TELECOM Digest     Mon, 21 Mar 2005 15:13:00 EST    Volume 24 : Issue 124

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Senator Asks FCC to Probe Gov't Videos (Lisa Minter)
    Newspapers Battle Web Sites for Classified Ads (Lisa Minter)
    Scam Artists Dial for Dollars on Internet Phones (Lisa Minter)
    Regional Cable TV Outfit Pulls Big Approval (Jack Decker)
    Free From State Regulation - FCC Decision on DSL (Jack Decker)
    Growth of Wireless Internet Opens New Path (Marcus Didius Falco)
    Re: What Happened To Channel 1 (Tony P.)
    Re: What Happened To Channel 1 (Neal McLain)
    Re: What Happened To Channel 1 (Garrett Wollman)
    Re: What Happened To Channel 1 (Paul Coxwell)

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: 21 Mar 2005 07:37:19 -0800
From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Senator Asks FCC to Probe Gov't Videos


By GENARO C. ARMAS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - A Senate Democrat influential on telecommunications
issues has asked federal regulators to investigate whether any laws
were broken by broadcasters who aired video news releases produced by
the government.

Stations may have violated the law if they used the video releases
without disclosing that the government was the source of the
information, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, wrote in a letter to the
Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC should "take any remedial measures necessary to prevent
station owners from misleading their viewers", said Inouye, adding
that any lack of disclosure also represents "a serious breach of
journalistic ethics."

Inouye, ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce, Science and
Transportation Committee, said the FCC should also scrutinize whether
stations violated prohibitions against accepting "money, service or
other valuable consideration for the airing of content."

The commission will "take the letter very seriously and will look into
it," FCC spokesman David Fiske said Thursday. Generally, the FCC
reviews letters and complaints before determining if there should be
an investigation.

The Republican White House has for some time been preparing and
distributing 'press releases' without any attribution to the source,
and many people who have read these 'press releases' have said they
amounted only to government propoganda.

The White House has defended the video releases, which are distributed
to television stations across the country. The videos are frequently
used without any disclosure of the government's role in their
production by claiming they are 'truthful accounts'. 

President Bush at a news conference Wednesday pointed to a Justice
Department memo issued last week that concluded the practice was
appropriate so long as the videos presented factual information about
government activities.

"Now I also think it would be helpful if local stations then disclosed
to their viewers that this was based upon a factual report and they
chose to use it," Bush said. "But evidently in some cases that's not
the case."

The Justice guidelines conflicted with an opinion from the Government
Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The videos
could amount to illegal "covert propaganda" if stations did not
clearly state the source of the information, the GAO said.

There has been increased scrutiny on government media practices since
the revelation in January that conservative columnists were paid to
plug the administration's agenda and did not tell their audiences that
they had received money. Bush, after the practice was disclosed, said
it was wrong and ordered that it stop, then in February, a gay male
prostitute who operated gay pornographic websites was found to be 
operating daily from the Press Room at the White House doing 'cut and
paste' Republican press releases for 'Talon', an alleged web site with
political news.

The FCC is investigating at least one of those cases, involving
commentator Armstrong Williams and his deal with the Education
Department to promote the No Child Left Behind Act.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. 

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, Associated Press.

For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

------------------------------

Date: 20 Mar 2005 16:05:03 -0800
From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Newspapers Battle Web Sites for Classified Ads


By Lisa Baertlein

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Not so long ago, the classified ad section
of the local newspaper was the best place to sell a car, rent an
apartment or post a job opening. Now the Internet is shaking up this
once-staid and lucrative business.

Newspaper publishers that once enjoyed a virtual monopoly
on the classified market are facing increasing competition,
including from Web sites like eBay Inc.

Experts wonder if free online ads and innovations that allow sellers
of everything from exotic cars to Pez candy dispensers to reach a
massive audience via the Web will expand the business for all or
inflict serious damage on incumbents.

EBay, best known for its auction site, has spent more than $850
million to buy three online classified companies in the United States
and abroad. Last summer, the Web marketplace took a 25 percent stake
in mostly free, San Francisco-based Craigslist.org
(http://www.craigslist.org), an online classified shop that covers
about 100 cities worldwide.

EBay recently launched free classified Web sites in seven
international markets including Germany, China and Japan. Those new
Kijiji-branded sites (http://kijiji.com) mimic Craigslist.

Moves like these are causing havoc with newspapers, many of which have
fought back with online versions of their publications -- complete
with classifieds.

"It's a free-for-all," said Peter Zollman, founding principal of
consulting firm Classified Intelligence. "I think the threat (to
newspapers) is very real because classified advertising is so
lucrative."

The Newspaper Association of America expects the market for print
newspaper classified advertising to grow 5.2 percent to $17.4 billion
this year.

But newspaper market share is falling amid intense competition from a
range of players, including Web sites and Internet search companies,
as well as radio and television, niche publications and Yellow Pages
providers, Zollman said.

Newspapers remain the dominant medium for listing jobs and selling
cars and homes in most local markets, but Zollman warned they must
work to keep that hold.

"I don't think they'll go out of business, but the business is being
transformed very fast," he said.

Analysts who focus on the Web also point to the success of companies
like Yahoo Inc.  and MSN Web unit, which have seen their banner and
branded ad revenue grow as big advertisers follow audiences from
television to the Internet.

ROOM FOR ALL?

Still, some analysts see the changing classified ad market resulting
in a larger sea that can float all boats.

"It's a case of one and one equaling 2 1/2," said Ed Atorino, a
publishing analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners. "It doesn't seem to be
taking away a lot of dollars from the traditional media; it just seems
to be a new market."

Print newspaper classified revenue declined from 2001 to 2003, when
the broader ad market was soft, but has risen in every other year
since the Web went mainstream in 1995.

The Kelsey Group estimates that total revenue from U.S. Web
classifieds was $1.95 billion in 2004, excluding eBay, but
including sites operated by newspapers.

Auto sales typically constitute the biggest chunk of classified ad
spending at newspapers, followed by help-wanted and real-estate
listings, while Web classifieds are dominated by jobs, followed by
dating and autos.

The help-wanted market may be a harbinger for the future push and pull
between the online and offline worlds.

Newspaper job listings were the first to feel the heat from
Internet rivals like Monster.com.

Most newspaper chains during 2004 continued to lose online recruitment
market share to rivals, based on the number of job postings, according
to Corzen, a New York market research firm.  Help-wanted revenue
growth at newspapers also lags that of online job posting sites.

But there were some bright spots. Online recruiting site Careerbuilder
jointly owned by newspaper publishers Gannett Co. Inc., Knight Ridder
Inc. and Tribune Co.  gained market share, as did Hollinger
International and Pulitzer Inc.

Newspapers are also fighting back on other fronts. For example, Hearst
Corp.'s San Francisco Chronicle is giving extended listings to
unsuccessful sellers, while Miami Herald and San Jose Mercury News
publisher Knight Ridder lets people buy online-only ads, with or
without pictures. Still others allow their news items to be used
freely in exchange for advertising revenue earned through online sources.
Reuters Limited is one such example. 

Kelsey analyst Greg Sterling said the jury is still out, but
newspapers appear to be worse off than before the arrival of online
rivals.

"It's very hard to know what kind of dollars have been lost from
newspapers," he said. "I think it's substantial."


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, Reuters Limited. 

For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

------------------------------

Date: 20 Mar 2005 16:08:11 -0800
From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Scam Artists Dial for Dollars on Internet Phones


By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Internet phone services have drawn millions of
users looking for rock-bottom rates. Now they're also attracting
identity thieves looking to turn stolen credit cards into cash.

Some Internet phone services allow scam artists to make it appear that
they are calling from another phone number -- a useful trick that
enables them to drain credit accounts and pose as banks or other
trusted authorities, online fraud experts say.

"It's like you've handed people an entire phone network," said Lance
James, who as chief technology officer of Secure Science Corp. sees
such scams on a daily basis.

The emerging scams underline the lower level of security protecting
Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, the Internet-calling standard
that has upended the telecommunications industry over the past several
years.

Traditional phone networks operate over dedicated equipment that is
difficult for outsiders to penetrate. Because VOIP calls travel over
the Internet, they cost much less but are vulnerable to the same
security problems that plague e-mail and the Web.

Internet worms that snarl online networks can render VOIP lines
unusable, and experts at AT&T say VOIP conversations can be monitored
or altered by outsiders.

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras recently
warned that unscrupulous telemarketers could use VOIP to blast huge
numbers of voice messages to consumers, a technique known as SPIT, for
"spam over Internet telephony."

All of these threats remain largely in the realm of theory.  Caller ID
spoofing, on the other hand, has emerged over the past six months as a
useful tool for identity thieves and other scam artists, according to
fraud experts.

PRESIDENT BUSH ON THE LINE

Any reporter would scramble for a ringing phone that reads "White
House media line" on its caller ID display.

But it's not the Bush administration on the line -- it's security
instructor Ralph Echemendia, calling from a mobile phone on a remote
Georgia highway.

"You can see how this sort of thing could be used in a very malicious
way," said Echemendia, a security instructor at the Intense School, a
technology training company.

Caller ID spoofing is not prohibited by law, but the Federal
Communications Commission requires telemarketers to identify
themselves accurately, a spokeswoman said.

Echemendia built his own system to spoof calls, but several free or
low-cost services allow even technical novices to falsify caller ID
information as well.

Debt collectors and private investigators use Camophone.com's
5-cents-per-call service to trick people into answering the phone,
according to messages posted on a discussion board.

Traveling salesmen say the service comes in handy when they want
clients to return calls to the main office, rather than their motel
room.

James said criminal uses of caller-ID spoofing have become common over
the last six months.

Wire-transfer services like Western Union require customers to call
from their home phone when they want to transfer money in an effort to
deter fraud -- a barrier easily sidestepped by any identity thief
using a caller-ID spoofing service.

Fraud rings can now transfer money directly out of stolen credit-card
accounts, rather than buying merchandise and reselling it, he said.

Western Union spokeswoman Danielle Periera said the company has no
other way to verify that transfer requests are valid.

"We try hard to stay one step ahead of them and recognize that scam
artists are sophisticated and often change their schemes," she said.

Criminals can use caller-ID spoofing to listen to other people's voice
mail, James said, especially when those accounts are not protected by
passwords.

They also have begun to use the technology to make it appear that they
are calling from a bank or other financial institution, said Dave
Jevans, who chairs the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a banking-industry
task force.

That helps them convince consumers to divulge account numbers,
passwords and other sensitive information in a scam that echoes the
"phishing" e-mails that have become common, he said.

VOIP industry pioneer Jeff Pulver, whose Free World Dialup service can
be used to spoof calls, said he couldn't prevent abuse of his system.

The problem will likely recede as companies like VeriSign Inc. and
NeuStar Inc. develop ways to verify online identities, he said: "We're
not there yet, but we're going to get there."

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, Reuters Limited. 

For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

------------------------------

From: Jack Decker <jack-yahoogroups@withheld on request>
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 11:43:33 -0500
Subject: Regional Cable TV Outfit Pulls Big Approval


http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwendland21e_20050321.htm

BY MIKE WENDLAND
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

It may be the Detroit area's No. 2 cable company, but it's No. 1 in
customer satisfaction.

In fact, says Mark Dineen, the general manager and a corporate vice
president of WOW Internet Cable and Phone, the biggest complaint he
gets is from people outside the service areas of 42 Detroit-area
communities who want WOW but can't get it.

Dineen's company was just rated No. 1 by cable TV subscribers in a
nationwide J.D. Power and Associates survey that measured customer
satisfaction. Comcast, the area's dominant cable provider, ranked
seventh.  [.....]

WOW was founded in Colorado in 1999 and then moved to the Midwest in
2001 when it acquired the cable assets of Ameritech New Media. The
Colorado operation broke off from the main corporation and is operated
separately.  [.....]  

Two weeks ago, WOW rolled out one of the industry's most aggressive
bundled packages that includes digital telephone service. For $89.99 a
month, customers get cable television, basic Internet and unlimited
local and long distance telephone calls.

The system, which allows customers to keep their existing phone
numbers, uses Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to patch two-way
phone calls through the WOW network to the Sprint land-based network.

"This really is the future," says Dineen, 40, a resident of
Troy. "People get digital quality and all the caller ID and call
forwarding and 911 features they expect, but never have to pay long
distance fees."

Full story at:
http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwendland21e_20050321.htm

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: Jack Decker <jack-yahoogroups@withheld on request>
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:20:15 -0500
Subject: Free From State Regulation - FCC Decision on DSL


http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/61574

Free From State Regulation  Will FCC decision on DSL carry a larger
impact?

The Federal Communications Commission has ruled, in a 3-2 vote yet to
be announced, that states no longer had authority to regulate digital
subscriber lines offered by BellSouth and other providers, as reported
in the Los Angeles Times this decision, companies such as BellSouth
would no longer be required to sell high-speed Internet service to
voice customers of rival firms. "The larger impact is that it would
put the commission on record saying that there should be a national
broadband policy and not one any state could opt out of," said
BellSouth spokesman Bill McCloskey.

Article + reader comments at:
http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/61574

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 22:09:00 -0500
From: Marcus Didius Falco <falco_marcus_didius@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Growth of Wireless Internet Opens New Path


Sorry I don't have the original URL for this. It's from the NY Times.

Note the risk to the innocent individual user, which is explained in
the last paragraph.

* Original: From..... Bill Craig


March 19, 2005

Growth of Wireless Internet Opens New Path for Thieves

By SETH SCHIESEL <http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=SETH
SCHIESEL&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=SETH
SCHIESEL&inline=nyt-per>

The spread of the wireless data technology known as Wi-Fi has reshaped
the way millions of Americans go online, letting them tap into
high-speed Internet connections effortlessly at home and in many
public places.

But every convenience has its cost. Federal and state law enforcement
officials say sophisticated criminals have begun to use the unsecured
Wi-Fi networks of unsuspecting consumers and businesses to help cover
their tracks in cyberspace.

In the wired world, it was often difficult for lawbreakers to make
themselves untraceable on the Internet. In the wireless world, with
scores of open Wi-Fi networks in some neighborhoods, it could hardly
be easier.

Law enforcement officials warn that such connections are being
commandeered for child pornography, fraud, death threats and identity
and credit card theft.

"We have known for a long time that the criminal use of the Internet
was progressing at a greater rate than law enforcement had the
knowledge or ability to catch up," said Jan H. Gilhooly, who retired
last month as special agent in charge of the Secret Service field
office in Newark and now helps coordinate New Jersey operations for
the Department of Homeland Security. "Now it's the same with the
wireless technologies."

In 2003, the Secret Service office in Newark began an investigation
that infiltrated the Web sites and computer networks of suspected
professional data thieves. Since October, more than 30 people around
the world have been arrested in connection with the operation and
accused of trafficking in hundreds of thousands of stolen credit card
numbers online.

Of those suspects, half regularly used the open Wi-Fi connections of
unsuspecting neighbors. Four suspects, in Canada, California and
Florida, were logged in to neighbors' Wi-Fi networks at the moment law
enforcement agents, having tracked them by other means, entered their
homes and arrested them, Secret Service agents involved in the case
said.

More than 10 million homes in the United States now have a Wi-Fi base
station providing a wireless Internet connection, according to ABI, a
technology research firm in Oyster Bay, N.Y. There were essentially
none as recently as 2000, the firm said. Those base stations, or
routers, allow several computers to share a high-speed Internet
connection and let users maintain that connection as they move about
with laptops or other mobile devices. The routers are also used to
connect computers with printers and other devices.

Experts say most of those households never turn on any of the
features, available in almost all Wi-Fi routers, that change the
system's default settings, conceal the connection from others and
encrypt the data sent over it. Failure to secure the network in those
ways can allow anyone with a Wi-Fi-enabled computer within about 200
feet to tap into the base station's Internet connection, typically a
digital subscriber line or a cable modem.

Wi-Fi connections are also popping up in retail locations across the
country. But while national chains like Starbucks take steps to
protect their networks, independent coffee shops that offer Wi-Fi
often leave their connections wide open, law enforcement officials
say.

In addition, many universities are now blanketing campuses with open
Wi-Fi networks, and dozens of cities and towns are creating wireless
grids. While some locations charge a fee or otherwise force users to
register, others leave the network open. All that is needed to tap in
is a Wi-Fi card, typically costing $30 or less, for the user's PC or
laptop. (Wi-Fi cards contain an identification code that is
potentially traceable, but that information is not retained by most
consumer routers, and the cards can in any case be readily removed and
thrown away.)

When criminals operate online through a Wi-Fi network, law enforcement
agents can track their activity to the numeric Internet Protocol
address corresponding to that connection. But from there the trail may
go cold, in the case of a public network, or lead to an innocent owner
of a wireless home network.

"We had this whole network set up to identify these guys, but the one
thing we had to take into consideration was Wi-Fi," Mr. Gilhooly
said. "If I get to an Internet address and I send a subpoena to the
Internet provider and it gets me a name and physical address, how do I
know that that person isn't actually bouncing in from next door?"

Mr. Gilhooly said the possibility of crashing into an innocent
person's home forced his team to spend additional time conducting
in-person surveillance before making arrests. He said the suspects
tracked in his investigation would regularly advise one another on the
best ways to gain access to unsecured Wi-Fi systems.

"We intercepted their private conversations, and they would talk and
brag about, 'Oh yeah, I just got a new amplifier and a new antenna and
I can reach a quarter of a mile,' " he said. "Hotels are wide
open. Universities, wide open."

Sometimes, suspected criminals using Wi-Fi do not get out of their
car. At 5 a.m. one day in November 2003, the Toronto police spotted a
wrong-way driver "with a laptop on the passenger seat showing a child
pornography movie that he had downloaded using the wireless connection
in a nearby house," said Detective Sgt. Paul Gillespie, an officer in
the police sex crimes unit.

The suspect was charged with child pornography violations in addition
to theft of telecommunications services; the case is pending. "The
No. 1 challenge is that people are committing all sorts of criminal
activity over the Internet using wireless, and it could trace back to
somebody else," Sergeant Gillespie said.

Holly L. Hubert, the supervisory special agent in charge of the Cyber
Task Force at the F.B.I. field office in Buffalo, said the use of
Wi-Fi was making it much more difficult to track down online
criminals.

"This happens all the time, and it's definitely a challenge for us,"
she said. "We'll track something to a particular Internet Protocol
address and it could be an unsuspecting business or home network
that's been invaded.  Oftentimes these are a dead end for us."

Ms. Hubert says one group of hackers she has been tracking has
regularly frequented a local chain of Wi-Fi-equipped tea and coffee
shops to help cover its tracks.

Many times the suspects can find a choice of unsecured wireless
networks right from home. Special Agent Bob Breeden, supervisor of the
computer crime division for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement,
said a fraud investigation led in December to the arrest of a
Tallahassee man who had used two Wi-Fi networks set up by residents in
his apartment complex.

Over those Internet connections, the suspect used the electronic
routing information for a local college's bank account to pay for
online pornography and to order sex-related products, Mr. Breeden
said. The man was caught because he had the products delivered to his
actual address, Mr.  Breeden said. When officers went to arrest him,
they found his computer set up to connect to a neighbor's wireless
network. Mr. Breeden said the suspect, Abdul G. Wattley, pleaded
guilty to charges of theft and unauthorized use of a communications
network and was sentenced to two years' probation.

In another recent case, the principal of a Tallahassee high school had
received death threats by e-mail, Mr. Breeden said. When authorities
traced the messages to a certain Internet Protocol address and went to
the household it corresponded to, Mr. Breeden said, "Dad has his
laptop sitting on a table and Mom has another laptop, and of course
they have Wi-Fi, and they clearly didn't know anything about the
threats."

Cybercrime has been known to flourish even without Wi-Fi's cloak of
anonymity; no such link has been found, for example, in recent data
thefts from ChoicePoint, Lexis/Nexis and other database companies.

But unsecured wireless networks are nonetheless being looked at by the
authorities as a potential tool for furtive activities of many sorts,
including terrorism. Two federal law enforcement officials said on
condition of anonymity that while they were not aware of specific
cases, they believed that sophisticated terrorists might also be
starting to exploit unsecured Wi-Fi connections.

In the end, prevention is largely in the hands of the buyers and
sellers of Wi-Fi equipment. Michael Coe, a spokesman for SBC, the
nation's No. 1 provider of digital subscriber line connections, said
the company had provided about one million Wi-Fi routers to its
customers with encryption turned on by default. But experts say most
consumers who spend the $60 to $80 for a Wi-Fi router are just happy
to make it work at all, and never turn on encryption.

"To some degree, most consumers are intimidated by the technology,"
said Roberta Wiggins, a wireless analyst at the Yankee Group, a
technology research firm in Boston. "There is a behavior that they
don't want to further complicate their options."

That attitude makes life easier for tech-savvy criminals and tougher
for those who pursue them. "The public needs to realize that all
they're doing is making it harder on me to go find the bad guys," said
Mr. Gilhooly, the former Secret Service agent. "How would you feel if
you're sitting at home and meanwhile someone is using your Wi-Fi to
hack a bank or hack a company and downloads a million credit card
numbers, which happens all the time? I come to you and knock on your
door, and all you can say is, 'Oops.' "

Copyright 2005 The New York Times 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.
Also check telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html


*** 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, New York Times Company.

For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

------------------------------

From: Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net>
Subject: Re: What Happened To Channel 1
Organization: ATCC
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 22:35:21 -0500


In article <telecom24.123.5@telecom-digest.org>, 
paulcoxwell@tiscali.co.uk says:

> It was the same over here.  I took in CB repairs for several years,
> but one of the reasons I dropped CB work in the end was that I was
> getting more and more fed up with (a) getting nowhere trying to
> correct the horrendous misconceptions that were around, and (b) having
> to put right sets in which every darned preset and coil had been
> interfered with before somebody decided it needed repair and brought
> it to me.

> One incident sticks in my mind of a guy who had me fit a crystal
> I.F. filter in his set.  It improved the receiver's selectivity no
> end, but unfortunately, he wasn't at all happy.  Apparently all his
> buddies had the modulation on their transmitters cranked up so far
> that with his improved receiver they now sounded terrible (and keep in
> mind that the British CB service uses FM).  There was just no way I
> could convince him that the filter was doing its job exactly as
> intended and that he should tell his friends who were splattering over
> about three channels either side to get their deviation with limits.

> I wouldn't even like to guess at how many sets came in with the
> calibration pot on the meter turned up to maximum by somebody who
> actually thought he had increased his RF output that way.  Even when a
> transmitter did have the output tuned up a little higher, you were on
> a losing battle trying to convince most of them that going from 4 to 5
> watts carrier power isn't going to make a huge difference and that
> raising the antenna or replacing the coax with something less lossly
> would have a far greater effect, not to mention improving reception as
> well.

Interestingly I was in with a group that understood the importance of
good feed line and good antenna's. Never did hop up a set and that's
what actually channeled me into amateur radio.

One of the fellows in the group was an EE - actually designed a tube 
based 1KW amp for the 11m band. Now if he'd gotten his amateur ticket 
and moved it up to the 10m band he would have been pretty much legal. 

Of the entire bunch of us that were on during that period, three of us 
ended up getting our amateur licenses. 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 21:40:01 -0600
From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com>
Subject: Re: What Happened To Channel 1


Michael D. Sullivan  <userid@camsul.example.invalid> wrote:

> Television, on tho other hand, started out in two discontiguous
> VHF bands, with somewhat variable spacing between channels and
> a need for precise tuning, and tuning in on a single band by
> twiddling an analog variable tuning capacitor to the right
> frequency would have been difficult.  This tuning method was
> used on some early TVs; I don't know  whether they were tuned
> by numeric frequency or by channel number, but
> it would not have been very convenient.  The TV industry
> instead standardized on TV tuners that had 12 discrete fixed
> settings, pre-tuned to channels 2-13, with a fine tuning
> control that allowed one to tune  the frequency higher or lower
> to account for offsets....

Whereupon Robert Bonomi (bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com) wrote:

> Plausable,  just 'false to fact'.  <wry grin>

> In the early days of TV receivers, they were equipped with
> continuous-tuning knobs/dials, just like an AM radio receiver.
> For the TV band, however the indicator assembly was marked by
> "channel", *not* by frequency.

> I used to have a 1930's Crosley TV that had that kind of
> continuous tuner.  *BIG* gap on the dial, between channel 6 and
> 7, It actually tuned across that entire 'midband' space -- with
> all kinds of interesting results.  You could "see" aircraft
> band transmissions, and hear stuff on broadcast FM, 2m Ham, and
> business-band.

Sullivan is correct.

As Sullivan acknowledged, some old TV sets did work like Bonomi's
1930s Crosley: they required "tuning in on a single band by twiddling
an analog variable tuning capacitor to the right frequency [which]
would have been difficult."

But by the 1950s, TV set manufacturers were installing "turret tuners"
to simplify VHF tuning.  A single knob rotated a cylindrical mechanism
fitted with twelve little hand-wired circuit boards, one for each
channel.  Each circuit board had a bunch of capacitors, some
hand-wound coils, and a row of metal contacts that mated with metal
springs.  As each circuit board was brought into position by the
rotating mechanism, the springs mated with the contacts on the board,
placing that board in the circuit.

After the introduction of UHF, turret tuners were manufactured with 13
circuit boards, one for each VHF channel + one that switched to a
separate UHF tuner.  The UHF tuner was tuned in one continuous-tuning
dial.

Sullivan continued:

> Later on, [turret] tuners had separate fine- tuners for each channel
> so one wouldn't need to retune when switching from station to
> station.

On each channel, the fine-tuning control engaged a tuning slug inside
one of the little hand-wound coils.

Here's a link to a picture showing a turret VHF tuner (left) and what 
appears to be a continuous-tuning UHF tuner (right).  This particular photo 
happens to be on a British website, but the basic structure of the turret 
mechanism is the same in the USA.

http://www.thevalvepage.com/valvetek/guidgrid/GGRID2.JPG

Back in my cable TV days during the 70s, turret tuners used to drive
us nuts.  There was only one VHF TV station in the market (Channel 3),
so if a viewer wasn't hooked to cable, the only exercise the tuner got
was from getting flipped back and forth between UHF and 3.  This kept
the contacts on UHF, 2, and 3 clean, but the rest of the contacts got
pretty dusty and/or corroded.  If this viewer then connected to cable
(just 12 channels in those days), suddenly, all 12 VHF circuit boards
were needed.  We spent a lot of time explaining, "I'm sorry, sir, your
TV set's tuner needs to be cleaned ... please take it to the TV repair
shop of your choice ... no we do not repair television sets ... our
franchise agreement specifically prohibits it."

Things got even worse when we introduced our first pay service (HBO) in 
1978.  We "hid" it in the midband on cable channel 17, "in the clear" (not 
scrambled, not trapped).  We provided each HBO sub with a primitive 
converter: a little box with a single two-position switch:

   - One position converted channel 17 to channel 2 for HBO.

   - One position passed the incoming cable signal through
     unaltered for channels 2-13.

It wasn't very good security, but the powers-that-were considered it to be 
good enough, since turret tuners couldn't tune it.

Well, it wasn't long before local TV shops discovered a new line of 
business: retuning one of the lesser-used turret circuit boards (like 
public access) to channel 17.

Of course, Bonomi's old Crosley would have tuned to it.  But by the
1970s, virtually all TV sets used turret VHF tuners.  Varactor tuners
with digital displays were just coming on the market, and the old
continuous-tuning models had just about disappeared.

A few years later, we moved HBO to channel 2 (so we could sell HBO to
hotels and motels), installed negative traps to secure it, and
abandoned all those old two-position-switch converters.  But some
people never figured it out: for years thereafter, those old boxes
kept appearing at garage sales and flea markets, sometimes accompanied
by "get HBO free" signs.

As for the folks who paid some TV shop to illicitly retune a circuit
board to channel 17 ... well, they got what they paid for.

Neal McLain

------------------------------

From: wollman@lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman)
Subject: Re: What Happened To Channel 1
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 04:31:38 UTC
Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science


In article <telecom24.123.7@telecom-digest.org>, Robert Bonomi
<bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com> responded to TELECOM Digest Editor:

> Originally, 199 channels, 100kc spacing, numbered 1-199, corresponding
> to frequencies from 88.1 through 107.9 megacycles.  Since then, even
> the name of the unit-of-measurement has changed. :) and a few
> additional channels have managed to sneak in.  I believe 200 is 108.0,
> 201 is 88.0, and I'm not sure how they numbered the space below 88.0.

Channel 200 is 87.9; 201 is 88.1, and so on up to 300 which is 107.9.

There are two stations in the entire U.S. on channel 200: KSFH, a
high-school station in Mountain View, Calif., and K200AA, a Calvary
satellator in Sun Valley, Nev.  In addition, Federal Signal Corp. has
an experimental license for WA2XNX in Brazos, Tex., but I have no idea
if this station is operating.

Channel 200 is reserved for non-commercial, class-D stations which
have been "bumped" by a primary station from their previous channel,
and for which no other FM channel would be technically permissible.  I
suspect this rule was made specifically for KSFH, which was for many
years the only station on the channel; K200AA was just recently built.


-GAWollman

-- 
Garrett A. Wollman    | As the Constitution endures, persons in every
wollman@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own
Opinions not those    | search for greater freedom.
of MIT or CSAIL.      | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. ___ (2003)

------------------------------

From: Paul Coxwell <paulcoxwell@tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: Re: What Happened To Channel 1
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:46:11 -0000


> If you look at a digital "world band" radio, you will find somewhere a
> "europe-america" switch. It's often well hidden. I have one where it's
> in the battery compartment. In the Americas the channels on the AM
> band are spaced 10 kHz apart. In Europe they are spaced 9 kHz apart,
> allowing them to squeeze in a few extra stations. This is significant
> only in digital tuning, especially in digital search.

The allocations here were also all shifted upward by 1kHz following a
WARC conference in 1978, so 899, 908, 917kHz became 900, 909, 918 etc.

> There is something similar in FM. I've forgotten the exact details,
> but in US we use only the "odd" frequencies: 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, 88.7,
> 88.9 MHz. I think in some parts of the world they use the even
> frequencies: 88.2, 88.4 etc. This is to get the necessary spacing
> between the broadcasts.

Yes, FM broadcasts in Europe use both even and odd slots, and in
Britain there have even been some stations given a 50kHz allocation,
i.e. xx.x5 MHz.

> One other peculiarity: in most countries, FM is about 88 to 108
> MHz. In Japan it's about 78 to 98 MHz. There are a few radios that
> will receive the entire band, 78 to 108, but most, including Japanese
> brands sold outside Japan, miss the low end of the Japanese band.

The former Soviet Bloc countries in eastern Europe also had their own
FM band.  I can't remember the details, but I think it was somewhere
around the 60 to 70MHz region.

In Britain, the original FM broadcast band ran only from 88 to 100MHz.
The band above 100MHz was used for two-way radio, a fact soon
discovered by even the casual listener when imported radios covering
right up to 108MHz started to appear in the country.  The broadcast
band was extended right up to 108MHz after the other services had been
moved to different frequencies in the 1980s.

Another minor technical variation here is that we use a different
pre-emphasis curve on FM broadcasts: 50uS vs. 75uS.

- Paul.

------------------------------


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! SPONSORED BY TELECOM DIGEST
AND EASY411.COM   SIGN UP AT http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest !

              ************************

Visit http://www.mstm.okstate.edu and take the next step in your
career with a Master of Science in Telecommunications Management
(MSTM) degree from Oklahoma State University (OSU). This 35
credit-hour interdisciplinary program is designed to give you the
skills necessary to manage telecommunications networks, including
data, video, and voice networks.

The MSTM degree draws on the expertise of the OSU's College
of Business Administration; the College of Arts and Sciences; and the
College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology. The program has
state-of-the-art lab facilities on the Stillwater and Tulsa campus
offering hands-on learning to enhance the program curriculum.  Classes
are available in Stillwater, Tulsa, or through distance learning.

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

              ************************

   ---------------------------------------------------------------

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 V24 #124
******************************