From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Feb 22 23:35:50 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i1N4ZoE12644; Sun, 22 Feb 2004 23:35:50 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 23:35:50 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200402230435.i1N4ZoE12644@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 #87 TELECOM Digest Sun, 22 Feb 2004 23:35:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 87 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: A Photographic History of Ameritech (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: The Virus Underground (Nick Landsberg) Re: The Virus Underground (Mark Crispin) Re: Quest to Offer "Naked DSL" (Tony P.) Re: Internet Phones, 911 Systems Could Clash (Tony P.) Re: Question About 802.11g Wireless Router/Signal Booster (S. Peterson) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk is definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:57:22 EST From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Book Review: A Photographic History of Ameritech Did you know 'Ameritech' originally stood for '(AM)erican (I)nformation (TECH)nologies, Inc.? You will learn that and a lot more in a recent book "A Photographic History of Ameritech". Subtitled 'Snapshots in Time', this photgraphic essay of the companies which make up the present day north-central region of SBC is a brilliant presentation of how our past evolved into our present. Written and compiled by William D. Caughlin, the manager of Ameritech Corporate Archives, with co-authors Brian F. Coffey and Ilana N. Pergam, this 200-page large size paperback book uses pictures to tell the story of the history of telephone service from its beginning in 1876 through the end of 1999, when Ameritech (or Illinois Bell as most of us knew it) became part of SBC, or what we knew as Southwestern Bell. When Alex Bell invented the telephone in March, 1876, many considered it just a novelty, an electrical toy. Everyone -- at least all readers of this Digest -- are aware of how Western Union essentially thumbed its nose at the invention, a snub that about a century later would put it out of business, along with email showing up a few years later. The Chicago Telephonic Exchange was founded on June 26, 1878 to serve the needs of Chicago businessmen. When the general public also wanted phone service, the Chicago Telephonic Exchange merged with a competitor to form the Chicago Telephone Company, in business from 1881 through 1920 to provide local service around the city. About the same time, (1883-1920) Central Union Telephone Company started offering service in other parts of northern and central Illinois. Actually ahead of Chicago by about 9 months (it started in October, 1877) was the Michigan Telephone and Telegraph Construction Company, which was the nation's first Bell Operating Company. Like Chicago, their first interest was private line service for businesses, but on August 5, 1878 the Detroit Telephonic Exchange opened for business. During 1879, telephone exchanges were established in several towns throughout Michigan, and after two years, in 1881, these various Michigan exchanges were affiliated in the Michigan Bell Telephone Company, and two years following that, in 1883 (through 1904) the Michigan Telephone Company was formed. Then comes January, 1879 and the Columbus, Ohio Telephone Exchange. By the end of 1879, there were cities all over Ohio with phone service. It was about that time, that telephone switchboards were started. In the earliest days telephones were all connected directly to each other: in other words if company A had a phone and company B had a phone and Company C wanted to talk to A and B they had to have two telephones, one each to A and B. Multiply that by the number of companies in Chicago alone and you can see why the skies overhead were black with telephone wires running in all directions. Most companies had a phone to most other companies, so typically there were wires running through the air everywhere. Ditto in Detroit, Cleveland and elsewhere. In March, 1879, Ameritech's first predecessor in Indiana -- the Indiana District Telephone Company began operations in Indianapolis. It eventually became part of the Central Union Telephone Company and had phone exchanges all over the state. Milwaukee's first switchboard opened in 1879, and in July, 1882 (through 1983) the Wisconsin Telephone Company was incorporated to serve that state. These five companies -- Central Union, Chicago Telephone, Cleveland Telephone, Michigan Telephone and Wisconsin Telephone became known as Associated Companies in the Bell System, and that is what this photographic essay is all about: The 1876 through 1999 period as those five companies were born, developed, merged then merged again and (as Ameritech) had still another merger into Southwestern Bell Telephone Company which then changed its name into SBC. The rapid expansion of telephone service in those early years brought with it the need for many skilled employees, especially operators. Although the first operators were young men, it soon became apparent that the subscribers preferred women in this role. Women soon became the switchboard operators, and men handled installation and maintain- ence. But around 1972, the companies began once again employing young men as operators in Directory Assistance and elsewhere. Page 139 in this book shows a young man at work in Directory Assistance in Dayton, Ohio. Caughlin and his associates picked through nearly one hundred thousand pictures in their archives and present several hundred of them in this fascinating book along with some text to place all the pictures in context. The book is broken into several parts, covering these periods of time: 1876-1899 1900-1939 1940-1969 1970-1999 and in addition a section is devoted to Ameritech's lineage. You may wish to order one or more personal copies for your library. The SBC Archives and History Center is pleased to offer the book entitled, Snapshots in Time: A Photographic History of Ameritech. This 192-page soft-cover book chronicles the evolution of telecommunications in the SBC Midwest (former Ameritech) five-state region through select historical images. It offers more than 225 captioned photos of switchboard operators, crews with their vehicles and technicians testing central office equipment. The book begins with an 1876 portrait of Alexander Graham Bell and ends in 1999, on the eve of the SBC/Ameritech merger. The cost for each book is $25.00, plus $4.95 for shipping. To order, fill out the form below. If you have questions, please call Bill Caughlin at (210) 524-6192. Or send him an e-mail at wc2942@sbc.com --------------------------------------------------------------- ORDER FORM FOR Snapshots in Time: A Photographic History of Ameritech NAME __________________________________________________ BUSINESS UNIT ________________________________________ ADDRESS _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ CITY _________________________ STATE _____ ZIP __________ PHONE NUMBER (______)_________________________ I would like to order _______ copy(ies) each at $25.00, plus $4.95 shipping, for a total of _____________. No cash, please. Make your check or money order payable to SBC Services, Inc. and send it to: SBC Archives and History Center 7990 IH-10 West Floor 1 San Antonio, Texas 78230 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This review will go in the Telecom Archives section on history for future reference. You may wish to visit the history section in the archives http://telecom-digest.org and check out several interesting files there about the history of the telephone, etc. I am in the process now of attempting to establish an online museum of telephone history with pictures, etc. I'll need readers help to do it however. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Nick Landsberg Subject: Re: The Virus Underground Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:22:49 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Geoffrey Welsh wrote: > Scott Dorsey wrote: >> Microsoft has long had real problems playing with others in the same >> sandbox, and they persistently, repeatedly, constantly implement >> features with no thought whatsoever to security. > While true, the sadder (and more frightening) truth is that Microsoft > is better than most Windows software vendors. >> I mean, the whole notion of automatically executing a .exe file in a >> mail message being read? What EVER possessed anyone to think that was >> a good idea? > Ponder Nick Landsberg's point about integration: Outlook Express is > integrated with Internet Explorer and uses its HTML rendering engine, > which is designed to execute Javascript, Java, ActiveX, and more. > Outlook is integrated with Office and uses Word's Rich Text Format > engine ... which also supports autoexec macros, inherited from Word > days. Each of these components has questionable security security > decisions in itself, but combining them without an analysis of the > security implications -- which is probably impossible, since there may > be no security analysis of the components -- was asking for trouble. Thank you for the attribution :) I believe it may be worse than you mention above. I had heard (but cannot attest to) that the Internet Explorer rendering engine was used by the OS to actually render the graphics for the whole display. In the programming industry, everyone is clamoring for code re-use, but what this may be spawning is "bug re-use". (Tongue only partially in cheek). No wonder it takes such a long time to get a fix out. There scores of things which may break instead of being fixed. >> Most of these problems have been patched around, but there is only so >> much patching around you can do with a fundamentally flawed system. > ... which implies that they would have to start from scratch, and > they're not going to do that as long as we keep paying them billions > for an overgrown bootloader. But, in addition to design flaws, > security is compromised by bugs such as buffer overflows ... implying > that they would also have to write bug-free code -- at least in > certain modules -- and that, too, seems to be lost among software > developers these days. I'm not even convinced that secure software > could be developed and sold at a price that would appeal to the mass > market. > Geoffrey Welsh > Always looking for a good condition original 'chicklet keyboard' > Commodore PET "It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" - A. Bloch ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: The Virus Underground Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 16:06:29 -0800 Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Geoffrey Welsh wrote: >> I mean, the whole notion of automatically executing a .exe file in a >> mail message being read? What EVER possessed anyone to think that was >> a good idea? > Ponder Nick Landsberg's point about integration: More to the point: at the time that Microsoft made this unfortunate decision, they were playing catch-up with existing software from other vendors. Those of you who may not remember a time when the evil empire was not a significant Internet player may be surprised to learn that it was standard procedure in many MUAs to open an attachment by effectively double-clicking this. This was not just in Windows 3.1 MUAs; it was also in Macintosh OS 7 and even some UNIX nascent GUI MUAs. One UNIX MUA would happily untar an attached tarball in an email message, running tar as root! Those of us who argued against this practice were, at the time, lonely voices in the wilderness. Multi-media mail was the "way of the future" and those who argued security considerations were damned obstructionists who were to be ignored. We are paying the price today for bad decisions made in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The evil empire is by no means innocent; its mass distribution of vulnerable MUAs made it easier for attackers. But their bad decision didn't arise in a vacuum. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. Si vis pacem, para bellum. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Quest to Offer "Naked DSL" Organization: ATCC Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:10:15 GMT In article , Sammy@nospam.biz says... > Kyler Laird wrote: >> Without dialtone, you don't have a connection in the C.O., no >> connection -- no ADSL -- very simple. They are not going to provide >> you with a free line to carry ADSL, neither will any other operating >> company in the country. >> --kyler > Sorry, you are the one that is confused. C.O.s have had non-dial-tone > loops for years, for burglar alarms, "hot lines," etc, you name it. > Dial tone is simply a switch service for dial customers to let them > know the switch is ready to receive pulse or DTMF customer signalling. > DSL requires nothing other than line voltage and a termination in the > C.O. to the ASDL equipment. The provider of the line voltage can be either the DSLAM or in most cases, the CPE with regard to DSL. One of these days when I'm bored I'll hook the scope up to the line jack on the DSL modem and see what I get. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Internet Phones, 911 Systems Could Clash Organization: ATCC Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:13:18 GMT In article , email@crazyhat.net says: > In message <> Tony P. > did ramble: >> The same is true of VoIP -- that call has to be routed through >> somewhere -- and you can bet there's a way to monitor. Even though >> the main path is over IP it eventually enters a switch somewhere >> that authenticates the connection (Wouldn't do to have people who >> don't pay on the network!) and then finds a path to the PSTN to >> route the call. > No. I have a Cisco ATA-186 here, if I were to make an IP call to > 10.x.x.22 it would go over a VPN to my office, and connect me to my > boss. There is no point where that could be effectively monitored > without physical access to one of the networks (on either side). > Sure, my ISP could be convinced to monitor my packets, but that wouldn't > help them break our VPN's encryption. > At no time would my call touch the PSTN in any way, shape or form. > Ah, the miracle mile, where value wears a neon sombrero and there's not a > single church or library to offend the eye. Ok -- on a pure IP to IP call yes. But doesn't the router do any kind of authentication in order to verify you're a registered user of the service? If that's the case they know both your identity and your ISP. It's just one more layer of subpoenas that's all. The upshot is that all ISP's are going to have to open ports to law enforcement over which voice traffic travels, and there will have to be a backdoor into the encryption. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Who says ISP's are going to have to open ports to law enforcement? They would hope so! And if they *eventually* were forced in a court to do so, then what happens when law enforcement discovers at that point all the traffic is encrypted by the user's own standards for same? Is it then back to court to get another subpoena to break into my encryption? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Scott Peterson Subject: Re: Question About 802.11g Wireless Router/Signal Booster/Antenna Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 14:37:12 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: scottp4.removethistoreply@mindspring.com O K wrote: > My current setup is I have a Linksys WRT54G wireless router which > supports B and G infrastructure. I have a 802.11b Wireless PCI card > in my PC. In my condo, I can verify that the wireless portion of the > network between the wireless router and my PC are functioning. I then > take my PC to another floor in my building, and I get little to no > signal. I would like to add either a signal booster and/or an antenna > to make my network functional. The first thing I'd try is to switch to a G card in your PC. They have much better range and penetration in buildings. You should have several options for which channel to use. Try several and see if one is any better than the others. Also, when you do that, reconfigure your router to G only. Often when running mixed mode you don't get the best throughput. Scott Peterson Santa's elves are just a bunch of subordinate Clauses. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V23 #87 *****************************