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TELECOM Digest Sun, 6 Mar 2005 17:55:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 97 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Watching the Detectors (Monty Solomon) RadioSHARK Review (Monty Solomon) Harvard Applicants Breached Security (Monty Solomon) ChoicePoint Data Cache Became a Powder Keg (Marcus Didius Falco) All Wired up (Marcus Didius Falco) FYI: Paper About Metcalfe's Law (Marcus Didius Falco) If You Use Ebay (LB@notmine.com) Strange Call ID (Spyros Bartsocas) Corporate Identify -- Verizon vs. "Bell Telephone" (Lisa Hancock Re: Nokia 6010 Reporting in to Mama -- Radio Interference? (Joseph) Re: Nokia 6010 Reporting in to Mama -- Radio Interference? (Tony P.) Re: Vonage (Isaiah Beard) Re: Vonage (DevilsPGD) Re: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship' (Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship' (Dana) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. 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, 6 Mar 2005 16:05:44 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Watching the Detectors Author Patrick Radden Keefe is keeping an eye on electronic intelligence gathering By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff | March 5, 2005 Six years ago, when Patrick Radden Keefe was a graduate student at Cambridge University in England, he happened upon British newspaper stories that mentioned an international surveillance network with the code name Echelon. Intrigued, he immersed himself in the subject. "It's one of those classic stories where I got clips from the newspaper and suddenly there's a handful of articles and suddenly I need a new folder and then it's a file cabinet," Keefe says. "The next thing you know I need a bigger apartment." Those bulging files and that overstuffed apartment have paid off: At 28, with a few months before he graduates from Yale Law School, Keefe is making a splash with "Chatter: Dispatches From the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping," a book that tries to fill in the shadowy portrait of electronic intelligence gathering by the United States and its allies. On a recent weekday, as he sits on a couch in his childhood home in the Ashmont section of Dorchester, it is the growing culture of domestic secrecy and surveillance that seems to worry Keefe most. While he acknowledges there is a legitimate need for intelligence gathering in the post-9/11 world, he hopes his book will generate a public discussion about the trade-offs between security and privacy that, he says, are being made by government authorities without consulting the American people. http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2005/03/05/watching_the_detectors/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 14:10:08 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: RadioSHARK Review Griffin Technology radioSHARK By Eric Bangeman http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/radioshark.ars ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 03:40:06 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Harvard Applicants Breached Security Tried via computer to learn status By Hiawatha Bray and Robert Weisman, Globe Staff | March 4, 2005 For at least two hours after midnight Wednesday, a computer hacker enabled applicants to the Harvard Business School to find out whether they'd been accepted, weeks before Harvard planned to release the news. According to Harvard, more than 100 would-be graduate students took advantage of the digital loophole, and some of them glimpsed preliminary decisions on their applications. The loophole affected other schools, including the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and business schools at Stanford, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, and other universities. But officials at Stanford and MIT said none of their admissions decisions had yet been posted to their sites. In a security breach at ApplyYourself Inc., the Fairfax, Va. company that runs the admissions computer systems for the business schools and 400 other colleges and universities, a hacker found a way to let applicants peek at confidential admissions data. "This is the first incident of this kind," said Len Metheny, the chief executive of ApplyYourself. "Once we learned about it, within literally 2 (?) hours, we had made appropriate adjustments to the system ... We still remain confident that it's a secure system." But Steven Nelson, the executive director of Harvard's MBA program, said their admissions data were vulnerable for nine hours, during which 119 applicants from countries around the world tried to get at their admissions status. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/03/04/harvard_applicants_breached_security/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 22:55:37 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco <falco_marcus_didius@yahoo.co.uk> Subject: ChoicePoint Data Cache Became a Powder Keg http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8587-2005Mar4.html Identity Thief's Ability To Get Information Puts Heat on Firm By Robert O'Harrow Jr. Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, March 5, 2005; Page A01 The man on the phone called himself James Garrett. Speaking with a lilting accent, the man said he was an executive with a Los Angeles company called M.B.S Financial. He told an employee at ChoicePoint Inc. that he wanted to open an online account with the company to receive electronic reports on people. It was the kind of request that ChoicePoint, one of the nation's largest information services, gets all the time. Thousands of corporate and government clients rely on the company to provide them with publicly available information on people for help in hiring, fraud detection, journalist research, national security and debt collection. But the man's call last fall was different, according to a detective's description of the encounter and testimony presented in a later court hearing. Unknown to ChoicePoint, the caller was not Garrett, an actor in the Los Angeles area. Police said he was a con artist involved in a vast identity-theft scam that succeeded in making off with records of at least 145,000 people. The real Garrett was just another victim. The imposter's attempt to gain access to even more files would not only expose the scam, but spark a national outrage and congressional hearings over whether the nation's growing commercial data industry is doing enough to guard personal information. Yesterday, the burgeoning scandal led ChoicePoint to cut off access to some sensitive data to thousands of small businesses. The company also announced in filings with the government that two senior executives were under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for stock trades that took place after they learned about the scheme last fall but before they made it public. On the day the man called ChoicePoint in late September, he was close to getting what he wanted. He had already filed an application for the right to download reports to his computer, for about $15 each, claiming he needed sensitive personal information like Social Security numbers to track down targets of his collection agency. But to the ChoicePoint employee on the other end of the line, something wasn't quite right. For starters, the caller used a Los Angeles copy store to fax his paperwork to open an account. That seemed strange for a businessman, and even more so when an in-house investigator realized that similar requests had recently been made by others in the Los Angeles area. Something also seemed out of kilter about the local government documents the man forwarded to prove his business existed. Authorities in Los Angeles were called for help. The officer assigned to the case, a sheriff's detective named Duane Decker, asked the company whether it could lure the man posing as Garrett back to the copy store as part of a modest sting operation. ChoicePoint would convince Garrett he needed to go back to the copy store to sign a faxed copy of his application and send it back to the company. The ruse worked. On Oct. 27, a man claiming to be Garrett showed up as promised at the Copymat store on Sunset Boulevard. He approached the counter, asked for a document filed for James Garrett and paid the bill. Decker, lingering nearby, asked the man if he was Garrett. When the man said yes, Decker asked him to step outside. As they left the store, the detective said he thought he had an easy case in hand. He couldn't have been more wrong. The man Decker stopped was Olatunji A. Oluwatosin, a 41-year-old Nigerian national. Oluwatosin claimed he was picking up the paperwork for another man named Bobby, according to testimony at Oluwatosin's court hearing. On the way out of the store with Decker, Oluwatosin dropped the paperwork he had just received from ChoicePoint and other forms for a company dubbed Gala Financial. At the time, he was carrying five cell phones, only one of them in his own name. Three credit cards bore the names of other people, including at least one woman. At Decker's request, Oluwatosin shared his address in North Hollywood. Once there, Decker said he found a printout of a ChoicePoint search involving another name, that of a man he later learned had lost $12,000 to identity thieves. Decker also found a receipt for a public storage business not far away. Before long, searching in unit B-245, Decker found what he later told a state court judge were the tell-tale signs of an identity theft operation: new televisions, electric generators and other products in shipping boxes stripped bare of details about where the goods came from. The paperwork offered other leads. Decker found addresses that turned out to be commercial mail services. Investigators asked to see the unopened mail at some of those locations. One clerk brought out two large bags containing credit card applications, financial statements and other mail that had been redirected from homes around the nation. Driving to more than a dozen commercial mail services in one day, Decker and a postal inspector identified redirected mail from more than 700 people. Further investigation revealed links to 22 other ChoicePoint accounts that had been opened under false pretenses. "I realized that this was just absolutely huge and out of control," Decker said. Identity theft and fraud has become a national problem in a few short years. In 2003, federal authorities estimated that about 750,000 people fell victim to some identity scam. Now the prevailing estimate is close to 10 million. Driving the rise is a growing number of clever criminals who use people's Social Security numbers and other facts of their lives to take on their personas to run up credit cards bills, empty bank accounts and commit other crimes. But consumer advocates say it's also the failure of so many information brokers, retailers and credit issuers to adequately protect records or do enough to stop swindlers by verifying the identities of customers. Credit card companies, marketers and others have lost millions of files to hackers and identity thieves in recent years. Two years ago, ChoicePoint itself was hit by another identity theft scheme involving personal records of thousands of people. ChoicePoint, based in Alpharetta, Ga., has assembled a huge trove of personal data in recent years. Much of that information, such as court rulings, driver records and real estate details, comes from government agencies. The company also purchases information from the three major credit bureaus and other information services. Its ability to create and electronically transmit exhaustive dossiers on people makes it a favorite of many Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and law enforcement and Homeland Security authorities. Today, it has more than 100,000 customers and revenue approaching $1 billion, a large proportion based on the resale of details about individuals. Before granting service, ChoicePoint typically requires a photocopy of a driver's license and business records on file with a state or local government agency. A ChoicePoint employee would then verify that such a person and company exists. Identity thieves skirted this system by using fake IDs and by setting up front companies on paper, registered with government agencies in phony names, according to court and company records. Olatunji Oluwatosin pleaded no contest to identity theft in a California court last month. He was sentenced to 16 months in state prison. Authorities are still investigating who else may be involved in the scandal. They believe others, possibly many others, worked with him. ChoicePoint officials, meanwhile, said they have since identified more than 50 accounts that appear to be phony. The company has warned people to watch for unauthorized activity on their credit reports and has offered to give them free access to that information, at an estimated cost of $2 million. The real James Garrett said he first noticed that something was amiss when he received a call from a credit card company. The company told him that a card in his name had been redirected to another address. When Garrett went to police to report the fraud, police told him he was apparently part of an identity theft ring, possibly related to terrorist financing, Garrett said yesterday. An investigator in the ChoicePoint case later told him that identity thieves had obtained not only his name and address, but his Social Security number, credit card password and mother's maiden name. "They knew everything about me," Garrett said. Behind the scenes, the case continues to expand. Decker and other authorities in Los Angeles have discussed the case with the FBI and Secret Service, which has indicated it may have another identity theft suspect with ties to the ChoicePoint case. The Federal Trade Commission has begun an inquiry. At the same time, public ire is intensifying. Congress is planning to hold hearings about the breach and the information industry in general. Some of those hearings may involve questions about national security. Democrats, including Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) have asked for a study about how terrorists might use information brokers like ChoicePoint. In response to the thefts, ChoicePoint said in an SEC filing that it is "discontinuing the sale of information products that contain sensitive consumer data ... except where there is either a specific consumer-driven transaction or benefit or where the products support federal, state or local government and law enforcement purposes." "We fully support a continued national discussion of how to ensure that information is used responsibly, that the positive benefits of information use are preserved and that the illegal uses of data are severely punished," the company's filing said. The company has defended the sale of hundreds of thousands of shares since November, before the scandal became public, by ChoicePoint chief executive Derek V. Smith and president and chief operating officer Douglas C. Curling, saying the transactions were part of scheduled sales arranged last fall. Smith said he personally did not know about the security breach until January. Decker, meanwhile, said that after four months it feels like his investigation is just beginning. "Sometimes you're looking at Social Security numbers, and all of the sudden a name pops out and you realize, 'These are real people, all of them,' " he information is out there," he said. "They could all be victims, if not now, in the future. Special correspondent Kimberly Edds contributed to this story from Los Angeles. Copyright 2005 The Washington Post Company NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, The Washington Post Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 23:50:51 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco <falco_marcus_didius@yahoo.co.uk> Subject: All Wired Up http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1428626,00.html Plans to cover huge areas with wireless internet access are gathering pace. And, finds Sean Dodson, companies that stand to lose are taking the threat seriously. Thursday March 3, 2005 The Guardian Once the preserve of first-class business lounges, the mobile internet is fast becoming a reality. Last month, Southern Trains announced it was rolling out Wi-Fi access along its London to Brighton route. For about the cost of a bacon sandwich, commuters will soon be able enjoy internet access as they race across the Ouse viaduct. Not to be outdone, service station operator Moto said it was installing Wi-Fi hotspots at 43 of its motorway locations and you will even be able to check email at 35,000 feet: Boeing is installing Wi-Fi access points in its new fleet of long-haul aircraft. Wi-Fi, short for wireless fidelity, is the branding given to interoperability-tested products based on IEEE 802.11, an industry standard that allows data to be sent over the radio spectrum rather than through a cable or phone line. Now a standard feature on all but the cheapest laptops, the protocol is coming pre-packaged in a variety of electronic devices including mobile phones, palmtop computers and even the latest Nintendo games console. Until now, only a patchy blanket of disparate wireless networks has allowed these devices to connect to the internet and it has been difficult for users to roam between those networks since most cover only small geographical areas. But that is changing. Philadelphia is steaming ahead with an ambition to become the world's most wired - or unwired - city, with a $10m plan to bathe 135 square miles with wireless coverage - potentially accessible by 1.5m residents. Over the next 18 months, more than 4,000 wireless antennae will be attached to the city's lampposts, trans mitting free internet access into the city's parks and public places. But, more controversially, Philadelphia's residents and businesses will also be tempted with wireless broadband for about the cost of a dial-up connection. According to the mayor, John F Street, Philadelphia is "singularly obsessed" with bringing the benefits of high-speed internet access "anywhere, anytime, to anyone that needs it". Cities as diverse as New York, Taipei, Calgary and Adelaide are competing to launch similar "muni nets". Smaller scale networks have been deployed on corporate and university campuses and, more recently, in large shopping areas, such as a 42-square block section of downtown St Louis, Missouri. Smaller US cities, such as Salem and Austin, offer city-wide wireless access, while in Europe, the genteel Dutch city of Leiden offers a foretaste of the wireless city. The UK picture is more parochial, though no less passionate. A patchwork of smaller wireless networks, often funded by local councils, is beginning to blossom. Yesterday, Access to Broadband, a pressure group partially funded by the government, reported to the Department for Trade and Industry that there were at least 550 smaller scale wireless networks operating in towns and villages across the UK. Nearly 90% employ wireless networking. These tiny, cooperative projects are in remote corners, but what they have in common with Philadelphia is that they have been established in the wake of the market's failure to deliver affordable high-speed internet connections to everyone who needs it. The rural outposts going wireless are those that feel they are poorly served by BT. There are also moves to furnish London with city-wide wireless networks. Lewisham council is building a wireless network in south London, while the closest Britain has to wireless Philadelphia is a three-mile ribbon in central Bristol. What unites these groups is the belief that cheap wireless access has the power to even out the inequalities inherent in the network society. But not everyone is convinced by such egalitarianism. In Philadelphia, critics have argued that local government-run networks will result in poor service and be a waste of taxpayers' money. Far from being an anti-poverty weapon, say dissenters, municipal networks are more likely to be aimed at attracting hi-tech businesses. As Scott Wallsten wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer last week: "Does anyone really believe that impoverished families are going to run to the store and plunk down more than $500 on a computer just because they can suddenly save a few bucks a month on internet access?" The mayor's office responded swiftly, saying its pilot projects had engaged with low-income groups, citing the People's Emergency Centre (PEC), a homeless shelter in beleaguered west Philly, as an indication of how wireless networks can reach the poorest. Three years ago, PEC created a small wireless network for the surrounding area (average annual family income below $20,000) and offered to share its leased internet line with local residents for $5 per month - roughly a quarter of the commercial rate. The network -- which remains popular -- was supported by courses, whose successful students could buy a refurbished computer with a wireless card for $120. So far, so good. But city hall soon ran into serious problems that could stifle the wireless dreams of municipalities across the world. US cable companies, which see citizen-funded networks as a threat to their commercial fiefdoms, backed a bill that effectively outlawed municipal wireless in the state of Pennsylvania. In December, the state passed a bill forbidding any municipality in the state from running an "information network". Only a last-minute deal with Verizon, the state's de facto monopoly provider of broadband, saved Philadelphia's vision. Verizon promised to allow the city's network, but at the expense of the rest of the state. At least 15 US states are considering similar telco-backed bills to ban municipal networks. To Dianah Neff, Philadelphia's chief information officer, municipal wireless is no mere luxury. Neff, a veteran public servant, sees municipal networks as a potential leveller in a city where 70% of state school children receive free school meals. "We have a vibrant downtown," she says, "but we need to make sure all our neighbourhoods can compete in the knowledge economy. "We are not using taxpayers' dollars to build the network," she adds. "We will finance it through taxable bonds or bank financing." Moreover, Neff believes the network will be cost neutral, meaning that the start-up costs will be offset by a reduction in the cost of civic services. "We need outdoor access for our field operations, whether that's building inspectors, health and social workers or public safety. Our inspectors need access to engineering diagrams in the field if there's a water main break," she explains. "DSL or cable doesn't meet our needs." Chris Clark, chief executive for BT Wireless Broadband, said the UK's biggest broadband supplier would not be taking the same approach as Verizon. "The community wireless projects, which started in an environment of concern about rural service, are evolving into providing all sorts of innovative services," he says. "It would be a pity to see such innovation stifled. More recently, a number of metropolitan wireless projects have been in the pipeline. BT is fully supportive of these initiatives." While such sentiments will be welcomed by broadband campaigners, some wish to go further and establish truly free wireless networks. If municipal wireless represents a leveller approach to the network society, then the "free networkers" represents its diggers. The idea of a free, wireless network to "act as a direct counter strategy to top-down, telecom-provided monopoly networking", was born in Southwark nearly five years ago. Julian Priest, then a web designer, posited the idea that the wireless protocol could be used on a city-wide scale. His company wanted to share its spare internet bandwidth with Backspace, a community of digital artists working over the road. However, it is illegal to stretch an overhead cable across a street. Priest and James Stevens, of Backspace, solved the problem by connecting the buildings with wireless technology. The realisation that the network could be extended followed quickly. The pair's idea to float a "data cloud" over London inspired a generation of free networkers to take to the roofs armed with antenna. Ad hoc free networks have since been established across the world, as far away as Indonesia, Nepal and Tanzania. Priest is lobbying Ofcom - the industry regulator -- to establish a "spectrum commons" that would set aside certain frequency bands for public use. 802.11 has grown out of the thin sliver of the spectrum given to public use, "but it has to share that space with everything else," says Priest. "It's become an incredibly noisy and chaotic channel and we need more space." Free networkers, like Priest, believe that the transit of data through the air should be free. Not just in terms of cost but in terms of content. "People need to take responsibility for their own network," says Pete Gomes, of Wireless London, a pressure group established in January to promote free networks in the capital. "Because of the scale of London, the possibility of creating a unified wireless system from grass roots activity is complex. We are in a position where we are embedding infrastructure for the future and if London doesn't realise that, we could easily be left behind." Links Wireless Philadelphia www.phila.gov/wireless/ Wireless London http://wirelesslondon.info ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, the Guardian Newspaper Group. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 23:47:45 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco <falco_marcus_didius@yahoo.co.uk> Subject: Paper About Metcalfe's Law From the CyberLaw list ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 23:20:58 CST From: Andrew Odlyzko Subject: FYI: paper about Metcalfe's Law Dear Colleagues, Sorry for the spam, but I thought you might be interested in the paper described below. Comments are invited. Andrew A refutation of Metcalfe's Law and a better estimate for the value of networks and network interconnections Andrew Odlyzko Digital Technology Center University of Minnesota Benjamin Tilly Abstract Metcalfe's Law states that the value of a communications network is proportional to the square of the size of the network. It is widely accepted and frequently cited. However, there are several arguments that this rule is a significant overestimate. (Therefore Reed's Law is even more of an overestimate, since it says that the value of a network grows exponentially, in the mathematical sense, in network size.) This note presents several quantitative arguments that suggest the value of a general communication network of size n grows like n*log(n). This growth rate is faster than the linear growth, of order n, that, according to Sarnoff's Law, governs the value of a broadcast network. On the other hand, it is much slower than the quadratic growth of Metcalfe's Law, and helps explain the failure of the dot-com and telecom booms, as well as why network interconnection (such as peering on the Internet) remains a controversial issue. FULL PAPER AT: http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/metcalfe.pdf NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, Andrew Odlyzko. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: LB@notmine.com Subject: If You Use Ebay Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 09:45:42 -0500 Organization: Optimum Online You may need to sign in, but it is free and the site is worth it. From the NY Times. EBay's Joy Ride: Going Once ... By GARY RIVLIN Many longtime sellers and Wall Street analysts, long bullish on eBay, now say they are uncertain about the company's ability to sustain its torrid rate of growth. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/business/yourmoney/06ebay.html?th Definitely worth the time to read the whole thing. LB [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, you can read NY Times on line here each day with no obligation for login or registration. Just go to http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html PAT] ------------------------------ From: Spyros Bartsocas <spyros@telecom-digest.zzn.com> Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 22:09:59 +0200 Subject: Strange Call ID I live in Greece. I received a call from my cousin in NY. On my caller Id his number appeared as 0044212xxxxxxx (where the x's show his actual 212 area code POTS number. How is this possible? ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Corporate Identify -- Verizon vs. "Bell Telephone" Date: 5 Mar 2005 19:53:56 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com As has been done for years, the regular telephone bill mailing contained an advertising insert for premium products and services. On a recent Verizon leaflet, at the bottom was a small line, "Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania". This was curious since that's a very old name that hasn't been used for years. Even in the Bell era, they shortened it to just "Bell of Pennsylvania". After divesture they became "Bell Atlantic", and IIRC they legally changed their name to that. Further, IIRC, their name change to Verizon was a legal name change as well, not just a marketing tool. So, I'm curious as to why they would use an old name on modern sales literature, esp when they're pushing their most modern high tech services. (They changed their name to Verizon specifically to sound high tech and not old fashioned with 'Bell Telephone'). The only thing I could think of is perhaps it's to distinguish this mailing for this state, and former Bell customers (as opposed to GTE customers). ------------------------------ From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Nokia 6010 Reporting in to Mama -- Radio Interference? Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 15:27:12 -0800 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:09:28 -0500, Isaiah Beard <sacredpoet@sacredpoet.com> wrote: > I've been noticing lately that a lot of the newer GSM phones are > starting to do this. I worry that GSM handset manufacturers are > starting to get a little bit careless in taking steps to avoid > interference. Nonsense. GSM phones have always done this. I think you're stating this because GSM has become more mainstream than it was several years ago. > You will find, however, that CDMA based phones (those on Verizon, > Sprint, Alltel and a few others) will not have this problem. That's because CDMA uses a different scheme to communicate with the system than does TDMA and GSM. Just because it's cellular does not mean everything works exactly the same way from different system to different system. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net> Subject: Re: Nokia 6010 Reporting in to Mama -- Radio Interference? Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 19:13:32 -0500 In article <telecom24.96.5@telecom-digest.org>, phil@mckerracher.org says ... > Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com> wrote in message > news:telecom24.94.8@telecom-digest.org: >> On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 15:59:30 -0500, Ted Koppel <tkoppel@adelphia.net> >> wrote: >>> My new Nokia 6010 has an interesting and somewhat annoying habit. If >>> it's anywhere within a 5 foot radius of my PC speakers, I can hear it >>> periodically transmitting something (sort of a rhythmic >>> dum-diddy-dum-diddy-dum-dum-dum). Sounds like static, but definitely >>> with a paced rhythm. I haven't timed the intervals exactly, but it >>> seems to take place every 17-20 minutes. In a related activity, I >>> hear a big burst of static on my PC speakers, and then some rhythmic >>> noise, about 5-7 seconds before the cell phone begins to ring. >>> This is the first cell phone I've had that caused these noises. Do I >>> have a mutant phone? Is this anything to be concerned about? >> It's not just the Nokia 6010. *Any* GSM will exhibit the >> characteristics you refer to. It's the phone communicating with the >> system periodically... > True. I was told by a contact at ETSI (the organisation that defined > many of the GSM standards) that this was originally an oversight -- > they had not realised that the modulation scheme was effectively 100% > amplitude modulation, which would be "detected" by any rectifying > circuit nearby. It caused a lot of consternation in the early days. > The "solution" they eventually agreed was to reduce the power > transmitted by the phones by a factor of 10. This had been proposed > anyway, to reduce the cell size and hence increase system capacity > (also to increase battery life). > Phil McKerracher > www.mckerracher.org So GSM that we have today is a patch on top a patch. Nice to think about that. ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard <sacredpoet@sacredpoet.com> Subject: Re: Vonage Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 09:12:49 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Henry Cabot Henhouse III wrote: > So, anyone else notice that Vonage has taken a dump? I've tried from > a number of different networks, nada, zip, kerflunk. Been working fine in the 732 area code. Tony P. wrote: > They definitely have some problems in different parts of the country but > my service in the northeast has been rock solid. I wonder -- I know I'm > on a Paetec switch so is it a Focal issue? Nope, I'm on a Focal switch, and it's been working fine for me all week. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD <ihatespam@crazyhat.net> Subject: Re: Vonage Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 19:22:34 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message <telecom24.96.10@telecom-digest.org> John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote: > No kidding. I ported my number to Lingo almost a month ago due to > Vonage's poor service and non-existent support, and I'm still trying > to get hold of someone at Vonage who can cancel my account. Perhaps > they'll notice that I cancelled the credit card. Why not use Vonage's website to cancel your account? ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship' Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 15:55:37 GMT > Yes Pat, but it didn't do it on the basis of the 1st Amendment. As I > understand it, the fine was to preserve "Net Freedom" (Powell's term) > and although I like it, I still don't understand the legal basis for > this action. It seems to me the Telco's ought to be concerned about > this because if there is now a "must carry" rule for VoIP traffic, what > happens when they start to offer TV/video? Will they be forced to allow In the end, the only reason VoIP is so cheap is that it passes the costs off to other sectors. Personally, I have seen the quality of my phone service plummet in the past ten years, and I'd be willing to pay a little more to get my good service back. I don't want to pay a little less, get even worse service, and on top of it end up paying more for basic Internet. But that's where VoIP is leading. -Joel ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please feed the 35mm lens/digicam databases: http://www.exc.com/photography ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: Dana <raff242@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship' Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 11:35:05 -0900 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Isaiah Beard wrote: >> My local convenience store and drugstore carry certain newspapers, but >> not all for my area. Does that mean they are _censoring_ the ones >> they don't sell? According to Vonage they are. > You comparison is overbroad and overreaching, and compares apples to > oranges. No, his comparison is right on. Not carrying all possible newspapers in an area is similar to blocking access to ports that certain services use. > I would think of it more this way: let's say that > your phone company provider, be it Verizon or other LEC, decided > that profanity should no longer be used on its phone lines, and > installs special filters to capture and "bleep out" such speech. > Would that be acceptable? This is a strawman argument, as this is in no way compariable to the situation with Vonage. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, back in the 'teens and '20s of the last century, Bell had a rule against using profanity on the telephone. For example, the cover of the 1920 Chicago Telephone Company (predecessor to Illinois Bell) had this notice on the cover of the phone directory: "When addressing our operators, please do not use profanity. Please address our operators in the same courteous voice you would want them to use in their reponses to you. It is not our operator's fault if the line you have requested is engaged or does not respond. Would you like it if the operator responded with a curse when telling you the number did not respond." Apparently people would ask for the number of the train station information line (for example), and find it always in use or slow to respond. So people would curse out the operator and blame her for it, then slam down the reciever. ------------------------------ 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. 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