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For your convenience in reading: Subject lines are printed in RED and
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Previous Issue (just one)
TD Extra News
TELECOM Digest Sun, 17 Apr 2005 23:55:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 169
Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson
Surveillance Cameras More Common Everyday (Lisa Minter)
Packet8 Imposes $1.50 Regulatory Recovery Fee (Jack Decker)
Re: Texting is Slower Than Morse (Tony P.)
Re: Texting is Slower Than Morse (Robert Bonomi)
Re: Texting is Slower Than Morse (Wesrock@aol.com)
Re: Can I Substitute a NiMH Battery for NiCd in a Cordless Phone? (mc)
Re: Can I Substitute a NiMH Battery for NiCd in a Cordless Phone? (Wes)
Re: Getting Serious About the War on Spam (Robert Bonomi)
Re: Getting Serious About the War on Spam (Tony P.)
Re: PPC Advertising, Click Fraud; Its Effect on Search Engines (Wesrock)
Re: New Technology Poses 911 Peril (Charles B. Wilber)
Auction: Sierra Wireless Aircard 555: Telus Bell Verizon (Philoushka)
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: 17 Apr 2005 17:06:21 -0700
From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Surveillance Cameras More Common Everyday
By SIOBHAN McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer
It's there when you ride an elevator and make a purchase in a
store. There's no escaping it in a museum. Look up at the stoplight
and a camera may be watching you.
Being lens-shy just doesn't cut it in today's camera-crazed
world. Chances are, during a good part of your day, there's a camera
nudging into your private space.
There's no doubt surveillance cameras can aid police and protect
property. Videos showing crimes are played routinely on news programs
to help catch perpetrators.
But those same cameras can make people feel violated and uneasy. Their
broad sweep makes no distinction between revelers at a parade and
wrongdoers at a riot. And they never blink.
"I don't like to be watched," said K. Ann Largie, 29, of Laurel,
Md. "It makes me feel uncomfortable."
Nikki Barnett, 31, of Burtonsville, Md., stopped showcasing her "happy
dance" in elevators after learning many of them are monitored by
cameras. "I stopped doing silly things," she says. "I don't want to
portray myself in a certain light."
Closed-circuit cameras are spreading in cities, a trend hastened by
concerns about terrorist attacks but by other reasons, too, including
the mere availability of the technology.
"If I'm mugged at an ATM, I'm glad the bank has cameras so the person
can be tracked down," said Justine Stevens, 32, of Arlington, Va. "But
cameras in elevators monitoring behavior seems weird."
Indeed, for every videotaped image of a crime that leads to an arrest
there are dozens of perfectly innocent moments captured.
"Cameras used for specific suspects and at specific times, that's good
law enforcement," said Peter Swire, professor of law at Ohio State
University. "But I don't want it part of my permanent record every
time I scratch myself on a public street."
In Nashville, Tenn., a middle school installed cameras that parents,
in a $4.2 million lawsuit, said captured their kids in various stages
of locker-room undress. School officials say the cameras were put up
in plain view to watch an outside door and hallway.
Perhaps nowhere are cameras more ubiquitous than in the nation's
capital: federal buildings, museums, parks, traffic lights.
Some are discreetly placed in elevator ceilings and lamp posts. Others
are more obvious, such as one fixed near an American flag adorning the
Justice Department.
Some closed-circuit cameras run around-the-clock. Others come on for
specific events. In Washington, 14 police cameras roll during parades,
demonstrations and when the city goes on high alert. They are turned
on a half-dozen or so times a year, and the police department
publicizes it.
Kevin Morison, the department's spokesman, said
there was a lot of hyperbole when the cameras were introduced. Critics
claimed police were watching people leave home to go to work, then
come home at night. "Frankly, we have no interest in doing that, or
capacity to do that," he said.
That system is part of a larger one. At a police command center, feeds
from those cameras are watched along with those from the city's subway
system, transportation department and more.
Critics contend the camera lies or at least misleads. An innocent
conversation can appear conspiratorial, depending on the angle, the
lighting or many other factors.
But Paul Rosenzweig, senior legal research fellow at the conservative
Heritage Foundation, said today's world demands that people be more
open to the use of cameras.
"You can't sweep back the tide of technological development and you
can't blink your eyes to necessity," he said. "We are in a changed
circumstance today. For us, September 11 brings it home."
Chicago is working on plans to link more than 2,000 public
surveillance cameras in a network that would use sophisticated
software to alert authorities to potential crimes.
In Los Angeles, the police department recently deployed a remote
camera surveillance system that is used to identify, track and record
criminal activity in some parts of the city. The system is equipped
with "intelligent" video capabilities and facial recognition software.
New Orleans is installing a sophisticated crime-fighting system of
bulletproof cameras, each capable of eyeing an eight-block area. So
far, about 240 of the proposed 1,000 cameras are in operation.
New Orleans officials say their system has plenty of safeguards
against abuse. Cameras are not routinely monitored and video is stored
for a brief period, to be watched if a crime is reported. Only a few
officers have access to the video and they look at it only in response
to a specific report, officials said.
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/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
articles daily.
Please note _two new features added today: _Consumer Reports_ regards
telecom equipment and a scan of the better quality blogs on the net.
Both are now part of Telecom Digest Extra, and updated daily.
------------------------------
From: Jack Decker <jack-yahoogroups@withheld_on_request>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 17:26:36 -0400
Subject: Packet8 Imposes $1.50 Regulatory Recovery Fee - Chance to Cancel
For those of you that have tried Packet8's VoIP service and are less
than thrilled with it, but don't want to pay a cancellation fee, you
may find this thread at BroadbandReports.com quite interesting:
http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,13183857
As user "Minglewood" posted: "Does P8's Price Increase Avoid the
Cancel Fee? I think it does, as long as cancelation occurs before
using the phone on May 1. Anyone try this yet? This result is implied
in P8's new TOS. In addtion, it follows naturally from P8 changing the
TOS unilaterally. The customer can't be held to its promise (one year
of service) if P8 doesn't hold to its promises ($19.99 per
month). There is no doubt this fee is a price increase. Thoughts?"
Now I doubt that "Minglewood" is a lawyer, and I know I'm not, but
what he's saying does seem to make sense.
I wouldn't normally mention this but it seems to me that Packet8 does
a lot of things that might cause people not to like them, apparently
including trying to force high-usage residential customers off an
"Unlimited" plan and onto a Business service plan (until they complain
in a very public forum, anyway). My belief is that if you advertise
unlimited service, that's what you have to provide, and if you don't
you aren't going to be listed on the Resources for Michigan Telephone
Users web site, and that plus the fact that they utilize network
marketing companies (a.k.a. Multi-Level Marketing) to market their
service is enough against them for me to not list them. This bogus
Regulatory Recovery Fee is just another reason for me to not like
them.
Anyway, I don't expect that everyone will jump ship solely because of
this, but if anyone has been wanting a way to get out from under their
service without paying the cancellation fee, this just may be an out.
And, though I doubt they had any idea that Packet8 would do this, a
few days ago VoicePulse introduced a competitive upgrade offer for
those switching from another provider, where current and former
customers of competing VoIP services are eligible to receive a $50
cash reward (details at
http://www.voicepulse.com/plans/CompetitiveUpgrade.aspx ) so for those
wanting to quit Packet8 but not VoIP, there is an option for you.
I truly believe that companies should not be permitted to tack on
these fees, because they are not mandated by the government
(Packet8''s new Terms of Service even state that "This fee is not a
tax or charge required or assessed by any government"), so in effect
what they are doing is advertising one price but charging a higher
one. I have no idea why consumer protection agencies and regulators
are willing to look the other way when VoIP companies do this, but
they shouldn't.
Just a warning, I am seriously considering pulling the listing of all
companies that charge this bogus fee off the web site. Why should I
help send any business their way, when there are other companies that
don't do this? The only thing that has stopped me so far is the fact
that some of them offer some unique international plans that may be
beneficial to some customers even with the fee, and on the site I do
mention this added fee when I know about it, so people are warned.
But I still think it's a very, very sleazy practice and I have no
respect for the companies that add such fees.
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: Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net>
Subject: Re: Texting is Slower Than Morse
Organization: ATCC
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 19:18:11 -0400
In article <telecom24.168.6@telecom-digest.org>, ihatespam@crazyhat.net
says:
> In message <telecom24.164.6@telecom-digest.org> Colin
> <colin@sutton.wow.aust.com> wrote:
>> The Sydney Morning Herald reports on a challenge between 93 year old
>> telegraph operator transmitting morse code to an 82 year old with a
>> manual typewriter, and youngsters sending a text message. The text
>> message was received 18 seconds after the message was already on
>> paper.
>> http://smh.com.au/articles/2005/04/14/1113251739401.html
> Sure, but much of that 18 seconds was in network transmission time,
> but the telegraph has a (by comparison) severely limited "network"
> Let's try another test; let's send the same message to each of five
> different recipients randomly selected out of a possible thousand
> recipients, then travel to a randomly selected location within two
> city blocks and send a new message to those five people again.
> Anybody want to bet that by the time the telegraph operator gets his
> system reconnected to send to the second recipient, the phone user
> will have finished walking to the randomly selected location (sending
> the first batch of five messages while walking?)
> In message <telecom24.167.15@telecom-digest.org> Tony P.
> <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net> wrote:
>> They've obviously not heard of T9 mode in text messaging. The biggest
>> issue I have with texting is that the keypad is too damned small.
> How large a phone are you willing to carry?
Something with a keypad approximately the size of the one found on a
WE 2500 set.
------------------------------
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
Subject: Re: Texting is Slower Than Morse
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 00:00:50 -0000
Organization: Widgets, Inc.
In article <telecom24.167.16@telecom-digest.org>,
mc <mc_no_spam@uga.edu> wrote:
>> And telegraph operators can spell also. No silly abbreviations.
Yup. Like almost everyone else of that 'day and age', they had been
*taught* properly.
On the other hand, telegraphers, and later radio-telegraphers, *did*
make _heavy_ use of abbreviations, and other short-hand 'codes', for
operational management 'stuff'. Sometimes they were used when passing
"customer" message traffic, where what went across the wire was "not
exactly" what the customer had said/written -- effectively a limited
form of 'data compression', in addition to the "run-length limited"
encoding methodology.
As one example, consider the antecedents of the radio-telegraphy
"Is anybody out there?"/"Can anybody hear me?" inquiry.
Or the infamous "Q-codes".
> U R SO RITE ! :)
Anybody else remember:
A B C D Goldfish?
L M N O Goldfish!
or
C D B ?
Entire illustrated _books_ full of of this nonsense.
> Seriously ... my high-school daughter tells me there is now a
> substantial problem with youngsters who supposedly can *only* write in
> text-message abbreviations or "l33tsp33k" and have developed some kind
> of mental block against producing plain English. She, a skilled
> writer, is annoyed with them, of course.
> Accompaying this is an inability to think about language. At one
> point she was trying to refer to the band "U2" but her interlocutor
> (in a chat room) could only see "U2" as "you too" and communication
> failed.
'context' and 'frame of reference' are _everything_.
e.g., a pre-occupied graphics-programmer friend was going down the
soft-drinks isle at the local grocery store, when a label caught his
eye. "Hi Res", that's a funny name for a soft-drink, he thought.
Then realized it was the brand of root-beer.
And, as a youngster, I was _firmly_convinced_ that coyotes could fly.
After all, I heard it repeatedly from my father, reading from one of
my favorite 'read aloud to children' books, And _he_ wouldn't lie to
me about such things, would he? <grin>
What I _heard_:
The blackbird cried: "I see a coyote! I see a coyote! And then he flew
away."
What was _in_print_:
The blackbird cried, "I see a coyote! I see a coyote!", and then he flew
away.
Lastly, please consider the difference between 'unionized', and "unionized".
What? You don't see any difference?
But, the first word describes the presence of a collective bargaining unit,
while the other one describes the absence of ionization.
------------------------------
From: Wesrock@aol.com
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 20:26:14 EDT
Subject: Re: Texting is Slower Than Morse
In a message dated Sat, 16 Apr 2005 16:41:55 -0600, DevilsPGD <
ihatespam@crazyhat.net> writes:
> In message <telecom24.164.6@telecom-digest.org> Colin
> <colin@sutton.wow.aust.com> wrote:
>> The Sydney Morning Herald reports on a challenge between 93 year old
>> telegraph operator transmitting morse code to an 82 year old with a
>> manual typewriter, and youngsters sending a text message. The text
>> message was received 18 seconds after the message was already on
>> paper.
>> http://smh.com.au/articles/2005/04/14/1113251739401.html
> Sure, but much of that 18 seconds was in network transmission time,
> but the telegraph has a (by comparison) severely limited "network"
> Let's try another test; let's send the same message to each of five
> different recipients randomly selected out of a possible thousand
> recipients, then travel to a randomly selected location within two
> city blocks and send a new message to those five people again.
> Anybody want to bet that by the time the telegraph operator gets his
> system reconnected to send to the second recipient, the phone user
> will have finished walking to the randomly selected location (sending
> the first batch of five messages while walking?)
Press wires and railroad wires were routinely set up to send to
multiple locations. Many Western Union and other telegraph wires were
set up the say way. They were largely replaced by teletypewriter
because of the costs involved in having a receiving operator in each
of perhaps hundreds of locations.
Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
------------------------------
From: mc <mc_no_spam@uga.edu>
Subject: Re: Can I Substitute a NiMH Battery for NiCd in a Cordless Phone?
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 20:00:58 -0400
Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net)
The "memory effect" is not what it's claimed to be, but you can
certainly substitute an NiMH battery for NiCd. Match the voltage.
The mAH will be greater, so allow proportionately more time for a full
charge.
I have done many NiMH for NiCd substitutions. Electrically, an NiMH
is simply an NiCd with more capacity.
------------------------------
From: Wesrock@aol.com
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 20:19:06 EDT
Subject: Re: Can I Substitute a NiMH Battery for NiCd in a Cordless Phone?
In a message dated Sun, 17 Apr 2005 00:06:07 -0400, curious@nospam.com
writes:
> I recently bought a cordless phone, which came with a NiCd battery.
> In the manual it says:
> "To reduce the risk of fire, use only 3.6V 850mAh Nickel Cadmium
> (Ni-Cad) cordless telephone replacement battery pack."
> I've heard about the dreaded "memory effect" with NiCd batteries, so
> I'm interested in replacing it with a NiMH one. Someone who is
> selling a 3.6V 1000mAH NiMH battery on Ebay claims it works with my
> phone, but will it really be safe? Wouldn't want to install a NiMH
> battery and have the house burn down.
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 3.6 at 850 is _close enough_ to 3.6 at
> 1000 that I think it should work. The difficulty with swapping
> batteries around randomly however is not so much that your house would
> burn down as it is that differences in those batteries could possibly
> cause some slow degredation on your electronics unit and cause it to
> fry out prematurely. Your voltage (3.6) is critical; you want to avoid
> increasing _low voltages_ very much. A device which calls for 3.6
> should pretty much be confined to 3.6. You can play around with the
> amperage a bit however; 1000 will work fine with something rated for
> 850. But make certain the battery contacts line up correctly and do
> not cause a short circuit accidentally. It would be a shame to waste
> that new battery as soon as you got it. PAT]
Many places sell batteries for cordless phones and have cross-reference
guides by model number, also by size, shape, voltage and type of
connector used.
The battery packages have a list of cordless phone model numbers they
are designed for. Wal-Mart carries a pretty extensive line of
cordless phone batteries at competitive prices, probably not much more
than the shipping costs charged by an eBay seller.. The ones I have
seen in Wal-Mart are GE/Sanyo brand. I have also seen cordless phone
batteries in many other places; Walgreen's for one, I believe.
Make sure the connector matches.
Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
------------------------------
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
Subject: Re: Getting Serious About the War on Spam
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 22:01:04 -0000
Organization: Widgets, Inc.
In article <telecom24.166.9@telecom-digest.org>,
John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
>> Ok, this guy contracted for high speed internet connectivity from
>> someone or another.
> That would be MCI.
>> Why did anyone else accept any packets from this organization?
> Good question. They're consistently #1 on the Spamhaus hit parade.
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Then why are they not getting cut off
> from the rest of the world until they make an effort to get rid of
> their spam traffic? Is it possibly because your superiors at ICANN
> and their mouthpiece Vint Cerf are so well funded by MCI that they do
> not allow (by heavy pressure or otherwise) anyone to put a permanent
> halt on MCI's traffic? Why is ICANN so silent on the volumes of spam
> the rest of the net has to endure day after day? Is it because ICANN
> and Vint Cerf are actually more interested in appeasing the spammers
> and commercial interests rather than the vast majority of the netizens?
Nope. it's because it is, quite simply, *NOT* ICANN's job to do so.
Of the various organizations (ICANN, IAB, IETF, etc.) that are the
'authority' for specific functionalities of the greater Internet,
_none_ of them have any authority with regard to the 'content' of
packets.
And *nobody* on the 'net wants it any other way. (Well, except for
folks like the government of mainland China, that is.)
Not to mention that there is _nothing_ that ICANN can actually _do_
that would affect matters. They can't revoke the IP addresses MCI
uses, those addresses were issued by ICANN to ARIN. They can't revoke
the domain-name(s) MCI uses, those names are part of
properly-executed _contracts_ between MCI and the domain registry
operator. And the operator's contract (with ICANN, or the appropriate
'national' authorizing authority) requires _them_ (the registry
operator) to publish *all* properly contracted domains.
Those are the *only* aspects of the Internet that fall under ICANN's
'area of responsibility'.
> John, instead of answering a question with the statement 'good question'
> why is no one (in authority on the net) actually, physically cutting
> off MCI by refusing to accept any or all of their traffic until the
> spam stops? PAT]
Because: (a) there is *NO*ONE* 'in authority'. The net runs by anarchy.
(b) some people _do_ block all MCI traffic. Unfortunately
they are personal/'vanity' networks.
(c) last I knew, MCI had something like a _40%_ share of the U.S.
Internet market. It simply isn't practical for any
'significant' player to write off that big a chunk of
the potential customer base.
(d) in general, anybody doing 'broad brush' blocking of MCI ends
up hurting *themselves* worse than they hurt MCI.
Unfortunate, but _true_.
This is reality. One can "wish" that things were different, but you still
have to deal with reality.
In article <telecom24.167.7@telecom-digest.org>, John Schmerold
<john@katy.com> wrote:
> No one likes spam, however, there are great solutions they are all
> available without cost due to the opensource movement. Looking at my
> own statistics, since 4/1, I've received 5,607 emails, of which 1,177
> were forwarded to my inbox, of these 169 were SPAM. All of the 169
> could have been eliminated if I chose to use TDMA which whitelists
> good senders.
> So, long story short, quit belly aching and do something about your
> spam problem.
> John Schmerold
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But I cannot run a white list here
> unless I want to turn this Digest/newsgroup into a very exclusive
> place for _me and my friends_ . I like to get _legitimate_ mail from
> legitimate users. I do not like the idea of excluding new users just
> because they have not met some arbitrary standard on the messages I
> will accept. PAT]
There are various ways of "coping" effectively:
You can use _different_ e-mail addresses for different functions
(e.g., one for the newsgroup moderator 'submission' address,
a different one for submission "acks", another one for
outgoing Telecom-Digest mailings, and yet another one for
"personal" communications.)
You can then apply _different_ rules for each address. e.g.:
You can whitelist everybody that is subscribed to Digest mailing-list.
You can auto-accept any message that is a "reply" to a newsgroup posting.
You can whitelist other "known" correspondents.
You can auto-accept any message that has a certain "magic word" at the
beginning of the subject line.
You can then, fairly safely, _reject_ messages that lack the 'magic word'
in the subject line, *with* a notice telling the sender that the
magic word (and what it is) is required for message acceptance.
Doing these things 'right' requires some fairly close integration with the
mail-server itself.
BUT, when done right, can be _very_ effective.
I've been running a custom-developed system (along the above lines)
for roughly the last year. In that time, I've had mail from _three_
people get "erroneously" rejected (one required filter revisions --
*too* paranoid;, one was a family member with multiple accounts,
including one at Netscape, and got their mail-client "confused", so
that it was sending messages with a from of "@netscape.net", but going
through the cable-company's mail- server to do so; the third was
somebody I haven't heard from in years, who apparently found my
address from USENET postings, and tried to mail -- and apparently
couldn't read the error message telling them how to send mail that
would go through, no real loss), and a grand total of _eight_ pieces
of spam get to my inbox.
I have a few domains (e.g., AOL, Yahoo, HotMail) for which I accept
mail _only_ from servers in their domain.
I have a few (right now 3) overseas freemail providers that are totally
blocked -- they account for less than 1% of (pre-rejection) message
volume, however
I have one address-range blocked -- A space allocated to Nigeria.
I have one persistent spammer blocked by domain-name. they _do_ send
consistently from their own server, and identify properly, so it's
effective against this particular idjiot.
I have several forms of remote mail-server identity 'forgery' blocked
(e.g. if they HELO with _my_ IP address as _their_ identity. :)
I have blocks for headers indicating a couple of specific mail-sending
programs that are routinely abused by spammers, and that do not
provide enough information to back-track.
I have a _handful_ of content-based filters that catch things:
HTML-only email is not allowed
messages in character-sets I can't deal with -- most notably Pacific
Rim ones -- are not allowed.
I have a batch of body-content filters (about 50), *NONE* of which have
caught anything in the last 6 months.
Anything with what even "looks like" an MS-executable or 'zipfile'
attachment is not allowed, except by special arrangement. (This
one is permanent -- eliminates any need for the overhead of
Any of various URLs or mention of a few specific drugs, etc.
NOTE: I see a fair number of virus-delivery attempts _every_ day, but
they all fail earlier checks _before_ getting to the 'executable'
detector. The situation is probably similar with the other body-
check filters, but it's much harder to tell. I'm probably going
to remove all those 'non-executable' checks, cuz they don't seem
to do any good -- no sense wasting CPU cycles. <grin>
I 'whitelist' some mailing-lists I'm on, and the 'moderator' address
of some moderated newsgroups.
Now, admittedly, the rulesets here are tailored for the needs of _my_
users, but they *are* effective. I post to this newsgroup (and a number
of others) with an valid,_unmunged_, "reply-able" address. Not a _single_
piece of spam has been delivered to that address in the last year.
For those who remember Dave Hayes, I may not have a psychic newsreader;
but I've got the next best thing to a 'psychic mail-server'! :) It can
tell -- with _very_high_ reliability -- whether a mail message was composed
inside a newsreader or not. It's not absolutely perfect -- a couple of
people who were curious _how_ it worked, did some experimenting and figured
it out. Regardless, it's demonstrably "good enough" for the real world.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is far, far too much stated above
to even begin responding. I will just address one point of yours,
which was 'how cutting off MCI would really hurt the rest of the net.'
Oh, boo hoo, let me cry about it tomorrow or whenever I get more
time. And you say, a net that is presently 80-85 percent spam is going
to be irreparibly damaged by calling their bluff and cutting them off
until they are willing to talk seriously about the spam issue? Gee,
that's really something. Seems to me if nothing else it would clean up
the spam problem a lot. Let's test it out and see: John Levine, since
you run the telecom-digest.org alias, do me a favor please. Block any
and all traffic via MCI coming here. Let's see if tomorrow and the
next day I don't have just as many messages as I do now, but far less
spam to deal with. Just cut it all, return to sender or whatever you
wish.
People also told me regards the bunch of crooks in New Jersey I should
not tell people to withhold their monthly payments, 'that by doing so
I would cause the people to get sued'; remember that? That was a big
laugh also; no one got sued and the Attornies General in many states
made the leasing companies back off. So my suggestion this month is
do yourself and the rest of the net a big favor: start refusing
traffic from MCI, as I just now above asked John Levine to do for me.
Check with me in a few days and I will let you know how much I miss
getting all those fabulous offers in Spam and all those viruses. PAT]
------------------------------
From: Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net>
Subject: Re: Getting Serious About the War on Spam
Organization: ATCC
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 19:23:43 -0400
In article <telecom24.168.12@telecom-digest.org>, kludge@panix.com
says:
C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sure you can cut off UUNET the same way
> you can cut of MCI. Just do it ... call their bluff ... let _them_
> deal with their legitimate customers who are no longer able to get
> through. Yes, they both have lots of legitimate customers, but in any
> kind of serious medical procedure, for example, we don't think about
> how long the patient will be in the operating room or how long they
> will be in intensive care recovering. We concern ourselves with what
> their life will be like when they are fully recovered and back to
> normal. And our net has some very serious, I suspect deadly cancerous
> growths that have been going of for years. So what if cutting off
> UUNET and MCI leaves a shambles of email and the net _for a few days_.
> Things are pretty much a shambles now anyway, aren't they? Oh, I know
> that MCI (and probably Vint Cerf) will scream and carry on about it,
> as will UUNET and others similarly situated. But it is time _we_ took
> the net back over, and my belief is it would not take too many days
> of simply refusing to handle _any_ of their traffic until things began
> to change for the better. Just cut them, and be done with it, and hope
> they are back with us sometime soon under more reasonable terms. PAT]
I've said the very same thing many times but in a slightly different
perspective. Instead of cutting off anything coming from UUNET
registered address ranges, why not just disconnect China, North Korea,
etc. from the net in its entirety.
Better yet -- every piece of spam tries to sell something. Just follow
the money trail and arrest and imprison the seller. Suddenly it won't
be as attractive to market via spam when you're facing a 15 year
sentence.
But those companies that produce the products have a cozy relationship
with our legislators, and he who writes the biggest check wins. Until
we first hold our legislators fully accountable we won't get anywhere.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, and we also have these guys who
claim they speak for the entire net and 'nobody' would go for that.
Just cut off MCI and UUNET totally for a few days and see if it makes
any difference, as I think it will. PAT]
------------------------------
From: Wesrock@aol.com
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 20:11:06 EDT
Subject: Re: PPC Advertising, Click Fraud, and Its Effect on Search Engines
In a message dated Sat, 16 Apr 2005 21:18:34 +0000, Greg Skinner <
gds@best.com> writes:
> By now, many if not most of you have probably read, or at least heard,
> about the lawsuit filed against several search engines, accusing them
> of conspiring to overcharge for advertisements. More information
> here:
> http://money.iwon.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt.jsp?cat=USMARKET&src=704&feed=dji&
> section=news&news_id=dji-00001320050405&date=20050405&alias=/alias/money/cm/nw
> The WSJ recently featured a front-page story on the issue of click
> fraud as well.
> I have always been skeptical of the pay-per-click (PPC) method of
> charging for advertisements. I have always felt it was a poor
> business model, because of its susceptibility to fraud. I have never
> understood the search industry's fascination with PPC, especially
> since there are other methods of selling advertising, such as fixed
> fees, which provide no means (and thus, no incentive) to game the
> system by merely clicking on ads. Furthermore, the money that is
> spent both by the advertisers and publishers.
Per-inquiry advertising, that is, advertising that is charged for at a
rate per inquiry, goes back to the 18th century in newspapers and
magazines.
It migrated to radio when that medium became commercially viable, and
then to television.
Its further migration to the internet seems inevitable and
predictable.
Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
wleathus@yahoo.com
------------------------------
Date: 17 Apr 2005 19:51:19 EDT
From: Charles.B.Wilber@Dartmouth.EDU (Charles B. Wilber)
Subject: Re: New Technology Poses 911 Peril
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The debate over on VOIP News continues
between Mr. Wilber and Jack Decker. PAT]
--- Jack Decker [Moderator] wrote:
As for E-911 fees, I have been saying for many months now that the
only fair way to finance E-911 centers is through the same mechanism
used to finance every other emergency service in the community (such
as fire and police), be that property taxes, local sales taxes, or
whatever.
--- end of quote ---
I would like to know how that could be administered. In New Hampshire,
local communities determine how their emergency services are funded
while the stae determines how E-911 is financed. In my state, there is
just a single PSAP but even that would be an adminstratrive and
political challenge of huge proportions. I can only imagine it would
be completely unmanageable in a large state such as New York or
California.
--- Jack Decker [Moderator] wrote:
In an ideal world, the phone companies that sold the 911 centers these
technologically obsolete systems would be forced to pay. However, I
suspect that if there were more sources for these systems -- that is,
if 911 center operators didn't run to their partners in crime at the
phone companies to purchase these systems at top dollar -- I suspect
they could get far more advanced systems for far less money.
--- end of quote ---
My primary experience has been in the state of New Hampshire. In that
state, when the legislature mandated that all municipalities implement
E-911 within a certain period of time, the contract for providing
E-911 was put out for bid as it should be. All legitimate vendors were
welcome to submit bids on the contract.
--- Jack Decker [Moderator] wrote:
... I think the 911 center administrators so love it that they can
put one over on the taxpayers and voters (by not seeking their
permission before installing a new system) that they don't really
question what sort of deal the phone companies are giving them, nor
whether the equipment they are being sold is expandable to handle
communications from newer forms of technology.
--- end of quote ---
Apparently Mr. Decker is privy to some inside information here. Any
dispatch center members I have spoken with - and virtually all I am
aware of who have commented in various listservs on the matter -- are
seriously concerned about how to make E-911 work with VoIP. In my
experience, they are true professionals, concerned with the welfare of
the public they are charged with protecting. Maligning them as you
did in your reply to my posting suggests that you have proof to the
contrary. Perhaps you would share that with the readers of this
listserv.
--- Jack Decker [Moderator] wrote:
You conveniently ignore the fact that for many years cell phones were
unable to complete calls to 911. Perhaps you feel that all new forms
of communication should be hamstrung until they can fit into the
wireline telephone companies' ways of doing things, but I for one do
not.
--- end of quote ---
Mr. Decker conveniently ignores the fact that cellular carriers are
currently under federal mandate to provide Automatic Location
Information capability within certain parameters of accuracy by
certain dates. It is common knowledge that the carriers have been
unable to meet these deadlines in many cases but they are still
subject to those mandates and are liable for fines if they don't meet
those deadlines.
As for my feelings about new forms of communication, the Moderator
presumes to put words in my mouth and ascribe motives to my postings
by stooping to an ad hominem attack on me that does nothing to advance
this discussion in a reasoned and mature manner. If he had bothered to
ask he would have learned that my job and my hobbies all revolve
around encouraging, advancing, supporting and implementing new forms
of communication.
Charlie Wilber
Hanover, New Hampshire
------------------------------
From: Philoushka <philoushka@hotmail.com>
Subject: Auction Item: Sierra Wireless Aircard 555 - Telus Bell Verizon
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 02:14:23 GMT
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5767383884
Cellular internet access for your laptop!
------------------------------
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