+ spams per day and I can't look at them all. > Seems that spam service providers charge fees for everything, from > using their address database to send spam to charging for each hit on > the website they provide to their spamming clientele as well as > getting a cut of each sale. > It seems to follow that at least some spammers can be bankrupted if > every single item from them were to get several responses in return. > It's almost like sending back empty business-reply envelopes that come > with annoying snailmail ads. > There is an added benefit if spam to bad addresses were responded to: > the bad addresses are confirmed valid and permanently taint the > databases, which get sold around and the fun starts all over again. Because of the way my filters are integrated into sendmail they generate responses for spam sent to bad addresses. I always considered this a bug (though at least I fixed it to send only one response to envelopes with multiple bad to: addresses :) but I'm glad to hear it may do some good. I've noticed lately that spammers will make many simultaneous connections to my mail server and run through huge lists of bogus recipients. This was overwhelming my system until I added a semaphore for spamassassin use and queued most of the responses. Do they think I'm an ISP or such? > Should not be too difficult to set up a procmail script for servers to > send a few http requests to a spammer's website instead of bouncing > mail with bad addresses. Hmm. Maybe just send a SYN to each http:// address that can be extracted from the mail. Though I guess that might not count against the correct spammer if they are sharing IP addresses. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: SBC to Announce VoIP Tests Organization: ATCC Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 17:21:38 -0500 In article , usta@dailylead.com says: > http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17535&l=2017006 > TODAY'S HEADLINES > NEWS OF THE DAY > * SBC to announce VoIP tests > BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH > * Adelphia Communications sets $17.5 billion minimum bid > * Report: Comcast's VoIP plans picking up steam > * Yahoo!, EarthLink beef up their anti-spam barrier > USTA SPOTLIGHT > * Order Phone Facts 2005 and Broadband Facts together and save! > EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES > * Electric companies see multiple advantages to BPL > REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE > * Lucent faces bribery allegations > Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. > http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17535&l=2017006 > http://www.dailylead.com/usta/usta_passiton.jsp This is so fun watching the incumbents trip over themselves to roll out services that other upstarts already have a head start on. Circuit switched is going the way of the dodo. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Vonage Tech Support Dead? Organization: ATCC Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 18:22:28 -0500 In article , devilspgd@crazyhat.net says: > In message > no_email_address@hotmail.com (Sara Garland) wrote: >> I got an automated ticket # by email immediately, but no human yet. > Let me know if you get a human ... > I know what "Cheese" is, and I know what "Whiz" is... I've had no problems getting a human the two times I've had to call Vonage. But the hold times are on the high side. On my last call to them I waited for 45 minutes before getting a human being. That was my second call. The first call resulted in me cursing them and posting about it here. On the second call I spoke to someone who'd been a switch tech, granted a tandem guy but still he understood that ring voltage below 90VAC sometimes won't trigger the bells on Western Electric gear. So all is fixed -- unless my LNP request gets FUBAR I doubt I'll be calling them anytime soon. ------------------------------ From: Mark_Reichert@hotmail.com (Mark Reichert) Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: 17 Nov 2004 15:50:19 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com DevilsPGD wrote in message news:: > Walmart is consistently the cheapest on those products, for example. What will you do when, no longer able to squeeze its employees or suppliers, it starts squeezing you by lowering the quality? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 22:27:11 EST From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Purely Spam! MY PRESENTATION TO YOU Tim@Backhome.org wrote: >> The other is that if they can get your bank account and bank routing >> numbers, they will monitor your account a while and at a peak, they >> will drain it with an ACH transfer through a Nigerian bank that works >> with them (for a cut of the action). > Under federal law pertaining to electronic transactions, your bank has > no choice but to charge the electronic debit back to the originating > bank so long as you notify them on a timely basis that you did not > authorize the transfer. As a practical matter they seem to have at least one other choice: they can simply claim that the debit was in fact authorized. That's certainly the response I've received when I've inquired about ACH debits. Now in my case some of those debits were the result of check conversions that were made without prior notice. (Yes, I'm sure. Yes, I read and keep the fine print.) But my banks claim that prior notice is no longer required because of Check 21. (Yes, I know that doesn't make any sense. They also claim that Check 21 precludes their blocking ACH debits in the first place. This seems to be a fairly well-coordinated lie since I've heard it from five banks now and others have posted about similar experiences.) One debit actually showed up on a passbook savings account (I thought that was prohibited) and that (different) bank tried to argue that it must somehow have been my doing. The only thing that saved me in this case was the fact that the account was being used as an escrow with the city and required a signature from someone in the city treasurer's office (in addition to mine) for any withdrawal. When I told the bank that I hoped they would be able to come up with a signature slip with two signatures so I could show the city, they suddenly realized that there had been a "coding error". IMHO, Regulation E makes it awfully easy for an ACH debit to have been authorized and awfully hard for a consumer to prove that it was not in fact authorized. States like Massachusetts make things worse by explicitly defining an EFT transfer to be unauthorized only if the payer receives no benefit (not even qualifying "benefit" with "material"). > If the Nigerian bank won't accept the charge-back they are supposed to > be removed from the ACH. If they don't accept the charge-back your > bank has to ultimately eat the charge. Assuming that the victim does not lie to their bank (i.e., assuming they disclose that they were engaged in a plan to move money in and out of the country and that they had given their account and routing numbers to their Nigerian contact) would the bank really not be able to argue that the ACH debit was authorized? What if the Nigerian contact has a convenient tape of the phone conversation where the victim provided the numbers? (I'm sure the exact details of what was to be transferred could be edited ...) > Dan Lanciani wrote: >> I wonder who actually ends up paying in cases like these? Are there >> any posted accounts that tell whether the bank absorbed the loss? Or >> whether they were able to pull the money back? These might provide >> some ammunition to argue with banks that universally refuse to block >> ACH debits on consumer accounts (as that would be inconvenient for >> businesses) and claim that they can clean up any fraudulent withdrawals >> after the fact. > The banks love to act like innocent conduits when it comes to any issue > about ACH debits. They'd be a lot more convincing in their innocence if they allowed consumers to block ACH debits in the first place (just like businesses can) rather than making up stories about Check 21's preventing them from doing so. Or if they at least disclosed on your statement the bank & account number where your money actually went. (Two of my banks don't even provide a reference number for the transaction!) And it's not just banks. After months of "research" Fidelity finally confirmed that they allow ACH debits from any account even if it does not have a check writing feature. (Initially they had told a familiar story about Check 21's requiring them to allow ACH debits because you might have written a check on the account, but I kept reminding them that I hadn't said anything about checks.) I don't know if this is a unique situation for Fidelity, but because of the way they handle checking with their affiliated bank, the construction of a "checking account" number from a brokerage account number is fairly simple. (Prepend some digits, change some letters to numbers.) They said that it would be too expensive to maintain a flag on each account to control ACH debit access (seriously, that's what they said) and industry standards do not require them to do so in any case. Naturally they will not put any of this policy in writing. They claim that it is my responsibility to inform everyone that I do not want to debit my account to not do so. Yeah, right. > Nonetheless, with any given transaction, if the account > holder affirms on a timely basis that it's either fraud or simply not > authorized, the bank has no choice but to charge it back. > Banks hate the concept of consumers knowing that. I'll bet they do. But just to be clear: are you saying that the consumer has the unilateral right to determine that any ACH debit is unauthorized, regardless of the other circumstances? (Without asserting that he has never heard of the payee or that the payee has no claim under some legal theory, but simply that the transfer itself was unauthorized.) And that by doing so the consumer can cause his bank to permanently (not just temporarily during the investigation) return the money? I don't mean to sound overly skeptical, but if this is true than (a) a lot of people are making up stories about not being able to recover money (or at least having a great deal of trouble doing so) from, e.g., long-canceled ISP services and (b) the variation of the Nigerian scam under consideration just wouldn't work. I can buy that the Nigeran "ACH scam" is just an urban legend, but the other problems seem too frequently discussed to be total fantasy. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ 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'. 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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 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. 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 #553 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Nov 18 21:16:43 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iAJ2Ghj14391; Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:16:43 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:16:43 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411190216.iAJ2Ghj14391@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 #554 TELECOM Digest Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:16:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 554 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson SBC To File Tariff With FCC For New VoIP Service (Jack Decker) Anyone Having any Luck With Google Ads? (TELECOM Digest Editor) Telcordia to Announce Sale (Telecom dailyLead from USTA) Re: Wired News: American Passports to Get Chipped (David Clayton) Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech (Ed Clarke) Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech (Scott Dorsey) Re: TV Movie: Category 6 - Day of Destruction (Raymond C Martin Jr) Re: TV Movie: Category 6 - Day of Destruction (Jim Haynes) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Gene S. Berkowitz) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Scott Dorsey) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Lisa Hancock) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (J Kelly) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (DevilsPGD) Re: Email Read in Automated Phone Call? (Thomas A. Horsley) Employment Opportunity: Do you know Telco Maintenance Expert? (HotJobs) Re: Somewhat Off Topic But a Must Read (Lisa Hancock) Looking For VOIP Provider to do Business With Government (T.Sean Weintz) Re: Vonage Tech Support Dead? (DevilsPGD) 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 are 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 23:07:46 -0500 Subject: SBC To File Tariff With FCC For New VoIP Service Jack Decker notes: I have to admit, I don't really understand this at all, but it looks like it might be significant? http://informationweek.networkingpipeline.com/news/53700323 Courtesy of Advanced IP Pipeline SBC Communications Inc. is planning to introduce True IP to PSTN (TIPToP) service in the coming week by filing a tariff with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). TIPToP service is a time division multiplexed (TDM) telecommunications service featuring switched circuit interfaces specifically designed for use by a VoIP provider to connect traffic from its IP end users to end users of the circuit-switched network. According to SBC officials, TIPToP service is not a mandatory offering but voluntary. VoIP providers who choose not to purchase TIPToP service may use other services, "to the extent permitted by existing tariffs and prevailing law, to connect traffic from their customers to the circuit-switched network," according to SBC. According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, SBC's plan will involve an increase in fees normally paid for interconnection services -- a rate increase that has reportedly drawn immediate scrutiny from the FCC. Full story at: http://informationweek.networkingpipeline.com/news/53700323 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 01:29:43 EST From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Anyone Having any Luck With Google Ads? I just want to make a general inquiry of those of you who may be using Google Adsense on your own web sites. I have not had very good luck with it thus far. Although I have three blocks, or clusters of ads on the 'latest-issue.html' page (which is the web version of whatever the latest issue happens to be of this Digest) often times Google sends one cluster of ads for teh horizonal block or cluster on the top, but then sends nothign at all for the vertical 'towers' on the left side of the page, just leaving green colored blocks there instead. I have complained to them twice before about it, then it gets corrected for a day ro two and goes back to being green blocks. My technical advisor, Mr. Mattox, rebuilt that page totally to accomodate the (frequently non-existent) ads. Needless to say, people do not click on the green boxes, so it is wasted space and sort of leaves the page looking lopsided. My other comment is they apparently do not pay off until you get at least a hundred dollars in combination of clicks on ads and use of search box (and clicks on those ads), **then** they say they deduct their cost of running the search engine from that. I would think running the search engine should be their expense, not mine. I am sort of inclined to just get rid of all those ads and go back to the old way of doing this Digest. Any thoughts from anyone on this? Plus I do not think they are very accurate in the way the go about counting the number of impressions or 'hits' on each page. What are your experiences? PAT ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:06:41 EST From: Telecom dailyLead From USTA Subject: Telcordia to Announce Sale Telecom dailyLead from USTA November 18, 2004 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17597&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Telcordia to announce sale BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * SBC, Yahoo! expand partnership * Ofcom puts heat on BT * Europe's telecoms on the rise once again USTA SPOTLIGHT * Order PBX Systems for IP Telephony Today! EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * AOL unveils new security software REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Congress nears reinstating ban on Internet access tax * Qwest may settle shareholder lawsuits * Former Nortel employee knew of revenue problems Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17597&l=2017006 Legal and Privacy information at http://www.dailylead.com/about/privacy_legal.jsp SmartBrief, Inc. 1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005 ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Wired News: American Passports to Get Chipped Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 12:23:36 +1100 kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) contributed the following: > Marcus Didius Falco wrote: >> New U.S. passports will soon be read remotely at borders around the >> world, thanks to embedded chips that will broadcast on command an >> individual's name, address and digital photo to a computerized reader. >> The State Department hopes the addition of the chips, which employ >> radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology, will make >> passports more secure and harder to forge, according to spokeswoman >> Kelly Shannon. > Great idea! Now the bad guys can build bombs that explode when they > detect nearby American passports! It's just the thing to ensure > Americans' safety abroad. How many seconds until someone invents a RF-shielded passport cover? Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: Ed Clarke Subject: Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech Date: 18 Nov 2004 02:21:50 GMT Organization: Ciliophora Associates, Inc. Reply-To: clarke@cilia.org In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > EFF White Paper Reports on Collateral Damage to Free Expression in > the Fight Against Spam > San Francisco - Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) > released a white paper (HTML - PDF) describing the effects of > anti-spam technologies on free speech. "Noncommercial Email Lists: > Collateral Damage in the Fight Against Spam" focuses on how groups > running noncommercial email lists are being harmed by anti-spam > techniques. The paper grew out of EFF's efforts to help MoveOn.org, > human rights groups, parents' groups, and others, deliver email > messages in the face of barriers that are aimed at stopping spam but > that also stop wanted messages. This is absolutely on purpose. Collateral Damage is a necessary technique to rid the net of spammers. If you give money to a company that facilitates spamming then you are no better than a spammer. Move the damn website to an IP range owned by a company that does not spam. Let the spam supporting service providers go broke because they have no customers. You will get no sympathy from me for having your mail dropped. It is the same as if you put a show about breast cancer on a hard core XXXX rated pornography cable channel and had your message blocked by parental controls. If you don't think enough of your message to move it to a clean area, you can feel free to roll it up tight and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. Right next to your head. Hell hath no fury like a system admin who has to clean up after all the spam. And the virus attachments that turn clueless users into spam relays. There are four hundred virus infected attachments (18 different varieties of virus) and fifty one hundred spam messages in my quarantine directory right now. ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech Date: 18 Nov 2004 11:18:23 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) In article , Monty Solomon wrote: >EFF White Paper Reports on Collateral Damage to Free Expression in >the Fight Against Spam > = http://eff.org/news/archives/2004_11.php#002097 > = http://www.eff.org/wp/?f=SpamCollateralDamage.html > = http://www.eff.org/wp/SpamCollateralDamage.pdf This is undoubtedly one of the worst-written discussions on this subject that I have encountered. Much as I respect the EFF, I think they really need to get someone over there that understands the issues today. Currently, there are valid and legitimate ways to run opt-in mailing lists. It's difficult. It's a lot of work. Mr. Townson can attest to how much overhead is involved and the importance of careful address confirmation. The fact that the MoveOn crew didn't want to run a list properly, the way everyone else has been doing for quite a few years now, this is the issue. This is not a free speech issue by any stretch of the imagination. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, I gave up on trying to maintain a mailing list long ago. Part of it was my own personal head problems after the brain aneurysm, but much of it was the huge (and I am not just complaining) amount of spam and viruses coming through. Now it is handled by majordomo, and either you follow its instructions and get automatically added or deleted from the mailing list or you stay in whatever mode you were in. PAT] ------------------------------ From: famartin1@yahoo.com (Raymond C Martin Jr) Subject: Re: TV Movie: Category 6 - Day of Destruction Date: 17 Nov 2004 18:36:53 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Just an FYI, the entire meteorological community is laughing hysterically at this movie ... it has no meteorological sense and the physics simply don't exist in this movie. Raymond C. Martin, Jr. Associate Meteorologist, AccuWeather Inc.- http://www.accuweather.com/ New Jersey Expressways and Tollways - http://www.njfreeways.com/ Ray's Winter Storm Archive - http://www.njfreeways.com/weather/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: By the time the second and concluding part of the movie was finished Wednesday evening, I was beginning to feel the same way. I do not know if it is possible or even likely for all those conditions to merge in one place at one time or not, but even one or two of them, if severe enough, could cause a lot of havoc and problems. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: TV Movie: Category 6 - Day of Destruction Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 05:23:23 GMT In article , Paul A Lee wrote: > minutes, I could no longer stand the smell of the hackneyed "evil > conspiracy of huge corporations causing or taking advantage of natural > disasters to destroy humanity for their own profit" plotline. What do you suppose Enron would do in such a situation? jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ From: Gene S. Berkowitz Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 00:03:21 -0500 In article , Mark_Reichert@hotmail.com says: > DevilsPGD wrote in message > news:: >> Walmart is consistently the cheapest on those products, for example. > What will you do when, no longer able to squeeze its employees or > suppliers, it starts squeezing you by lowering the quality? What do you mean, "when"? Wal-Mart has for years negotiated with manufacturers to produce exclusive versions of hundreds of products in order to meet specific price and cost targets. --Gene ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: 18 Nov 2004 11:13:16 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Mark Reichert wrote: > DevilsPGD wrote in message > news:: >> Walmart is consistently the cheapest on those products, for example. > What will you do when, no longer able to squeeze its employees or > suppliers, it starts squeezing you by lowering the quality? That's been going on for years now. And from what I can see, what consumers mostly do is put up with it. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Or many of us simply choose to do our shopping 'downtown' whenever possible. I would never claim I have never shopped at Walmart, but given a choice in the matter, I tend to go downtown (which I would pass through otherwise [living east side of Independence] before taking the cab all the way out to Walmart [which is far west side of town].) But the hair salon I go to for my haircuts is out in that area, about a block from the Walmart complex; now and again I walk across Main Street over to Walmart to look around; but not very often, and never for groceries. Sometimes a couple dollars of little items if I need them bad enough. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: 18 Nov 2004 09:41:13 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Mark_Reichert@hotmail.com (Mark Reichert) wrote: > What will you do when, no longer able to squeeze its employees or > suppliers, it starts squeezing you by lowering the quality? Shop somewhere else. The history of retailing (indeed all businesses) is filled with survivors who adapted over time and failures who didn't. There once was a hot chain of discount stores known as EJ Korvette. They prospered for a while, but then made poor business decisions and whithered away. In the supermarket world, A&P was once a major leading chain. It's still around but far from being a leader. We have a regional convenience store chain that is rooted in iron foundaries. I could go on and on with examples from industry of long-time companies that survive and prosper to this day and once prosperous industry leaders that barely exist, if at all. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe you read in the papers recently where K-Mart and Sears had merged, making the combined thing now the third largest retail chain. Walmart has been watching that closely. There was a K-Mart in the complex where Walmart is located; Walmart drove them out of business two years ago. On the other hand, Sears has been downtown for about fifty years, and say they plan on staying. Our very first drug store chain (first for here in s.e. Kansas at least) -- Walgreens -- is scheduled to open in about six months; downtown -- praise God! -- on the corner of 9th and Maple Streets; the house owned at one point in time by Alf Landon when he was governor of Kansas. They've been squabbling for some time over the historical significance of that house, but it now appears it is going to be moved and the corner cleared for the new Walgreen's store. PAT] ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:59:35 -0600 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com On 17 Nov 2004 15:50:19 -0800, Mark_Reichert@hotmail.com (Mark Reichert) wrote: > DevilsPGD wrote in message > news:: >> Walmart is consistently the cheapest on those products, for example. > What will you do when, no longer able to squeeze its employees or > suppliers, it starts squeezing you by lowering the quality? They already have lowered the quality. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:14:02 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com In message Mark_Reichert@hotmail.com (Mark Reichert) wrote: >> Walmart is consistently the cheapest on those products, for example. > What will you do when, no longer able to squeeze its employees or > suppliers, it starts squeezing you by lowering the quality? Start up a family run store for people pissed off at Walmart. A fool and his money are soon popular. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We have a lot of family owned businesses downtown here, and at one point we had **four** major grocery chains here (Safeway, Country Mart, Food Town and Dillons.) Walmart managed to do them all in. The last one to go was County Mart, at 10th and Myrtle; then that property stood vacant (a huge store) for several months. Then even the Walmart haters had to go to Walmart to get their groceries. About a year and a half ago, a chain called Marvins out of Oklahoma took over the old Country Mart store, and they are hanging in there. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Email Read in Automated Phone Call? From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:10:53 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you are a subscriber to America > On Line, they offer a feature which allows you to use the phone to > receive email by listening to it. PAT] So does (or at least did) AT&T Worldnet (it always struck me as the stupidest technology I could imagine -- I vastly prefer email because it doesn't need you to play phone tag with it, now they want to add phone tag back to email :-). >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: HotJobs@MicroSurvivor.com Subject: Employment Opportunity: Do You Know a Telco Maintenance Expert? Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 04:33:08 EST Dear Business Professional, You were referred to me by an Online Listing and I am contacting you in regard to a well-paid part-time consulting opportunity to serve as an "Expert Witness". On behalf of my client, I am looking for Technology Experts in the area of "outside plant telecommunications", with respect to aerial or buried cable comprising copper wire, coax or fiber optics, that are interested in serving as an "Expert Witnesses" for a prestigious litigation case to possibly set precedence for the industry. The scope of this project will require the ability to work on this case for up to 100 hours over the course of the next three or four weeks. Here are the details: Demonstrated at least 10-15 years of successful experience in the outside plant telecommunications industry (or related) Electrical Engineer and/or Telephone/Cable Technician. Electrical Engineer and/or Telephone/Cable Technician who has with repair methods for cut cables made of copper wire, coax or fiber optic materials. Knowledge of standard repair practices, tools used, timelines, etc. Ph.d. a plus but not a must. Testifying experience in a patent case; Excellent communications skills for written, verbal, and one-on-one persuasion The goal is to consult our client as an equal partner and evaluate the case as an expert witness. The candidates will possibly meet executive teams of well know companies, partners of law firms and other interesting people beneficial to further advancing his career. The candidate may be located anywhere in the US to fulfill this consulting agreement. Please provide quantified examples of your success, references, and your relevant experience matching the above requirements ASAP. The project start date would be immediately after selection of the consultant. If you know other experts that might also be interested in this consulting opportunity, feel free to forward this announcement, and let your friends know about it. The selection process of consultants to be interviewed will be based on the responses you provide with your reply email. The start date for the interviews will follow immediately after selection of the most appropriate consultants. We are on an urgent timeline and honor a quick response to this message. The Start date of the project is within a few days from now. Thanks again and I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, Jorg Huser CEO / Founder Micro Survivor, Inc. Phone +1-408-690-2464 Fax +1-408-516-9814 Email jorg@microsurvivor.com Enabling Emerging Business http://www.microsurvivor.com ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Somewhat Off Topic But a Must Read Date: 18 Nov 2004 06:51:08 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Jack Decker wrote: > You should be very concerned when your elected representatives attempt > to take away any of the rights you currently enjoy, but especially > when it is done solely to benefit large mega-corporations who already > feel they somehow deserve part of every paycheck you receive. Whenever a law is proposed that might benefit the business community, it seems people quickly object on the grounds it will just help megacorporations who don't need any help. But this isn't true. The business world consists of many different sized businesses. Yes there are the mega businesses, but there are also plenty of tiny and small firms. They have legitimate needs, too. In this particular issue of copyright law, I am not too thrilled about taking away "fair use" which I think greatly serves the public interest. However, it must be remembered that many copyright holders are not megacorporations, but individuals who may have written but one book or song and are fully entitled to receive the benefits of their effort. An example of bad protests is the bankruptcy issue. The bankruptcy laws were revised some years ago and made too lenient. People say those laws shouldn't be changed because otherwise the big banks would benefit. But they don't realize many small business people are also hurt by customers who file for bankruptcy and don't pay their bills. In the case of megacorporations, the solution is to break them up under anti-trust laws and not allow their formation in the first place. Wal-Mart shouldn't be allowed in the grocery business and should be limited in how many of their stores are in a given commerce zone to allow for other stores, to give one example. K-Mart and Sears should not be allowed to merge. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: K-Mart (remember when it used to be the 'dime store' Kresge's?) and Sears (remember when it used to be known as 'Sears and Roebuck' ?) in fact have merged. Walmart is not at all pleased about it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Looking For VOIP Provider That Can Do Business With Government Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 17:13:23 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com I work for a small government agency. I am trying to get a VOIP line that has unlimited long distance - my choices would seem to be quite varied out there. Here is the rub, however: ALL of them seem to insist on billing for federal excise tax. Under law, we cannot pay that. None of the VOIP providers I have spoken to so far (Vonage, broadvoice, p8) are willing to bend on this at all. Their billing depts tell me they are not set up to deal with tax exempt customers. Does anyone know of a VOIP line provider with an unlimited long distance plan that can accomodate us? (do not reply via email - the return address of this post goes to a spam trap account) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Take your choice of them; personally I suggest Vonage. If your volume of business is of any value to them (and I think it might be), they'll figure out a way to write off the 'tax' they think is due. PAT] ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Vonage Tech Support Dead? Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:14:03 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com In message Tony P. wrote: > I've had no problems getting a human the two times I've had to call > Vonage. But the hold times are on the high side. > On my last call to them I waited for 45 minutes before getting a human > being. I've never had problems before. I don't mind hold time, I have a good speakerphone, but this time I can't even get into the hold queue. A fool and his money are soon popular. ------------------------------ 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: 620-402-0134 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. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #554 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 19 02:04:13 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iAJ74DN16879; Fri, 19 Nov 2004 02:04:13 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 02:04:13 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411190704.iAJ74DN16879@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 #555 TELECOM Digest Fri, 19 Nov 2004 02:04:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 555 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson SBC's VoIP End Run (Lisa Minter) The Bell VoIP Invasion (Lisa Minter) Re: Somewhat Off Topic But a Must Read (Jack Decker) Re: SBC to Announce TV Deal With Microsoft (Thomas A. Horsley) Phone Systems (jt) NEC IP Phone Works, One Way (Anthony) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (NoSpamForMe) EPIC Alert 11.22 (Monty Solomon) EFFector 17.41: E-voting Forensics - What They Can/Can't Tell (Solomon) Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech (DevilsPGD) Re: Looking for VOIP Provider (DevilsPGD) Dutch Tapping Room Not Kosher (Marcus Didius Falco) 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 are 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 12:11:14 -0500 Subject: SBC's VoIP End Run http://www.gigaom.com/2004/11/sbcs_voip_end_r.php Om Malik on Broadband Someone at SBC Communications out to be nominated for the best media strategist of the year award. What a masterful strategy! Announce VoIP plans, then to layer it thick, announce IP-TV plans, and while the whole world was gushing over SBC embracing the future, stick a knife in the back of every potential VoIP rival with a simple, relatively little know yet lethal regulation. In other words, thanks to a regulatory filing, SBC has brought to a quick end the 'lets not pay any termination fees' party that had VoIP upstarts drunk. There is shock and outrage in the blogger community. I am not a little bit surprised. My stance has been that Bells will win the VoIP sweepstakes. Now take this ruling as an example. Folks at Vonage and Sunrocket are busy building their brands and are spending their money on advertising. AT&T, MCI and Sprint are financially hobbled and are basically saying: we got no friends in Washington anyway. So where are the millions of dollars needed to spend on lobbying efforts. Think of this as a classic Silicon Valley hallucination. The techies believe innovation will change the world. Eventually -- meanwhile Washington, the soft dollars, and powerful groups control the future. Bells have what they want: no regulation and interference from pesky state officials. They have monopolistic control of the last mile of today and the future. They have near total ownership of the wireless waves. They have now basically imposed the old order on the world, and they are going to print money. Good for their share holders, too bad for venture investors. It happened with DSL, and it will happen again. Why does anyone get surprised by all this, I don't get. Listen up guys: when Bell's livelihood is threatened they firebomb the opposition. As simple as that. I am told Michael Powell is very upset about this end run by SBC. He cannot do anything much right now. So you think, it is over. Think again. Many overlooked the fact that Cisco bought a company called P-Cube recently. One of the things P-Cube can do is prioritize the traffic flows on an IP network. SBC could use it and lower the priority of the traffic coming from say Vonage or AT&T. Nothing illegal here: SBC's network and it can do pretty much what it wants on its own network. Poor quality, lags, dropped packets and soon Vonage customers could be switching to SBC VoIP: which is more expensive, has better quality and of course is highly profitable. Do I like it? No! Will I use it? Of course! Like I will have an option. You thought I was joking when I said monopoly for next 100 years. [Jack Decker Comment: I am not quite as pessimistic on this as Mr. Malik -- SBC has burned a lot of bridges in the past few years and I have some doubts that the skids are greased as well as they might like to think. But for the moment this is a matter of considerable concern, and I would certainly hope that the FCC and/or congress will do more than just some hand wringing over the matter. Also, bear in mind that if *everyone* were to move to VoIP and other non-traditional forms of telephony, then SBC's tariffs wouldn't matter much. This is certainly an issue worth watching, and hopefully we'll see some more informed analysis on it in the next few days.] ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:56:58 -0500 Subject: The Bell VoIP Invasion Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/56895 Bell's done fooling around, ready for battle SBC plans to file a new tariff with the FCC that would increase the fees paid by ISP's for calls completed on the company's local-phone network, note users in our VoIP forum http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,11895120 . As some (like broadband journalist Om Malik http://www.gigaom.com/2004/11/sbcs_voip_end_r.php and Andy Abramson http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2004/11/sbc_seems_to_be.html> ) are predicting, this could be the beginning of an incumbent power play in a VoIP sector currently riddled with upstarts. Article plus reader comments at: http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/56895 ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 14:00:17 -0500 Subject: Re: Somewhat Off Topic But a Must Read At 07:00 PM 11/17/2004 -0500, Scott V wrote: > on that 2nd link I didn't find much news on it. Do we need to > download that .pdf or what? See the line that says, "Comment Overflow - Click: 176 - Read" ? Click on the word "Read" to see the comments. Or just use this direct link: http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/news,56780~mode=full How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ Subject: Re: SBC to Announce TV Deal With Microsoft From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:15:36 GMT > * SBC to announce TV deal with Microsoft I see two possibilities here: 1. SBC will have the most expensive disaster ever with millions of outraged customers trying and failing to get realtime video from Microsoft powered servers. 2. Microsoft will actually be selling SBC boxes that are running a customized Linux to provide the video servers (just like they run hotmail off linux). :-). >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: jeeptop2000@yahoo.com (jt) Subject: Phone Systems Date: 18 Nov 2004 15:05:21 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com We are looking to upgrade our phone system going from 15X 23 to 4 POTS lines and a T1 PRI with DID and 28 extensions. Don't know what the resources are now to research these things can someone point to a good resource online or off to compare systems? We are looking at Avaya Merlin Magix and a Nortel Business Communication Manager. Do all the systems offer the same set of features or are there some glairing differences, As always I'm sure the devil is in the details. jt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 02:24:43 GMT From: Anthony Subject: NEC IP Phone Works, One Way Organization: Optimum Online Hey folks, I am a bit lost, as this is my 1st go around with VoIP. I currently have a NEC Electra IPK system w/ the VoIP card, etc. I set the unit up today, and uploaded the latest firmware to the card. I took the phone to one of my satellite offices about 40 miles away from the PBX. I got the systems to connect, I can check voicemail, get an outside line, and page, however nobody can hear anything that I say, however I can hear the other end w/ the PBX absolutely fine. I've blown away the settings on both the card, and on the phone, and nothing I am doing is working. Is there something I am missing here? Is there a specific set of ports I need to open on either firewall? I have the phones set on the DMZ ip's, so all ports apparently are opened. Any help would be appreciated. Regards, Michael ------------------------------ From: NoSpamForMe Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 03:05:10 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe you read in the papers > recently where K-Mart and Sears had merged, making the combined > thing now the third largest retail chain. Walmart has been watching > that closely. There was a K-Mart in the complex where Walmart is > located; Walmart drove them out of business two years ago. On the > other hand, Sears has been downtown for about fifty years, and say > they plan on staying. Our very first drug store chain (first for > here in s.e. Kansas at least) -- Walgreens -- is scheduled to open > in about six months; downtown -- praise God! -- on the corner of > 9th and Maple Streets; the house owned at one point in time by > Alf Landon when he was governor of Kansas. They've been squabbling > for some time over the historical significance of that house, but > it now appears it is going to be moved and the corner cleared for > the new Walgreen's store. PAT] Why is it OK for the a big chain like Walgreen's (or CVS, Rite-Aid, etc.) to come into a town and drive the little independent drugstores out of business ... indeed you salute them for opening a new store in your downtown ... but WalMart is a "bad guy" ? There's really no difference, other than relative scale, you know. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I was not praising Goddess for *Walgreens* opening a store here so much as I was praising any business for opening in our slowly decaying, beginning to show signs of wear and tear downtown. For a few years now there has been a movement of new businesses onto West Main Street; the area over the railroad overpass going out to the Walmart complex. You are correct, there is no difference other than scale, and we had this discussion here a few weeks ago; small upstart phone companies walking all over Mother, putting her in her place ('good' was the consensus) and small down drugstores, clothing stores, appliance and furniture stores getting trounced by Walmart ('no so good' was the consensus.) Then Lisa Hancock or myself pointed out if we are to be consistent, what is good for the goose is also fine for the gander. That was the difference. I am accustomed to walking downtown (a few blocks) to do shopping; *not* go way out on West Main Steet (which I generically refer to as 'Walmart') although that area is where K-Mart used to be before they went out of business here, and where a good restaurant everyone in town likes (Eggberts) is located, and the Sonic drive in and my hair dresser and other nice places are located. Speaking of Walgreens, this decripit, brain-diseased old man actually has a good feeling for Walgreens from 40 years ago. For several months in 1963, I was employed by the fund raising committee to build a new McCormick YWCA, to replace the old, ancient one on Walton Street in Chicago. I spoke to a group of old hags who were having a luncheon meeting, and one of the guests at the luncheon was Myrtle Walgreen, mother of Charles Walgreen who in those days was the chairman of the board of Walgreens, Inc. Myrtle and her husband Charles (the first) owned and operated the *original* Walgreens at 63rd Street and Drexel Avenue in Chicago. Charles did the pharmacy counter and his wife Myrtle did the lunch counter. That was their one and only store, a little storefront kind of thing right after the start of the last century. Fifty or sixty years later, the 63rd and Drexel neighborhood had totally gone to hell; she was a *very* old lady, her husband Charles was long since deceased, her son Charles, Jr was the chairman of the board, and all the other old ladies at this very elegant hoity-toity luncheon were waiting for Myrtle to make the first move. I made my pitch for money to build the new YWCA, and when I had finished my presentation, Myrtle Walgreen stood up with her cane and hobbled up to the stage where I was standing and she said, "well, this idea of a new Young Women's Christian Association for the girls and young ladies in Chicago sounds like a good idea, so I will start it off with a 'little gift' of my own." On saying that, she reached in her purse and pulled out a check for **fifty thousand dollars** and said "here is just a small gift from my personal funds to help you." That's all it took; the other old ladies saw what Myrtle had done, and proceeded to get their own checks written out, since Myrtle had in essence approved of my speech and collection efforts. She has long since been gone of course, but I still remember the way by her actions she encouraged the older older ladies to 'help build a new YWCA for unfortunate young women and girls in our midst.' Walgreens *used to have* a soda fountain/lunch counter in every one of their stores; the two biggest Walgreens in downtown Chicago had cafeterias in the basement as well. I don't think they do that any longer at all. Myrtle said to me once the concept of a soda fountain/ lunch counter/cafeteria in every one of our stores started in 1912 when she was making lunch for her husband Charles each day; Charles had suggested "why not make sandwhiches like that and coffee each day for our customers who do business with us (at 63rd and Drexel). PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 22:25:49 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EPIC Alert 11.22 ====================================================================== E P I C A l e r t ====================================================================== Volume 11.22 November 18, 2004 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Published by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Washington, D.C. http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_11.22.html ====================================================================== Table of Contents ====================================================================== [1] EPIC Releases 2004 Privacy & Human Rights Report [2] Agency Orders 72 Airlines to Turn Over Passenger Information [3] EPIC Joins Coalition to Support Privacy in Email Intercept Case [4] Government Report Finds SSNs in Many State, County Records [5] FTC Proposes Major Telemarketing Loophole [6] News in Brief [7] EPIC Bookstore: Privacy & Human Rights 2004 [8] Upcoming Conferences and Events ... http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_11.22.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 22:32:10 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 17.41: E-voting Forensics - What They Can/Can't Tell Us EFFector Vol. 17, No. 41 November 11, 2004 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 312th Issue of EFFector: * E-voting Forensics: What They Can - And Can't - Tell Us * EFF, Nonprofits Challenge Secret Government Blacklists * StreamCast and Grokster File Supreme Court Brief * EFF Appeals Anti-Competitive BnetD Ruling * Op-ed - Dumb and Dumber: Why the Movie Industry Shouldn't Do as the Recording Industry Has Done * EFF Seeks Webmaster Who Wants to Make a Difference * MiniLinks (20): Suing 12-Year-Olds Is *So* 2003 * Administrivia ... http://www.eff.org/effector/17/41.php ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 22:26:33 -0700 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, I gave up on trying to > maintain a mailing list long ago. Part of it was my own personal > head problems after the brain aneurysm, but much of it was the huge > (and I am not just complaining) amount of spam and viruses coming > through. Now it is handled by majordomo, and either you follow its > instructions and get automatically added or deleted from the mailing > list or you stay in whatever mode you were in. PAT] I can't speak to anyone else, but I have a lot of respect for folks that stop pandering to the lowest common denominator. I see dumb people, walking around like regular people. They don't see each other. They only see what they wanna see. They don't know they're dumb. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I respect your position, but I did not stop handling the mailing list just to 'get even' with dumb people or make it harder for them. I had to stop doing it in order to be able to get done here and get a few hours to myself each day. Add the mailing list onto my schedule and I would just get too tired as a result of my brain aneurysm. Physically I cannot keep up with it as I used to do when I wrote all my own scripts for that sort of thing, etc. As it is now, I am looking at a major repair job on the archives latest-issuw.html page. PAT] ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Looking For VOIP Provider That Can Do Business With Government Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 22:26:33 -0700 In message T. Sean Weintz wrote: > ALL of them seem to insist on billing for federal excise tax. Under > law, we cannot pay that. None of the VOIP providers I have spoken to > so far (Vonage, broadvoice, p8) are willing to bend on this at > all. Their billing depts tell me they are not set up to deal with tax > exempt customers. Is there no way you can pay the tax and have the gov't refund it after the fact? I see dumb people, walking around like regular people. They don't see each other. They only see what they wanna see. They don't know they're dumb. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 22:35:08 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Dutch Tapping Room Not Kosher * Original: FROM..... A Grudko Shock horror - Dutch Intel. leaking to the Israelis. http://www.fnl.nl/ct/archief2002/ct2002-12/aftappen.htm Paul Wouters, Patrick Smits According to anonymous sources within the Dutch intelligence community, all tapping equipment of the Dutch intelligence services and half the tapping equipment of the national police force, is insecure and is leaking information to Israel. How difficult is it to make a back-door in the Dutch Transport of Intercepted IP Traffic[1] system? The discussion focuses on the tapping installations for telephony and internet delivered to the government in the last few years by the Israeli company Verint[2]. This company was called Comverse-Infosys[3] until half a year ago, but was quickly renamed when the FBI started several investigations against it and arrested some of its employees in the US on suspicion of espionage. (See pulled FoxNews stories, Politech, Cryptome or Google). People within the Dutch government got worried too. Especially because they had been warned as early as 1998 about the possible back-doors in the tapping equipment. The ex-ministers of interior ("Binnenlandse Zaken"), Peper and de Vries, could not comment. The minister of Justice at the time, Korthals Altes, was asked to report to parliament in December 2001, where he stated that the security measures meet the required level and that an investigation would be started if this, after all, was not the case. No investigation followed. In April 2002, Kolkert, procecutor in-chief of the Court of Appeals in Den Bosch, demanded clarification in a letter sent to Stein, the state prosecutor ("landelijk officier van justitie") and responsible for interception matters. Stein stated that there are no problems. On august 24 the project leader of the National Interception Organisation ("Landelijk Interceptie Orgaan", LIO) J.Steeg announced that he plans to check the tapping rooms for backdoors. However, when the equipment was bought from the Israelis, it was agreed that no one except Comverse personnel was authorized to touch the systems, according to the insider of the AIVD (formerly BVD), the Dutch intelligence organization that spoke to the EO radioprogram De Ochtenden[4]. Source code would never be available to anyone. Finally, on October 10th, the Council of Chiefs of Police ("raad van hoofdcommisarissen") sent a confidential letter to the vendors of tapping equipment for ISPs and telcos expressing its concern about the situation in the US. All of this came after questions were raised publicly in the trial against Baybasin, co-founder of the Kurd parliament in exile, about the possible leaks in the Dutch tapping room as well as manipulation of the collected evidence[4b]. Baybasin was recently sentenced to life-long imprisonment for his connections to assassinations, kidnappings and heroine transports. His lawyers called in experts to question them about the possibility that Israel had laid hands on information tapped by the Dutch. The lawyers claim that Israeli then forwarded the information to the Turkish secret service[5]. Baybasin recently told the media about the Turkish government's involvement with crime syndicates. c't magazine warned about the blackbox problem in its June 2001 issue[6]. Opentap[7] gave similar warnings on the hacker conference HAL2001[8] in August of 2001 and at the Chaos Computer Club (CCC)[9] in December 2001 with a presentation on lawful interception in the Netherlands[10]. Hebrew as crypto The insiders at the AIVD and the tapping room were interviewed by the radio program of the EO[11]. According to them, the Dutch government and Comverse have a gentlemen's agreement that the Dutch government would get the Comverse systems for a very reduced price and in exchange the Israelis would get full access to all tapped information. The systems still ended up being more expensive than rejected competitors' quotes. The Comverse maintenance contract alone apparently costs more then the installation itself, according to the anonymous sources. Since the leaks seem to be disguised as maintenance, one could say that the Dutch government is actually paying the cost of foreign intelligence against the Dutch state. Israeli Comverse employees apparently show up in the tapping rooms on a very regular basis for maintenance, since no Dutch are allowed to touch the equipment. The radio program further stated that the maintenance is done using their own Hebrew keyboards and language. They leave the tapping rooms with filled MO-discs and no-one from the Dutch government has any idea what the Comverse people are doing. To make things yet worse, Comverse can dial-in to the tapping room equipment at all times. The possible criminal nature of Comverse and their overpricing are not the only problems. A comparison of the Comverse tapping records with billing records of KPN, the largest Dutch telco, shows that 20% of the calls that should be tapped, are not tapped at all. The Dutch government still keeps buying Comverse equipment. On November 26, a day after the EO radio program was broadcasted, three political parties, D'66, GroenLinks and SP asked questions to the government in parliamant. The current minister of interior, Remkens, answered that the chance of the tapping rooms leaking information is small, but not zero. He further claimed that the Comverse employees were given the most strict screening by the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD, and that they are never allowed to work without supervision. Comverse was chosen based on its price-performance results, the minister said. Hacking the system? In an interview with 2Vandaag[12], a daily Dutch television news program, defense specialist and LPF party leader Herben believes that there is enough cryptography know-how available in the Netherlands to hack the systems, if Comverse does not assist in the evaluation process. Apparently, Herben hasn't thought about the intrusion detection system that has undoubtedly been installed in these tapping systems by Comverse. He also seems to forget (as did Remkes) that these systems work in Hebrew. On top of it, proving the inner workings of the machines to be correct and safe is anything but a trivial task. The capacity of the MO-discs and the bandwidth of the dial-up facilities is not enough to copy a lot of Internet traffic or entire telephone conversations. A Comverse employee would have to swap disks so often, that he would have to use the tapping room as a hotel. So, assuming that there is no (illegal) high-speed Internet connection between the tapping room and the Israeli embassy, what the Comvers staff can do at the most on these visits is to copy a list of who talks to whom, and the cryptographic keys that are used to secure the tapping communications. Therefore, the Israelis don't need to copy entire phone conversations or all Internet traffic of a user from within the tapping room, but can simply monitor the encrypted traffic that is sent to the tapping room. Having the cryptographic key to the data, they then decrypt it at their leisure. If any nation has the technical skills and knowledge to pull this off, it is Israel. The experts We explained the situation to two cryptography experts: Niels Provos[13] of the OpenBSD team and author of various crypto software such as Outguess[14], a program to detect steganographic content, and Michael Richardson[15] of the FreeSwan Project, the IPsec implementation of Linux. We posed the hypothesis of the insecure tapping room and asked whether it would be possible for the Israelis to get a hold of our taps. Provos explains that a very important part of strong cryptography is a good random source. Without a proper random generator, or worse, with a intentionally crippled random generator, the resulting ciphertext becomes trivial to break. Even if Comverse would let experts have a look at the source code, if there is one single unknown chip involved with the random generation, such as a hardware accelerator chip, all bets are off. Provos suggests to use only off-the-shelf PC hardware. If you can trust the hardware and you have access to the source code, then it should theoretically be possible to verify the system. This, however, can just not be done without the source code, according to Provos. One possible undetectable scheme could be to use a set of truly random, but pre-calculated keys. Only those who know the pre-calculated set, Comverse in this case, could break the cipher, which would become a sort of one-time pad for Comverse only. Provos also pointed us to the work of Adam Young en Moti Yung, who have written a few papers on what they dubbed, kleptography[16], the art of secretly stealing the cryptographic key from the ciphertext stream itself. Their research showed it is impossible for third parties to detect whether any given ciphertext is secretly leaking key material. An overview of TIIT The Dutch tapping protocol, Transport of Intercepted IP Traffic[1] is used for the communication between the tapping machine at the ISP, and the Dutch government. The suspect who is using the Internet generates IP traffic that is copied by a special sniffer machine, called S1. The S1 then encrypts the traffic with an RC4 (or AES) key supplied (and generated) by the Dutch tapping room, and sends the encrypted traffic to the S2, the ISP's collector machine. The collector sets up an encrypted connection, using SSL or IPsec to the government collector machine, the T2. This will normally happen over the internet itself. The T1 then sends the encrypted information onwards to one more agencies, who all have their own T2 for receiving the encrypted traffic. The T2's have the key to decrypt the gathered data into the original plaintext, as it was captured by the ISP. Both the SSL and IPsec protocol, which are part of the encryption scheme used by the Dutch tapping specification (TIIT), contain parts where one has to "fill" packets with random data. It is impossible to see whether this data is truly random, or contains a secret message. This means that no-one needs to go to the tapping room to fetch the key material. According to Provos, the keys can just be sneaked into the encrypted tap itself. Richardson agrees with this view. There has even been a software implementation of this in the past. The TIS-client implemented this feature as "Government Access to Session Keys method". There are even rumors that the ciphers SHA1 and DSS, both NSA ciphers, leak key information on purpose, with only the NSA knowing how to retrieve it. Richardson claims that it is easy to use weak key material. And there are other dangers as well. Because RC4 is based on XOR, using the same key twice is enough to crack the code. RC4 is used for the inner encryption of user data in the TIIT, since the final AES candidate wasn't known at the time when the protocol was set. But this RC4 encrpytion is packaged in another layer of encryption, SSL or IPsec. That layer needs to be broken as well. Richardson takes IPsec as example. Imagine that we need to leak an RC4 key and an IPsec key. For RC4, only the first 128bits are relevant. For IPsec 3DES is often used, which means another two times 56bits. Each IPsec packet has an IV of 64 bits. This IV is random filling to ensure that there will never be two identical packets encrypted with the same key, a deadly sin in the world of cryptography. So this makes it possible to hide 64bits in each IPsec packet. Theoretically, after two packets you have leaked the RC4 key, and after another two you have the 3DES key too, although Richardson says that if such a scheme is used, it is very likely that the leaking would take place a bit slower, so it can be covered up. For example, the 64 bits can be divided in four parts of 16 bits hidden in the first 20 bits of four IV's. 16 bits of actual key material and four bits to point to the position of those bits in the key. That means that about 16 IPsec packets are needed to leak the entire key. According to Richardson, that would leave plenty of randomness in the IV to make this leakage invisible. Due to the overhead of IPsec and of the TIIT, this means the tapped user needs to cause even less packets for this to happen. In other words, reading a few lines of email or looking at a single webpage, is more then enough to leak all key information. Weis and Lucks showed that the use of the IV isn't even needed, and presented their paper All your keybits ...[17] at SANE2002[18] that mathematic proves that blackbox cryptography is fundamentally insecure and that leaking key material cannot be detected in any way. Conclusion Without the cooperation of Comverse, is it not possible to determine whether the Dutch tapping systems contain backdoors or not. Worse, even if Comverse would appear to cooperate, there is no way to detect a possible double-cross. Key information can leak quickly and undetectable and the only way to prevent that is by having full control over both the hardware and the software involved. In mid December, the parliament will discuss the annual report of the AIVD, but it seems unlikely that the public will ever find out what really happened. Remkes only wants to talk about these matters behind closed doors. De Graaf, party leader of D'66, said he finds the risk of possible manipulation of the tapping rooms "pretty serious", but cannot give more public statements, since he was a member of the watchdog commission that oversees the intelligence service AIVD, and therefore has inside sensitive knowledge. Remkes claims he didn't know about the dangers. Apparently, he was the last one that didn't know; Comverse and blackbox cryptography have been under heavy fire for years. Literature [1] http://www.opentap.org/documents/TIIT-v1.0.0.pdf [2] http://www.verintsystems.com/ [3] http://www.cominfosys.com/ [4] http://www.eo.nl/home/html/news.jsp?number=3209417 [4b] http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/8761030113615.html [5] http://www.groene.nl/2002/0225/rz_tappen.html [6] http://www.fnl.nl/ct-nl/archief2001/ct2001-06/ct200106032033.htm [7] http://www.opentap.org/ [8] http://www.hal2001.nl/ [9] http://www.ccc.de/ [10] http://www.opentap.org/ccc/ [11] http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/eo/redactie/radio/r1022511c.rm [12] http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/eo/2vandaag/2vandaag_aftappen.rm [13] http://www.citi.umich.edu/u/provos [14] http://www.outguess.org/ [15] http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca [16] http://home.bip.net/laszlob/cryptoag/kleptography.htm [17] http://www.nluug.nl/events/sane2002/papers/WeisLucksAllYourKeybit.ps [18] http://www.nluug.nl/events/sane2002/ ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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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. End of TELECOM Digest V23 #555 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 19 17:36:39 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iAJMadg26869; Fri, 19 Nov 2004 17:36:39 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 17:36:39 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411192236.iAJMadg26869@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 #556 TELECOM Digest Fri, 19 Nov 2004 17:37:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 556 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson USOC, SLDC, and FID Concepts (Matt) Call For Papers: Bellua Cyber Security Asia 2005 (Anthony Zboralski) Global Router sales Rise in 3Q (Telecom dailyLead from USTA) The Complete Communicator (A M Andrews) Great Telecom Blog (Cindi Jenkins) Re: SBC's VoIP End Run (Tim@Backhome.org) Re: SBC's VoIP End Run (jdj) Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech (Barry Margolin) Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech (Jim Hatfield) Re: Update: Vonage Ring Problem (John R. Covert) Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders (charsand) Re: Looking For VOIP Provider That Do Business With Government (Weintz) Mystery Phone Number Revisited (Salvatore Petrarca) Re: Employment Opportunity: Do You Know Telco Expert? (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Clarence Dold) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Lisa Hancock) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Wesrock@aol.com) Sears and K-Mart (Lisa Hancock) Sorry About the Explosion (TELECOM Digest Editor) 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 are 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jrefactors@hotmail.com (Matt) Subject: USOC, SLDC, and FID Concepts Date: 19 Nov 2004 11:56:34 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I tried to search for info. on USOC, SLDC, and FID, but couldn't find useful info. Can anyone gives me some definitions, or URL for those info.? Thanks!! ------------------------------ From: anthony.zboralski@gmail.com (Anthony Zboralski) Subject: Call for Papers: Bellua Cyber Security Asia 2005 Date: 19 Nov 2004 11:45:38 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Dear all, Submissions related to Telecom Security will be greatly appreciated. Emmanuel Gadaix will be giving a talk on SS7 Security and hacking. Bellua Cyber Security Asia 2005 - http://www.bellua.com/bcs2005 Call for Papers and Workshops http://www.bellua.com/bcs2005/asia05.cfp.html From 21st - 24th March the largest information security conference in Asia will take place in Jakarta, Indonesia at the Hotel Borobudur. * 21-22 March 2005: Workshops * 23-24 March 2005: Conference Bellua will bring together over 20 researchers and practitioners from numerous disciplines to discuss present and future information security issues through an intensive series of workshops, presentations, technical sessions and demonstrations. The partial list of speakers include Ralph Logan, Adam O'Donnel, David Maynor [ISS X-Force], The Grugq, Jim Geovedi [HERT], Fetri Miftach and John Grygorcewicz. Over 30 workshops will be offered and taught by the most respected experts in the field. Ethical hacking & security contests will let novices develop their skills and challenge experts in their favorite arenas, allowing all a chance to win prizes. The program committe invites proposals for paper presentations, demonstrations and poster contributions on any topic relevant to cyber security and hacking. The conference talks will be spread across 2 concurrent tracks focusing on both business and technical aspects of information security. Your submission should include: 1. Name, title, address, email and phone number 2. Draft of the proposed presentation (in PDF, PowerPoint or Keynote format), proof of concept for tools and exploits, etc. 3. Short biography, qualification, occupation, achievement and affiliations (limit 150 words). 4. Summary or abstract for your presentation (limit 150 words) 5. Time (40-60 minutes). Include time for discussion and questions 6. Technical requirements (video, internet, wireless, audio, etc.) * Each speaker will receive an honorarium, hotel accommodation, and reimbursement of travel expenses. * Posters contributors will receive one complimentary conference pass. * Please read the detailed CFP at the following URL: http://www.bellua.com/bcs2005/asia05.cfp.html Please send your proposal to cfp2005@bellua.com as soon as possible and no later than 20 December 2005. Call for Workshops proposal This is also a call for workshops. One of the objectives of this meeting is to allow researchers to gain a background in areas that they may know little about. Towards that end a number of Workshops are planned. * Again please read the detailed CFP for more information: http://www.bellua.com/bcs2005/asia05.cfp.html Please send the workshop proposal to cfp2005@bellua.com as soon as possible and no later than 20 December 2005. Phone (GMT+7): +62 815 910 2495 Thanks & regards, 1. Name, title, address, email and phone number 2. Draft of the proposed presentation (in PDF, PowerPoint or Keynote format), proof of concept for tools and exploits, etc. 3. Short biography, qualification, occupation, achievement and affiliations (limit 150 words). 4. Summary or abstract for your presentation (limit 150 words) 5. Time (40-60 minutes). Include time for discussion and questions 6. Technical requirements (video, internet, wireless, audio, etc.) * Each speaker will receive an honorarium, hotel accommodation, and reimbursement of travel expenses. * Posters contributors will receive one complimentary conference pass. * Please read the detailed CFP at the following URL: http://www.bellua.com/bcs2005/asia05.cfp.html Please send your proposal to cfp2005@bellua.com as soon as possible and no later than 20 December 2005. Call for Workshops proposal This is also a call for workshops. One of the objectives of this meeting is to allow researchers to gain a background in areas that they may know little about. Towards that end a number of Workshops are planned. * Again please read the detailed CFP for more information: http://www.bellua.com/bcs2005/asia05.cfp.html Please send the workshop proposal to cfp2005@bellua.com as soon as possible and no later than 20 December 2005. Phone: +62 815 910 2495 (WIT - GMT+7) Thanks & regards, Anthony Zboralski Bellua Asia Pacific - http://www.bellua.com/bcs2005 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 13:18:49 EST From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Global router sales rise in 3Q Telecom dailyLead from USTA November 19, 2004 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17630&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Global router sales rise in 3Q BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Vodafone signals intention to buy equipment from Chinese companies * Boeing, Alcatel strike deal * Karmazin takes helm at Sirius * Survey: Lackluster marketing costs wireless companies billions USTA SPOTLIGHT * USTA Brings Together the Industry in 2005 EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Vodafone, SingTel put final touches on Aussie 3G deal REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Philadelphia's Wi-Fi plan comes under threat Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17630&l=2017006 ------------------------------ From: ama3@aol.com (A M Andrews) Subject: The Complete Communicator Date: 19 Nov 2004 08:44:51 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Looking for an answering/fax package for Win98 that is as good as the proprietary Complete Communicator was [for Win3.1]. "Was" because it seems to have disappeared -- and required its own modem. Everything was excellent: voices, defaults, setup ... Tried downloads/trial versions of others and setup is dreadful/non-intuitive, or worse, freezes system; usual response from help is "modem problem". Looking for basic telephone answering management package! ------------------------------ From: cindi@chiltown.com (Cindi Jenkins) Subject: Great Telecom Blog Date: 19 Nov 2004 08:04:22 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/eai/leadership ------------------------------ From: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: SBC's VoIP End Run Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 02:20:19 -0800 Organization: Cox Communications Lisa Minter quoted the original poster from VOIP News: > Also, bear in mind that if *everyone* were to move to VoIP and other > non-traditional forms of telephony, then SBC's tariffs wouldn't > matter much. But, that is wishful thinking for many, many years to come. Broadband is a prerequiste for VoIP, and the facilities are far from being able to provide universal broadband availability. Further, where broadband is provided via DSL rather than cable, it seems the LECs will still strangle the service unless you buy it from them. ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: SBC's VoIP End Run Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 09:09:46 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com SBC's anti competitiveness seems to be evident, particularly in the business services area. So many CLEC customers have had their DS1, PRI or supertrunk just stop working at various times of the day, for hours on end, only to be told by the CLEC that the CLEC is waiting for SBC to do something on their end. Interesting that the failures tend to be loss of carrier, clock, battery, loss of termination at the switch, etc., adn. But when the customer switches to SBC, the failures are all gone and never return! I recall some of the early history of The Bell System and the tactics it used to become the monopoly it was. It is not surprising that things have not changed much. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No, things have not changed very much at all, especially where SBC -- Southwestern Bell -- is concerned, which is one reason I am inclined to stick with cable internet, even if they were not local people who run it here. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech Organization: Symantec Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 08:32:45 -0500 In article , Ed Clarke wrote: > In article , Monty Solomon wrote: >> EFF White Paper Reports on Collateral Damage to Free Expression in >> the Fight Against Spam >> San Francisco - Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) >> released a white paper (HTML - PDF) describing the effects of >> anti-spam technologies on free speech. "Noncommercial Email Lists: >> Collateral Damage in the Fight Against Spam" focuses on how groups >> running noncommercial email lists are being harmed by anti-spam >> techniques. The paper grew out of EFF's efforts to help MoveOn.org, >> human rights groups, parents' groups, and others, deliver email >> messages in the face of barriers that are aimed at stopping spam but >> that also stop wanted messages. > This is absolutely on purpose. Collateral Damage is a necessary > technique to rid the net of spammers. If you give money to a company > that facilitates spamming then you are no better than a spammer. Move > the damn website to an IP range owned by a company that does not spam. > Let the spam supporting service providers go broke because they have > no customers. Where does it say that this is the reason why MoveOn.org's mail is being blocked? One of the other problems that the white paper mentioned is mailers that assume that any bulk email is spam -- but legitimate mailing lists will necessarily send out bulk email. What bugs me is EFF's use of the phrase "free speech" to make this sound like a 1st Amendment issue. The 1st Amendment only limits the *government's* ability to curtail free speech. It doesn't require organizations to facilitate any particular communications. Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** ------------------------------ From: Jim Hatfield Subject: Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 18:40:54 +0000 Organization: Insignia Solutions Reply-To: jim.hatfield@insignia.com On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 22:26:33 -0700, DevilsPGD wrote: > I see dumb people, walking around like regular people. They don't see > each other. They only see what they wanna see. They don't know they're > dumb. Sixth Sense aside, there are people here in the UK who have devoted themselves to spotting and sneering at "dumb people": http://www.chavscum.co.uk/ You'd think people would have better things to do with their time. Jim Hatfield ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 13:05:45 -0500 (EST) From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Update: Vonage Ring Problem If I remember correctly, the original discussion on this involved some old standard WeCo phones that were not ringing well on ATAs. I had that problem, and solved it by opening up all my phones (now connected to ATAs rather than to the traditional phone net) and moving the bell tension spring from the strong to the weak position. In the strong position, the bell requires a higher voltage to ring properly. In the weak position, on a long loop you end up with bell tinkle when other extensions go off an on-hook and during rotary dialing. Bell tinkle is not a problem when connected to the short loop inside your single dwelling only. There's no real need to up the voltage on the ATA if you just change the bell tension. In re the recent discussion about post dial delay on Vonage: They are not currently making "#" a terminator for timing on calls not beginning with "011", so it does no good. You will have a timeout on any call that does not begin with "1" since they are allowing variable length dialling. For example, you can call a Vonage (only a Vonage) customer with a UK number by dialling just 44 nn nnnn nnnn. There are currently no ambiguities with a U.S. 44X NXX XXXX number, and the decision on how to process the call is based on the length. Note that this ONLY works for actual Vonage customers with UK numbers, and not for other numbers in the UK. These calls are all Vonage in-network calls, and are free for Vonage customers, as well as if dialled from FWD using their peering code **243 44 nn nnnn nnnn. At the moment this only applies to Vonage UK "Virtual Numbers" pointing to US Vonage customers, but I fully expect (could turn out to be wrong) for it to work the same way for real Vonage UK customers later this year. /john ------------------------------ From: charlize_sand@yahoo.com (charsand) Subject: Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders Date: 19 Nov 2004 11:35:08 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com billyzane1@excite.com (Bob Smythe) wrote in message news:: > The thing is, it is illegal to download or upload copyrighted works, > the concept of file sharing and actual file sharing is not illegal. I > do not condone illegal file sharing, but am just trying to clarify a > few things. > The MPAA (and RIAA) have not and will not target individual > downloaders. There is no real way to get them. They are not a law > enforcement agency. They cannot entrap individual users. If you > download from them, and they are the rightful owners, then there is no > law broken, even if it is widely know that the service being used is > to illegally obtain files. Plus having downloaded one file will not be > worthwhile anyway in court. > They will focus and be able to bust those who share (uploaders) works > they do not own. These are the people who are illegally distributing, > offering, sharing and causing the industry the most harm, and > potentially profiting from this type of activity. > Bottom line is if you do not share, then you run little to no risk of > being caught. > But people need to realize the impact reaches far beyond whether or > not they get caught. They are hurting our economy. A great number of > jobs and resources goes into creating movies and songs, and you are > stealing money out of their pockets and retailers, etc.. > For me, I do not like the threat of viruses and poor sound and picture > quality. That is why I stay away from such activity. That is the > greater threat. The fact that it is also illegal makes it even less > appealing. > Just buy the damn videos y'all. The industry will benefit by offering > an I-Tunes type service for those who want to get movies via > downloading for an affordable price. Say -8 bucks for a movie. YOu > have to go by the hardware and software to burn it and the dual > layered DVD's are like 4 bucks a pop I think. > BOB > Lisa Minter wrote in message > news:: >> LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Taking a cue from the music industry, film >> studios and the Motion Picture Association of America said on Thursday >> that they were readying the first lawsuits against people suspected of >> illegally distributing movies over the Internet. >> The civil suits will seek to stop trading and damages of up >> to $30,000 per film, the MPAA said, adding that damages could >> reach $150,000 if the infringement was deemed willful. >> Record companies have led the way with such lawsuits, targeting major >> traders of song files who use Kazaa and other programs to swap songs >> on the Web. The movie trade group, representing Hollywood's major >> studios, plans to launch its own legal challenges beginning Nov. 16. >> Studios have been slow to release DVD-quality films on the Internet >> because of the twin piracy and technological shortcomings -- it takes >> hours to download even a film at lower quality levels, while it takes >> minutes or seconds to download a song. Improving technology is cutting >> the gap, though. >> "That distinction is rapidly vanishing, so we are taking these actions >> to try and prevent this illegal activity from becoming mainstream," >> the MPAA said in a statement, adding that future technologies could >> allow movie downloads in as few as six seconds. >> MPAA President and Chief Executive Dan Glickman said at a news >> conference that the music industry has had an impact on music piracy >> with its lawsuits. >> That campaign has had a mixed reception from consumers and some in the >> industry, who have urged movie and music makers to develop easy-to-use >> technology for buying or renting content that would be a viable >> alternative to illegal downloads. >> Apple Computer Inc's iTunes is often heralded as an example of legal >> song buying that works. >> "The industry should be thinking of new ways to deploy the new >> technology rather than suing the consumer," said Mediaport >> Entertainment Inc. Chief Executive Helen Seltzer, which makes kiosks, >> or automatic teller machines, to buy and download music. "We find that >> if students are given an easy way to download, they will do it and pay >> for it happily," she said. >> An MPAA attorney said studios would launch fewer lawsuits than the >> record industry, which has pursued more than 5,000 people to >> date. Studios would also use "John Doe" lawsuits that allow them to >> pursue file traders without knowing the traders' identities. >> Chris Ruhland, a former studio lawyer now at Orrick Herrington & >> Sutcliffe, forecast the movie makers would win their days in >> court. "The law is very clear that unauthorized distribution of >> copyrighted material is illegal," he said. >> Reuters/VNU > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What MPAA and RIAA do not understand > (or pretend not to understand) is the purposes for which the net was > developed: It was developed for the sharing of ideas and files, at > no charge between the participants. What MPAA/RIAA seem to want is > the ability to put out their goods all over the public sidewalk, but > they do not feel people should be free to to examine same goods at > their leisure without paying for them. The net was around for a long > time before MPAA/RIAA came around wanting to put their trash out on > the public roadway, and they wanted to change the rules the minute > they got here from a place of free expression to a place where you > have to pay to view their stuff. There are plenty of ways to mark > directories (on computers) to keep people out of them who have not > paid. But it seems to be more to their advantage to use the net as > an advertising media then file suit against people who stop to look > (too long, and too extensively) rather than just move along. I do not > really have any sympathy for those relative newcomers to the net. PAT] I heard somewhere that those caught could receive not only fines, but jail time-is this true? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It would not suprise me at all. Nor does it surprise me that they just toss out lawsuits all over the place without even having the *name* or *any identity* of the persons they intend to sue. I can see where 'John Doe' might be a valid way to sue someone you had caught when you could not otherwise get his name, but lawsuits at random against John Does 1 through 9999 (fill in the names, addresses and particulars when you find the person) seems to me to be a gross abuse of the legal system. But they seem to be setting out the lawsuits, then finding the person later on and already having the suit set up. Not a good faith thing, IMO. PAT] ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: Looking For VOIP Provider That Can Do Business With Government Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 09:31:42 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to T. Sean Weintz: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Take your choice of them; personally > I suggest Vonage. If your volume of business is of any value to them > (and I think it might be), they'll figure out a way to write off the > 'tax' they think is due. PAT] Pat- Problem is it would NOT be high volume. Just 2-3 lines. What I plan on doing is hanging them off our PBX and having it route only the long distance calls over the VOIP lines. Have spoken to the Billing Dept at Vonage and they actually sounded annoyed at me for even asking. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 11:33:47 -0500 From: Salvatore Petrarca Subject: Mystery Phone Number Revisited Mr. Townson, Recently, I was contacted by a company/person with the phone number (866) 383-0986. A google search lead me to the edition of your newsletter referenced in the subject line. I attempted to contact Mr. Covert (whom is in the same situation as I) via e-mail in order to give him the information I gathered on the organization that had called both of us. My e-mail, however was bounced back. I am not requesting that you give me his e-mail address, I simply request that you forward the following message to him, if at all possible. -------------------------------- I recently recieved a call from the number 866-383-0986. A Google search yielded the MIT document (located here) with your transmission in it. > Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:28:15 -0400 (EDT) > From: John R. Covert Subject: Indian Telemarketing Shop Service-Monitoring Line? > There's an interesting number on the caller-id of my fax line. The > call disconnected with no fax received. (866) 383-0986 > If you call it back, you get a recording with a distinctive Indian > accent saying, "Please dial the extension number which you want to > monitor." > Hmmmmm. > john After doing some research, I came upon the following information: Media Direct Marketing Consultants 1822 North Bend Drive Knoxville, TN 37909 (866) 383-0986 I seem to remember "Media Direct" coming up in quite a few spyware searches I've run. It's possible that by entering your fax number into a textarea in a webpage, the spyware could have picked it up and sent the information home, which is why they tried to "call" your fax machine. Have you been able to contact the company between the time you posted the message and now? Thanks, Sal Petrarca [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Mr. Covert reads this Digest on occassion so perhaps he will see your message here and respond. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 11:00:03 EST Subject: Re: Employment Opportunity: Do You Know a Telco Maintenance Expert? In a message dated Thu, 18 Nov 2004 04:33:08 EST, HotJobs@MicroSurvivor.com writes: > On behalf of my client, I am looking for Technology Experts in the > area of "outside plant telecommunications", with respect to aerial or > buried cable comprising copper wire, coax or fiber optics, that are > interested in serving as an "Expert Witnesses" for a prestigious > litigation case to possibly set precedence for the industry. While we usually don't quibble about spelling errors, I would be concerned about seeking work with a lawyer who cannot distinguish between "precedents" and "precedence." That's more than just a spelling error. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: At least he did not spell it 'president' as in Presedence Bush. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dold@XReXXWhatX.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 18:49:42 UTC Organization: a2i network > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: that closely. There was a K-Mart in > the complex where Walmart is located; Walmart drove them out of > business two years ago. On the In Napa, California, there was a very old KMart store in a "strip mall" with a few other stores. The Lucky's grocery store closed when Alpha Beta bought Lucky's, and they kept a store open a couple of blocks away. KMart wanted to expand, opening one of their newer Super-KMarts, taking over the Lucky's space. Napa said no. They didn't want the expansion. They wanted another store to move in to Lucky's. KMart closed the store as too small and too old for their new network. The other little shops closed without the major draws in the shopping center. Six months later, Walmart razed the entire strip mall and built a new store that encompassed more square footage than the entire complex had before, and they are the sole store in the complex. Did Napa make a mistake, and decide to take an offer from Walmart? Had they already received the offer from Walmart before KMart asked? I was surprised that Walmart would put a store in Napa, since there was already one in American Canyon, 14 miles away. Since then, they have applied for a move of the American Canyon store to a larger position 3 miles closer to Napa. Other stores can stay in business, but only in little tiny niches. No one can compete with Walmart. A new move by Walmart will leave merchandise in the inventory of the supplier until it is sold. $60 billion will disappear from Walmart books. This would really be "just in time". It would never belong to Walmart. It would be sold directly from the distributor to the consumer at the Walmart checkout. I think that is how Amazon.com operates with some of their suppliers, but they don't have physical control of the item, it remains with the distributor, who might route it elsewhere. In the Walmart case, it wouldn't be available for other use by the distributor. Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Distance between stores is not an issue for Walmart. In addition to ours here, they have another one in Coffeyville, and others throughout southeast Kansas. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: 19 Nov 2004 11:06:13 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Telecom editor wrote: > ... in 1963, I was employed by the fund raising committee to build a > new McCormick YWCA ... one of the guests at the luncheon was Myrtle > Walgreen, ... she reached in her purse and pulled out a check for > **fifty thousand dollars** I presume by that time the Walgreen chain had started and was properous. There in lies a dilemna -- on the one had chains have a lot of money, on the other hand, the families of said chains can be quite generous with it. Andrew Carnegie, who was quite ruthless as the head of US Steel, donated much of his fortune to public works, indeed, I think a foundation he created is still giving out money. (Libraries were a favorite and he built many throughout the country). > Walgreens *used to have* a soda fountain/lunch counter in every one of > their stores... Here's an example of the conflict between business vs. the town, mixed in with big and small. (Forgive parts previously discussed here). We had an independent drugstore that had a traditional soda fountain and lunch counter. The town liked that. However, the town's fathers had several run-ins with the pharmacist (the owner) over their historic district policies, parking, and allowable signage. The pharmacist closed up and went out of business. Frankly, the town fathers didn't care on account of their disputes, though many of the citizens liked his soda fountain and felt it added a lot to the "historicness" of the town. (Note the irony?) Anyway, CVS came in. Sometimes the town makes a business go through many hoops before it is approved. But CVS' plan sailed right through. They took over an empty store and fully rennovated it in an historic style (I must admit it does look nice). The town fathers were very pleased at the outcome. But none of them brought up the issue of independent vs. chain or the loss of the lunch counter. The inside of the CVS is cold and sterile. For good or bad the independent pharmacy owner was part of the community. The manager of the CVS is anonymous. The employees of the independent tended to stay a long time. Even kids he'd hire would start young and stay with him all through high school and college until they finally moved out into the real world; in contrast the kids at the CVS (who have much more customer contact including in the pharmacy) tend to turnover very rapidly. [Remember the old "Wonder Years" episode where Kevin worked for the grouchy hardware store owner, only to quit and briefly work anonymously at the mall?] If you get a smart kid you're well served, but most of them are pretty dumb, pretty bored, and very apathetic. They spend their time gossiping on their cellphones playing their boyfriends against each other. (When you're standing at the counter waiting to be rung up, you hear some nasty conversations among those teen girls). (As an aside, the whole thing illustrates the troubles of "historic districts" because the definitions of "historic" and allowable rennovations are so subjective.) Another business closed up and the building was available. The owner sold it to Starbucks. The town fathers were very anxious to get that through since they didn't want an empty building. But the people in the town objected to Starbucks and it led to a lot of protests. A neighboring business cleared trees from their parking lot to provide more parking and people were upset about that. The Starbucks did come in and it seems very nice although I myself won't spend $3 for a cup of coffee I can get for 79c down the street at the convenience store. Pat's point about an empty building vs. a chain in it is a good one. Also, not all chains are cold. We have a locally owned supermarket that charges premium prices. Some of my neighbors don't like it because he's expensive and shop in the chain supermarkets instead. But they had to admit the local owner is very supportive of community projects, such as sponsoring youth sports teams, a major donation to the 9/11 memorial, etc. The chains do nothing. ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 10:55:45 EST Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits In a message dated 18 Nov 2004 09:41:13 -0800, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) writes: > In the supermarket world, A&P was once a major leading chain. > It's still around but far from being a leader. Wasn't the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (the full corporate name of A&P Stores) once the largest retailer in the world, as Wal-Mart is now? ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Sears and K-Mart Date: 19 Nov 2004 11:50:34 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com [Telecom related stuff at the very end.] I am not thrilled about this merger because I fear it will bring out the bad aspects of both stores, not the better ones. I never liked SS Kresge (K-Mart's predecessor), always preferring Walmart. I never liked K-Mart, preferring other discount chains. Today I like Target. My last visit to K-Mart was quite miserable; they didn't have the advertised sale item and no one knew how to check the stock in the back or get more. I feel Sears has gone downhill in the last few years. In an effort to be more efficient, they have heavilly computerized. It can be difficult being on the other end of such systems when you need help as a customer. They are very much geared to "mass production" or universal service. My local store doesn't even have any customer service area to sit down with someone about the credit card or problem; everything is handled on the sales floor at the registers. The store is disorganized and very messy. They have spots of bare concrete floor awaiting rennovation, and merchandise piled high on tables unkempt. It's more like a old-neighborhood bargain store than a distinguished national department store. I don't expect tea and crumpets, but at least some cleanliness. My Sears charge card keeps getting all sorts of revision of its rules with booklets loaded with fine print. Makes me very nervous to use it, so I destroyed it. My area has a nice regional department store chain called Boscov's. They are not fancy, but very nice, and I hope they continue to succeed and thrive and not pressured out by the big boys. Their salespeople (who tend to be older people) are most helpful. Mr. Boscov, age 65 (son or grandson of the founder) is an old-style merchant prince--running around visiting every store, personally checking on displays, talking to customers and employees etc. I think most of the big chain dept stores need someone like Mr. Boscov who personally gets involved. That's how the old time merchants built up their businesses. But today they bring in anonymous managers who get transferred from city to city and have no loyalty to anything. They care solely about numbers on a computer printout generated by mysterious formulas. While these things are important (and even Mr. Boscov uses them), the human touch is important too. Consumer tastes are different in different cities, and _within neighborhoods_ of different cities. A store in a working class area will have different needs than a store in a fancy preppy suburb; but how is some distant chain HQ supposed to know what branches are what? Mr. Boscov will know because he spends time talking to his customers. JC Penney used to know since he did the same thing -- running around the stores until very late in life. I bet Sam Walton used to know, too, but does his successors? They said Walmart had to learn the hard way that Tide detergent wouldn't sell in some countries since they don't have washing machines. They needed to develop a hand version. There are two other national chains serving my area -- Strawbridges which I believe is owned by the May Company (who bought them) and Macy's. I think both are too homogenized and bland, governed by the impersonal printout. My local carrier, Verizon, is running the same risk of becomming too distant from the people it serves. Years ago they had business offices in regions, several throughout a big city. Today when you call them (they no longer accomodate in-person visits) your call can be routed anywhere. In the old days you could describe the intersection of your property to the service or repair rep and they'd know what you were talking about, not now. I realize with electronic switching and the Internet phone service is much more homogenized than in the days of party line SxS vs. a big crossbar system. But I still suspect different communities will have different calling and Internet needs, and that would impact the effectiveness of sales efforts and equipment upgrades. Perhaps kids in one neighborhood will be into voice calls while another into instant messaging on broadband. Perhaps business demands will vary. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In your last paragraph, '...electronic switching and Internet phone service vrs. party lines, SxS, etc ...' Yeah, but that's not *your* fault. All you want to get is some modicum of customer service. Why can't *they* take the responsibility for teaching *their people* how times have changed and what *they* need to do? Even if there were no difference at all in prices and Marvins charged the same or or more than Walmart for their groceries I would still go to Marvins. Why? Because the cashiers smile at me and try to be helpful. The high school guys who are baggers an stock clerks are most helpful in finding stuff on the shelves I want. When I check out and pay, the boy who bagged my stuff *always, without fail* pushes the cart out the door for me and gets me a chair to sit in. Then he says, "do you want me to call Jeff (the cab driver) to come and get you or do you want to call yourself?" When the cab arrives, *he* puts the stuff in the trunk or the backseat, and thanks me for shopping at Marvins. When is the last time Walmart ever did anything like that? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 16:28:29 EST From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Sorry About the Explosion Issue 555 went out originally ONCE at 2:04 AM Eastern time. Then early Friday afternoon it went out again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Some testing was going on here which caused the problem. I am sorry. PAT ------------------------------ 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. 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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. End of TELECOM Digest V23 #556 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Nov 20 00:29:05 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iAK5T5B01333; Sat, 20 Nov 2004 00:29:05 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 00:29:05 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411200529.iAK5T5B01333@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 #557 TELECOM Digest Sat, 20 Nov 2004 00:29:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 557 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Should I Put Cell Phone Number on Natl Do Not Call List? (Marcus Falco) Lexmark Accused of Installing Spyware (Monty Solomon) Re: Looking For VOIP Provider to Do Business With Government (Weintz) Re: Looking For VOIP Provider to Do Business With Government (J Levine) Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders (Lee Hollaar) Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders (Robert Bonomi) Re: The Complete Communicator (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: The Complete Communicator (Robert Bonomi) Off-Shore Call Centers (John Schmerold) Re: NEC IP Phone Works, One Way (Robert Bonomi) Re: USOC, SLDC, and FID Concepts Re: Somewhat Off Topic But a Must Read (Robert Bonomi) Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech (Ed Clarke) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Wesrock@aol.com) Last Laugh! Re: Texas Officials Wary of Plan to Hunt by Internet (Bell) 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 are 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 18:44:32 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Should I Put Cell Phone on National do Not Call List? Thanks Mike G. for finding this. http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_cell_phone_directory.htm Comments: While it's true that the major wireless phone providers (with the sole exception of Verizon) have announced their intention to compile a directory of customers' cell phone numbers, it isn't true that they plan to "publish" said directory for all to see. The numbers will be made available only if customers opt in, and will be accessible only by those who call information and pay a fee. Participating service providers swear the numbers will never be available to telemarketers. Not everyone believes that, however, as evidenced by a privacy protection bill already introduced in Congress which would modify the plan to allow 411 callers to be directly connected to requested parties but would not allow those parties' numbers to be given out. It remains to be seen precisely what form the cell phone "directory" will ultimately take. Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission does allow http://urbanlegends.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=https://www.donotcall.gov/FAQ/FAQConsumersNew.aspx worried cell phone users to add their numbers to the National Do Not Call Registry the same one that is already in force for landlines either online or by calling 1-888-382-1222 . Online registration: www.donotcall.gov ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 20:31:54 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Lexmark Accused of Installing Spyware Dan Ilett ZDNet UK A Usenet news group has claimed that Lexmark is installing spyware on its customers' computers. Allegations have been swirling around an online newsgroup this week that printer manufacturer Lexmark has been installing spyware on its customers' computers. Reports on the comp.periphs.printers Usenet newsgroup claim that Lexmark has been planting spyware on its customers' PCs in the form of undocumented software that monitors the use of its printers and silently reports back to a Lexmark-owned company Web site. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39173517,00.htm Lexmark spyware puts hardware in security spotlight Dan Ilett ZDNet UK The revelation that Lexmark uses software that monitors customers' printing raises interesting questions for other hardware vendors, says a technology lawyer. Allegations of printer manufacturer Lexmark installing "spyware" will cause hardware companies to reconsider their licensing practices, a leading technology law firm has said. Experts at law firm Olswang believe hardware companies have to review their data-gathering tactics to play fairly with their customers. Lexmark and fellow printer firm HP have admitted to ZDNet that they use software to collect information on their customers' printing habits. Although the companies claim that no personal data is collected, the Lexmark program gathers information on things such CPU and button usage. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39174382,00.htm The Lexmark lesson - make more noise Rupert Goodwins ZDNet UK November 16, 2004, 17:45 GMT Lexmark's inky fingers are all over your printer data -- but did you say 'help yourself'? Lexmark's printers are smarter than they look. Perhaps a little too smart -- a recent story showed that the printer drivers for a recent model were surreptitiously relaying information over the Internet back to base. Users were mystified, and more than a little outraged. Spyware, they said. Lexmark was stung. 'It's not spyware, it's remote reporting about printer parameters,' the company said after a marked pause. We told you all about it when you installed the drivers. It's even got a name -- Lexmark Connect. http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/rupertgoodwins/0,39020691,39174087,00.htm ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: Looking For VOIP Provider That Can Do Business With Government Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 18:25:54 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com T. Sean Weintz wrote: > Problem is it would NOT be high volume. Just 2-3 lines. What I plan on > doing is hanging them off our PBX and having it route only the long > distance calls over the VOIP lines. > Have spoken to the Billing Dept at Vonage and they actually sounded > annoyed at me for even asking. Never mind. Thanks to all who replied -- turns out someone in our purchasing dept didn't know what they were talking about, and we DO pay federal excise tax. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 2004 04:14:34 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Looking For VOIP Provider That Can Do Business With Government Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Problem is it would NOT be high volume. Just 2-3 lines. What I plan on > doing is hanging them off our PBX and having it route only the long > distance calls over the VOIP lines. Oh, forget it. Vonage numbers all terminate on Vonage-provided terminal adapters, except for their auxiliary softphone numbers. Try iconnecthere.com which offers very reasonably priced outbound service and lets you use any adapter you want. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com, Mayor, http://johnlevine.com, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: hollaar@faith.cs.utah.edu (Lee Hollaar) Subject: Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 23:30:14 UTC Organization: University of Utah Computer Science In article charlize_sand@yahoo.com (charsand) writes: > I heard somewhere that those caught could receive not only fines, but > jail time-is this true? Not from an RIAA or MPAA suit. All they can get is an injunction against future file sharing and civil damages. But statutory damages of up to $150,000 per movie or song can be awarded without proof of actual damages. Plus court costs and attorney fees. But there is also criminal copyright infringement, a felony about certain levels which most large "file sharers" exceed. Like all federal criminal prosecutions, it must be brought by the U.S. Attorney, not the copyright owner. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It would not suprise me at all. Nor > does it surprise me that they just toss out lawsuits all over the > place without even having the *name* or *any identity* of the persons > they intend to sue. I can see where 'John Doe' might be a valid way > to sue someone you had caught when you could not otherwise get his > name, but lawsuits at random against John Does 1 through 9999 (fill > in the names, addresses and particulars when you find the person) > seems to me to be a gross abuse of the legal system. But they seem to > be setting out the lawsuits, then finding the person later on and > already having the suit set up. Not a good faith thing, IMO. PAT] As much as one might hate the RIAA or MPAA, it's not reasonable to blame them for filing "John Doe" suits or not contacting the people before filing suit. Originally, under the DMCA a copyright owner that only knew the IP address of an alleged infringer could get their name and address from their ISP using a special subpoena. Verizon resisted those subpeonas and convinced the DC Circuit Court of Appeals that they were not authorized against file-sharers because a misdrafting of the DMCA. See RIAA v. Verizon, 351 F.3d 1229, 69 USPQ2d 1075 (CA DC 2003). That means that in order to get a user's name from an ISP, a "John Doe" suit must be filed first, and then the name is subpoenaed from the ISP. More expense, same result. Hard to see how ISP customers were helped, since in the end the loser has to pay these added costs. ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 01:46:06 +0000 In article , charsand wrote: > billyzane1@excite.com (Bob Smythe) wrote in message > news:: >> The thing is, it is illegal to download or upload copyrighted works, >> the concept of file sharing and actual file sharing is not illegal. I >> do not condone illegal file sharing, but am just trying to clarify a >> few things. >> The MPAA (and RIAA) have not and will not target individual >> downloaders. There is no real way to get them. They are not a law >> enforcement agency. They cannot entrap individual users. If you >> download from them, and they are the rightful owners, then there is no >> law broken, even if it is widely know that the service being used is >> to illegally obtain files. Plus having downloaded one file will not be >> worthwhile anyway in court. Statutory copyright infringement penalty, $30,000 per occurrence. Each making of a copy is a separate violation. Don't _bet_ on it not being worthwhile in court. You can't afford to be _right_, let alone wrong. (A _successful_ infringement defense typically runs into six figures left of the decimal point.) Particularly, an 'association' is _not_ looking to 'make money' from the lawsuit -- their primary aim is the 'chilling effect', as it were, of the successful prosecution. The _smaller_ the perp that is successfully prosecuted, the stronger the message that is 'sent', regarding the 'risk' of such actions. >> [[., munch ..]] > I heard somewhere that those caught could receive not only fines, but > jail time-is this true? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It would not suprise me at all. Nor > does it surprise me that they just toss out lawsuits all over the > place without even having the *name* or *any identity* of the persons > they intend to sue. I can see where 'John Doe' might be a valid way > to sue someone you had caught when you could not otherwise get his > name, but lawsuits at random against John Does 1 through 9999 (fill > in the names, addresses and particulars when you find the person) > seems to me to be a gross abuse of the legal system. But they seem to > be setting out the lawsuits, then finding the person later on and > already having the suit set up. Not a good faith thing, IMO. PAT] Not surprisingly, our esteemed moderator doesn't understand the process. They've _already_ got the IP address, and timestamp, data, and all the 'downloading' evidence to support the suit. But they don't know _who_ was using that IP address at that time. And the ISP's will -not- divulge *that* information except by court order. Hence the John Doe filing. followed by a subpoena to the ISP. Followed by an 'amended' filing to insert the actual perpetrators name. Then, and *ONLY*THEN* can you 'serve' the perp with the summons for the lawsuit. Any _given_ "John Doe" is alleged to have committed _specific_ acts -- e.g., "at this specific date/time, did download thus-and-such movie from IP address aa.bb.cc.dd to xx.yy.zz.ww" You can't file the suit, -then- go find some *other* violations, and change the allegations in pre-existing suit to match. As to the prior poster's question regarding jail time -- the answer is "yes". The "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" _did_ introduce *criminal* prosecution and penalties for certain kinds of copyright infringement. In general, the criminal provisions deal with those who _distribute_, for money or otherwise, infringing copies. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But many IP addresses are not static, but dynamic. What do they do then to find the person who 'stole' the movie or the piece of music? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 18:01:59 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: The Complete Communicator At 05:36 PM 11/19/04, ama3@aol.com (A M Andrews) wrote about The Complete Communicator: > Looking for an answering/fax package for Win98 that is as good as the > proprietary Complete Communicator was [for Win3.1]. "Was" because it > seems to have disappeared -- and required its own modem. Everything > was excellent: voices, defaults, setup ... Tried downloads/trial > versions of others and setup is dreadful/non-intuitive, or worse, > freezes system; usual response from help is "modem problem". Looking > for basic telephone answering management package! For a fax package I used to use Norton's Winfax Pro. Nowadays I've pretty much stopped using faxes, so I didn't re-install it when I went to Win98SE. Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco_marcus_didius yahoo.co.uk ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: The Complete Communicator From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 01:22:49 +0000 In article , A M Andrews wrote: > Looking for an answering/fax package for Win98 that is as good as the > proprietary Complete Communicator was [for Win3.1]. "Was" because it > seems to have disappeared -- and required its own modem. Everything > was excellent: voices, defaults, setup ... Tried downloads/trial > versions of others and setup is dreadful/non-intuitive, or worse, > freezes system; usual response from help is "modem problem". Looking > for basic telephone answering management package! "The Complete PC", the company that made "The Complete Communicator" is long gone. Probably 10 years, now. Unfortunately. I've still got some of their cards. Note: if anybody has a "Complete PC" _fax_ scanner in working order, I'd be interested -- mine died a few months ago. There's a voice-mail / telephone answering package that comes bundled with Toshiba laptops, that is quite good, and easy to use. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 16:59:39 -0600 From: John Schmerold Subject: Off-Shore Call Centers I sent the following note to a Covad salesperson. Wouldn't it be great if we could convince every telecommunications manager to do the same! ------------------ "I will warn you at this point we won't consider Covad services unless I get a written guarantee backed up by penalty fees and contract termination rights. This guarantee will stipulate that if I ever get transferred to an overseas call center or to a call-center not staffed by native US staff, I am entitled to significant penalty payments and may terminate my contract with Covad. I've spent too much time on the phone talking to someone in India about a problem with one of my clients. Never again from now on, every agreement I sign will have this clause." John ------------------------------ Subject: Re: NEC IP Phone Works, One Way Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 01:04:59 +0000 In article , Anthony wrote: > Hey folks, > I am a bit lost, as this is my 1st go around with VoIP. I currently > have a NEC Electra IPK system w/ the VoIP card, etc. > I set the unit up today, and uploaded the latest firmware to the > card. I took the phone to one of my satellite offices about 40 miles > away from the PBX. I got the systems to connect, I can check > voicemail, get an outside line, and page, however nobody can hear > anything that I say, however I can hear the other end w/ the PBX > absolutely fine. > I've blown away the settings on both the card, and on the phone, and > nothing I am doing is working. Is there something I am missing here? > Is there a specific set of ports I need to open on either firewall? I > have the phones set on the DMZ ip's, so all ports apparently are > opened. > Any help would be appreciated. TURN ON LOGGING OF DROPPED PACKETS ON *BOTH* FIREWALLS. See 'who is dropping what'. One of them will be dropping a sh*tload of packets going toward the main office. Probably UDP protocol stuff. ------------------------------ From: Internet Oracle Subject: Re: USOC, SLDC, and FID Concepts Organization: We Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 01:56:33 +0000 In article , Matt wrote: > I tried to search for info. on USOC, SLDC, and FID, but couldn't find > useful info. Can anyone gives me some definitions, or URL for those > info.? > Thanks!! USOC 'Universal Soldier' Operational Charter SLDC Submarine Launched Data Center FID Ferro-resonant Intermodulation Distortion You owe the Internet Oracle two ..... (oops. nevermind, wrong group) see also: ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: Somewhat Off Topic But a Must Read From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 02:09:46 +0000 In article TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: K-Mart (remember when it used to be > the 'dime store' Kresge's?) and Sears (remember when it used to be > known as 'Sears and Roebuck' ?) in fact have merged. Walmart is not > at all pleased about it. PAT] FACT: K-Mart was *never* Kresge's. K-Mart and Kresge's existed simultaneously. Yes, K-Mart was owned by the parent of the Kresge's stores -- and was set up to compete in the 'discount store' niche (i.e. against _Target_). Kresge's competed against Woolworths, and the other full-line retail-only (no catalog mail-order/phone-order sales) department stores. Also, Sears and K-Mart have _not_ yet merged. Management has made a deal to do so. It still requires (a) stockholder approval by _both_ companies, and (b) regulatory approval. Neither of those approvals is a sure thing. ------------------------------ From: Ed Clarke Subject: Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech Date: 20 Nov 2004 02:18:15 GMT Organization: Ciliophora Associates, Inc. Reply-To: clarke@cilia.org In article , Barry Margolin wrote: >> This is absolutely on purpose. Collateral Damage is a necessary >> technique to rid the net of spammers. If you give money to a company >> that facilitates spamming then you are no better than a spammer. Move >> the damn website to an IP range owned by a company that does not spam. >> Let the spam supporting service providers go broke because they have >> no customers. > Where does it say that this is the reason why MoveOn.org's mail is > being blocked? One of the other problems that the white paper > mentioned is mailers that assume that any bulk email is spam -- but > legitimate mailing lists will necessarily send out bulk email. They are on abovenet. Abovenet is listed (twice) in SPEWS and also in SPAMBAG. There's a whole blacklist just dedicated to abovenet: above.blackholes.us This does not bode well for connectivity to moveon.org. MoveOn.org is a specific case that I had not looked up before you mentioned them. My posting refers to collateral damage as a valid antispam technique in the general case. ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 21:59:03 EST Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits In a message dated 19 Nov 2004 11:06:13 -0800, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) writes: > Telecom editor wrote: >> ... in 1963, I was employed by the fund raising committee to build a >> new McCormick YWCA ... one of the guests at the luncheon was Myrtle >> Walgreen, ... she reached in her purse and pulled out a check for >> **fifty thousand dollars** > I presume by that time the Walgreen chain had started and was > properous. Walgreen's had a very busy store (complete with lunch counter and soda fountain) in downtown Oklahoma City certainly in the early 1940s, and it wasn't new then. That was when downtown was the principal business area, and the first suburban shopping center had been opened on N.W. 10th Street, 10 blocks north of downtown. The nearest Wal-Mart supercenter to me today is at N.W. 136th Street, a couple of miles from where I live. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The two principal Walgreen's stores in downtown Chicago (Randolph and State Street, also two blocks south at Madison and State Street) were both active stores with lunch counters and basement cafeterias as well during the 1940's also. Like today, there are/were five or six Walgreens stores in the downtown Chicago area, but none of them have lunch counters or cafeterias any longer. The two Woolworth dime stores in downtown Chicago (almost directly across the street from each other on State Street) still have their restaurant things however. Lisa Hancock also noted in her message on this that some corporations could be quite generous with their money and the one in Chicago in those days which comes to mind for me was the phone company. During the early/middle 1960's, Dr. Martin Luther King was a regular guest preacher both at Chicago Temple on Sunday mornings and at Sunday Evening Club at Orchestra Hall. I always went to hear him speak and meet him each time he was in town, usually three or four times per year. Both at the Chicago Temple and at the Sunday Evening Club they *always* made a point of printing in the program words to the effect, "The personal expenses of Dr. and Mrs. King on this visit to Chicago and the honorarium for his message to us were met with a gift from the Illinois Bell Telephone Company." And Dr. King did not come cheap as a speaker, either. Temple paid him five hundred dollars to speak and I think Sunday Evening Club did the same, always through Illinois Bell which was a very generous, good corporation. PAT] ------------------------------ From: robertbell@erols.com (RobertPlattBell) Subject: Last Laugh! Re: Texas Officials Wary of Plan to Hunt by Internet Date: 19 Nov 2004 14:04:55 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com You think Internet HUNTING is bad? Take the concept to its logical conclusion ... (some fun with cut and paste techniques). By Jeff Franks HOUSTON (Reuters) - Killers soon may be able to sit at their computers and blast away at people in an unnamed third-world country via the Internet, a prospect that has human rights activists up in arms. A controversial Web site, http://www.live-shot.com, already offers target practice with a .22 caliber rifle and could soon let Killers shoot at women and children, site creator John Underwood said on Tuesday. U.S. Government officials are not quite sure what to make of Underwood's Web site, but may tweak existing laws to make sure Internet killing does not get out of hand. "This is the first one I've seen," said senior FBI agent Mike Berger. "The current state statutes don't cover this sort of thing." Underwood, an estimator for a San Antonio, Texas auto body shop, has invested $10,000 to build a platform for a rifle and camera that can be remotely aimed on his 330-acre (133-hectare) estate located in an undisclosed third-world country, by anyone on the Internet anywhere in the world. The idea came last year while viewing another Web site on which cameras posted in in various third-world countries are used to snap photos of people. "We were looking at a beautiful young Hispanic girl and my friend said 'If you just had a gun for that.' A little light bulb went off in my head," he said. Internet killing could be popular with the disabled unable to get out of the house who still want to experience a "thrill kill", or for those who cannot afford a trip to third-world countries to commit murders, Underwood said. Berger said state law only covers "regulated people" such as U.S. Citizens within the United States and cannot prevent Underwood from offering Internet kills of "unregulated" people such as foreigners located in distant lands. He has proposed a rule that will come up for public discussion in January that anyone killing people via Internet, even if the victim is in a foreign land, could be tried for murder in the State. Berger expressed reservations about remote control killing, but noted that humans have always adopted new technologies to kill. "First it was rocks and clubs, then we sharpened it and put it on a stick. Then there was the bow and arrow, black powder, smokeless power and optics," Berger said. "Maybe this is the next technological step out there." Underwood, 39, said he will offer human killing as soon as he gets a fast Internet connection to his third world estate that will enable killers to aim the rifle quickly at passing people. He said an attendant would retrieve shot people for the shooters, who could have the heads preserved by a taxidermist. They could also have the meat processed and shipped home, or donated to orphanages. ------------------------------ 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. 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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. End of TELECOM Digest V23 #557 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Nov 20 18:27:57 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iAKNRvn10326; Sat, 20 Nov 2004 18:27:57 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 18:27:57 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411202327.iAKNRvn10326@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 #558 TELECOM Digest Sat, 20 Nov 2004 18:27:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 558 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate (jdj) Re: Should I Put Cell Phone on National do Not Call List? (D. Burstein) Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders (Dave Garland) Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders (Lee Hollaar) Re: Off-Shore Call Centers (John Schmerold & John Levine email) Re: Somewhat Off Topic But a Must Read (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Tony P.) Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech (John Levine) Re: Sears and K-Mart (Stanley Cline) Re: Mystery Phone Number Revisited (John R. Covert) The Pitfalls of VOIP (Lisa Minter) SBC Seeks to Levy Higher Fees on Internet Phone Companies (Lisa Minter) 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 are 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jdj Subject: Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 21:30:57 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 03:12:34 -0500, Dan Lanciani wrote: > Interesting. I didn't realize that this was considered a bad thing. There are a lot of people who equate receiving spam to stepping in what the cat leaves on the lawn. It makes them all kinds of upset when someone suggests doing something other than killing received spam. > My filters respond to every (seemingly) spam message with a note > indicating how to bypass the filter if in fact the mail is not spam. > (Actually they do this only once per sender per some months, but you > get the idea.) I really can't just dump (seeming) spam in the bucket > since there are a few false positives. But I get 1500+ spams per day > and I can't look at them all. Chances are that your filters are sending responses to forged addresses. Occasionally I see messages like that and they are treated like spam, since they have nothing to do with me and responding to them is useless. They go to /dev/null. Until it's full. >> There is an added benefit if spam to bad addresses were responded to: >> the bad addresses are confirmed valid and permanently taint the >> databases, which get sold around and the fun starts all over again. > Because of the way my filters are integrated into sendmail they > generate responses for spam sent to bad addresses. I always > considered this a bug (though at least I fixed it to send only one > response to envelopes with multiple bad to: addresses :) but I'm glad > to hear it may do some good. I've noticed lately that spammers will > make many simultaneous connections to my mail server and run through > huge lists of bogus recipients. This was overwhelming my system until > I added a semaphore for spamassassin use and queued most of the > responses. Do they think I'm an ISP or such? I should have made it clear that I was not talking about replying to mail. I meant responding by using the url's in the mail body. Since spammers never use a real From: address replying by mail is useless. Spammers hit every machine with an open smtp port. If your mail server accepts connections and even looks like it relays, it will be on spammer lists as a good relay. They don't care if nothing is actually delivered. >> Should not be too difficult to set up a procmail script for servers to >> send a few http requests to a spammer's website instead of bouncing >> mail with bad addresses. > Hmm. Maybe just send a SYN to each http:// address that can be > extracted from the mail. Though I guess that might not count against > the correct spammer if they are sharing IP addresses. A SYN would do nothing and with multiple SYNs being sent from all over the place it would probably be regarded as a dDOS attack. To be charged for a hit a page must be requested. So sending a SYN would cost the spammer nothing. But perhaps it should not be done. Spammers might get a little upset with all the responses and no one buying a thing. That might be compared to calling a ScumCorp's 800 number just to say "hi" every few minutes or trying an infinite number of times to send a fax or set up a 66baud data connection to said 800 number. Nevermind. It's a bad idea. Could get sued. But it's fun as gedankenspielen. ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: Re: Should I Put Cell Phone on National do Not Call List? Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 05:35:55 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In Marcus Didius Falco writes: > Comments: While it's true that the major wireless phone providers > (with the sole exception of Verizon) have announced their intention to > compile a directory of customers' cell phone numbers, it isn't true > that they plan to "publish" said directory for all to see. The numbers > will be made available only if customers opt in, and will be > accessible only by those who call information and pay a fee. Err, not quite. See next comment; > Participating service providers swear the numbers will never be > available to telemarketers. while the actual combined (cellular company telco) directory may be reasonably restricted somehow or other, that does you absolutely NO GOOD if your cellular number is in other databases. Ever stop at East Cupcake Tire Repair and give them your name, address, and cellular number? Guess what. You're now in a searchable record. A very big and highly marketed one. > Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission does allow > http://urbanlegends.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=https://www.donotcall.gov/FAQ/FAQConsumersNew.aspx > worried cell phone users to add their numbers to the National Do Not Call > or by calling 1-888-382-1222 . Good idea. While not perfect (I'm still waiting for the 10,000 volt kickback option to unwanted call makers) the list _does_ significantly reduce the numbers of calls. And, as the cost to comply with it gets higher and higher[a], fewer outgoing call centers will stay in business. [a] unless the telemarketers and their friends get Congress to relax it. And they're certainly trying. > Online registration: www.donotcall.gov _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 00:15:28 -0600 Organization: Wizard Information > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But many IP addresses are not static, > but dynamic. What do they do then to find the person who 'stole' the > movie or the piece of music? PAT] They subpoena the information from the ISP. ISP logs will usually identify the particular customer. A few ISPs who are concerned with their customers' privacy have made a point of having a very short retention cycle for logs, sufficient for them to deal with abuse, but short enough so that the logs probably will be deleted before outsiders get it together to demand them. Those ISPs are worthy of patronage. ------------------------------ From: hollaar@faith.cs.utah.edu (Lee Hollaar) Subject: Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 13:14:38 +0000 (UTC) Organization: University of Utah Computer Science In article bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) writes: > Statutory copyright infringement penalty, $30,000 per occurrence. Each > making of a copy is a separate violation. Not quite right. It's up to $30,000 PER WORK infringed, and up to $150,000 per work if the infringement is willful. The minimum is $750 per work, unless the infringement is completely innocent and then it is $200 per work. But that means that at the minimum for an innocent infringement of "sharing" 1000 songs is $200,000, and there is nothing that the judge can do about it. > As to the prior poster's question regarding jail time -- the answer is > "yes". The "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" _did_ introduce > *criminal* prosecution and penalties for certain kinds of copyright > infringement. In general, the criminal provisions deal with those who > _distribute_, for money or otherwise, infringing copies. Criminal infringement has been part of copyright law for over a century. The DMCA didn't change that. In fact, the only thing the DMCA did regarding criminal infringement is carry it over to the new anticircumvention provisions, with the same penalties. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But many IP addresses are not static, > but dynamic. What do they do then to find the person who 'stole' the > movie or the piece of music? PAT] The request is for the name of the user of the IP address at a specified time. If the ISP does not have that information because there are no logs of IP address assignment, it will indicate that to the court. But a misrepresentation to the court would lead to the ISP being held in contempt, with harsh penalties. Note that the current suits are against people providing movies or songs on the systems, not people who are only downloading them. That makes it easier to get their IP addresses, since it is used to contact the "sharer" to download the material. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 07:42:36 -0600 From: John Schmerold Subject: Re: Off-Shore Call Centers I agree Irish or UK agents are easier to understand than Indian agents OTOH, I have my doubts that it's that much cheaper to setup call centers in Ireland. If we're not successful with our efforts on the contract side perhaps it's time for legislative efforts, as a Libertarian kind of guy, it's the last thing I like to see - Governmental involvement, however the phone companies have exceeded my pain threshold with this call center issue. John Levine wrote: >> I get a written guarantee backed up by penalty fees and contract >> termination rights. This guarantee will stipulate that if I ever get >> transferred to an overseas call center or to a call-center not staffed >> by native US staff, ... > A company I'm associated with moved its tech support call center to > Befast, Northern Ireland some years ago. We've been able to recruit > very well qualified staff and callers have been happy with the > service. It's not as cheap as India (although we did get some UK > government money to set it up), but it's a lot easier to manage. > I suppose it helps that for most Americans, an Irish accent is easier > to understand than an Indian one. What's the solution? I don't shop at Sam's or Wal-mart unless I'm desperate for something I know I can't find anywhere else, or I know there's a 50% price spread. I am fully aware that my friendly Dierberg's, Walgreen's or Kmart is 20% more than Wal-Mart, I'm content with that and happy to pay the money for mental peace of mind. The problem is, when I need SBC DSL support, I have no choice. I can't say "charge me $20 so I don't have to talk to an Indian" John Schmerold Katy Computer Systems, Inc 20 Meramec Station Rd Valley Park MO 63088 636-861-6900 v 775-227-6947 f John R Levine said: >> I agree Irish or UK agents are easier to understand than Indian agents >> OTOH, I have my doubts that it's that much cheaper to setup call centers >> in Ireland. > It's Northern Ireland, which makes a difference. Between the gov't > subsidies and the very reasonable salaries that comp sci grads will > accept, the cost difference is significant. >> If we're not successful with our efforts on the contract side >> perhaps it's time for legislative efforts, as a Libertarian kind of >> guy, > I dunno, I fear it's a cultural thing. The Wal-Mart phenomenon > makes it clear that most Americans will pick lower price over better > quality every time. > I get a written guarantee backed up by penalty fees and contract > termination rights. This guarantee will stipulate that if I ever get > transferred to an overseas call center or to a call-center not staffed > by native US staff, ... A company I'm associated with moved its tech support call center to Befast, Northern Ireland some years ago. We've been able to recruit very well qualified staff and callers have been happy with the service. It's not as cheap as India (although we did get some UK government money to set it up), but it's a lot easier to manage. I suppose it helps that for most Americans, an Irish accent is easier to understand than an Indian one. > What's the solution? Good question. I don't shop at Wal-Mart at all, and my telco's support staff are three blocks from here and know me personally. > The problem is, when I need SBC DSL support, I have no choice. I can't say > "charge me $20 so I don't have to talk to an Indian" I suppose one small step would be to write to your congressbeings and Mike "princeling" Powell to tell them how unhappy you are that they've let the RBOCs monopolize DSL. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies, Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Mayor "I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you remember how, many years ago at least, or maybe still, telemarketers always wanted to locate their offices in Omaha, Nebraska? Not only were the phone lines cheaper there than anywhere else when WATS was prevalent (almost no calls had to be made through the most expensive 'Band 6' lines; 'Band 5' went almost everywhere except extremely distant areas) but more important the telemarketers wanted that nice, bland, midwestern accent so the called party knew a 'voice' was speaking to him, but it was impossible to say immediatly *where* the voice was located, or the person's racial makeup without an accent, which white people in the midwest area usually do not have. That's why the telemarketers did not want to locate in the east due to prejudice against 'easterners' by people in the midwest, or against jews or blacks (populous in the eastern states); telemarketers did not want to locate in the south due to prejudice by midwesterners or eastern people against 'southerners' (whose accent would always give them away, etc). They would always say it was hard enough to make sales pitches over the phone without having to overcome the called party's prejudice against black people, Jews, southerners, whatever. So don't even give the called party a chance to think about those factors, just be a 'voice'. That's what made Nebraska in general, and Omaha in particular such a nice place for them; plus which the farmer's wives and daughters tended to work more cheaply and be more honest in rural midwestern areas as Amoco Credit Card found out when they moved their operation from Chicago to a rural area outside of Des Moines, Iowa. I guess the opposite is true where customer service is concerned, however. Now that you have been sold and they have your money, they can quit worrying about what you think either way; go ahead and let customer service be outsourced to India or Japan or Korea. If the housewives and daughters over there cannot understand your problem or you cannot understand their language, then so what; let the customer live with the problem; we already got his money. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:38:42 EST Subject: Re: Somewhat Off Topic But a Must Read In a message dated Sat, 20 Nov 2004 02:09:46 +0000, bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) writes: > K-Mart was *never* Kresge's. > K-Mart and Kresge's existed simultaneously. > Yes, K-Mart was owned by the parent of the Kresge's stores -- and > was set up to compete in the 'discount store' niche (i.e. against > _Target_). Kresge's competed against Woolworths, and the other > full-line retail-only (no catalog mail-order/phone-order sales) > department stores. Woolworth's had Woolco discount stores. May Department Stores had Venture. There were other discount chains before them which have disappeared. Target was probably not a principal competitor for K-mart at that time, just one of many competitors in the field. (A Target store in Oklahoma City now occupies the building once used by one of those long-departed chains.) I remember Kresge's as well as K-mart. There was a considerable overlap in merchandise, as there is today between discount stores and the few remaining "five-and-ten cent" stores. Target was not a major player then. The S.S. Kresge Company eventually changed the corporate name to K-mart. Target, originally an operation of Dayton-Hudson Corporation which owned a variety of traditional department stores, became a survivor and profitable ... so profitable that Dayton-Hudson changed its name to Target Corporation and then earlier this year sold off its prestigious department stores and its junior department stores. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And don't forget Bloomingdale's Department Store in New York City. Diner's Club credit card had its origin as the internal store credit department of Bloomingdale's in the 1930-40 era. Alfred Bloomingdale, owner of the department store bearing his name was the first Chairman of the Board of Diner's Club when the two credit functions were split apart around 1950 or so. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 12:29:38 -0500 In article , dold@XReXXWhatX.usenet.us.com says: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There was a K-Mart in >> the complex where Walmart is located; Walmart drove them out of >> business two years ago. > In Napa, California, there was a very old KMart store in a "strip > mall" with a few other stores. The Lucky's grocery store closed when > Alpha Beta bought Lucky's, and they kept a store open a couple of > blocks away. > KMart wanted to expand, opening one of their newer Super-KMarts, > taking over the Lucky's space. Napa said no. They didn't want the > expansion. They wanted another store to move in to Lucky's. > KMart closed the store as too small and too old for their new network. > The other little shops closed without the major draws in the shopping > center. > Six months later, Walmart razed the entire strip mall and built a new > store that encompassed more square footage than the entire complex had > before, and they are the sole store in the complex. > Did Napa make a mistake, and decide to take an offer from Walmart? > Had they already received the offer from Walmart before KMart asked? > I was surprised that Walmart would put a store in Napa, since there > was already one in American Canyon, 14 miles away. Since then, they > have applied for a move of the American Canyon store to a larger > position 3 miles closer to Napa. > Other stores can stay in business, but only in little tiny niches. No > one can compete with Walmart. A new move by Walmart will leave > merchandise in the inventory of the supplier until it is sold. $60 > billion will disappear from Walmart books. This would really be "just > in time". It would never belong to Walmart. It would be sold > directly from the distributor to the consumer at the Walmart checkout. So they're acting as a consignment vendor. How interesting. > I think that is how Amazon.com operates with some of their suppliers, > but they don't have physical control of the item, it remains with the > distributor, who might route it elsewhere. In the Walmart case, it > wouldn't be available for other use by the distributor. > Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Distance between stores is not an issue > for Walmart. In addition to ours here, they have another one in > Coffeyville, and others throughout southeast Kansas. PAT] Distance has nothing to do with location of stores period. In Boston there are two CVS stores directly across the street from each other. Granted, it's a busy street and the reasoning is that people don't have to cross the street to get to CVS. It is all about capturing as much of the market as you can. In article , Wesrock@aol.com says: > Lisa Hancock also noted in her message on this that some corporations > could be quite generous with their money and the one in Chicago in > those days which comes to mind for me was the phone company. During > the early/middle 1960's, Dr. Martin Luther King was a regular guest > preacher both at Chicago Temple on Sunday mornings and at Sunday > Evening Club at Orchestra Hall. I always went to hear him speak and > meet him each time he was in town, usually three or four times per > year. Both at the Chicago Temple and at the Sunday Evening Club they > *always* made a point of printing in the program words to the effect, > "The personal expenses of Dr. and Mrs. King on this visit to Chicago > and the honorarium for his message to us were met with a gift from the > Illinois Bell Telephone Company." And Dr. King did not come cheap as > a speaker, either. Temple paid him five hundred dollars to speak and > I think Sunday Evening Club did the same, always through Illinois Bell > which was a very generous, good corporation. PAT] That was part of the mission of the BOC's at the time. Support the community in order to maintain that protected monopoly status. On the whole, only now am I paying less for voice communications than I did in 1982. Of course I've ditched circuit for packet so that might be part of it. Right now I'm shelling $100 for cable, Internet and phone per month, the phone representing $24.99 of that. I really can't complain as the phone is unlimited local and ld, has ALL the features I want and works fairly well. Cox Communications tends to be generous with the communities they serve. But they have no choice -- they are a protected monopoly to some degree. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Is Cox Communications the same thing as Cox Cable? Assuming that it is, Cox has the southern end of our Montgomery County (Coffeyville, Caney, Tryo and Dearing) while Cable One has Independence, and communities in the north area including Neodesha, Liberty, Sycamore, etc. And Cable One at least is rather generous (or maybe the terms of the franchise make them be generous) in giving Independence *three* cable channels for community use. Channel 10 is general community programming, Channel 14 is for the Independence High School and our Community College, and Channel 22 is for general use by City of Independence for announcements and meetings of the town board, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 2004 06:40:31 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Where does it say that this is the reason why MoveOn.org's mail is > being blocked? Moveon has dreadful list management practices. I've seen lots of cases where they sent mail to addresses that couldn't possibly have signed up, inbound-only role accounts and the like. Although I generally agree with their politics, it's clear to me that they have only themselves to blame for getting into spam lists, and they would do themselves a favor if they'd spend less time spreading conspiracy theories and more time fixing their mail practices. I haven't been able to figure out why the EFF is so totally unable to understand e-mail. I talked to Cindy Cohn at the FTC spam meeting last year and Annalee Newitz at the authentication forum a few weeks ago, and it was quite clear they've learned nothing, and a lot of what they think they know is wrong. Arguments about "every user should have full control over his own inbox" ignore the realities of the way that spam filters work and the substantial extra cost involved were an ISP to provide per-user filtering granulatity. Annalee said she hand sorts 2000 spams a day from her inbox, and apparently believes that this is a productive use of her time. Go figure. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com, Mayor, http://johnlevine.com, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Sears and K-Mart Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 02:25:31 -0500 Organization: Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org On 19 Nov 2004 11:50:34 -0800, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > My local carrier, Verizon, is running the same risk of becomming too > distant from the people it serves. Years ago they had business > offices in regions, several throughout a big city. Today when you > call them (they no longer accomodate in-person visits) your call can What's strange is that the lack of walk-in offices is pretty much a Bell/GTE-only thing; practically every phone company that is not one of Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, or Qwest -- *including* the very large multi-state independents like Sprint LTD, ALLTEL, CenturyTel, and Frontier -- has at least some walk-in offices. I wonder what the Bells are so afraid of that non-Bells aren't ... Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 04:30:01 EST From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Mystery Phone Number Revisited Mr. Salvatore Petrarca wrote to the Digest after doing some research into the number 866 383-0986 and finding that it apparently belongs to Media Direct Marketing Consultants in Knoxville. This caused me to review caller id logs for the four lines on which I retain that information (all of which are answered by machines). I noticed that there were three calls from that number, each to different numbers. Mr. Petrarca surmised that spyware might have picked this up. However, since I operate under the firm conviction that "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Windows", and since all of the three numbers are unlisted and are rarely if ever revealed to anyone at all, I don't think that's what's up. Instead, I think that the company behind this number is simply war dialling. I note that tonight it is no longer answering at the Indian shop. Here is a list of all calls from 800 Service numbers with an indication of what I get tonight. 20-FEB-2003 17:09:22.48 Fax 800 379-8414 Reorder 25-SEP-2003 12:03:19.21 Ln1 800 839-5031 DME Telephony Services 26-SEP-2003 19:24:02.84 Ln1 800 839-5031 18-FEB-2004 12:17:26.73 Ln2 866 383-0986 Mystery Phone Number 26-JUN-2004 20:08:56.06 Fax 866 383-0986 14-JUL-2004 19:33:44.81 Ln1 866 383-0986 15-SEP-2004 09:32:00.97 Ln2 800 497-9512 Direct Satellite 15-SEP-2004 10:34:14.52 Fax 800 497-9512 25-OCT-2004 13:55:57.43 Ln3 800 290-7432 AOL 26-OCT-2004 15:21:32.32 Ln3 800 290-7432 27-OCT-2004 15:31:22.90 Ln3 800 290-7432 28-OCT-2004 12:11:19.90 Ln3 800 290-7432 8-NOV-2004 11:59:56.68 Fax 800 682-0393 "Customer Service" None of the calls to the Fax number were faxes. Here is the fax log for those calls: Answered Phone : Thu, Feb 20, 2003 17:09:26 NMBR = 8003798414 Error : -6002, Answered, No Facsimile Machine Responded. Elapsed Time of Transmission : 1 min, 33 sec ....................................................... Answered Phone : Sat, Jun 26, 2004 20:09:00 NMBR = 8663830986 Error : -6002, Answered, No Facsimile Machine Responded. Elapsed Time of Transmission : 1 min, 32 sec ....................................................... Answered Phone : Wed, Sep 15, 2004 10:34:18 NMBR = 8004979512 Error : -6002, Answered, No Facsimile Machine Responded. Elapsed Time of Transmission : 1 min, 33 sec ....................................................... Answered Phone : Mon, Nov 8, 2004 12:00:00 NMBR = 8006820393 Error : -6002, Answered, No Facsimile Machine Responded. Elapsed Time of Transmission : 1 min, 32 sec ....................................................... A further search of the fax log reveals that in every case where I have an 800 service number in the "Received Station Message", the calling fax spammer has sent the call "Out of Area", that is, the 800 number in the station message is not in the caller id. 11-MAR-2003 08:09:03.89 Fax OUT OF AREA Answered Phone : Tue, Mar 11, 2003 08:09:07 Received Station Message : WSREPORT 8662046541 30-JUL-2003 09:37:56.86 Fax OUT OF AREA Answered Phone : Wed, Jul 30, 2003 09:38:00 Received Station Message : 18007307253 18-MAY-2004 07:16:16.63 Fax OUT OF AREA Answered Phone : Tue, May 18, 2004 07:16:20 Received Station Message : 18887623345 6-AUG-2004 07:42:17.69 Fax OUT OF AREA Answered Phone : Fri, Aug 6, 2004 07:42:21 Received Station Message : 18884495207 21-OCT-2004 09:43:19.68 Fax OUT OF AREA Answered Phone : Thu, Oct 21, 2004 09:43:23 Received Station Message : 18884495207 10-NOV-2004 08:40:07.74 Fax OUT OF AREA Answered Phone : Wed, Nov 10, 2004 08:40:11 Received Station Message : 18884495207 /john ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 11:32:50 -0500 Subject: The Pitfalls of VoIP Jack Decker note: Lately the press has been spreading a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) about VoIP. I have heard that some phone companies have been known to spend more advertising dollars with publishers and broadcasters that run stories favorable to them, and negative toward any perceived competition. I'm not saying there's any such quid pro quo in the case of this specific story, just that the increase in negative stories about VoIP in the press has me wondering. http://www.komando.com/kolumns_show.asp?showID=8068 The Pitfalls of VoIP by Kim Komando - 11/22/2004 Using your computer and Internet connection to make local and long distance calls has been getting a lot of attention lately. People are enticed by the savings offered by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and the ability to use a regular telephone. Before you jump on the bandwagon, consider the drawbacks. Most VoIP providers charge a monthly fee of $20 to $30 for unlimited local and long distance calling anywhere in the U.S., and sometimes Canada. You also receive a host of features that would normally cost extra, such as call forwarding, voice mail, caller ID and call waiting. There are enhanced features, too. Many providers will forward your voice mail to an e-mail account. There is a super version of call-forwarding that forwards calls to five or so different phones. It will ring them one at a time or all five simultaneously. Although VoIP is still in its infancy, there are a number of companies providing service, such as AT&T, (http://www.usa.att.com/callvantage/index.jsp), Packet8 (http://www.packet8.net/), VoicePulse (http://www.voicepulse.com/) and Vonage (http://www.vonage.com/). The quality is better than a cell phone and often matches traditional phone service. But there is a potential for dropouts similar to a cell phone. http://www.komando.com/kolumns_show.asp?showID=8068 ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 11:36:26 -0500 Subject: SBC Seeks to Levy Higher Fees On Internet Phone Companies http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200411/msg00226.html Plan Aims to Raise Charges On Local-Network Calls; Bell to Tap Web Market, Too By ANNE MARIE SQUEO Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Even as SBC Communications Inc. announced the broad rollout of its Internet-based phone service, the telecom giant appears to be attempting a regulatory maneuver that would let it levy higher fees on rival Internet phone companies. SBC plans to file a new tariff with the Federal Communications Commission that potentially increases the fees paid by Internet service providers for calls completed on the company's local-phone network. While Internet calls largely avoid the traditional public-telephone network, they do connect to it when the recipient of the call isn't an Internet phone user. The tariff would go into effect immediately, and according to an earlier SBC filing, the company plans to have it in place as soon as tomorrow. The move could mark the first time a regional Bell phone giant has tried to assess higher fees -- traditionally levied on long-distance phone calls -- on Internet phone technologies. The situation has caught the attention of FCC Chairman Michael Powell, a staunch proponent of keeping the emerging Internet phone market free from heavy regulation. Senior FCC officials said Mr. Powell is concerned about the impact of SBC's plans and believes the proposal "may need substantial modifications." Full story at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200411/msg00226.html ------------------------------ 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. 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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. End of TELECOM Digest V23 #558 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Nov 21 02:26:55 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iAL7QtX14200; Sun, 21 Nov 2004 02:26:55 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 02:26:55 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411210726.iAL7QtX14200@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 #559 TELECOM Digest Sun, 21 Nov 2004 02:26:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 559 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Dave VanHorn) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Steve Sobol) Re: Sears and K-Mart (Thomas A. Horsley) Re: Sears and K-Mart (Steve Sobol) Re: Off-Shore Call Centers (Steve Sobol) Re: Vonage Tech Support Dead? (Tim@Backhome.org) Re: The Pitfalls of VoIP (Tim@Backhome.org) Couple of Basic Cellular Questions (Michael A. Covington) Re: Anyone Having any Luck With Google Ads? (Michael A. Covington) Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech (Michael A. Covington) Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate (Dan Lanciani) Re: Last Laugh! Re: Texas Officials Wary of Plan to Hunt (Covington) 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 are 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dave VanHorn Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 18:42:27 -0500 >> Other stores can stay in business, but only in little tiny niches. No >> one can compete with Walmart. A new move by Walmart will leave >> merchandise in the inventory of the supplier until it is sold. $60 >> billion will disappear from Walmart books. This would really be "just >> in time". It would never belong to Walmart. It would be sold >> directly from the distributor to the consumer at the Walmart checkout. > So they're acting as a consignment vendor. How interesting. What a clever way to deal with theft! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have an interesting question. Someone gets caught shoplifting at Walmart. It happens here several times per week here, according to the police activities column in the Independence Daily Reporter newspaper. Walmart always prosecutes, but in these cases, how can Walmart prosecute for something that was not stolen from them since they did not 'own' it at that point in time (if they ever do, or do they merely act as collection agents for the owner, which is vender who supplied it?). Or do the venders authorize Walmart to act as their agent in such cases? I did not steal from Walmart, I stole from the vender, is that not correct? Advice, anyone? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 16:59:26 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Tony P. wrote: >> I was surprised that Walmart would put a store in Napa, since there >> was already one in American Canyon, 14 miles away. Since then, they >> have applied for a move of the American Canyon store to a larger >> position 3 miles closer to Napa. We have a Walmart in Victorville, and a Walmart in neighboring Apple Valley. As long as there's enough population to support both, the company doesn't have any issues with distance. >> Other stores can stay in business, but only in little tiny niches. No >> one can compete with Walmart. A new move by Walmart will leave >> merchandise in the inventory of the supplier until it is sold. $60 >> billion will disappear from Walmart books. This would really be "just >> in time". It would never belong to Walmart. It would be sold >> directly from the distributor to the consumer at the Walmart checkout. > So they're acting as a consignment vendor. How interesting. I don't think that's a bad idea, actually. People ARE going to walk into a Walmart and buy stuff. I wouldn't mind putting my stuff there on consignment, although I'd probably prefer to sell it to them directly and let them sell it out of their inventory. > Distance has nothing to do with location of stores period. In Boston > there are two CVS stores directly across the street from each other. > Granted, it's a busy street and the reasoning is that people don't have > to cross the street to get to CVS. Most of these situations like this one, and like the streetcorner in suburban Saint Louis with one Shell station on one corner and another Shell station on another at the same intersection (seen that in Cleveland too, near where I grew up, until Ashland Oil finally bought the land, tore down the Shell and put a SuperAmerica there), are probably caused by mergers and acquisitions. > Cox Communications tends to be generous with the communities they > serve. But they have no choice -- they are a protected monopoly to > some degree. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Is Cox Communications the same thing > as Cox Cable? Cox cable operations are owned by Cox Communications. It's the same company. JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here is another question for anyone who wishes to answer: The merchandise I bought from Walmart (or from a vender of Walmart is faulty, or injures me or makes me sick, etc.) I am advised to file suit. Do I sue Walmart or do I sue the vender or both of them? I know Walmart does not go out of their way now to do any customer service they can avoid. Earlier this year I went to Walmart to get something, and used my debit card to pay for it. When I got home I checked the computer and there were *three* identical charges instead of only one. I called and went back to Walmart, all they would say is 'not our problem, we did not swipe you three times, we only swiped you once. The problem got corrected in a couple days, but Walmart never admitted to any part of it. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Sears and K-Mart From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:11:35 GMT > ...Frontier -- has at least some walk-in offices. I wonder what the > Bells are so afraid of that non-Bells aren't ... My impression has always been that they feel they are "The Phone Company" and By God you ought to be using your $#@! phone to do business with them. Many years ago I went to a local phone office to try and solve some problem in the hope that speaking to a real person would help, and all they did was put me on the phone with somebody :-). >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Sears and K-Mart Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 17:00:38 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Stanley Cline wrote: > What's strange is that the lack of walk-in offices is pretty much a > Bell/GTE-only thing; practically every phone company that is not one > of Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, or Qwest -- *including* the very large > multi-state independents like Sprint LTD, ALLTEL, CenturyTel, and > Frontier -- has at least some walk-in offices. I wonder what the > Bells are so afraid of that non-Bells aren't ... Verizon has Verizon Plus (landline/long distance/DSL/wireless) stores in areas where they are the ILEC, like the one in my area, in Victorville. In places like the area where I grew up where they are only the ILEC in select exurban areas, they probably won't have any. JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Off-Shore Call Centers Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 16:01:56 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com John Schmerold wrote: > The problem is, when I need SBC DSL support, I have no choice. I can't > say "charge me $20 so I don't have to talk to an Indian" If there are one or more local ISPs in your area that resell SBC, that's an option. You will deal with them directly instead of SBC. JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. ------------------------------ From: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: Vonage Tech Support Dead? Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 16:48:02 -0800 Organization: Cox Communications DevilsPGD wrote: > In message Tony P. > wrote: >> I've had no problems getting a human the two times I've had to call >> Vonage. But the hold times are on the high side. >> On my last call to them I waited for 45 minutes before getting a human >> being. > I've never had problems before. I don't mind hold time, I have a good > speakerphone, but this time I can't even get into the hold queue. I've been a customer since March 2003. Tech support has gone from very good to terrible. Yesterday, my voicemail box was locked out for over an hour. I finally called tech support and was told by a recording to use the web. I used the web and received no response as of 24 hours later. With that kind of service the LECs are quite dead yet. ------------------------------ From: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: The Pitfalls of VoIP Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 16:51:48 -0800 Organization: Cox Communications Having used Vonage for 19 months I think the article is on target. We still have one SBC wireline phone for local, residential use. It is toll-blocked so we have to use Vonage or our cell phones for long distance. I do use the Vonage number for limited inbound calls for a part-time work-at-home consulting service. It will be a long time before I even consider dropping all convential wireline service. Power failures are a way of life where I live. Lisa Minter wrote: > Jack Decker note: Lately the press has been spreading a lot of FUD > (fear, uncertainty, doubt) about VoIP. I have heard that some phone > companies have been known to spend more advertising dollars with > publishers and broadcasters that run stories favorable to them, and > negative toward any perceived competition. I'm not saying there's any > such quid pro quo in the case of this specific story, just that the > increase in negative stories about VoIP in the press has me wondering. > http://www.komando.com/kolumns_show.asp?showID=8068 > The Pitfalls of VoIP > by Kim Komando - 11/22/2004 > Using your computer and Internet connection to make local and long > distance calls has been getting a lot of attention lately. People are > enticed by the savings offered by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) > and the ability to use a regular telephone. Before you jump on the > bandwagon, consider the drawbacks. > Most VoIP providers charge a monthly fee of $20 to $30 for unlimited > local and long distance calling anywhere in the U.S., and sometimes > Canada. You also receive a host of features that would normally cost > extra, such as call forwarding, voice mail, caller ID and call > waiting. > There are enhanced features, too. Many providers will forward your > voice mail to an e-mail account. There is a super version of > call-forwarding that forwards calls to five or so different phones. It > will ring them one at a time or all five simultaneously. > Although VoIP is still in its infancy, there are a number of companies > providing service, such as AT&T, > (http://www.usa.att.com/callvantage/index.jsp), Packet8 > (http://www.packet8.net/), VoicePulse (http://www.voicepulse.com/) and > Vonage (http://www.vonage.com/). The quality is better than a cell > phone and often matches traditional phone service. But there is a > potential for dropouts similar to a cell phone. > http://www.komando.com/kolumns_show.asp?showID=8068 ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Couple of Basic Cellular Questions Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:06:57 -0500 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) I just entered the 21st Century by trading in my family's TDMA Nokia cellphones for a set of Samsung GSM ones, complete with color screens, polyphonic ringtones, and flip-open cases ("Beam me up, Scotty!") ... Couple of questions: (1) If I were to buy Samsung's USB data cable, would I be able to download my own ringtones and graphics directly to the telephone? Pointers on how to do this would be most welcome. What software do you use on the PC? What are the file requirements for ringtones and screen graphics? (2) Is there any market or good use for used Nokia TDMA telephones that are deactivated? They still connect to Cingular, they just aren't allowed to make calls. Am I right in thinking that such a phone can still call 911? In that case we might put one in each car along with its car charger. Or is there a secondhand market? I realize these are probably FAQs and it's quite OK to reply by just giving me a URL. Trying to find the answer on Google I found a mess of 'hacker' and pornographic sites. Apparently there is a brisk market for cell phone screen pornography! ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: Anyone Having any Luck With Google Ads? Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:12:26 -0500 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) I'm getting about $2.50 a day with *wild* fluctuations (some days $8, some days $1). The ads are mostly appropriate. None have been in bad taste as far as I know. I have put Google Ads only on a few of my pages that are basically reference information (e.g., www.covingtoninnovations.com/noppp, www.covingtoninnovations.com/dslr). One of them, a general reference page on digital SLR cameras, actually gets ads only for the Nikon D100 even though about half of its content is Canon-oriented. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have not had very good luck with them to date. They seem to undercount hits to my various pages (based on my examination of my logs) and some days they cannot come up with any good ads at all. According to their figures, I am getting about 1.2 % rate of impressions to clicks, but most people seem to get a lot more. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:13:52 -0500 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) Let's go ahead and admit it - the EFF is not infallible. I find myself agreeing with them less and less often as time goes by. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:22:44 EST From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate jdj@now.here (jdj) wrote: > On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 03:12:34 -0500, Dan Lanciani wrote: >> Interesting. I didn't realize that this was considered a bad thing. > There are a lot of people who equate receiving spam to stepping in > what the cat leaves on the lawn. This makes no sense. How exactly can you avoid "receiving spam"? > It makes them all kinds of upset when someone suggests doing > something other than killing received spam. Tell me how to kill received spam without also killing legitimate mail and I'll do it. >> My filters respond to every (seemingly) spam message with a note >> indicating how to bypass the filter if in fact the mail is not spam. >> (Actually they do this only once per sender per some months, but you >> get the idea.) I really can't just dump (seeming) spam in the bucket >> since there are a few false positives. But I get 1500+ spams per day >> and I can't look at them all. > Chances are that your filters are sending responses to forged > addresses. Obviously. But why should I care? The point of the response is to tell people who were neither sending spam nor forging their address that their mail has been incorrectly identified as spam. Note that I do not include the body of the original message in my automated response, so you can't use my filter to reflect spam to a third party. > Occasionally I see messages like that and they are treated > like spam, since they have nothing to do with me and responding to > them is useless. They go to /dev/null. Until it's full. That works only if you have time to look at all the messages. I don't. >>> There is an added benefit if spam to bad addresses were responded to: >>> the bad addresses are confirmed valid and permanently taint the >>> databases, which get sold around and the fun starts all over again. >> Because of the way my filters are integrated into sendmail they >> generate responses for spam sent to bad addresses. I always >> considered this a bug (though at least I fixed it to send only one >> response to envelopes with multiple bad to: addresses :) but I'm glad >> to hear it may do some good. I've noticed lately that spammers will >> make many simultaneous connections to my mail server and run through >> huge lists of bogus recipients. This was overwhelming my system until >> I added a semaphore for spamassassin use and queued most of the >> responses. Do they think I'm an ISP or such? > I should have made it clear that I was not talking about replying to > mail. Yes, that would have been helpful ... > I meant responding by using the url's in the mail body. Only a small minority of the spam emails that I've examined bother to encode a destination address tracking cookie in the URLs. Thus your comment about tainting the database doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of accessing the URLs rather than responding by mail. > Since spammers never use a real From: address replying by mail is > useless. It is extremely useful for my purposes; it just may not happen to also do what you (said you) want. :) > Spammers hit every machine with an open smtp port. If your mail server > accepts connections and even looks like it relays, it will be on > spammer lists as a good relay. They don't care if nothing is actually > delivered. My machine doesn't look like a relay and they are not trying to use it as a relay. They are sending to long lists of (invalid) *local* addresses. >>> Should not be too difficult to set up a procmail script for >>> servers to send a few http requests to a spammer's website instead >>> of bouncing mail with bad addresses. >> Hmm. Maybe just send a SYN to each http:// address that can be >> extracted from the mail. Though I guess that might not count >> against the correct spammer if they are sharing IP addresses. > A SYN would do nothing and with multiple SYNs being sent from all > over the place it would probably be regarded as a dDOS attack. That's quite a stretch, given that each SYN would be in response to something the spammer had actually sent, i.e., there would be no third party initiating the attack. Of course, you would have to be careful not to build a distributed machine that *could* be used by a third party for such an attack. > To be charged for a hit a page must be requested. So sending a SYN > would cost the spammer nothing. So you are saying that spam hosters do not charge their clients for IP traffic? Even if that is true, they might change their policy in the face of such a response. Unfortunately, I can't afford to waste the bandwidth by actually requesting the pages. However, I'm sure many would see the value in an application that screened incoming mail's URLs to be sure that the referenced pages did not contain offensive or otherwise troublesome content. Think of the children. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Re: Texas Officials Wary of Plan to Hunt Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:08:30 -0500 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) You forgot the April 1 dateline. Admittedly it's November now... :) RobertPlattBell wrote in message news:telecom23.557.15@telecom-digest.org: > You think Internet HUNTING is bad? Take the concept to its logical > conclusion ... (some fun with cut and paste techniques). > By Jeff Franks > HOUSTON (Reuters) - Killers soon may be able to sit at their computers > and blast away at people in an unnamed third-world country via the > Internet, a prospect that has human rights activists up in arms. > A controversial Web site, http://www.live-shot.com, already offers > target practice with a .22 caliber rifle and could soon let Killers > shoot at women and children, site creator John Underwood said on > Tuesday. > U.S. Government officials are not quite sure what to make of > Underwood's Web site, but may tweak existing laws to make sure > Internet killing does not get out of hand. > "This is the first one I've seen," said senior FBI agent Mike Berger. > "The current state statutes don't cover this sort of thing." > Underwood, an estimator for a San Antonio, Texas auto body shop, has > invested $10,000 to build a platform for a rifle and camera that can > be remotely aimed on his 330-acre (133-hectare) estate located in an > undisclosed third-world country, by anyone on the Internet anywhere in > the world. > The idea came last year while viewing another Web site on which > cameras posted in in various third-world countries are used to snap > photos of people. "We were looking at a beautiful young Hispanic girl > and my friend said 'If you just had a gun for that.' A little light > bulb went off in my head," he said. > Internet killing could be popular with the disabled unable to get out > of the house who still want to experience a "thrill kill", or for > those who cannot afford a trip to third-world countries to commit > murders, Underwood said. > Berger said state law only covers "regulated people" such as U.S. > Citizens within the United States and cannot prevent Underwood from > offering Internet kills of "unregulated" people such as foreigners > located in distant lands. > He has proposed a rule that will come up for public discussion in > January that anyone killing people via Internet, even if the victim is > in a foreign land, could be tried for murder in the State. > Berger expressed reservations about remote control killing, but noted > that humans have always adopted new technologies to kill. > "First it was rocks and clubs, then we sharpened it and put it on a > stick. Then there was the bow and arrow, black powder, smokeless power > and optics," Berger said. "Maybe this is the next technological step > out there." > Underwood, 39, said he will offer human killing as soon as he gets a > fast Internet connection to his third world estate that will enable > killers to aim the rifle quickly at passing people. > He said an attendant would retrieve shot people for the shooters, who > could have the heads preserved by a taxidermist. They could also have > the meat processed and shipped home, or donated to orphanages. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is a problem in any event with using a gun on the internet. What if someone logs in using a false name, then uses a gun to shoot at a person in a deliberate way? Who is held responsible, the user, the web site operator, or?? PAT] ------------------------------ 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. 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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. End of TELECOM Digest V23 #559 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Nov 21 19:34:15 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iAM0YFi23457; Sun, 21 Nov 2004 19:34:15 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 19:34:15 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411220034.iAM0YFi23457@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 #560 TELECOM Digest Sun, 21 Nov 2004 19:33:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 560 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson For Cellphones, Porn May be Call Away (Marcus Didius Falco) Needed: Dialogic Install CD for D/41H (PhoneGuy) The Persuaders (Monty Solomon) Re: SBC Wants Its Cut of VoIP Revenue (Adam) Re: Sears and K-Mart (Robert Bonomi) Re: Vonage Tech Support Dead? (Tony P.) Re: Couple of Basic Cellular Questions (Joseph) Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate (Robert Bonomi) Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders (Robert Bonomi) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Robert Bonomi) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Michael A. Covington) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (DevilsPGD) Re: Anyone Having any Luck With Google Ads? (Jeffrey Mattox) 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 are 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 03:13:50 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: For Cellphones, Porn May be Call Away From the Boston Globe -- http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/11/20/for_cellphones_porn_may_be_call_away/ By Peter J. Howe The lure of pornography helped drive the mass-market adoption of videocassette recorders, satellite television, and the World Wide Web. Now, history could repeat itself in the world of cellphones -- specifically, the newest generation of cellphones, which sport high-resolution color screens and connections to super-fast data networks that can stream X-rated photos and film clips straight to the handset. Adults-only wireless websites have begun sprouting in many regions, including Europe and Australia, that are generally a year or more ahead of the United States in adopting advanced wireless technology. In Britain, the profusion of adult sites and the interest in them has forced the six major British wireless carriers to develop ways to block people younger than 18 from getting access. As implausible as the idea of trying to look at pornographic images on a screen of only three square inches may seem, some industry analysts think a combination of novelty, and especially privacy -- unlike a computer, a phone can be used almost anywhere -- make cellphones an appealing way for some to view pornography. Almost all of the content available today via cellphone is found on foreign websites. US cellphone users with Web access plans can already download images -- as explicit as anything that's found on the Internet -- without dialing an overseas number. They simply use the Web browsers in their cellphones. Usually, the sites offer free access. Playboy Enterprises Inc., which recently added Spain and Portugal to the dozen other countries where it is licensing adult content for cellphones, says it hopes to reach the US market within the next several months. US wireless carriers already offer pictorial and digital content, including television-style news clips, and roughly one-fifth of the 171 million US cellphone owners carry handsets that can receive full-color digital photos and video. "New technology is often brought forward and driven forward by adult services, and I don't think mobile phone content will be different," Chris Lane, director of the Australian cellphone carrier Optus Mobile Partners, said last month as the carrier outlined plans to add an adult channel on its wireless portal in the next six to eight months. Adam Zawel, a research analyst with The Yankee Group in Boston, recently estimated that one "phone erotica" website run from Britain is getting more than 300 million "hits" per month, including visits from some US cellphone owners, who have learned about the service largely by word-of-mouth. The site says it offers more than 3,000 images and short video clips formatted for display on a cellphone, plus erotic fiction that visitors download in 80- to 100-word snippets. For now, the service is free as its owner attempts to drive up traffic as a way to prove to the phone companies that a potential paying audience exists. Zawel estimates the annual market for "wireless adult content" will reach $1 billion globally by 2008, including $90 million in the United States. Although $90 million sounds significant, it would represent only 0.1 percent of current annual revenues for the largest US wireless carriers: Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wireless LLC, Nextel Communications Inc., and Sprint PCS. It would represent just 2 percent of the total projected US spending on adult content in all media, Zawel said. Pornography is not a revenue source that US carriers are rushing to wrap their brand names around, though. A Sprint Corp. spokesman, Mark J. Elliott, said its "PCS Vision" wireless data service "adheres to the standards of acceptability for general TV audiences. We do not endorse, support, or affiliate ourselves with any entities providing adult content." Alexa G. Kaufman, spokeswoman for Atlanta-based Cingular Wireless -- with 46 million subscribers, the biggest US carrier -- said, "We don't have any intention to partner with adult content providers." At number-two Verizon Wireless, spokeswoman J. Abra Degbor declined to comment. Verizon is 45 percent owned by Vodafone Group PLC, a British multinational carrier that has begun offering adult content in markets outside the United States. In Britain, carriers including Vodafone, Virgin Mobile, Orange, and T-Mobile have agreed to block adults-only content from subscribers unless they have demonstrated that the person who owns the phone associated with a specific phone number is over age 18, which would not keep minors from using adults' phones to visit adults-only sites. Carriers in Britain acted following pressure from national telecommunications regulators and groups such as the Children's Charities Coalition for Internet Safety, all of which expressed concerns about young people having easy access to hard-core pornography. Like all carriers, however, Cingular, Sprint, and others would profit indirectly from porn-driven wireless data traffic in the same way that landline Internet service providers depend on interest in adult content to enlarge their customer base. Getting into the business of directly offering and billing for adult content could be a political and public-relations minefield for image-conscious wireless brands. "This is obviously not a development that would thrill anyone with religious sensibilities or secular sensibilities who wants to protect some modicum of human decency and respect in our society," said the Rev. Diane C. Kessler, executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches. Carriers might never directly promote adult offerings. But they are also unlikely to actively block or censor them. Cingular's Kaufman said: "We do believe that the type of content customers access through their wireless services is a matter of personal choice. We also believe that parents are the best line of defense in protecting children from objectionable content. They should actively monitor their children's use of the cellphone, both for voice calls and data services." Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, The New York Times Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: PhoneGuy Subject: NEED: Dialogic Install CD for D/41H Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 13:33:45 -0500 I just purchased a Dialogic D/41H and it did not come with any installation software ... I am looking for a copy of that cd if anyone can help out that would be awesome... Please email me and let me know. PhoneGuy ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 10:35:23 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Persuaders Excerpt from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/etc/synopsis.html In "The Persuaders," FRONTLINE explores how the cultures of marketing and advertising have come to influence not only what Americans buy, but also how they view themselves and the world around them. The 90-minute documentary draws on a range of experts and observers of the advertising/marketing world, to examine how, in the words of one on-camera commentator, "the principal of democracy yields to the practice of demography," as highly customized messages are delivered to a smaller segment of the market. Take the 2004 presidential sweepstakes for example. Both the Republicans and the Democrats were prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to custom craft their messages. "What politicians do is tailor their message to each demographic group," says Peter Swire, professor of law at Ohio State University and an expert on Internet policy. "That means Americans will live in different virtual universes. What's wrong with living in different universes? You never confront the other side. You don't have to deal with the uncomfortable facts that go against your worldview. It hardens the partisanship that's been such a feature of recent American politics." FRONTLINE analyzes the 2004 campaign where, for the first time, the latest techniques in narrowcasting were put into effect. The antithesis of traditional broadcasting, narrowcasting involves crafting and delivering tailored messages to individual voters based on their demographic profiles. Political marketers are just now discovering new ways to use the techniques that have long been employed by the private sector. FRONTLINE visits Acxiom, the largest data mining company in the world, where vast farms of computers hold detailed information about nearly every adult in America. Data mining, a practice that predicts likely behavior based on factors such as age, income, and shopping habits, has been the gold standard of commercial advertisers. Acxiom promises its clients a better way to target their messages to individual consumers. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/etc/synopsis.html http://www.pbs.org/frontline/shows/persuaders/ Watch online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/view/ ------------------------------ From: Adam Subject: Re: SBC Wants its Cut of VoIP Revenue Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 15:17:41 GMT Hmmm ... my two attempts to respond to this thread through SBC's news server failed ... hmmm. But, I was able to post another thread through SBC's news server. Hmmm ... hmmm ... hmmm ... something to ponder seriously over. How can we fight to prevent S.B.C from reaching its greedy claws into the VoIP treasure chest? http://informationweek.networkingpipeline.com/news/53700323 Philip J. Koenig wrote in message news:MPG.1c086e3125a444ef98a69f@corp.supernews.com: Following document is a copy of a letter to the FCC by an organization that represents the interests of the CLECS (competitive local access carriers), pointing out the ominous undertones of a recent filing by SBC for a new tariff whereby they will demand anyone running a VoIP service over their infrastructure to pay them a fee. Long version: http://206.161.82.210/Filings/111904TIPTOP%20tariff%20investigation%20letter.pdf Short version: http://tinyurl.com/5durr Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. -- Albert Einstein To send email, remove numbers and spaces: pjkusenet64 @ ekahuna27 . com Simple answers are for simple minds. Try a new way of looking at things. ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: Sears and K-Mart From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 14:43:10 +0000 In article , Stanley Cline wrote: > On 19 Nov 2004 11:50:34 -0800, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) > wrote: >> My local carrier, Verizon, is running the same risk of becoming too >> distant from the people it serves. Years ago they had business >> offices in regions, several throughout a big city. Today when you >> call them (they no longer accomodate in-person visits) your call can > What's strange is that the lack of walk-in offices is pretty much a > Bell/GTE-only thing; practically every phone company that is not one > of Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, or Qwest -- *including* the very large > multi-state independents like Sprint LTD, ALLTEL, CenturyTel, and > Frontier -- has at least some walk-in offices. I wonder what the > Bells are so afraid of that non-Bells aren't ... There are two primary reasons (not necessarily in order): 1) Security, for _their_ employees. No customer presence, no risk of an unsatisfied customer 'going postal'. With ILEC 'quality of service', this is a _valid_ concern. 2) Cost. It takes nearly _twice_ the floor-space to provide a customer- service rep with a desk *and* space for a customer to sit, as it does to provide them _just_ the desk. Plus the 'waiting-room' space for those who are not yet talking to a rep. Plus an additional staff person ("receptionist") to manage the queuing before you get to the CSR. Also, space "convenient to customers" for walk-in business is *expensive*, compared to what one pays for 'non-customer-accessible office space in the same vicinity. Office space somewhere 'out in the boonies' is even _less_ expensive. In addition, there are substantial economies derived from running one large facility, vs. _many_ small ones that total the same square footage. Lastly, "queueing theory" says that the larger facility will have proportionally _smaller_ variance in load than smaller facilities. This translates to an over-all smaller staff requirement to handle the expected variations in normal load. Beyond that, it is a matter of 'priorities'. Is 'cutting costs' more important than 'customer convenience', or not? Everybody comes down on a different side of that question on various things. Look at how few companies have a live person answering the main phone number any more, for one example. They figure that the cost savings of the d*mn 'auto attendant' are 'worth' the increase in customer aggravation, and wasted _customer_ time (after all *they* aren't paying for the customer's time :). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yet, they have the temerity to wonder 'why customers go postal' sometimes ... and your two reasons given for why there are no more (or very few) public offices available any longer does not explain how small independent telcos still manage to do it: Making floor space available for chairs and the cost of rent is an equal problem for them. And I would suppose theoretically the problem of someone 'going postal' is also worth considering. But why do you suppose the small, non-Bell telcos don't have those problems, and can continue to operate their public facilities? Do you think if SBC were to outsource all its 'customer service' functions to China or India they would be able to get rid of all their pseudo problems with finding good, cheap real estate? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Vonage Tech Support Dead? Organization: ATCC Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 09:49:40 -0500 In article , Tim@Backhome.org says: > DevilsPGD wrote: >> In message Tony P. >> wrote: >>> I've had no problems getting a human the two times I've had to call >>> Vonage. But the hold times are on the high side. >>> On my last call to them I waited for 45 minutes before getting a human >>> being. >> I've never had problems before. I don't mind hold time, I have a good >> speakerphone, but this time I can't even get into the hold queue. > I've been a customer since March 2003. Tech support has gone from > very good to terrible. Yesterday, my voicemail box was locked out for > over an hour. I finally called tech support and was told by a > recording to use the web. I used the web and received no response as > of 24 hours later. > With that kind of service the LECs are quite dead yet. Ah, explosive growth without proper planning. I would hope Vonage management types read this group and learn a thing or two. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Couple of Basic Cellular Questions Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 03:31:22 -0800 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:06:57 -0500, Michael A. Covington wrote: > (1) If I were to buy Samsung's USB data cable, would I be able to > download my own ringtones and graphics directly to the telephone? > Pointers on how to do this would be most welcome. What software do > you use on the PC? What are the file requirements for ringtones and > screen graphics? If your phone is capable of using downloaded/uploaded graphics, ringtones and other data then yes, the Samsung. If you had provided the particular model it might be possible to recommend something. From a cursory google search there's quite a bit that seems to be available for Samsung just doing a search for "upload to Samsung with USB data cable." > (2) Is there any market or good use for used Nokia TDMA telephones > that are deactivated? They still connect to Cingular, they just > aren't allowed to make calls. Am I right in thinking that such a > phone can still call 911? In that case we might put one in each car > along with its car charger. Or is there a secondhand market? Unless it's a brand spanking new model I'm afraid that the answer is no; there's no real market for used mobile equipment other than stuff that's relatively new. I'm not sure what the situation is now that Cingular has acquired AT&T Wireless, but it was possible with AT&T Wireless resellers such as CallPlus and Beyond Wireless to activate used equipment with them and use their service. Some of them have monthly access as little as $1.50 (JusTalk) while others such as Beyond Wireless the account never expires you just have to use it for a minimum one minute call before the end of sixty days. > I realize these are probably FAQs and it's quite OK to reply by just > giving me a URL. Trying to find the answer on Google I found a mess > of 'hacker' and pornographic sites. Apparently there is a brisk > market for cell phone screen pornography! You evidently did not use the correct search terms since I found lots and lots of stuff available. If you're too vague or use the wrong search terms you may indeed find "phone porn." I didn't find any of that. ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 14:14:52 +0000 In article , Dan Lanciani wrote: > Obviously. But why should I care? The point of the response is to > tell people who were neither sending spam nor forging their address > that their mail has been incorrectly identified as spam. Note that I > do not include the body of the original message in my automated > response, so you can't use my filter to reflect spam to a third party. Suppose *your* email address got forged as the sender on spam that went to 100,000 people using a similar system. Guess what happens to _your_ mailbox. But, "why should those people care?" *You* don't care about being part of doing it to them. If all the spam had *invalid* addresses addresses, it wouldn't be an issue. But, it is _very_ common for the forged address to belong to a _real_person_ who had *nothing*to*do* with the spam. You *are* spamming _their_ mailbox. >> Occasionally I see messages like that and they are treated >> like spam, since they have nothing to do with me and responding to >> them is useless. They go to /dev/null. Until it's full. > That works only if you have time to look at all the messages. I > don't. >> Since spammers never use a real From: address replying by mail is >> useless. > It is extremely useful for my purposes; it just may not happen to also > do what you (said you) want. :) Yeah. you mail-bomb *innocent* parties who's address was used _without_their_permission_as the sender. > My machine doesn't look like a relay and they are not trying to use it > as a relay. They are sending to long lists of (invalid) *local* > addresses. It's called a 'dictionary' attack. Just one more way of trying to find 'valid' email addresses. ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 14:20:38 +0000 In article , Robert Bonomi wrote: > In article , > charsand wrote: >> billyzane1@excite.com (Bob Smythe) wrote in message >> news:: >>> The thing is, it is illegal to download or upload copyrighted works, >>> the concept of file sharing and actual file sharing is not illegal. I >>> do not condone illegal file sharing, but am just trying to clarify a >>> few things. >>> The MPAA (and RIAA) have not and will not target individual >>> downloaders. There is no real way to get them. They are not a law >>> enforcement agency. They cannot entrap individual users. If you >>> download from them, and they are the rightful owners, then there is no >>> law broken, even if it is widely know that the service being used is >>> to illegally obtain files. Plus having downloaded one file will not be >>> worthwhile anyway in court. > Statutory copyright infringement penalty, $30,000 per occurrence. Each > making of a copy is a separate violation. > Don't _bet_ on it not being worthwhile in court. > You can't afford to be _right_, let alone wrong. > (A _successful_ infringement defense typically runs into six figures > left of the decimal point.) > Particularly, an 'association' is _not_ looking to 'make money' from > the lawsuit -- their primary aim is the 'chilling effect', as it were, > of the successful prosecution. The _smaller_ the perp that is > successfully prosecuted, the stronger the message that is 'sent', > regarding the 'risk' of such actions. >>> > [[., munch ..]] >> I heard somewhere that those caught could receive not only fines, but >> jail time-is this true? >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It would not suprise me at all. Nor >> does it surprise me that they just toss out lawsuits all over the >> place without even having the *name* or *any identity* of the persons >> they intend to sue. I can see where 'John Doe' might be a valid way >> to sue someone you had caught when you could not otherwise get his >> name, but lawsuits at random against John Does 1 through 9999 (fill >> in the names, addresses and particulars when you find the person) >> seems to me to be a gross abuse of the legal system. But they seem to >> be setting out the lawsuits, then finding the person later on and >> already having the suit set up. Not a good faith thing, IMO. PAT] > Not surprisingly, our esteemed moderator doesn't understand the > process. > They've _already_ got the IP address, and timestamp, data, and all the > 'downloading' evidence to support the suit. But they don't know _who_ > was using that IP address at that time. And the ISP's will -not- > divulge *that* information except by court order. > Hence the John Doe filing. followed by a subpoena to the ISP. > Followed by an 'amended' filing to insert the actual perpetrators > name. Then, and *ONLY*THEN* can you 'serve' the perp with the summons > for the lawsuit. > Any _given_ "John Doe" is alleged to have committed _specific_ acts -- > e.g., "at this specific date/time, did download thus-and-such movie > from IP address aa.bb.cc.dd to xx.yy.zz.ww" > You can't file the suit, -then- go find some *other* violations, and > change the allegations in pre-existing suit to match. > As to the prior poster's question regarding jail time -- the answer is > "yes". The "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" _did_ introduce > *criminal* prosecution and penalties for certain kinds of copyright > infringement. In general, the criminal provisions deal with those who > _distribute_, for money or otherwise, infringing copies. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But many IP addresses are not static, > but dynamic. What do they do then to find the person who 'stole' the > movie or the piece of music? PAT] *READ* what I wrote, above. They have the IP address _and_ the timestamp. The subpoena the ISP to *find*out* _who_ was using *that* IP address *at* *that*time*. The _ISP_ *does* have that information, from authentication logs, etc. _Now_ they have the person's name, to replace the "John Doe" on the lawsuit. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But as someone else noted in a message, not all ISPs keep that information around very long. Once they have had a chance to do what they need with it, the information is dumped. And if someone called in on a dialup line and hacked a real user's name and password then they would have nothing to go on would they? PAT] ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 11:07:27 +0000 In article , Dave VanHorn wrote: >>> Other stores can stay in business, but only in little tiny niches. No >>> one can compete with Walmart. A new move by Walmart will leave >>> merchandise in the inventory of the supplier until it is sold. $60 >>> billion will disappear from Walmart books. This would really be "just >>> in time". It would never belong to Walmart. It would be sold >>> directly from the distributor to the consumer at the Walmart checkout. >> So they're acting as a consignment vendor. How interesting. > What a clever way to deal with theft! > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have an interesting question. Someone > gets caught shoplifting at Walmart. It happens here several times per > week here, according to the police activities column in the > Independence Daily Reporter newspaper. Walmart always prosecutes, > but in these cases, how can Walmart prosecute for something that was > not stolen from them since they did not 'own' it at that point in > time (if they ever do, or do they merely act as collection agents for > the owner, which is vender who supplied it?). Or do the venders > authorize Walmart to act as their agent in such cases? I did not > steal from Walmart, I stole from the vender, is that not correct? > Advice, anyone? PAT] First, it is not clear that WalMart is actually doing this (title remains with distributor), today. If not, Walmart _is_ the owner of the stolen (shoplifted) merchandise. Regardless, however, the merchandise is, legally, _in_their_possession_. They =are= the theft 'victim'. The situation is no different than if somebody breaks into your house and steals a rented video-tape. *YOU* are the theft 'victim', not the video-rental store. *YOU* are liable to the rental store for the full cost of the tape. Aside, a consignment vendor *is* liable to the 'owner' for losses incurred during the time that the vendor has 'entrusted' the agent with the vendor's property. *Unless*, that is, the 'consignment agreement' _expressly_ provides otherwise. No different than if the property was destroyed by a fire on the premises. The situation with someone who sells for a 'drop shipper' _is_ different_. That selling agent never has possession of the property, so they -never- incur loss liability. In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here is another question for anyone who > wishes to answer: The merchandise I bought from Walmart (or from a > vender of Walmart is faulty, or injures me or makes me sick, etc.) I > am advised to file suit. Do I sue Walmart or do I sue the vender or > both of them? *GROSSLY*INSUFFICIENT*DATA* for a meaningful answer. Authoritative answer: "It depends." Just for starters: Was the item faulty in design or manufacture? *DID* the seller (WalMart) _know_, or _should_ they have known, it was faulty? Did the seller (WalMart) do anything to the product that caused, or possibly 'contributed to', the fault? IF the 'fault' was a result of something that the store did, beyond the control of the manufacturer, then the manufacturer has no liability for the problem. IF _nothing_ the store did contributed to the fault, and the store had no reason to be aware that there _was_ such a fault, then the store has no liability. This is what the legal types call a "fact specific" issue. To find out what the appropriate action is, consult a legal professional. Discuss _all_ the *details* of your *specific* situation. Then, and -only- then, can a competent opinion as to the appropriate action -- valid _for_your_ _situation_*ONLY*_ -- be offered. > I know Walmart does not go out of their way now to > do any customer service they can avoid. Earlier this year I went to > Walmart to get something, and used my debit card to pay for it. When > I got home I checked the computer and there were *three* identical > charges instead of only one. I called and went back to Walmart, all > they would say is 'not our problem, we did not swipe you three times, > we only swiped you once. The problem got corrected in a couple days, > but Walmart never admitted to any part of it. PAT] *AT*THE*STORE*LEVEL*, this was completely correct. There was a record, in the store computer, of _one_ transaction, and one transaction _only_. That store transaction is _not_ with your bank directly. It probably goes to 'corporate hq' first. From there, the corporate computers talk with a ' clearing house'. Which talks to a bank 'network' computer. Which talks to the computer of the actual bank involved. The store _CANNOT_ just go and issue 'credits' for the 'multiple' charges, after all, _they_ only got the *one* payment they were entitled to. "Somewhere" along the line, something 'stuttered'. _One_ side of the process thought it _sent_ the data successfully only once, the *other* side _saw_ the incoming data as valid multiple times. There are fairly extensive 'real-time' checks that are intended to prevent this kind of error from occurring, but they are *not* 'perfect'. Backing up those real-time protections are all sorts of 'end-of-day' summary checks and cross-verifications, internally within a given system, *and* between the systems that pass data to each other. When the end-of-day checks are inconsistent, *people* get called in to run down the disrepencies, and remedy them. Just what would you have the store do in such a situation? They looked into your problem report. They found _nothing_ to substantiate a problem in _their_ system. Until such time as they see something that implicates *their* system, their hands are pretty much tied; absent such evidence, the problem _is_ "somewhere else", and _not_ their responsibility. Now, _if_ it was a communication problem between the clearing house computer and the bank network computer, just _why_ *should* WalMart 'admit to any part of it'? It *wasn't* anything they did, in that situation. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Have you ever considered applying for a job as a Walmart 'customer service' representative? You already have their list of excuses perfectly memorized. When I first called then went back to the store, for all I knew, the clerk *had* swiped me three times, then took the money out of the register for the two additional swipes and pocketed it. There had been an article in the Independence Reporter a few days earlier about a cashier at Walmart who had gotten arrested for stealing several thousand dollars from the store and some customers. When I talked to Bob Donaldson (local Walmart store manager here in Independence) and the customer service manager here, I mentioned to them both about seeing that item in the newspaper. All they would say is, "we dealt with that problem when we found out about it, and we deal with other 'similar situations' here as they arise." They did **not** check any tapes or logs to either verify or deny what I said, just saying 'it could not have happened because our procedures call for X followed by Y and Z.' That, to them, was a satisfactory answer. I told them thank goodness I used my PayPal debit card, where I only keep a little money, so it it gets stolen it is not a big deal. I move a little money into PayPal from my credit card as needed when I plan on going shopping for just that reason. (As a matter of fact, my PayPal debit card account on the computer showed a **negative balance** (in theory I owed PayPal money at that point). I asked PayPal 'customer service' how they would have authorized a sale on an account with a zero credit limit (debit card) and they said 'Walmart told the clearing house to force the approval'. PayPal kept sending me snotty letters all weekend telling me to get the negative balance on my (debit card) account cleared up or they would cancel it and place me in collection. I told PayPal to shove it and get the money back from Walmart who had taken it to start with. The original sale was on Friday afternoon; on Monday my account was perfectly balanced once again; Walmart had a case of corporate amnesia about the weekend, and PayPal had no ideas about anything either. But an article on Monday evening in the Reporter said that Walmart had had a mix up with their card balancing over the weekend. I've also told Bob Donaldson (local Walmart manager) that his store security officers were pretty obnoxious also and that he should fire them and get more responsible guys to work at his store, and that he might start getting people to work there who helped customers out to their car or taxi with shopping bags, or made home delivery like other stores in town do. The whole place is really a dreadful store. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 11:11:49 -0500 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > Earlier this year I went to > Walmart to get something, and used my debit card to pay for it. When > I got home I checked the computer and there were *three* identical > charges instead of only one. I called and went back to Walmart, all > they would say is 'not our problem, we did not swipe you three times, > we only swiped you once. The problem got corrected in a couple days, > but Walmart never admitted to any part of it. PAT] It may genuinely not have been their problem. It sounds like something that would happen in the bank's computers and then get corrected there. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah I had forgotten that computers are never wrong and that human beings have to bend and flex to do what the computer requires of them. The 'customer service' people at Walmart absolutely worship the all-powerful, all-knowing computer system, and every rule they insist their customers have to follow is in keeping with the computer's terms. I said to Bob Donaldson at Walmart one day 'all the downtown stores have computers also but they can keep them under control and make them do what they want. Why can't you? They can deliver my stuff to my house, why can't you? They know my name when I walk in the store and greet me and as needed walk to a shelf and get what I want; when I walk in your store you have a camera in the ceiling follow me all around the store. Why?' His only response was 'we do what corporate tells us to do.' PAT] ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 13:04:16 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com In message TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Steve Sobol : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here is another question for anyone who > wishes to answer: The merchandise I bought from Walmart (or from a > vender of Walmart is faulty, or injures me or makes me sick, etc.) I > am advised to file suit. Do I sue Walmart or do I sue the vender or > both of them? Both. And the sales clerk who sold you the product, the stockboy who put it on the shelf, the stockboy's mother, and everybody else who was possibly involved with the design, production, delivery, sales, marketing, and use of the product. If you can remain calm, you just don't have all the facts. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 12:32:48 -0600 From: Jeffrey Mattox Subject: Re: Anyone Having any Luck With Google Ads? Pat: [Please withhold my email address if you publish this.] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have not had very good luck with them to date. They seem to undercount hits to my various pages (based on my examination of my logs) and some days they cannot come up with any good ads at all. According to their figures, I am getting about 1.2 % rate of impressions to clicks, but most people seem to get a lot more. PAT] I bet Google's hit count is more accurate regarding readership than examining your logs. Although your logs are correct for pages served, you cannot assume that every serve is to a human being. For example, any spider or robot looking at your pages will appear as a hit in your logs, but that robot will not trigger Google's hit counter because the robot won't go to Google's site to fetch the ads. I'm not sure how many daily hits are from spiders, but with all the search engines crawling for data and all the spammers crawling for email addresses, I bet it's significant. When you look at your logs, look at the count for an image (e.g., a JPG or GIF file) instead of the count for an HTML page. Most (but not all) robots won't bother loading images. On my site, I trust the Google page impressions count more than my server logs. In fact, I consider the Google counter as one of the benefits of the program because Google only counts humans. Several times you have mentioned to me that Google deducts from the Adsense for search revenue. I don't think you need to worry about that happening to you. This is from their FAQ: What are the fees mentioned in the Terms and Conditions? The AdSense for search fees that are referenced in the AdSense Terms and Conditions will not be applied to all publishers. Google incurs a cost for each search that is performed through AdSense for search, and generally we cover this cost through our portion of the earnings from advertiser clicks. However, publishers with very high numbers of searches in relation to their revenue may have an amount deducted from their final AdSense for search earnings. We expect the number of publishers to be impacted by this to be very small - less than 1% will be affected. The AdSense for search fees will never be greater than the publisher's AdSense for search earnings, so no publisher will owe Google at the end of the month as a result of these fees. Earnings from AdSense for content clicks will not be affected. The adjustment will take place at the end of each month, when earnings are calculated. https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=9890&topic=144 Jeff [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Regards discrepancies in hit counts, I do as follows: I grep the log at massis looking for telecom archives hits; many, many thousands of lines. I separate out those lines, then I go back and grep that extraction looking for .jpg, .gif, etc and deduct that from the total. I then take this latest refinement and go back again grepping through it and deducting all the IP addresses of *known crawlers* such as mit.edu's own crawler, and other crawlers which examine me often enough that it matters. Now I am down to only around three thousand entries still left. Then I go back and grep for my own IP address, and deduct those. Then to show that I try to play fair, (not like some web sites which claim they have millions of hits daily but ignore all the .jpg and .gif images and spiders) I make another 'general adjustment' downward and throw out ten or twenty percent of the (still remaining) hits, leaving myself with around two thousand hits. Guess what, Google does not come close. They had me down for eight hundred some hits on Friday last. Now regards Google charging publishers (by offsetting their earnings) for search work done, what I told their customer service person on Friday was "YOU are the people in the search engine business, not me. YOU are the people whose brand name appears on the search engine, not me. YOU are the people who presumably adjust your rates to your clients (the advertisers) to reflect a profit for yourself in YOUR search engine business, not me. YOU are the people who already adjust my earnings by paying less for click throughs on ads *behind the search engine* (only a penny or two for ads on search pages) than you pay otherwise for ads on my pages. And despite the fact that you pay less for those ads *behind the search engine* rather than in front of it, you want to reserve the right to charge me via offset against that pitiful amount of money. If search engines are not a profitable business for you, then get out of the business. You should not blame ME if searches cost YOU a lot of money to perform." "And to say that it only pertains to certain publishers and I will probably never see any charges and in any event I will never owe you more money than you owe me is an insult also. If the day came I even owed you five cents for something your search engine did, I would never pay it anyway. I feel like I am doing you a favor by giving you an outlet to place your customer/client's ads, not the other way around. In other words, I am *not* going to be YOUR customer. If I wanted to pay to run a search engine, I would get either yours or Yahoo's or Microsoft (or one of several others) and brand it as the Telecom Digest Search Engine and expect to pay for it, not nickle and dime its cost of operation off on my users. I've had my own search engine tools here over the years mostly things written by me." I have not yet heard back from them; but I venture to say they probably feel they are something special. I told them I should start playing the 'key words' game I have read about so much on the net and in the papers, where I put up a page with nothing but a bunch of high paying key words such as 'gambling', 'sex', 'viagra', 'penis enlarge' and such. They did answer that part of my letter and said "well, that would be against our terms of service to manipulate your pages with irrelevant key words". I asked if it would be against their TOS if I simply went in on my pages and yanked all their javascript code out and tossed it away. They said they hoped I would not do that. But when they started talking about their 'terms of service' and that they reserved the right to not pay me for the ad space if they felt like it, I realized then that they thought they were something special around here. Their sales person who first contacted me back in the summer telling me 'because of your longevity on the net and your good web pages you have been pre-approved for our program' also told me I would be making a couple hundred dollars per month and probably have a ratio of hits to click throughs in the range of three to four percent, to which I come no where close. PAT] ------------------------------ 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. 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You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2004 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE JUST 65 CENTS ONE OR TWO INQUIRIES CHARGED TO YOUR CREDIT CARD! REAL TIME, UP TO DATE! 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Please contact Jay Boyington for additional information at 405-744-9000, mstm-osu@okstate.edu, or visit the MSTM web site at http://www.mstm.okstate.edu ************************ 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. 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 #560 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 22 14:59:45 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iAMJxiJ03832; Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:59:45 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:59:45 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411221959.iAMJxiJ03832@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 #561 TELECOM Digest Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:59:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 561 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson EchoStar Statement on Passage of Satellite Bill (Monty Solomon) OFX Consortium Develops New Approach To Financial Account Data (Solomon) Video Board Approves Apple-Supported Codecs (Monty Solomon) How do I Discover an Unknown Number (reking) Dropping SBC For a VoIP Solution - Vonage or Packet8? (Ringo Langly) Internet Broadband Services via Satellite (Thomas Ludwig) Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate (Dan Lanciani) Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate (jdj) Re: SBC Wants its Cut of VoIP Revenue (Lisa Hancock) Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders (Robert Bonomi) Record Keeping, Re: Movie Studios Sue Internet File Traders (D.Burstein) U.S. Senate Passes Scaled-Back Copyright Measure (Lisa Minter) 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 are 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 17:56:42 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EchoStar Statement on Passage of Satellite Bill ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 21, 2004--EchoStar Communications Corporation (NASDAQ:DISH) released the following statement today: EchoStar applauds the members of Congress for their work in passing the Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act of 2004 that will benefit consumers. Over the next several years, the bill will allow satellite TV carriers to begin offering distant high definition TV network channels to many consumers if the local broadcasters lapse on their promises to Congress to begin broadcasting full-power HDTV to their viewers. EchoStar thanks the Senate and House Commerce Committees and the Senate and House Judiciary Committees for their time and effort in creating this bill and focusing on the best interests of consumers. In particular, we appreciate the diligence of Senators Ensign, McCain, and Stevens, their staffs and the participation of the House and Senate leadership. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=45160092 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:56:55 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: OFX Consortium Develops New Approach To Financial Account Data MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 22, 2004-- Seeks Comments on Process that Increases Safety, Security and Reliability of Electronic Financial Data Transfers The OFX Consortium, a group of companies that includes Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq:INTU), Parsam Technologies, Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT), is working to standardize the way financial transactions are transmitted over the Internet. The consortium is seeking comments on a new proposal that would increase the safety, security and reliability of electronic transfers. The proposal, available at http://www.ofx.net/ , takes a new approach to aggregating customer data by extending the widely used Open Financial Exchange (OFX) specification in ways that allow aggregators to receive account data for large numbers of users. In addition, it provides a mechanism that removes the need for sensitive user information, such as passwords, to be stored on aggregators' systems. The proposal was developed by the Open Financial Exchange Aggregation Services Working Group over the past 12 months. This extension to OFX provides ways to meet data exchange guidelines as defined in BITS Voluntary Guidelines for Aggregation Services, Version 2.0, published in January 2004, which is being endorsed by businesses with varying roles in electronic financial transactions. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=45168355 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 12:21:07 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Video Board Approves Apple-Supported Codecs By Jim Dalrymple The Digital Video Broadcasting Steering Board (DVB) has approved a revision to its implementation guidelines for audio and video codecs over a broadcast Transport Stream. The revision includes two technologies supported by Apple Computer Inc., H.264 or Advanced Video Codec (AVC) and High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio codecs. AVC and AAC are codecs supported by MPEG-4, an open standard technology based on the QuickTime file format and adopted by the ISO governing body. http://www.macworld.com/news/2004/11/09/avc/index.php ------------------------------ From: rekingus@yahoo.com (reking) Subject: How Do I Learn an Unknown Number? Date: 22 Nov 2004 09:55:48 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Anyone know how I can retrieve a phone number for a line that I have recently discovered within our business. SBC is our carrier but they tell me I would have to have someone come out and trace the line at a charge. Is there a way of determining the nimber by using some code entered on the phone. reking [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is a number (varies from one central office to another), but they are kept secret by the phone company, which tends to change them every three months or so anyway. If you knew *what central office your company is in* it is possible one or more of our readers who know about that sort of thing might be able to advise you what number (as of this day) to dial into. It is often times a number in the 200 'area code' such as 200-xxx-xxxx. Some reader may write to you to get the needed details and look up the answer for your particular situation. Or, you write again and tell us, maybe someone will answer you through here. What some people do, however, is inquire via 'Operator 7'. They place a 'person to person' long distance call to some number where there are a lot of transients, such as a large hotel, asking for Mr. Johnson. After looking around for Mr. Johnson, the hotel switchboard operator cannot find such a person; there is no such person as Mr. Johnson. But you insist he is due to arrive almost any minute, and ask your local operator to 'leave word'. So your operator will instruct the hotel switchboard operator to "leave word for Mr. Johnson when he arrives to call long distance to (your town) and ask for 'operator 7' (which is telco terminology for an incompleted person to person call), and the calling number is xxx-xxx-xxxx." You write down the number you heard your operator quote to the hotel switchboard operator, and you have your answer. If your operator asks "what number do you want Mr. Johnson to call you on?" your answer should be 'ask him to call this number I am on now.' and the operator will quote what her console ANI says. Its a variation on social engineering. The only time this may not work is if the operator suspects she is dealing with a phreak then she may choose to split the connection while she is instructing the hotel operator what to do, just to be nasty about it. If that happens the only thing you can do is wait a few minutes then try again hoping for a different operator next time. Or, call the hotel switch- board direct, state that you are Mr. Johnson and 'do you have any messages there for me?' Its a less expensive approach than telling the service rep to set up a technician's visit; and quicker also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rlangly@gmail.com (Ringo Langly) Subject: Dropping SBC For a VoIP Solution -- Vonage or Packet8 ?? Date: 22 Nov 2004 07:42:11 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi all, I've been with SBC for quit a while, and the $35/month plus long distance I pay is really steap compared to what others like Vonage and Packet8 charge. I could also go with Time Warner's phone solution, but it's $50/month -- which is more then I'm paying now. For one, I don't make many long distant calls anyway (maybe 3-4 a month), so paying $50/month over $35/month for unlimited LD is useless for me. This brings me to two choices I'm looking at -- Vonage or Packet8. I've found a number of reviews, and they do help: http://www.easycall.net/broadband-phone.shtml http://reviews.cnet.com/4540-9238_7-30974762-3.html?rid=30974760 http://www.thetravelinsider.info/2003/0829.htm ... and most show Vonage better yet Packet8 cheaper. The key issue that's tieing me up is Vonage isn't in my area yet -- though they've said they'll be here 'soon' for like the last 6 months. THey are in my areacode, but the towns they cover are LD from where I live. Can someone give me some pros and cons from personal experience on either service? Why did you choose one over another? I'm looking more at Vonage mainly because of the features and Softphone program, which I'd love to get. Thanks for any insite ... Ringo ------------------------------ From: tludwig@idirect.net (Thomas Ludwig) Subject: Internet Broadband Services via Satellite Date: 22 Nov 2004 07:55:02 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com iDirect's technology has been optimized to deliver IP traffic over satellite, without land-line, and can handle any internet or web enabled functions, including high-speed internet surfing, VOIP, video-conferencing and others. Our technology is really cutting edge for IP VSAT in that we are pure TCP/IP-based and it is designed to deliver very high speed internet services into more remote-areas where terrestrial solutions are lacking. The iDirect "NetModem", which goes at the customer premises, is actually a combination satellite modem and internet router with TCP Acceleration and QoS built in (our "one box solution"). The Netmodem can provide up to 9 Mbps of throughput on the receive side and up to 4 Mbps of throughput on the transmit side. We have also built uplink power control into our technology that provides far greater reliability even in bad weather conditions. In general, iDirect's target market has been corporate WAN's, especially for customers in such sectors as oil and gas and government that need a highly robust, application rich solution. One area where we are seeing a quite a big interest is for using our technology for hybrid VSAT/terrestrial wireless solutions. In this scenario, the the VSAT link receives the high-speed internet connection, and then the internet is distributed from the VSAT using WiFi or some other terrestrial wireless solution. Kind Regards, Thomas Ludwig +32 479 34 94 40 EMEA iDirect Technologies Regus House 268 Bath Road Slough, Berks SL1 4DX United Kingdom ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 23:23:34 EST From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote: > In article , Dan Lanciani > wrote: >> Obviously. But why should I care? The point of the response is to >> tell people who were neither sending spam nor forging their address >> that their mail has been incorrectly identified as spam. Note that I >> do not include the body of the original message in my automated >> response, so you can't use my filter to reflect spam to a third party. > Suppose *your* email address got forged as the sender on spam that > went to 100,000 people using a similar system. My email addresses are frequently forged as from addresses for spam and various trojan horse programs. The automatically generated responses to those messages make up a lot of my junk mail. The difference between those "similar" systems and my system is that the operators of those systems are not considerate enough to rate-limit the responses to one per several months. Yet I do not condemn them for this oversight. |Guess what happens to _your_ mailbox. Yes, let's guess. Or rather, let's compare the two scenarios. If nobody were using a system similar to mine then my mailbox would see at a minimum a bounce message for each bad address on the list of 100,000 people. You may try to argue that spammers--being far more considerate of the innocent user whose from address they forged than I am--would carefully vet the list to minimize the bounces. But everybody who has received the bounces resulting from these forgeries knows that this is not the case. And even if the target address is good, it may well be set up to reject unknown from addresses. If every target system involved *were* running something like my filter then my mailbox would see at most one spam warning message from each *system* involved, regardless of the number of target addresses on that system. You may argue that spammers don't send to multiple accounts on the same system and -- even though anyone who has cleaned up the aftermath of having their address used in such a forgery knows that this argument is not generally valid -- I'll give it to you. So in the worst case my mailbox will see 100,000 spam warning messages. But guess what? Cleaning up 100,000 spam warning messages rather than 10,000 bounces (assuming a conservative 10% bounce rate) really doesn't involve a significantly greater effort. Beyond a certain threshold it comes down to removing the whole file, possibly after grepping for a few important keywords. On the other hand, in the best case (and a case that I expect would be much more typical) all 100,000 destination addresses may be @aol.com, so I'll get but one warning regardless of the god/bad address ratio. I like the odds. > But, "why should those people care?" They should *not* care. I encourage everyone to do something similar to what I am doing. This is not a prisoner's dilemma or a tragedy of the commons. The only downside to any individual of others doing the same thing is a greater incentive for spammers to look for ways around the specific filter, but that is a second order effect. And in any case the actual filters don't have to be the same, just the general operation. > *You* don't care about being part of doing it to them. What I'm doing is not part of the problem; it is part of the solution. Consider what would happen if everybody implemented a system similar to mine. There might (or might not, depending or arguable statistics about how well the addresses are coalesced per system) be more warning messages for people to read. But getting people to read warning messages does not benefit spammers. Spammers need people to read *their* messages. If nobody reads their messages then they will go away. Of course, it may be hard to accept that a solution that helps in the long term also provides tangible advantages to its users in the short term. We've been hearing for years about strategic initiatives to fight spam by punishing the owners of open relays and causing collateral damage to residents of spam-friendly ISPs. It all sounds very clever and political, but the spam just keeps increasing. (You may claim that the problem would be even worse were it not for these strategic initiatives; I really don't know.) I'm tired of waiting, so I opt for a more direct approach. > If all the spam had *invalid* addresses addresses, it wouldn't be an > issue. But, it is _very_ common for the forged address to belong to a > _real_person_ who had *nothing*to*do* with the spam. > You *are* spamming _their_ mailbox. Nonsense. You are re-defining "spamming" to suite your goal of shifting blame from the spammers to those who do not wish to read their spam. >>> Occasionally I see messages like that and they are treated >>> like spam, since they have nothing to do with me and responding to >>> them is useless. They go to /dev/null. Until it's full. >> That works only if you have time to look at all the messages. I >> don't. (I see you declined to disclose a working solution here or in the initial part of my message where I asked for an alternative. How about proposing a solution that does not involve reading the spam as its senders desire and that does not involve dropping what might not be spam on the floor without a response.) >>> Since spammers never use a real From: address replying by mail is >>> useless. >> It is extremely useful for my purposes; it just may not happen to also >> do what you (said you) want. :) > Yeah. you mail-bomb *innocent* parties who's address was used >_without_their_permission_as the sender. So you consider sending a single warning message in response to a received message to constitute mail-bombing? Again, I think you are using a very strained definition in an attempt to shift blame from the responsible parties to the victims. Do you also consider an error response for a non-existent target address to constitute mail-bombing? What about a response that the recipient is not accepting mail from the sender (as is popular with AOL)? >> My machine doesn't look like a relay and they are not trying to use it >> as a relay. They are sending to long lists of (invalid) *local* >> addresses. > It's called a 'dictionary' attack. No kidding. The question is why they are doing it to my machine. I suppose it's possible that they do it to any port 25 to which they can connect, but I'm not convinced. Anyway, feel free to have the last word. I realize that this is basically a religious argument that could carry on indefinitely, so I'll bow out. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The same thing could be said of me, I guess. I have an autoreply here at telecom I sent out to everyone who writes to anyone@telecom-digest.org or ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu which serves three purposes. If you are a good person, writing here to ask a question of the readers, comment on what others said, (or quite often, sass at me) that's fine. The second purpose is if you spammed, but are trainable, like most cats and many dogs to use a litter pan or a newspaper, then it tells you we are not interested in buying anything. The third purpose of the autoack is if you did not write any letter at all, to let you know someone has borrowed your name or your port 25 or whatevr, so you can make adjustments as needed. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 21:16:58 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:22:44 -0500, Dan Lanciani wrote: > jdj@now.here (jdj) wrote: >> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 03:12:34 -0500, Dan Lanciani wrote: >>> Interesting. I didn't realize that this was considered a bad thing. >> There are a lot of people who equate receiving spam to stepping in what >> the cat leaves on the lawn. > This makes no sense. How exactly can you avoid "receiving spam"? Huh? I don't find mention of avoiding spam here. This was relating the emotional aspect of stepping in the cat's donation to one's lawn to spam. Can't really avoid that, either -- unless there's no lawn. >> It makes them all kinds of upset when someone suggests doing something >> other than killing received spam. > Tell me how to kill received spam without also killing legitimate mail > and I'll do it. ???????? OK, now I _am_ confused. Moving on ... >>> My filters respond to every (seemingly) spam message with a note >>> indicating how to bypass the filter if in fact the mail is not spam. >>> (Actually they do this only once per sender per some months, but you >>> get the idea.) I really can't just dump (seeming) spam in the bucket >>> since there are a few false positives. But I get 1500+ spams per day >>> and I can't look at them all. That's not too many... :) >> Chances are that your filters are sending responses to forged >> addresses. > Obviously. But why should I care? The point of the response is to tell > people who were neither sending spam nor forging their address that > their mail has been incorrectly identified as spam. Not a good idea for someone in business. Not a few people will not bother trying again. So I presume you're not in business. >> Occasionally I see messages like that and they are treated like spam, >> since they have nothing to do with me and responding to them is >> useless. They go to /dev/null. Until it's full. > That works only if you have time to look at all the messages. I don't. Not even such messages that make it through the filters? >> I should have made it clear that I was not talking about replying to >> mail. > Yes, that would have been helpful ... Well, it is a rare spammer, if any, that requests a mail response. I really thought that was fairly common knowledge and would not need to be put in such pedantic detail. >> I meant responding by using the url's in the mail body. > Only a small minority of the spam emails that I've examined bother to > encode a destination address tracking cookie in the URLs. Thus your > comment about tainting the database doesn't make a lot of sense in the > context of accessing the URLs rather than responding by mail. Well, not all are so encoded. There are other ways, quite trivial. No, I will not go into them as they are already discussed to death elsewhere. You know, there are things you can do to cut back on the connections from spammers, such as throttling, blocking multiple connections, etc. >> Since spammers never use a real From: address replying by mail is >> useless. > It is extremely useful for my purposes; it just may not happen to also > do what you (said you) want. :) ????? >> Spammers hit every machine with an open smtp port. If your mail server >> accepts connections and even looks like it relays, it will be on >> spammer lists as a good relay. They don't care if nothing is actually >> delivered. > My machine doesn't look like a relay and they are not trying to use it > as a relay. They are sending to long lists of (invalid) *local* > addresses. I wonder what makes your mailer so special that they keep trying invalid addresses? I rarely see such traffic. They nearly always are looking for relays. >> A SYN would do nothing and with multiple SYNs being sent from all over >> the place it would probably be regarded as a dDOS attack. > That's quite a stretch, given that each SYN would be in response to > something the spammer had actually sent, i.e., there would be no third > party initiating the attack. Of course, you would have to be careful > not to build a distributed machine that *could* be used by a third party > for such an attack. What would you think if you were getting thousands of SYNs from all over the world all the time? And what would a laywer think? >> To be charged for a hit a page must be requested. So sending a SYN >> would cost the spammer nothing. > So you are saying that spam hosters do not charge their clients for IP > traffic? Even if that is true, they might change their policy in the > face of such a response. As I said, they charge for hits. SYNs are not hits. Wishes are not fishes. > Unfortunately, I can't afford to waste the bandwidth by actually > requesting the pages. Then the trick is not for you. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: SBC Wants its Cut of VoIP Revenue Date: 22 Nov 2004 10:04:11 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Adam wrote > How can we fight to prevent S.B.C from reaching its greedy claws into > the VoIP treasure chest? Well, as I understand it, VOIP was just ordered by the FCC to be deregulated. So they have to make do in the marketplace. If fees charged by their vendors are too high, they may find another vendor (like cable companies who offer VOIP) or build their own networks, just like the cable companies were able to do. I think it's wrong when the new carriers want to be deregulated when it suits them, but be a "public utility" when it suits them. They can't have it both ways. The VOIP escaped the regulatory burdens the traditional land line carriers have to put up with, which is a major financial benefit to them. ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 06:50:32 +0000 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In this next group of three messages, Robert Bonomi contradicts me, then Danny Burstein elaborates on what he was saying earlier (about no logs kept very long), and finally, Lisa Minter explains what the lame duck government decided to do a couple days ago on copyright violations. PAT[ In article , > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But as someone else noted in a message, > not all ISPs keep that information around very long. Once they have > had a chance to do what they need with it, the information is dumped. > And if someone called in on a dialup line and hacked a real user's > name and password then they would have nothing to go on would they? > PAT] Ever hear of ANI, and/or caller ID ? Six years ago, almost all of UUnet's dial-ups had caller ID, the capability to 'lock out' given calling numbers, and rejected calls without caller ID info. In greater NYC, at -that- time, they had *one* POP that couldn't do caller ID (actually it was the telco C.O. that couldn't 'do' it). And a _very_ persistent spammer who was using it, via large numbers of throw-away accounts via providers that contracted with UUnet for dial-up port access. AT THAT TIME, they were migrating to ANI where it was available. The big dial-up ports providers have had enough problems with fraud, etc. that they almost all run pretty paranoid systems, with extensive logging retained for extended periods. Contrary to the other poster's assertation, almost all ISPs keep this info around for moderately extended periods -- i.e. _months_, for their *own* needs. It can easily take a month or more, for credit-card fraud to surface, just to mention one reason. Example: card charged at the beginning of a billing cycle. 4 weeks later is end-of-cycle. Several days after that the charge statement is mailed. A few days later it is delivered. *BUT* the cardholder is on vacation for 3 weeks. You're at 60+ days from the account opening, before the cardholder 'notices' the fraudulent charge, and challenges it. ONLY THEN does the 'red flag' go up at the ISP, that the caller log data may be 'needed' to identify the criminal that defrauded _them_. In any territory where there is 'measured calling', the _telephone_company_ has records of every call, going back _at_least_six_months_, often longer. Even on 'unlimited calling plan' lines. Finding the records of calls made _to_ your number is a royal pain-in-the-ass, but it _can_ be done. Despite the public claims by the telco's to the contrary. (Judges are _not_ amused when a subpoena response comes back 'we do not have any such data available', and the requesting party shows the judge that they _do_ have call-detail data for that period available; that the 'true situation' is that is is 'inconvenient' to look for what was subpoenaed. Such a pissed-off judge can provide a _great_deal_ of 'motivation' to a recalcitrant phone company. *grin* ) ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: Record Keeping, was Re: Movie Studios to Sue Internet File Traders Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:55:19 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) writes: ( lots snipped ) >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But many IP addresses are not static, >> but dynamic. What do they do then to find the person who 'stole' the >> movie or the piece of music? PAT] > *READ* what I wrote, above. They have the IP address _and_ the timestamp. > The subpoena the ISP to *find*out* _who_ was using *that* IP address *at* > *that*time*. The _ISP_ *does* have that information, from authentication > logs, etc. _Now_ they have the person's name, to replace the "John Doe" > on the lawsuit. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But as someone else noted in a message, > not all ISPs keep that information around very long. Once they have > had a chance to do what they need with it, the information is dumped. > And if someone called in on a dialup line and hacked a real user's > name and password then they would have nothing to go on would they? > PAT] The bit of hacking a "real user", etc., is an annoyance but not the major issue. Of far more concern is that, thanks (or no thanks) to such massive (ab)use of the legal system by the RIAA (and others) many ISPs, and many other groups that would have records, are trashing them as soon as they're not absolutely necessary for system functioning. This has potential to cripple valid and serious investigations. With the emphasis that I'm speaking for myself and not for any group I'm associated with, if the FBI came by and was looking for info to help track a shipment of plutonimum, or to figure out where a car bomber was connecting to the internet, I'd give them all the assistance I could. However, I most assuredly do NOT want to get into the midst of a pissing match between the RIAA and music sharers. Or, for that matter, divorce proceedings. Or thousands of other relatively minor incidents, which, while important to the people involved, are of no social seriousness. The net result of the RIAA, etc., hassles is that a huge amount of useful infomration that could be crucial in major cases is destroyed. (Let me repeat here that it's not just the RIAA but they're the most visible. It's also not just ISPs that see this concern. Taken to extremes you'll find pizza stores dumping records so as not to get dragged into investigations of adultery in divorce cases ...). And I fear we're going to see exactly this scenario, one in which the feds have a _valid_ and _crucial_ need to find out which internet connection was used six weeks ago to, say, check out suppliers of geiger counters, but all the records are long since destroyed. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: U.S. Senate Passes Scaled-Back Copyright Measure Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 11:50:04 EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate has voted to outlaw several favorite techniques of people who illegally copy and distribute movies, but has dropped other measures that could have led to jail time for Internet song-swappers. People who secretly videotape movies when they are shown in theaters could go to prison for up to three years under the measure, which passed the Senate on Saturday. Hackers and industry insiders who distribute music, movies or other copyrighted works before their official release date also face stiffened penalties under the bill. "This bill strengthens the intellectual-property laws that are vital to the ongoing growth of our economy," Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch said. Most elements of the bill have already passed the House of Representatives but will need to be approved by the House again in December to iron out minor differences. Left out were several more controversial measures that would criminalize the actions of millions of U.S. Internet users who copy music and movies for free over "peer to peer" networks like Kazaa. These users now face copyright-infringement lawsuits from recording labels and movie studios, and thousands have been hit with such suits since last year. Under a measure approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, song swappers could go to jail for up to three years if they shared more than 1,000 copyrighted works. That bill would have also directed the Justice Department to pursue file-traders more actively through civil lawsuits. Consumer groups, consumer-electronics makers and the American Conservative Union had sought to derail those measures, portraying them as a radical expansion of traditional copyright protections. That material was dropped from the bill, but the Justice Department said on its own last month it plans to take a more aggressive approach to policing intellectual-property crimes. The bill also shields "family friendly" services like ClearPlay that strip violent or sexually explicit scenes from movies. Hollywood groups say such services violate their copyrighted works by altering them without permission. A section that would have made it illegal to edit out commercials was removed. Earlier in the week Congress approved a measure that would streamline the process by which royalty rates are determined. Another measure that would have made it easier to sue peer-to-peer networks died in committee last month, though insiders expect Congress to take it up again next year. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Reuters News Service. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ 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. 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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. End of TELECOM Digest V23 #561 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 22 17:00:32 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iAMM0VK05038; Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:00:32 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:00:32 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411222200.iAMM0VK05038@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 #562 TELECOM Digest Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:00:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 562 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson SBC VoIP Access Tariff Creates Stir at FCC (Lisa Minter) BellSouth Petition to FCC Threat to VoIP, Says Pulver (Lisa Minter) New Broadcasting Treaty Makes Progress at WIPO (Lisa Minter) Phone, Satellite Alliances Seize Ground With Packages (dailyLead USTA) Re: The Pitfalls of VoIP (Lisa Hancock) Re: The Persuaders (Lisa Hancock) Re: Sears and K-Mart (Lisa Hancock) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Clarence Dold) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Robert Bonomi) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Dave VanHorn) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Paul A Lee) Re: How Do I Learn an Unknown Number? (Paul A Lee) Last Laugh! was Re: Should I Put Cell Phone on Natl List? (Dave VanHorn) 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 are 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 11:06:22 -0500 Subject: SBC VoIP Access Tariff Creates Stir at FCC http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=134331 COMMUNICATIONS DAILY via NewsEdge Corporation : An SBC plan to offer a new VoIP access tariff that might raise the cost of completing calls for VoIP providers has triggered talks between FCC and SBC representatives. FCC officials wouldn't talk about the meetings but there was speculation the agency was seeking assurances from the company. SBC's proposed tariff, which the company said it planned to file no earlier than Fri., would offer VoIP providers a voluntary access method whose price would fall between those of traditional access charges and lower-cost reciprocal compensation. SBC's tariff could take effect 24 hours after it's filed, although the FCC might halt it for investigation if parties filed objections. The agency also might halt the tariff on its own. News of SBC's plan began to raise red flags for some VoIP providers, including members of the VON Coalition, this week. FCC Chmn. Powell told reporters the FCC needs to be careful that the tariff request not force the agency to "inadvertently or prematurely try to solve compensation issues in an ad hoc sort of way." Speaking after an appearance at a TV conference sponsored by CNBC Wed., Powell said that would be his main concern -- "that we are not undermining a direction we are trying to take" in the intercarrier compensation proceeding. Full story at: http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=134331 ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 12:15:12 -0500 Subject: BellSouth Petition to FCC Threat to VoIP, Says Pulver http://www.x-changemag.com/hotnews/4bh19114724.html By Charlotte Wolter A recent petition by BellSouth Corp. to the FCC 'might cause serious problems' for VoIP service providers, says Jeff Pulver, president and CEO of Pulver.com. The petition could limit "the ability of unaffiliated ISPs and VoIP application service providers [without their own underlying telecom transmission facilities] to continue to be viable providers of VoIP services," he continues. The petition, which Pulver calls "this season's sleeper issue" asks for changes to two areas of FCC rules: the so-called Computer Inquiry Rules and features of the common-carriage requirements for broadband networks. BellSouth is asking for 'forbearance' on both rules. Full story at: http://www.x-changemag.com/hotnews/4bh19114724.html ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: New Broadcasting Treaty Makes Progress at WIPO Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 11:53:25 EST GENEVA (Reuters) - Negotiators have made progress toward agreeing a new international treaty on broadcasting, helped by a U.S. concession that webcasting need not necessarily be included, U.N. officials said on Monday. Members of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) are seeking to update the 1961 Rome Convention on the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations, which has been under discussion at the United Nations body since 1997. But many developing countries had been resisting pressure from the United States, and to a lesser extent the European Union to include at least aspects of webcasting in any pact. "It was a big move to take it (webcasting) out," said Rita Hayes, deputy WIPO director-general, who is overseeing the work on the new treaty. At the latest closed-door talks, which concluded last Friday, states agreed to hold regional meetings ahead of the next round of treaty negotiations scheduled for mid-2005, officials said. "We have made progress," Hayes told a news conference. But she added it was not certain that one more negotiating session would be enough for states to call a diplomatic conference, the final step in the treaty-making process. In any case, such a conference appeared unlikely before 2006 at the earliest because the decision to call one would have to be approved by WIPO's next general assembly, which will not be held before next autumn, diplomats noted. The need to update the existing treaty, which pre-dates much of modern television technology, has been made more acute by a growing signal-piracy problem in many parts of the world. Signal piracy, a problem particularly affecting developing countries, was growing at between 11 and 14 percent a year in Asia, leading to significant loss of income for broadcasters, Hayes said. Piracy is one thing on which states agree on the need to act, with some developing countries, led by Brazil, Argentina, India and Egypt, seeking to limit the scope of the treaty largely to that issue. Their stance is backed by many activist organizations, which question whether the broadcasters need any further protection than that already given them by international copyright and other existing forms of intellectual property protection. The scope of a future treaty, as well as the duration of any protection granted, are two of the issues still outstanding, U.N. officials said. Some countries want the period of protection limited to 20 years, while others are pushing for 50. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Reuters News Service. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 12:41:22 EST From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Phone, Satellite Alliances Seize Ground With Service Packages Telecom dailyLead from USTA November 22, 2004 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17680&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Phone, satellite alliances seize ground with service packages BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * BT joins mobile phone fray * Verizon's SuperPages.com launches online shopping tool * AOL switching focus to selling online ads * Nokia's strategy chief leaves company USTA SPOTLIGHT * "3G Wireless with WiMAX and Wi-Fi" -- Now in the Telecom Bookstore EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Microsoft hopes seniors will embrace its Web TV effort REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Congress approves three-year Internet tax ban * Qwest wins Colorado contract Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17680&l=2017006 Legal and Privacy information at http://www.dailylead.com/about/privacy_legal.jsp SmartBrief, Inc. 1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: The Pitfalls of VoIP Date: 21 Nov 2004 19:32:26 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lisa Minter wrote > I'm not saying there's any > such quid pro quo in the case of this specific story, just that the > increase in negative stories about VoIP in the press has me wondering. Perhaps they are legitimate concerns. Newsweek did a piece on VoIP with some precautions that seemed reasonable. If the broadband channel you are using gets busy, your telephone call may have difficulty. This is only reasonable; any new technology takes time to get the bugs out of it. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: The Persuaders Date: 22 Nov 2004 08:02:51 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Monty Solomon wrote: > In "The Persuaders," FRONTLINE explores how the cultures of > marketing and advertising have come to influence not only what > Americans buy, but also how they view themselves and the world > around them. ... This should be an interesting piece, but it is not current news. There were a number of books written in the 1950s about this sort of thing, especially as TV was taking hold on the US. It has also been well documented that advertisers can influence the public only to a point, then the public will do what it wants. For example, in the 1980s, all of Detroit's aggressive advertising couldn't convince motorists to buy their cars -- motorists were buying imports instead. For many reasons, sometimes products just fail in the marketplace and no amount of advertising can move them ("new Coke" anyone?). Other times products become a big success with very little advertising. Most people think of "advertising" and "marketing" as the same thing, but they're not. Advertising is only one component of marketing. Distribution, post-sale support (if appropriate), packaging, pricing, etc. all play a big role. For example, there is nothing special about a hamburger from McDonald's, but the way that hamburger is made and sold to you was a major innovation in the quick-serve restaurant business. > Take the 2004 presidential sweepstakes for example. Both the > Republicans and the Democrats were prepared to go to extraordinary > lengths to custom craft their messages. "What politicians do is tailor > their message to each demographic group," .... This is nothing new. All modern communications does is make it more _efficient_ to what they've been doing all along. In the old days politicians travelled the stump, driving from town to town. The candidate would stop at each courthouse or general store and say a few words to whoever was gathered there. It was grueling work. Talks were tuned to the audience of the particular town; obviously city dwellers had different interests than rural people. In the big cities there was a political "machine" of many local people who spread the word on candidates. President Truman came out of such a machine in Kansas City, and that association tainted him until he proved his integrity and independence. > ... It hardens the partisanship > that's been such a feature of recent American politics." When I read about campaigns and practices of US politics of the 1920s and 1930s, I see no shortage of viscious partisanship. In the early 1930s, for example, the Democratic majority in Congress blocked some Depression relief measures President Hoover proposed. The Dems wanted Hoover to get full blame for the Depression and not any credit for any fixes. [A good on this subject: "The Political Biography of James F. Byrnes"]. Politics is and was hardball, thrown fast and without a glove. > Political marketers are just now discovering new ways to use the > techniques that have long been employed by the private sector. This was done for Eisenhower's campaign. He didn't like it, but he went along with it. Again, modern technologies allows greater efficiencies than in the past, but the basic method of operation remains unchanged. PBS "Frontline" has interesting shows but they are by no means the journalistic record; they represent a particular point of view. A few years ago they did a piece on a suburban Atlanta town which had a syphllis epidemic among young teenagers. Some viewers got the impression that all the young teens of that town were bored and thus "active" to kill time, which was not the case. I felt their most recent piece on Walmart wasn't quite right, either. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Sears and K-Mart Date: 22 Nov 2004 08:27:19 -0800 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yet, they have the temerity to wonder > 'why customers go postal' sometimes ... and your two reasons given for > why there are no more (or very few) public offices available any longer > does not explain how small independent telcos still manage to do it: I strongly doubt that all independent telcos have a public office in every town they serve. They may have some offices here and there, but not necessarily within convenient reach of every customer. > Making floor space available for chairs and the cost of rent is an > equal problem for them. And I would suppose theoretically the problem > of someone 'going postal' is also worth considering. But why do you > suppose the small, non-Bell telcos don't have those problems, and can > continue to operate their public facilities? My feeling is that the concerns and costs are _not_ equal. The security is not just for someone "going postal", but also for more conventional crime like holdups or disorderly patrons. Operating such a center in a big city than a small town has more risks. I remember the Bell office downtown -- the whole place had heavy locks and walls, with tellers behind security windows. I think if you wanted to talk to someone it was like talking to someone through a glass like in prison. (And this was 30 years ago!) Unfortunately, urban life was the way it is. If someone "went off" it wasn't so much they were made at the phone company (or whereever they happened to be at), rather, they were frustrated with their miserable own life in general and had to vent -- sometimes violently. Sadly, a lot of people don't manage their personal lives very well (like paying bills on time) and their lives get messed up, so they're angry. They take it out on whoever happens to be nearby. It only takes one person out of 1,000 visitors to terrorize a staff. In community service I've seen, usually the most angry people have been those that have been the most irresponsible. Also, some major companies become the target of political protest movements who hold sit-ins. For example, a local Bell office would get targeted for a forced shutdown because the protesters are angry that Western Electric had defense contracts; today protesters have a renewed hatred of business. Eliminating the office eliminates that risk. Generally, offices in pleasant small towns don't have those security problems. As to the costs of running an office, the rent in a small town main street will be much less than in a downtown city. The incremental cost of providing customer space would be modest. Further, the office might double has an office for engineers and contractors who have business with the phone company, so adding a few POTS customers here and there is no big deal -- in other words, a receptionist and waiting room are already there. In contrast, a big phone company in a city could get flooded with customers and would need much more expensive space. ------------------------------ From: dold@XReXXWhatX.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 02:19:25 UTC Organization: a2i network Robert Bonomi wrote: > First, it is not clear that WalMart is actually doing this (title > remains with distributor), today. Walmart wants to implement the new inventory plan at the end of the move to RFID. I don't know why those two are related. Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5 ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:11:17 +0000 In article , the Moderator pontificates: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Have you ever considered applying for a > job as a Walmart 'customer service' representative? You already have > their list of excuses perfectly memorized. Facts _are_ facts. Even when you don't like them. I don't know diddly-squat about Walmart's operations. I _do_ happen to worked on charge-processing software, and written clearing- house interfaces. I _know_ what/where the possible failure modes are, and the checks that are there, both real-time and otherwise, to detect them. > When I first called then > went back to the store, for all I knew, the clerk *had* swiped me > three times, then took the money out of the register for the two > additional swipes and pocketed it. I've been in a Walmart precisely _once_ in my life (BB's are d*mn hard to find in the big cities these days -- the kid at the local hardware store said "what are BBs?" *sigh* Walmart is about the *only* place in the area that has 'em. I wasn't going shooting, I just needed a bunch of 'em as lightweight ball-bearings. Anyway ...) In that store, and in *every* *other*store*of*any*type* that takes 'mixed bag' (debit, credit, check, ATM) cards that I've been in in the last circa 10 years, the card NEVER LEAVES THE CUSTOMER'S HAND. Now, maybe your store _is_ different in that respect, but I take leave to doubt it. The fact that the card remains in the customer's possession are some of the "basic protections" against 'employee theft' fraud that are usually required by contract from (a) the card issuer, and (b) the clearing-house, before you can process such cards. (For precessing credit/debit cards _only_, the requirements are not as strict.) > There had been an article in the Independence Reporter a few days > earlier about a cashier at Walmart who had gotten arrested for > stealing several thousand dollars from the store and some customers. There are *very* limited ways for a cashier to themselves steal cash money 'from the store', and approximately _one_ way to steal from the customers, with 'computerized' registers. Doing multiple charges against a card is simply *not* one of them. The audit trail catches it at the end-of-shift, or over-night, at worst. And the records point directly to the perp. Stealing from the customer involves either 'under-counting' cash he gives you to pay for a purchase, or 'short-changing' what you give back. A cashier, and customer, _in_collusion_, can steal merchandise from the store, by the simple expedient of the cashier 'failing to ring' the item as it passes to the sacking area. Stealing money from the till is a real problem. There is a known count (counted by _several_ people, including you) in the till when you start, every sale is recorded, how much money is given in, and how much change is given out, are also recorded. If you over-state the amount of money given in, the amount of change is over-stated by exactly the same amount. Excess credits, or coupons show on the amount due from the customer, and the customer expects to pay only what is shown as 'due'. If you 'over-charge' for items, the computer expects _that_ money to be in the till. If you 'under-charge', the customer does not expect to -pay- that undercharged amount. At end-of-shift there is, again, a multiple-person 'count' of the money in the till. It had _better_ match what the computer 'says' should be there. If the count is 'short', you're a suspect for stealing from the company; and, if it is 'long', you're a suspect for short-changing customers. Really_ small amounts, like 10 cents or less, _may_ get overlooked. Unless they happen frequently. *Many* years ago, a cashier got caught -- he was systematically short-changing customers -- _because_ when the count for his till was off, it was _always_ on the high side. He didn't want the store to 'suspect' he was stealing, so he made sure that any error was in the store's favor. [.. munch ..]] > They did **not** check any tapes or logs to either > verify or deny what I said, just saying 'it could not have happened > because our procedures call for X followed by Y and Z.' Bringing up the possibility of 'employee theft' early on, putting them on the defensive -- was *not* particularly smart. At least, not if you wanted their help in getting to the bottom of things. If the card never leaves your hand, they are correct. it could *not* happened via multiple swipes. *Unless* _you_ did it, in which case it =is= valid multiple charges. :) Whether you believe it or not, the 'customer premises equipment' for swiping the card, and transmitting the information upstream to the clearinghouse is the *most*extensively*tested* part of the entire system, and the _second_least_ likely place for there to be any problems. (The least likely place is the interaction between the cash register and the card reader -- because it is a -series- of steps that all must occur in the proper sequence. If anything goes wrong part-way through, the only recovery is 'cancel and start over from the beginning', and *nothing* goes upstream until the entire sequence is completed.) *Almost*invariably* when something of this sort happens, it is a communications_ problem _between_ two systems. In broad, as follows: System 'a' sends a transaction to system 'b'; system 'b' sends an 'ack' back to system 'a'. *BUT* system 'a' "sees" an error return from 'b', instead of the 'ack'. FAILURE #1 Because it got an 'error' response 'a' *re-sends* the transaction. System 'b' _should_ catch this, because it has the same 'transaction ID' as a prior one that was already processed. Postulate the ID got garbled on the re-send. FAILURE #2. B now 'acks' _this_ transaction (this is the second time it has seen and acked what should have been a single transaction). System 'a' 'sees' the ack and moves on to the next transaction. Result: 'a' thinks it has submitted the transaction _once_, 'b' thinks it has received *two* separate transactions. The discrepancy shows *only* when the 'end-of-day' (shift, whatever) totals are compared between the two systems. One _cannot_ prevent this kind of problem from =ever= happening. One can take steps to (a) make it unlikely, and (b) ensure that it is -detected- after-the-fact, in a 'relatively timely' manner. > I've also told Bob Donaldson (local Walmart manager) that his store > security officers were pretty obnoxious also and that he should fire > them and get more responsible guys to work at his store, and that he > might start getting people to work there who helped customers out to > their car or taxi with shopping bags, or made home delivery like other > stores in town do. The whole place is really a dreadful store. PAT] Yup. That's why you shop there. It's dreadful, and doesn't provide the services you want. Helping customers out to their car or taxi, or making home deliveries COSTS MONEY. Surprisingly _large_ amounts of money. Walmart sells 'low prices', not 'service'. If you want service, go 'somewhere else', and pay more. Available evidence says that _most_ people prefer 'low prices' to 'service'. This is not the fault of the _store_. I do a fair amount of my shopping at 'no frills' stores. I do *not* expect 'full service' from those stores; I *do* expect their prices to reflect that they are not 'full service'. I _also_ shop at some 'full price' stores. *Because* of the 'service' they provide. Like knowing _where_ to refer me, when they are 'not the right source' for what I'm looking for -- saving me _hours_ of research. That *is* worth 'paying extra' for, so they continue to get my business. They also carry a 'better grade' of product, so when I'm looking for 'quality', I go there first. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are generally correct as far as the plastic never leaving my hands. At the bank of cash registers, there is an LED screen facing the cashier and a side facing the customer. The side facing me had a place to slide your card, and a keypad to enter your PIN as needed. The cashier slides your item across a glass thing which examines it and reads the bar code, the the register makes a 'ping' noise and the display screen says what the item was and how much it costs. If the register does not make its 'ping noise' they slide it over the glass again until the register *does* ping. If it never will ping (I have seen that happen, then the cashier manually enters the price on the keypad on that side, But they work so rapidly I cannot keep up with them. With a debit card if you want cash back, you tell the cashier and that amount is added to the total you paid, and it is treated like amount due, total tendered (sale plus cash back) and change due (amount of the cash back). Bob Donaldson told me once that each cashier has to check their money box out of the office when they start their shift. But in the customer service office, it is different. If you want to purchase a money order for example, you cannot use a credit card, only a debit card (bank/ATM card). So they want to take your card, look at it, etc. When the computer finishes printing up your money orders or your postage stamps (and other things you buy in that area) then the customer service person swipes your card on her side of the counter. I do not shop at Independence Walmart because of the dreadful service and things they do not do; I shop there *in spite of all that* when I cannot get an item elsewhere or I happen to be at my hair dresser which is a block north and happen to recall something I need to get to take back home with me. Very rarely do I go there; usually I just call Jeff and tell him to come back to Klassy Klippers and get me to go back home, and *maybe*/maybe not as needed I have him stop downtown for me to get something on the way back. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave VanHorn Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 19:22:38 -0500 > Earlier this year I went to Walmart to get something, and used my > debit card to pay for it. When I got home I checked the computer and > there were *three* identical charges instead of only one. I called > and went back to Walmart, all they would say is 'not our problem, we > did not swipe you three times, we only swiped you once. The problem > got corrected in a couple days, but Walmart never admitted to any > part of it. PAT] Normally, this sort of thing is caused by not using transaction sequence numbers in the packets. Terminal sends a packet, host acks, the ack gets corrupted into a nak, and the terminal re-sends. The terminal eventually gets a good ack, and thinks it's only done one transaction, but the host sees multiple identical transactions, and believes they are independent. Adding a sequence number makes finding dupes trivial. This is not probably something that WM has any direct control over though. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What you say is true, but I have been in other stores when the same kind of problem came up, and they at least apologize for any confusion and offer some free gift or coupon for the trouble. Not Walmart though. Our Chamber of Commerce has a thing called 'Main Street Gift Certificates'. They sell them to you in any denomination wanted, and they are redeemable at almost any store in town. They are great to give as gifts when you do not know what to give the other person, or they can be used for food at several restaurants. The redemptor turns them in to the Chamber office less a *one percent* administrative fee. Walmart, which refuses to belong to the Chamber of Commerce also refuses to accept those gift certificates; I guess they do not feel they should have to pay the one percent administrative fee charged the redemptors. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 12:39:50 -0500 Organization: Rite Aid Corporation In TELECOM Digest V23 #555, NoSpamForMe wrote (in part): > Why is it OK for the a big chain like Walgreen's (or CVS, > Rite-Aid, etc.) to come into a town and drive the little > independent drugstores out of business ... indeed you salute > them for opening a new store in your downtown More often than not, when a Rite Aid pharmacy replaces a little independent drugstore", we acquire and "pour over" the pharmacy business into a new or nearby existing Rite Aid store. Many times, Rite Aid "saves" a small, pharmacist-owned store by purchasing it for a tidy sum when its business is dwindling, but still profitable. Typically, most of the pharmacy staff and at least some of the front end staff are offered positions with Rite Aid. Our Esteemed Editor then noted (in part): > I was not praising Goddess for *Walgreens* opening a store > here so much as I was praising any business for opening in > our slowly decaying, beginning to show signs of wear and tear > downtown. Likewise, Rite Aid has put stores into many locations _after_ a neighborhood store or another chain has abandoned the area. We've done architectural matching, historical restorations, and some unique constructions for urban sites. By the way, there's no hyphen (but there is a space) in "Rite Aid". Similarly, there's no hyphen (or space) in "Kmart" (even though it's often written as "K-mart"), and there _is_ a hyphen in "Wal-Mart" (even though it's often written as "WalMart"). You don't have to take my word for it -- just check the legalese at the respectively eponymous web sites. Please note that I do *not* speak "officially" for Rite Aid -- these are just my observations of practices that are part of the public record. Paul A Lee Sr Telecom Engineer Rite Aid Corporation HL-IS-COM (Telecomm) V: +1 717 730-8355 30 Hunter Lane, Camp Hill, PA 17011-2410 F: +1 717 975-3789 P.O. Box 3165, Harrisburg, PA 17105-3165 W: +1 717 805-6208 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is why Walgreen's is getting a good reception here, even though they will not be open for at least six or eight more months. (They are bulding from scratch where the old Alf Landon [former Kansas governor] house sits). Walgreen's has already joined our Chamber of Commerce, and they plan to build a very nice looking store at 9th and Maple, and have stated they will work with the community, at the last town council meeting a few weeks ago. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: How Do I Learn an Unknown Number? Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 16:08:11 -0500 Organization: Rite Aid Corporation In TELECOM Digest V23 #561, rekingus@yahoo.com (reking) wrote (in part): > Anyone know how I can retrieve a phone number for a line that=0D > I have recently discovered within our business. Hook up a butt set or a phone set you have lying around and call your cell phone. Read the CPN from the display. > SBC is our carrier but they tell me I would have to have=0D > someone come out and trace the line at a charge. If you know the location of SBC's demarcation point ("demarc"), network interface device (NID, pronounced "nid"), or minimum point of entry (MPoE, pronounced "EM-poe") serving your location, trace the line in question back to that point. If the phone number or circuit number is not legibly and accurately marked there, then SBC is obliged to come out and so mark it without charge to you. This is a repair issue, and a line that is not identified at the demarc is considered a service problem on the carrier's side of the demarc. The only legitimate reasons they would have to charge you are if you had them trace inside wiring back to the demarc, or if the demarc were damaged or defaced even though it was under your control. If the demarc is outside and accessible to others without your knowledge, even a damaged or defaced NID is the carrier's responsibility. If SBC gives you any static about it, let them know that you'll be checking their claims with your state's public utilities or public service commission. Find it through the following: http://www.naruc.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=3D15 You may wind up at the bottom of their repair schedule, but they're still obliged to show up -- within 10 business days, typically, absent any weather emergency or disaster affecting phone service. Paul A Lee Sr Telecom Engineer Rite Aid Corporation HL-IS-COM (Telecomm) V: +1 717 730-8355 30 Hunter Lane, Camp Hill, PA 17011-2410 F: +1 717 975-3789 P.O. Box 3165, Harrisburg, PA 17105-3165 W: +1 717 805-6208 ------------------------------ From: Dave VanHorn Subject: Last Laugh! Re: Should I Put Cell Phone on National No Call List? Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 19:24:09 -0500 You frequently hear that "we do not sell our customer list".. Of course not! The rent or lease them! ------------------------------ 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'. 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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 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. 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 #562 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 23 15:36:44 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iANKahD16228; Tue, 23 Nov 2004 15:36:44 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 15:36:44 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411232036.iANKahD16228@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 #563 TELECOM Digest Tue, 23 Nov 2004 15:36:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 563 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Nude Photo Publisher Perfect 10 Sues Google (Lisa Minter) Bofra exploit hits The Register ad serving supplier (Monty Solomon) WiFi Centrino RANGE Increase POSSIBLE? (Michal) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Steve Sobol) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Lisa Hancock) Re: Sears and K-Mart (Scott Dorsey) Re: Sears and K-Mart (Steve Sobol) Re: Sears and K-Mart (Robert Bonomi) Re: Dropping SBC For a VoIP Solution - Vonage or Packet8? (John McHarry) Re: How Do I Learn an Unknown Number? (Nathan Strom) Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate (Scott Dorsey) Re: Anyone Having any Luck With Google Ads? (Gary Breuckman) Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech (Scott Dorsey) Re: The Persuaders (Thomas A. Horsley) Deja Vu All Over Again (Patrick Townson) Last Laugh! Online Casino Buys Virgin Mary Sandwich For $28,000 (Minter) Last Laugh! Ordering a Pizza by Phone in 2008 (Patrick Townson) 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 are 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter Subject: Nude Photo Publisher Perfect 10 Sues Google Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 12:02:54 EST By Lisa Baertlein SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California-based pornographer said on Monday it has sued Google Inc. alleging that its leading Internet search engines are illegally allowing people to view hijacked versions of its nude photos and to access its Web site with stolen passwords. Perfect 10 -- whose current slogan is "The World's Most Beautiful Natural Women" -- alleged in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles on Friday that Google's image search engine gives users illegal access to photos it owns and produced, violating copyrights and harming its ability to profit from the distribution of the photos via its magazine and Web site. Further, a Google Web search for "perfect10.com passwords" serves up a list of usernames and passwords that would enable searchers to access Perfect 10's Web site and bypass its $25.50 monthly membership fee. "They're showing the pictures from my magazine and my Web site for free so there's no reason for anyone to buy my products. To add insult to injury, they give away my user names and passwords," said Norm Zada, president of Beverly Hills, California-based Perfect 10. Zada added that his company had sent almost 30 formal requests to Google, asking the newly public company to remove the photos and password lists from its search results. He said it sued after being dissatisfied with Google's response. In its lawsuit, Perfect 10 charges Google with copyright and trademark infringement and circumvention of copyright protection systems. It further alleges trademark dilution, unfair competition and violation of rights of publicity. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. Google (GOOG.O) had not reviewed the lawsuit, said a spokesman, who declined further comment. In 2002, a federal appeals court ruled that Web sites may reproduce and post "thumbnail" or down-sized versions of copyrighted photographs. Nevertheless, it said displaying full-sized copies of photographs is a copyright violation. Google's image search results show photographic thumbnails. Some of those thumbnails link to sites that Perfect 10 said are illegally displaying full-sized photographs it owns. Earlier this year, Perfect 10 sued Visa, MasterCard and other financial institutions, alleging they facilitated and have profited from the illegal sale of pirated sex images flooding the Internet and thus should bear responsibility for any related copyright violations. Google, which went public in mid-August and runs a very profitable advertising business, has been hit with several intellectual property lawsuits from advertisers seeking to protect their trademarks. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Reuters News Service. . For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 09:20:27 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Bofra Exploit Hits The Register Ad Serving Supplier http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/21/register_adserver_attack/ Bofra exploit hits our ad serving supplier By Team Register Published Sunday 21st November 2004 16:18 GMT Important notice Early on Saturday morning some banner advertising served for The Register by third party ad serving company Falk AG became infected with the Bofra/IFrame exploit. The Register suspended ad serving by this company on discovery of the problem. Bofra/IFrame is a currently unpatched exploit which affects Internet Explorer 6.0 on all Windows platforms bar Windows XP SP2. If you may have visited The Register between 6am and 12.30pm GMT on Saturday, Nov 20 using any Windows platform bar XP SP2 we strongly advise you to check your machine with up to date anti-virus software, to install SP2 if you are running Windows XP, and to strongly consider running an alternative browser, at least until Microsoft deals with the issue. We have asked Falk for an explanation and for further details of the incident, and pending this we do not intend to restart ad-serving via the company. Falk will, we understand, be making a statement regarding the matter on Monday. Although the matter was beyond our direct control, we do not regard it as acceptable for any Register reader to be exposed in this way, and wish to apologise sincerely to anyone who was. Further information about this particular exploit is available here or here. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/04/ie_iframe_vuln/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/10/bofra_worm/ ------------------------------ From: michalkuls@o2.pl (Michal) Subject: WiFi Centrino RANGE Increase POSSIBLE? Date: 23 Nov 2004 06:37:07 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi, I have a Toshiba A50-101 which is Centrino (with Wifi of course) I'm using Wifi access point from Linksys named WAG54G. I need to use the computer on other floor than the access point is. It works really poor. The wifi range is not sufficient. Is it possible to increase my wifi range by using some sort of PCMCIA antenna or something? Thanks for any advice! Regards, Mike [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I increased my range *a little* using an EZ-10 thing (see the EZ-10 web site). Basically, it uses tin-foil around the antenna on the base unit to reflect the signal, or push it forward. Considering its cost (free, with construction time about ten minutes) you might want to see if it helps a little. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:13:12 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Robert Bonomi wrote: > I've been in a Walmart precisely _once_ in my life (BB's are d*mn > hard to find in the big cities these days -- the kid at the local > hardware store said "what are BBs?" *sigh* Walmart is about the > *only* place in the area that has 'em. I wasn't going shooting, I > just needed a bunch of 'em as lightweight ball-bearings. Anyway ...) > In that store, and in *every* *other*store*of*any*type* that takes > 'mixed bag' (debit, credit, check, ATM) cards that I've been in in the > last circa 10 years, the card NEVER LEAVES THE CUSTOMER'S HAND. I beg to differ, Sir. At our Wal*Mart, you can swipe the card yourself but more often than not, out of habit, I hand the card to the cashier anyhow and she swipes it. Same with grocery stores, etc. Generally people do swipe the cards themselves but that is NOT always the case. Then TELECOM Digest Editor noted in partial response: > But in the customer service office, it is different. If you want to > purchase a money order for example, you cannot use a credit card, only > a debit card (bank/ATM card). So they want to take your card, look at > it, etc. When the computer finishes printing up your money orders or > your postage stamps (and other things you buy in that area) then the > customer service person swipes your card on her side of the counter. Well, yeah; if I'm giving you a cash equivalent (money order, for example), I'm going to make damned sure that the transaction goes through. So, yes, I'm going to take extra precautions to that end. I'm not, however, arguing that your Wal*Mart is wonderful. It's entirely possible that it is horrid. Just making a couple counterpoints to your points. Paul A Lee wrote: >> Why is it OK for the a big chain like Walgreen's (or CVS, >> Rite-Aid, etc.) to come into a town and drive the little >> independent drugstores out of business ... indeed you salute >> them for opening a new store in your downtown > More often than not, when a Rite Aid pharmacy replaces a little > independent drugstore", we acquire and "pour over" the pharmacy > business into a new or nearby existing Rite Aid store. I didn't know this. If the Rite Aid five minutes from my house didn't have absolutely horrendous customer service, this would be another reason to shop there. (Front-end is ok, but the pharmacy employees are all jerks. The other area Rite Aids have decent employees working for them, and good customer service, and I've complained to the regional manager about my neighborhood store and perhaps he's fixed things up by now.) The important thing is that, in this area, when Rite Aid bought the local Thrifty drug stores, they kept the Thrifty ice-cream counters! :) (You gotta have priorities!) JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: 23 Nov 2004 08:04:49 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote > Doing multiple charges against a card is simply *not* one of them. > The audit trail catches it at the end-of-shift, or over-night, at > worst. And the records point directly to the perp. An audit trail works only if someone actually reads and checks the audit trail. There have been many crimes of stealing because an audited wasn't conducted until a long time (sometimes years) after the transaction, or all the money finally disappeared. There was a recent case of an armored truck crew stealing from ATM machines they filled with cash. Apparently no one bothered to check how much cash was still in the ATM before they refilled it, so the crews could take that cash without accountability. For some reason, an awful lot of people today are terrified of simple income and balance sheet statements. Anyone involved in a business must read and understand these reports every month and watch for unusual transactions. From time to time a detailed external audit of every transaction is necessary. Many businesses -- large and small -- run into big trouble because no one is studying and understanding the monthly financial reports. > A cashier, and customer, _in_collusion_, can steal merchandise from > the store, by the simple expedient of the cashier 'failing to ring' > the item as it passes to the sacking area. Stores check for that by using (1) private detectives who come into a store and monitor employees and (2) CCTV cameras on the register. Stores that hire a lot of kids have to watch them giving free stuff to their friends or under-ringing. Apparently no one cares at all about youngsters selling cigarettes to their underage friends -- that practice is rampant. > Stealing money from the till is a real problem. There is a known > count (counted by _several_ people, including you) in the till when > you start, every sale is recorded, how much money is given in, and how > much change is given out, are also recorded. But is it checked by an independent person? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. In business, the issuing and receiving checks, the gross amounts received and disbursed need to be compared with the invoices and vouchers by a separate person as well as by outside auditors. People set up a phony accounts payable account which is actually themselves. Auditing checks vs. separately prepared vouchers helps prevents that. > Bringing up the possibility of 'employee theft' early on, putting them > on the defensive -- was *not* particularly smart. At least, not if > you wanted their help in getting to the bottom of things. One regional convenience store chain got into hot water by taking a very aggressive approach with this. When they suspected an employee of theft (ie eating a bag of potato chips without paying for it) they pulled them into a back room and threatened them with severe criminal charges unless they confessed and pleaded guilty to a minor charge, which most employees did out of fear regardless if they actually stole. IIRC, a major national chain used lie-detectors on hiring employees or on existing employees suspected of theft. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Independence Walmart has some very young cashiers now and then and there was a problem where the kids were ringing up beer and cigarettes for their friends, etc. So does Marvins, but Walmart changed their system where any purchases of tobacco products have to be taken to *one single register* for handling. All tobacco products are stored at that one register, and whatever you ask for, the clerk gets it from the shelf and gives it to you (after payment). Beer on the other hand, because of its larger, bulky size can go through any register with your other purchases. I was in Walmart one day and they had all young kids at the registers. Some guy came though with his shopping cart full of stuff including a six-pack of some beer. The kid rings up *everything else* (moving the beer out the way on the conveyor belt, then he said into the overhead loudspeaker "twenty one! Register 7" and just stood there. The old biddy who works in the office there stuck her head out of the door, and looked over at him, then walked over to his register. *She* swiped the beer on the glass of the scanner, and put it in the plastic bags they use for customer merchandise, then turned the register back over to him, and waddled back to the office. The kid collected all the money but knew better than to touch or handle or 'be in possession of' the alcohol personally as Walmart stipulates. I guess the law requires them to have a person over the age of 21 make those sales. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Sears and K-Mart Date: 23 Nov 2004 11:47:07 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) In article , Thomas A. Horsley wrote: >> ...Frontier -- has at least some walk-in offices. I wonder what the >> Bells are so afraid of that non-Bells aren't ... > My impression has always been that they feel they are "The Phone > Company" and By God you ought to be using your $#@! phone to do > business with them. Many years ago I went to a local phone office to > try and solve some problem in the hope that speaking to a real person > would help, and all they did was put me on the phone with somebody > :-). "My phone doesn't work." "Sir, you need to call this number..." "But my phone doesn't work." --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Sears and K-Mart Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:06:03 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Lisa Hancock wrote: > As to the costs of running an office, the rent in a small town main > street will be much less than in a downtown city. The incremental > cost of providing customer space would be modest. > Further, the office might double has an office for engineers and > contractors who have business with the phone company, so adding a few > POTS customers here and there is no big deal -- in other words, a > receptionist and waiting room are already there. In contrast, a big > phone company in a city could get flooded with customers and would > need much more expensive space. Further to my comments about Verizon still owning and operating retail stores: Verizon has a large operation here in the Victor Valley. Aside from the five or six COs they have within fifteen mintues of each other, they have a Verizon Plus retail store and a call center operation. The Verizon call center in Victorville handles 411 directory assistance for Verizon landline and Verizon Wireless customers, and presumably also customers of other LECs and wireless providers. In addition, the Victorville CO on Mojave Drive is much larger than you'd normally expect a CO to be, and since there are a large number of company trucks, etc., in its parking lot, I assume it's some sort of regional service center. So it makes sense to have a human presence here, and they have had one at least since GTE and probably since back in the ConTel days (the call center still has an old sign out front that reads "GTE Employee Parking"). SBC is a different animal. Ameritech Ohio used to be headquartered in downtown Cleveland, at Erieview Plaza, and the Ameritech building did have walk-up windows for customers. SBC, while still maintaining corporate offices at Erieview, no longer has the space for customers, although they might have a Cingular Wireless store there (but for some reason I recall the closest Cingular corporate store being a few mintues away). I believe this is SOP for SBC ... JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: Sears and K-Mart From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 06:13:11 +0000 In article , Robert Bonomi wrote: [[.. munch ..]] > Beyond that, it is a matter of 'priorities'. Is 'cutting costs' more > important than 'customer convenience', or not? Everybody comes down > on a different side of that question on various things. Look at how > few companies have a live person answering the main phone number any > more, for one example. They figure that the cost savings of the d*mn > 'auto attendant' are 'worth' the increase in customer aggravation, and > wasted _customer_ time (after all *they* aren't paying for the > customer's time :). > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yet, they have the temerity to wonder > 'why customers go postal' sometimes ... and your two reasons given for > why there are no more (or very few) public offices available any longer > does not explain how small independent telcos still manage to do it: Yes, it *does*. Repeating from the above paragraph: "It is a matter of 'priorities'. The smaller telco has decided the additional cost _is_ worth it. The big telco has made a different decision. > Making floor space available for chairs and the cost of rent is an > equal problem for them. And I would suppose theoretically the problem > of someone 'going postal' is also worth considering. Actually, it is _not_ an 'equal' problem, as far as costs. Yes, it is an expense, but the magnitude of the expense is _considerably_ different. Whether you look at it in absolute dollar cost per square foot, -or- in terms of the price they sell their service for. It's strange, but the cost of 'basic' service from a traditional telephone company varies by only a factor of about 2, nation-wide. Rental pricing for an 'equivalent' (in terms of customer accessibility -- locale, transportation, 'convenience', etc.) 'storefront' space encompasses a range of more than 15:1. > But why do you suppose the small, non-Bell telcos don't have those > problems, Who says they "don't" have those problems? The same issues exist. The dollar-value of the costs may be significantly different. The _perception_ by the company of maintaining the service may be that it *is* =worth= a higher cost. It's not that they "don't have" those problems, but they either do not _have_them_to_the_same_degree_, or have 'valued' customer convenience differently. _What_ they use to make the decision, is a different matter from _why_ somebody comes down on a specific _side_ of a given issue. And "how" they went about making that decision is yet another issue. > and can continue to operate their public facilities? The answer to that, as anyone with intelligence above that of an idiot can plainly see, is: "Because they _choose_ do do so." They have made a 'business decision' that the additional 'hard dollar' costs _are_ worth the 'intangible benefit' in "customer satisfaction". Other companies have made a _different_ determination regarding the relative benefits vs costs. Maybe the costs are different. Maybe the perception of 'value' is different. In one case they decided value outweighs costs. In the other case, they decides that costs were higher than the value derived. The issue is not one of "can" vs. "can't". but "chose to" vs. "chose not to". The answer to _any_ question -- in the business world, at least -- that starts off "Why don't they ...", is *always* "Money". When two businesses make a different decision on the same subject, it is because either their 'costs' are different, or the *perceived* value of the benefit to the company is different. > Do you think if SBC were to outsource all its 'customer service' > functions to China or India they would be able to get rid of all > their pseudo problems with finding good, cheap real estate? PAT] A question resting on a false assumption (i.e., that it is a 'pseudo problem') has no meaningful answers. That aside, one of the 'attractions' (to management) of 'off-shore' outsourcing of *anything* IS that 'costs' are lower, Often _dramatically_ lower. Many times enough lower to more than offset the increased costs of having the job done in a 'remote' location. The straight 'hard-dollar' economic-analysis makes such actions nearly _irresistible_. Only when one factors in the (sometimes -major-) negative impact on 'customer satisfaction' does _any_ question arise. ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Dropping SBC For a VoIP Solution -- Vonage or Packet8 ?? Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 02:38:34 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net I have Packet8 because I could not get a local Vonage number, and they are a bit less expensive. It is good enough for me, although not quite landline quality. It is probably slightly better than cellular, but there is noticeable delay and degradation when talking to a cell phone, probably due to the double compression. I made one international call to Germany, which didn't last long enough to get a good notion of the quality, but the return call seemed to sound better, so I wonder about the quality of the transatlantic link. Soon after you get it you probably want to upgrade the firmware in the interface box. It is painless, and there are fixes and features that were not in the firmware as shipped. That may no longer be the case, but it doesn't hurt to make sure. ------------------------------ From: nstrom@ananzi.co.za (Nathan Strom) Subject: Re: How Do I Learn an Unknown Number? Date: 23 Nov 2004 07:46:52 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com rekingus@yahoo.com (reking) wrote in message news:: > Anyone know how I can retrieve a phone number for a line that I have > recently discovered within our business. > SBC is our carrier but they tell me I would have to have someone come > out and trace the line at a charge. Is there a way of determining the > nimber by using some code entered on the phone. If there's a dialtone on the line, hook up a phone and try calling 1-888-902-9998. It should read back the number of the calling phone. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I tried it just now and it worked fine on my Vonage line, and also on my cell phone line. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate Date: 23 Nov 2004 11:02:08 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) In article , jdj wrote: > On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 03:12:34 -0500, Dan Lanciani wrote: >> My filters respond to every (seemingly) spam message with a note >> indicating how to bypass the filter if in fact the mail is not spam. >> (Actually they do this only once per sender per some months, but you >> get the idea.) I really can't just dump (seeming) spam in the bucket >> since there are a few false positives. But I get 1500+ spams per day >> and I can't look at them all. > Chances are that your filters are sending responses to forged > addresses. Occasionally I see messages like that and they are treated > like spam, since they have nothing to do with me and responding to > them is useless. They go to /dev/null. Until it's full. I am totally inundated these days with misidirected challenge/response messages and bounces from spammers that send out huge amounts of spam using my e-mail in the return address. It's got to the point where I just dump anything from mail-daemon or from postmaster addresses, and I just dump anything that looks like a C/R. When someone does a spam run with my return address, I will get ten to fifteen thousand bounces in a 24 hour period. This is very annoying. You _might_ do a lot better just to extract the first Received: line from the header and send a complaint to wherever that came from. For example, take the following procmail rule: # Comcast dynamic addresses :0 * ? /usr/local/bin/formail -xReceived: -uReceived: | grep client.comcast.net |cat $HOME/spam - | Mail -s "Your Spam" abuse@comcast.net We can basically be sure that if something comes from a dynamically allocated address on comcast, that it's spam from a zombie machine, so the false positive rate on this is basically zero. Real mail from comcast customers comes from the comcast mail server. Of course, Comcast doesn't care and they won't do anything about the complaints, but it will make you feel better to report the stuff anyway. And there are legitimate ISPs that do actually take care of problems, although these days they are increasingly in the minority. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Gary Breuckman Subject: Re: Anyone Having any Luck With Google Ads? Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 11:05:24 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: puma@catbox.com Jeffrey Mattox wrote: > Pat: > [Please withhold my email address if you publish this.] > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have not had very good luck with them > to date. They seem to undercount hits to my various pages (based on my > examination of my logs) and some days they cannot come up with any > good ads at all. According to their figures, I am getting about 1.2 % > rate of impressions to clicks, but most people seem to get a lot > more. PAT] > I bet Google's hit count is more accurate regarding readership than > examining your logs. Although your logs are correct for pages served, > you cannot assume that every serve is to a human being. For example, > any spider or robot looking at your pages will appear as a hit in your > logs, but that robot will not trigger Google's hit counter because the > robot won't go to Google's site to fetch the ads. Depending on your web host, you can turn on something called 'referrer logs.' The referrer logs show WHERE the link to your page came from, and in the case of search engines often show the search keys that were used to find you. I often find it amusing to see what people used to find my pages. Knowing what keywords people actually used can help you put together the meta keyword and description tags in your pages, to make you even more findable. ie., if they put in 5 keywords and your tags only have two of them, maybe you should include the others for folks that only used THOSE. I also sometimes find other pages that have links to me that I didn't know about. -- Gary Breuckman ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: EFF: Anti-Spam Measures Block Free Speech Date: 23 Nov 2004 13:23:14 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Barry Margolin wrote: > Where does it say that this is the reason why MoveOn.org's mail is > being blocked? One of the other problems that the white paper > mentioned is mailers that assume that any bulk email is spam -- but > legitimate mailing lists will necessarily send out bulk email. It doesn't. In fact, MoveOn.org's mail is blocked because they persist in sending huge amounts of mail out to people who never requested it. It's true that they are downstream of above.net, and it's true that a lot of folks do block above.net because they cater to so many spammers. So you can well imagine collateral damage resulting to legitimate customers of above.net. It's possible that it would have been the case if MoveOn.org was a legitimate customer, but they aren't. They are spammers, and therefore they get treated like spammers. The collateral damage issue is a serious one, but it's about the only way to get large ISPs to take the spam problem seriously. What is currently happening in Korea is a fine example of what happens when largescale blocking of spamming ISPs does not occur. > What bugs me is EFF's use of the phrase "free speech" to make this > sound like a 1st Amendment issue. The 1st Amendment only limits the > *government's* ability to curtail free speech. It doesn't require > organizations to facilitate any particular communications. And it certainly doesn't require ME to use MY resources to facilitate someone else's communications. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ Subject: Re: The Persuaders From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 22:47:38 GMT The most fascinating aspect of TV advertising is to listen to TV executives telling their advertisers how effective TV ads are at influencing viewers one day, then see them in a Senate hearing the next day saying that violence on TV doesn't have any effect at all on viewers who are far too smart to confuse fiction and reality. I wish they would at least make up their minds about how influential TV really is :-). -- >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Deja Vu All Over Again Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 11:56:04 -0600 A message from my cousin, Ken Bryant of interest. From: "Ken Bryant" Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 11:21 PM Subject: Deja Vu all over again > Can you say Vietnam? Ah ... there ... I thought you could. > 40 years to the day since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. > More Troops May Be Needed in Iraq > Monday, November 22, 2004 > Senior military commanders told FOX News that they are considering a > slight increase in combat power in Iraq prior to that country's > elections at the end of January. > The Washington Post, citing unnamed military commanders, reported on > Monday that the top brass is considering increasing the total number of > combat forces to go after terrorists that fled Fallujah after the U.S. > and Iraqi-led offensive there. > U.S. and Iraqi troops continue to clear the last of the resistance from > Fallujah, the main rebel bastion that was stormed Nov. 8 in hopes of > breaking the back of the insurgency before the Jan. 30 election. > American commanders said U.S. and Iraqi forces killed more than 1,000 > enemy fighters during the eight-day battle there and found torture > chambers and the suspected headquarters of Al Qaeda-linked terrorist Abu > Musab al-Zarqawi. > The Pentagon last month ordered about 6,500 soldiers in Iraq to extend > their tours by up to two months. Military officers told the Post that > the exact number of extra troops needed is still being reviewed but > estimated it at the equivalent of several battalions, or about 3,000 to > 5,000 soldiers. The number of U.S. troops in Iraq fell to nearly 100,000 > last spring before rising to 138,000, where it has stayed since the > summer. > Senior commanders told FOX News that the increase being considered in > Iraq will be much like the increase seen in Afghanistan prior to those > elections, but on a bigger scale. > The troop movement in Iraq has always been a possibility, and now with > the success in stomping out much of the insurgency in Fallujah, one > senior commander said: "We have to keep the pressure on." > Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, said > Friday that military leaders will further assess the situation as time > goes on and will look at the impact of the Fallujah operation on the > entire country. Currently, the United States has 18 brigades in Iraq. > "We will expect, by using extensions of some troops that were only > planning on being over there for 10 months, extending them another two > months so that they still would be on the ground, you know, about a > year, and using that to add additional forces over there," Smith said. > "The issue, by the way, is not just numbers. The issue is really about > experienced troops during this period of time of expected increased > violence." > Smith postulated that about an additional brigade's worth of forces may > be needed but that number hasn't yet been finalized. It's not the > military's intent to keep troops in Iraq beyond a year, Smith said. A > brigade is usually 2,500 to 3,500 troops. > "If we believe the security situation requires that, we will make the > appropriate recommendation to the secretary and through our leadership > channels," he added. > Troop numbers could reach about 141,000 to 145,000, Smith said. > The military also hasn't ruled out using the U.S. strategic reserve > forces, he said. > "But again, I think too early to try and decide that until we really see > what's happening with the - after - in the aftermath of Fallujah." ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Last Laugh! Online Casino Buys Virgin Mary Sandwich for $28,000 Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 12:06:58 EST MIAMI (Reuters) - An online casino won the eBay bidding for a decade-old cheese sandwich bearing what some people consider a likeness of the Virgin Mary and immediately began hawking Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese T-shirts. GoldenPalace.com's bid of $28,000 was the highest offer for the sandwich when bidding closed late on Monday, the Internet casino's Web site said. The seller, Fort Lauderdale, Florida resident Diana Duyser, says she made the cheese sandwich 10 years ago and after taking a bite, saw "the Virgin Mary staring back at me." In her eBay ad, Duyser said the sandwich has been kept in a plastic case for a decade and has developed no mold or bacteria. "It is like a miracle," she said. "I would like all people to know that I do believe that this is the Virgin Mary, Mother Of God," the ad said. "That is my solemn belief, but you are free to believe that she is whomever you like, I am not scamming anyone." GoldenPalace.com said on its Web site that the "sacred sandwich" had received more than 1.7 million hits since being posted on eBay. The company's chief executive, Richard Rowe, said the sandwich would be used to raise money for charity. The T-shirts, in various styles bearing a picture of the sandwich and a GoldenPalace.com logo, sell for $19.99. "We believe that everyone should be able to see it and learn of its mystical power for themselves," Rowe said. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. in this instance Reuters News Service. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Last Laugh! Ordering Pizza by Phone in 2008 Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 11:52:35 -0600 This is so close to what is probably going to be happening in 2008 that I'm not sure how funny this really is or if it should be a last laugh. ORDERING PIZZA BY PHONE IN 2008 - Operator: Thank you for calling Pizza Hut. May I have your national ID number? Customer: Hi, I'd like to place an order. Operator: I must have your NIDN first, sir. Customer: My National ID Number, yeah, hold on, eh, it's 6102049998-45-54610. Operator: Thank you Mr. Smith. I see you live at 1742 Meadowland Drive, and the phone number is 494-2366. Your office number over at Lincoln Insurance is 745-2302 and your cell number is 266-2566. Email address is smith@home.net Which number are you calling from? Customer: Huh? I'm at home. Where'd you get all this information? Operator: We're wired into the HSS, sir. Customer: The HSS, what is that? Operator: We're wired into the Homeland Security System, sir. This will add only 15 seconds to your ordering time. Customer: (sighs) Oh well, I'd like to order a couple of your All Meat Special pizzas. Operator: I don't think that's a good idea, sir. Customer: Whaddya mean? Operator: Sir, your medical records and commode sensors indicate that you've got very high blood pressure and extremely high cholesterol. Your National Health Care provider won't allow such an unhealthy choice . Customer: What?!?! What do you recommend, then? Operator: You might try our low-fat Soybean Pizza.I'm sure you'll like it. Customer: What makes you think I'd like something like that? Operator: Well, you checked out 'Gourmet Soybean Recipes' from your local library last week, sir. That's why I made the suggestion. Customer: All right, all right. Give me two family-sized ones, then Operator: That should be plenty for you, your wife and your four kids. Your 2 dogs can finish the crusts, sir. Your total is $49.99. Customer: Lemme give you my credit card number. Operator: I'm sorry sir, but I'm afraid you'll have to pay in cash. Your credit card balance is over its limit. Customer: I'll run over to the ATM and get some cash before your driver gets here. Operator: That won't work either, sir. Your checking account is overdrawn also. Customer: Never mind! Just send the pizzas. I'll have the cash ready. How long will it take? Operator: We're running a little behind, sir. It'll be about 45 minutes, sir. If you're in a hurry you might want to pick'em while you're out getting the cash, but then, carrying pizzas on a motorcycle can be a little awkward. Customer: Wait! How do you know I ride a scooter? Operator: It says here you're in arrears on your car payments, so your car got repo'ed. But your Harley's paid for and you just filled the tank yesterday. Customer: Well, I'll be a #%#^^&$%^$@# Operator: I'd advise watching your language, sir. You've already got a July 4, 2003, conviction for cussing out a cop and another one I see here in September for contempt at your hearing for cussing at a judge Oh yes, I see here that you just got out from a 90 day stay in the State Correctional Facility. Is this your first pizza since your return to society? Customer: (speechless) Operator: Will there be anything else, sir? Customer: Yes, I have a coupon for a free 2 liter of Coke. Operator: I'm sorry sir, but our ad's exclusionary clause prevents us from offering free soda to diabetics. The New Constitution our country started using in 2006 prohibits this. Thank you for calling Pizza Hut. ------------------------------ 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. 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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. End of TELECOM Digest V23 #563 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 23 20:16:32 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iAO1GWQ18608; Tue, 23 Nov 2004 20:16:32 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 20:16:32 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411240116.iAO1GWQ18608@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 #564 TELECOM Digest Tue, 23 Nov 2004 20:16:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 564 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #458, November 22, 2004 (Angus TeleManagement) Virgin Mobile USA May Seek IPO (Telecom dailyLead from USTA) Verizon Fios and Its Effect on v.90 Modems? (Charles W Green Jr) Re: Anyone Having any Luck With Google Ads? (DevilsPGD) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (DevilsPGD) 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 are 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 16:51:42 -0500 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #458, November 22, 2004 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 458: November 22, 2004 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** ALLSTREAM: www.allstream.com ** AVAYA: www.avaya.ca/en/ ** BELL CANADA: www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: www.cisco.com/ca/ ** ERICSSON: www.ericsson.ca ** MITEL NETWORKS: www.mitel.com/ ** SPRINT CANADA: www.sprint.ca ** UTC CANADA: www.canada.utc.org/ ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Bell and Call-Net Complete 360 Deal ** City Fido Launched in Montreal ** Telus to Buy Video Conferencing Firm ** Bell Files Centrex III Rate Increases ** ExpressVu Wins Inside Wire Dispute ** Rogers Offers Consumer-Focused BlackBerry ** Change in Satellite Use Policy Proposed ** CRTC Okays Bell TV Application ** Survey Reports Local Competition Growth ** International VoIP Traffic Growth Slows ** Rogers Removes 4-1-1 Fee for Visually Impaired ** Total Telcom Forms Last-Mile Venture ** IWAY Awards Announced ** Chris Tacit to Join Cybersurf ** Opening Up Wi-Fi to Guests and Customers ============================================================ BELL AND CALL-NET COMPLETE 360 DEAL: Bell Canada has completed its acquisition of the Canadian operations of 360networks and Group Telecom, for C$275 million. As part of the transaction, Call-Net Enterprises purchased 360's retail customer contracts in central and eastern Canada from Bell for about $15 million, to be paid over two years. (See Telecom Update #435) ** Call-Net is also paying $2.3 million for an option to acquire 360's local network facilities, including access to over 1,000 buildings. ** Bell will retain the Group Telecom brand name in western Canada; the business will be headed by Bell's Mark Hanlon, who has been appointed COO. CITY FIDO LAUNCHED IN MONTREAL: Microcell's new Rogers-appointed management has launched City Fido in greater Montreal, providing unlimited local wireless calls for $45/month. ** Rogers plans to apply a $6.95/month "system access fee" on new City Fido accounts, and to increase out-of-region roaming charges from 20 to 30 cents/minute. TELUS TO BUY VIDEO CONFERENCING FIRM: Telus has agreed to acquire Toronto-based Adcom, video conferencing company with 84 employees and 2004 sales of $24.7 million. BELL FILES CENTREX III RATE INCREASES: In Tariff Notice 6839, Bell Canada proposes to increase rates for Centrex Microlink Access and Data Locals in January, and to eliminate multi- year term discounts as current contracts expire. The changes are intended "to encourage customers to migrate towards new [IP-based] services." www.crtc.gc.ca/8740/eng/2004/B2.htm#200412560 EXPRESSVU WINS INSIDE WIRE DISPUTE: In response to a complaint by ExpressVu, the CRTC has ruled that Rogers Cable must allow competitors to lease its inside wire in apartment buildings for 52 cents/subscriber/month, instead of requiring building owners to buy back the inside wire if a competitor begins offering service in the building. ** Two commissioners dissented. Barbara Cram says that the 52 cent fee may be too low for use of wire in new buildings. Stuart Langford says the Commission should not interfere in building owners' contracts. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2004/db2004-494.htm ROGERS OFFERS CONSUMER-FOCUSED BLACKBERRY: Rogers Wireless has begun selling the BlackBerry 7100r, which provides e- mail, voice, web, and organizer functions in a phone-like design. Price: $399 with a three-year contract. CHANGE IN SATELLITE USE POLICY PROPOSED: Industry Canada requests comment by November 29 on a proposal to allow satellite radio services to broadcast Canadian programs in Canada using U.S. satellites. http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/en/sf08253e.html CRTC OKAYS BELL TV APPLICATION: The CRTC has approved Bell Canada's application to distribute television programming using DSL in Ontario (Toronto, Hamilton/Niagara, Oshawa, Kitchener, London, Windsor, and Ottawa) and Quebec (Montreal, Gatineau, Sherbrooke, and Quebec City). Bell has two years to launch the service. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2004/db2004-496.htm SURVEY REPORTS LOCAL COMPETITION GROWTH: The 2004 edition of NBI/Michael Sone Associates' report on Canadian Local Telecom Services, just released, says that: ** Competitors now have more than 20% of the business lines in London, Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener, Windsor, and Quebec City. ** Competitors have 5%-7% of the residential lines in London, Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, and Oshawa, and nearly 30% in Halifax. www.nbicanada.com/reports.html INTERNATIONAL VoIP TRAFFIC GROWTH SLOWS: TeleGeography reports that the yearly growth rate of international Voice over IP traffic was 23% in 2003 and will be about 40% in 2004, a decline from the 80% annual growth rate of previous years. VoIP now accounts for 11% of international calls. www.telegeography.com ROGERS REMOVES 4-1-1 FEE FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED: Rogers Wireless has made directory assistance service available without charge to customers who are blind or visually impaired. The service normally costs $1.25/call. TOTAL TELCOM FORMS LAST-MILE VENTURE: Total Telcom, an Alberta-based fibre provider, has joined with Winnipeg-based WiBand Communications to form QC-Networks, which will provide fibre and wireless-based last-mile connectivity across Alberta. ** Total Telcom had sales for the year ended June 30 of $12.9 million, compared to $3.6 million the previous year. Net income rose 51% to $1.7 million. IWAY AWARDS ANNOUNCED: CANARIE's Ninth Annual IWAY Awards will be presented at a gala celebration in Halifax tonight. This year's winners are: ** Adaptive Technology: Pierre Dumouchel, CRIM ** Application of Technology: Adam Froman, Delvinia Interactive ** Community Service: Karen Keppler, Smart Partners of Manitoba ** New Technology Development: Andre Charbonneau & Gabriel Mateescu, National Research Council ** Public Leadership: Brian Unger, iCore CHRIS TACIT TO JOIN CYBERSURF: Well-known regulatory lawyer Chris Tacit is leaving Nelligan O'Brien Payne. He will join ISP Cybersurf Corp. as Vice-President Law and General Counsel in January. OPENING UP WI-FI TO GUESTS AND CUSTOMERS: The November-December issue of Telemanagement analyzes initiatives by Canadian organizations to make their Wi-Fi networks available to non-employees with no loss of security. Also in this issue: ** Reinventing Telecom Manageme