TELECOM Digest     Mon, 30 May 2005 16:37:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 239

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Computer Break-in/Corporate Spy Charges ... in Israel (Danny Burstein)
    Here is My Sad Story With Lingo (John Avina)
    How is Your Holiday; Mine Sort of Bittersweet (TELECOM Digest Editor)
    25 cps Power, was: Tie Lines was Re: Foreign Exchange Lines (D Burstein)
    Re: 25 Hz power Re: Tie Lines; Foreign Exchange Lines (Wesrock@aol.com)
    Re: First Place, Web Promotion, Unsolicited Calls? (Julian Thomas)
    Re: Tie Lines was Re: Foreign Exchange Lines Still in Use? (Al Gillis)
    Re: Phone Outage Costs Fort Wayne Store to Lose Business (Robert Bonomi)
    Re: Schools Prohibit Personal E-mail Sites (mc)
    Re: Corton Payphone??? (Michael Muderick)
    Re: Last Laugh! 86 Year Old Woman Taken to Jail; 911 Call (DevilsPGD)
    Re: Last Laugh! 86 Year Old Woman Taken to Jail; 911 Call (John McHarry)
    Re: Last Laugh! 86 Year Old Woman Taken to Jail; 911 Call (Isaiah Beard)

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

From: Danny Burstein <dannyb@panix.com>
Subject: Computer Break-in/Corporate Spy Charges ... in Israel
Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 00:44:34 -0400
Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC


"The Israeli business community was reeling from shock Sunday as the
country's largest-ever industrial espionage case was unveiled, and the
accused companies sought to do damage control after the arrests of
some of the telecommunications, motor and food industries' elite.

"Senior managers from five leading companies, including Bezeq
subsidiaries Yes and Pelephone and competing telecommunications giant
Cellcom, were arrested for obtaining classified information from their
competitors through a computer virus known as a Trojan horse. The
other companies accused were Meyer Car Imports (importers of Volvo and
Honda) and Tami-4 (mineral water retailers). In total, 18 people were
arrested, including 11 private investigators ...

rest at (among other places) :

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1117420058158

_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
 		     dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

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

From: John Avina - Abraxas Energy Consulting" <johnavina@abraxasenergy.com>
Subject: Here is My Sad Story With Lingo
Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 11:33:03 -0700
Organization: Abraxas Energy Consulting


About a year ago, I called their sales department and asked if Lingo
could work over sattelite.  They said yes, and signed me up.

I got the equipment, and tried for a couple of months (I had to buy
all sorts of adapters) to make it work, and called tech support, and
they said, no, it will not work.

I tried to cancel, and get a refund, since their sales department
mislead me.  They would not give me a refund, and twice, when I asked
to speak to a manager, they said the manager was too busy and would
call me back, but the manager never did.

After cancelling, they put a $40 cancellation fee on my credit card,
and not only that, this month I got a $22 charge on my credit card.

I have never been involved with such a crooked dishonest company
before.  I would advise all people to avoid Lingo.  They have no
ethics, apparently, and charge poor suckers like me for nothing.

Never give them your credit card.


Kind Regards,

John Avina
johnavina@yahoo.com

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

Subject: How is Your Holiday? Mine Sort of Bittersweet
Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 15:15:59 EDT
From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor)


To the USA readers, how goes your Memorial Day weekend holiday? You
may recall here I mentioned a couple weeks ago about the relevance and
pertinence for many of us in the 'Amber Alert' program. That really
hit home for me about a week ago regards my younger sister when we
_finally_ after some intensive searching discovered she was _still_ in
Orlando, Florida where she wound up after having left home at the age
of 16 almost thirty years ago. We got a phone call from her (now 23
year old) son about a week ago. It seems she had died -- on the
street, the usual 'home' for homeless people -- she had been cremated
and the ashes given to her son, as 'next of kin' on March 5, 2005, in
other words about three months ago. Her son -- also a street person by
choice, had not been easily located by authorities in Orlando, but in
a sort of unceremonious way, when they finally _did_ locate him, the
authorities handed him a little plastic baggy with ashes and said
"here is your mother". I asked Justin (her son) to please either bring
the ashes here _or_ ship them in the mail mainly so that _my_ mother
(his grandmother) could see some closure in the matter. I had hoped
the ashes and/or Justin would have been here over the holiday, but no
such luck. Now I am told the ashes are en-route from Orlando, but
we shall see about that. 

Meanwhile, _my_ brother Dan, along with his wife and his son came into
town for this non-occasion Friday night, and are going back to their
home in Chicago either tonight or in the morning. To 'celebrate' this
non-arrival of the ashes and/or nephew Justin, my brother Dan insisted
we all go over to Austin's (the local 'rowdy young guys, hard-rock,
semi-gay bar' here in town; the equivilent of Dalton House down in
Coffeyville.) I _hate_ the place, being far too noisy, far too full of
cigarette smoke, drunks and assorted characters.

The last time I was at Austin's was when Lisa Minter and two of her
boy friends forced me to go there with them last July 3. If you recall
when I wrote about that last summer, eight or ten blocks of West Main
Street was totally torn up for sewer repairs/rebuilding, Austin's
parking lot was inaccessible (as a result of the work on Main Street)
and everyone was entering/exiting the place off of Maple Street, the
next block south. None the less, the place was very crowded; standing
room only. I knew before we left that this year would be the same way,
being a holiday weekend and the night before the holiday. I hated it
last year, I hated it again last night, particularly the police cars
and sheriff cars roaming slowly through the (now functioning since
Main Street repaired) parking lot; every one of the officers looking
hateful as if they were saying, "oh, please, won't some one please
screw up, so we can crack open some heads for fun and relaxation.
We want to have fun also."

Like last year, this time Dan took me out of here screaming and
kicking; I would have been perfectly happy sitting in my parlor with a
book and the computer; we stayed at Austin's until closing time (2 AM)
and like last year when Lisa and her friends took me there, this
weekend's bunch kept putting more and more and more drinks in front of
'uncle Pat' (I guess they consider me the family patriarch or
something) while they all kept running around doing whatever it is
that kids do in places 'like that'. All I remember is they got me back
home a little after 2 AM, I fell asleep immediatly and woke up today
feeling _terrible_.

So how was your holiday weekend?  

PAT
 
------------------------------

From: Danny Burstein <dannyb@panix.com>
Subject: 25 cps Power, was: Tie Lines was Re: Foreign Exchange (FX) Lines
Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 21:58:31 UTC
Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC


In <telecom24.238.14@telecom-digest.org> bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com
(Robert Bonomi) writes:

> I don't know when the last 25-cycle power was phased out.  Keokuk, Iowa, 
> had a 25-cycle hydroelectric plant -- driven by the Mississippi River, 

25 cycle/second power was still in use for portions of the NYC area
transit facilities until about a decade ago. While the subway trains
ran, and run, on 600VDC "third rail" power (until very recently there
were big advantages to operating large motors off DC), some of the
commuter railroads had legacy stuff.

(The newest subway motor controllers actually take that DC from the third 
rail and transform it to 3-phase AC before feeding it to the motors.)

Parts of some passenger stations tapped into this 25 cycle grid for
use by the incandescent lamps. This led to quite noticable flickering
whenever the temperature dropped ...

(All primary lighting is now courtesy of the regular 120/208/240v
utility grid feeding fluorescent fixtures. There's a modest amount of
incandescent stuff around for small areas.

Also, some emergency, backup, and area-work circuits feed a "five
pack" of 120V incandescents off the 600VDC third rail.)

_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
		     dannyb@panix.com 
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

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

From: Wesrock@aol.com
Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 20:01:48 EDT
Subject: Re: 25 Hz power Re: Tie Lines was Re: Foreign Exchange Lines


In a message dated Sat, 28 May 2005 09:37:57 -0000, 
bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) writes:

>> When did they deliver AC at 25 cycles?  I do recall some 50 cycle
>> companies around that had to change after the end of WWII.

> I don't know when the last 25-cycle power was phased out.  Keokuk, Iowa, 
> had a 25-cycle hydroelectric plant -- driven by the Mississippi River, 

Doesn't Amtrak still have some 25 Hz power plants from its predecessor
lines in the Northeast Corridor?  Some locations have been converted
to commercial power, some of them still owned and operated by Amtrak
still provide 25 Hz.

Their electric locomovies are designed to run on either frequency and
within a certain range of voltages (24,000 and higher) to accomodate
the variations in the power supplied by commerical power in different
sections and also those sections served by their legacy power plants.


Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
wleathus@yahoo.com

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

From: Julian Thomas <blackhole@jt-mj.net>
Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 21:15:29 -0400
Subject: Re: First Place, Web Promotion, Unsolicited Calls?


In <20050526190543.0ADF61502E@massis.lcs.mit.edu>, on 05/26/05 
at 03:05 PM, a resonse to my inquiry was:

> It was sent to an addy that I ONLY use for Godaddy and is only shown on
> my registrations thru GoDaddy.

> I own many domain names and I only got Email re one domain name.

> Someone is obviously trolling WHOIS.

Yes.  I use a unique email address for dns registrations, and I do get
occasional spam to that address.


Julian Thomas:   jt - at - jt-mj  period net    http://jt-mj.net
In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State!
Warpstock 2005: Hershey, Pa. October 6-9, 2005 - http://www.warpstock.org

Power corrupts.  PowerPoint corrupts absolutely. - Vint Cerf

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

From: Al Gillis <alg@aracnet.com>
Subject: Re: Tie Lines was Re: Foreign Exchange (FX) Lines Still in Use?
Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 20:02:39 -0700
Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com


Robert Bonomi <bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com> wrote in message
news:telecom24.238.14@telecom-digest.org:

(Much Snippage ... about power line frequencies not at 60 Hertz (or Cycles
per Second)

> One of the down-sides to 25-cycle power was that _transformers_ had to
> be built heavier for the lower line frequency.  Stuff that was build
> with the existence of lower frequency power worked just fine when
> connected to a higher-frequency source.  Unfortunately, when you took
> something that had been designed to be 'just adequate' on 60-cycle
> power, and plugged it into a 25-cycle source, a frequent result was
> 'letting the magic smoke' out of the transformer.  A *RUDE* surprise
> for someone who moved into one of those 25-cycle 'islands' from the
> mainstream of power distribution.

Transformer weight is one of the big reasons much aircraft AC power
operates at 400 Hertz.  MUCH smaller transformer cores = less weight =
greater payload or smaller engines.

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

From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
Subject: Re: Phone Outage Costs Fort Wayne Store to Lose Business
Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 15:40:41 -0000
Organization: Widgets, Inc.


In article <telecom24.238.11@telecom-digest.org>, Mary <somewher@.com>
wrote:

> That's an interesting concept -- the same number in two locations?

> How does it work? Does it ring in two locations and first to answer
> gets the call?

Yup.   *and* if the other location picks up, they're on the call too.

> Do you have to pay for two lines and one number?

Typically it is something that the telco does on a 'temporary' basis
when one is moving between locations, and keeping the same number.

In the 'old days', it was done by simply running a physical jumper
wire between the terminations of the pairs from the two different
locations, in the frame room.

Depending on the telco, and depending on the length of time you needed
'overlapping' service, there may, or may *not* have been a charge for
it.

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

From: mc <mc_no_spam@uga.edu>
Subject: Re: Schools Prohibit Personal E-mail Sites
Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 21:35:59 -0400
Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net)


Sad.  The school my daughter attends (admittedly a private one) *provides* 
personal e-mail service.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So do the Independence Public
Schools. In addition, each teacher has a 'mailing list' with the
names of all students and their parents/guardians, for the purpose
of giving out homework assignments, teacher/parent conferences, etc. PAT]

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

Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 22:06:57 -0400
From: Michael Muderick <michael.muderick@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: Corton Payphone???


The designations in the phone are L1, L2, and G, not T, R, and G.  So
I am assuming they are for power, but at what polarity, voltage, etc.
I don't want to blow it out.

Michael@muderick.com

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

From: DevilsPGD <spamsucks@crazyhat.net>
Subject: Re: Last Laugh! 86 Year Old Woman Taken to Jail Account of 911 Call
Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 17:14:36 -0600
Organization: Disorganized


In message <telecom24.238.15@telecom-digest.org> Tim@Backhome.org wrote:

> Sounds a bit like Nazi Germany.

> Patrick Townson wrote:

>> Woman Calls 911 With Pizza Complaint

>> An 86-year-old woman was jailed after police said she called 911
>> dispatchers 20 times in a little more than a half-hour -- all to
>> complain that a pizza parlor wouldn't deliver.

>> Dorothy Densmore was charged with misusing the 911 system, a jail
>> spokeswoman said.

>> She told dispatchers Sunday that a local pizza shop refused to deliver
>> a pie to her south Charlotte apartment, said Officer Mandy
>> Giannini. She also complained that someone at the shop called her a
>> "crazy old coot," Giannini said.

>> Densmore wanted them arrested. Instead, police came to arrest her, and
>> she resisted, Giannini said.

>> It's unusual for someone to face charges for nonemergency calls,
>> Giannini said. But on Sunday, Densmore kept calling 911, even after
>> she was told to stop, Giannini said.

>> When an officer arrived at her apartment, the 5-foot-tall, 98-pound
>> woman attacked him, Giannini said. Densmore scratched him, kicked and
>> bit his hand, she said.

>> Densmore also is charged with resisting a public officer and two
>> counts of misusing the 911 system, jail records show.

>> Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Poor, brave, courageous police officer.
>> I sure hope he was not hurt when this 86 year old woman 'assaulted'
>> him. On the other hand, the old lady should have made her calls to
>> police on a VOIP line. If she had, chances are the police would still
>> be looking for her, in order to arrest the 'crazy old coot'.  PAT]

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So many things about USA law
> enforcement these days have a sort of tinge or a smell of Nazi-Germany
> to them, don't they ...  PAT]

How do you figure?  Who would be held responsible if one of her 20 calls
caused a caller with a real emergency to be put on hold?

It sounds to me like she should have been charged with assaulting a
police officer too, which would raise the stakes from a "resisting a
public officer" charge.

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

From: John McHarry <jmcharry@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Last Laugh! 86 Year Old Woman Taken to Jail Account of 911 Call
Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 02:35:10 GMT
Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net


On Sun, 29 May 2005 04:55:25 -0700, Tim wrote:

> Sounds a bit like Nazi Germany.

> Patrick Townson wrote:

>> Woman Calls 911 With Pizza Complaint

>> An 86-year-old woman was jailed after police said she called 911
>> dispatchers 20 times in a little more than a half-hour -- all to
>> complain that a pizza parlor wouldn't deliver.

>> Dorothy X was charged with misusing the 911 system, a jail
>> spokeswoman said.

Well, some 911 protocols require a response to each call. This sort of
thing burns resources and can endanger others, or even the caller
herself, if they finally ignore her.

I had a relative who took to doing about the same thing. The sheriff
put up with it for a time, then finally grabbed him, for something
else actually, but he got the care he needed.

What I find offensive about the whole story is that the news media
thought it a fine thing to spray her name all over the country. For
all I know, she may have been a pillar of the community until she made
the understandable mistake of trying to live too long on her own. It
is a shame to humiliate her so.

That is assuming, of course, that they find, by now have found, a
proper placement for her and drop the charges. I hope she also got her
pizza.

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

From: Isaiah Beard <sacredpoet@sacredpoet.com>
Subject: Re: Last Laugh! 86 Year Old Woman Taken to Jail Account of 911 Call
Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 12:29:05 -0400
Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com


Tim@Backhome.org wrote:

> Sounds a bit like Nazi Germany.

Yes it is quite the Nazi thing to do "report" someone for something as
mundane as refusing to deliver a pizza.


E-mail fudged to thwart spammers.
Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply.

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


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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #239
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