TELECOM Digest     Mon, 13 Jun 2005 18:14:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 266

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Internet Boom Alters Political Process in Iran (Lisa Minter)
    Sony-Ericcson Unveils New Phone (Lisa Minter)
    Cellular Phone Spam - What is the Internet Coming to? (Lisa Minter)
    T-Mobile HotSpot Announces Network Expansion, Roaming (Monty Solomon)
    Acadamy Services Nuisance Calls 215-320-0424 (zortan@email.com)
    Re: Cell Phone Rental in Europe (John Levine)
    Re: 'Phone Tapping' Modem Traffic? (John Levine)
    Re: Schools Prohibit Personal E-mail Sites (Lisa Hancock)

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.  

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

From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Internet Boom Alters Political Process in Iran
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:08:01 -0500


By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY

If Iran's revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, were
alive today, he'd undoubtedly have his own Web site.

All eight of those allowed to run for president by Iran's clerical
establishment in elections this Friday have official Web sites as well
as other sites run by supporters.

Internet usage is growing faster in Iran than anywhere in the Muslim
Middle East, according to a recent Stanford University study. Although
the Internet has not altered the power structure of the government, it
has transformed campaigning and laid the groundwork for political
change, Iranians inside and outside of the country say.

"We had our first revolution 100 years ago after the introduction of
the telegraph; we got the Islamic revolution (in 1979) through the
telephone and cassette tapes, and now we have the Internet," says
Mohsen Sazegara, a regime official turned dissident who is organizing
an Internet campaign for a referendum to replace Iran's Islamic
constitution.

"So you have to expect another change," says Sazegara, currently a
fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Personal freedom is a major issue in the presidential campaign, as are
the economy and Iran's relative isolation from the West. "There's no
talk of revolution or Islam. It's all about how to respond to the
people's needs," says Hadi Semati, a political science professor at
Tehran University and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for
International Scholars in Washington.

Candidates often use the unofficial political sites "to spread rumors
and trash other candidates," says Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian who
introduced blogging in Farsi three years ago and returned to Tehran
Sunday to report on the campaign for his weblog, www.hoder.com.

Iranian newspapers print the information, citing the Web sites. "They
are using this mix of media to influence the public. This is the first
time in Iran," Derakhshan says.

The Internet allows the campaigns to bypass far more restrictive
state-run television and the limited number of newspapers.

One example: Pictures of young people in stylish Western clothes
carrying banners supporting Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former
president who is a leading candidate, appeared on Web sites run by
conservative opponents. The intention was to discredit Rafsanjani
among devout voters, but the effect may have been the reverse,
Derakhshan says, because of declining support for strict Islamic laws
that have been in effect since the 1979 revolution.

On Saturday, a story on a conservative Web site reported that
Rafsanjani would do a live interview on CNN for which he had paid the
network. CNN confirmed that an interview is planned, but spokeswoman
Mara Gassmann denied that any money had changed hands. The object of
the false claim: to show that Rafsanjani is beholden to the West.

Rafsanjani, 70, a veteran of the revolution, is leading in the
polls. But the gap is narrowing with Mustafa Moin, 54, a former
minister of higher education who is appealing to President Mohammed
Khatami's reformist supporters. The third-ranking candidate is
Mohammed Bakr Qalibaf, 44, a former air force commander in the
paramilitary Revolutionary Guards and national police chief. If no
candidate wins 50% of the vote, there will be a runoff between the top
two vote-getters.

Because of the limited choice, many Iranians may boycott the vote. A
campaign urging them to stay home is also being promoted on the
Internet.  And whoever is elected president must still defer to the
supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Internet explosion in late '90s

Nearly 5 million of Iran's 69 million people were Internet users in
2003, according to the Geneva-based International Telecommunication
Union. There may be as many as 100,000 blogs in the Farsi language,
Derakhshan says.

The Internet was introduced in Iran in 1992 at the Institute for
Studies in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics in Tehran. It remained
an academic tool until 1997. Then the election of Khatami, a moderate
cleric, as president led to a quick expansion.

By 1999, there were 1,200 Internet cafes in Tehran, according to
Benham Tabrizi and Lily Sarafan, an associate professor and graduate
student, respectively, in management and engineering at Stanford
University. They delivered a paper at Stanford's Hoover Institution
last year that said the number of Internet users could be at 15
million by the end of 2005.

"Three-fourths of Internet users are between the ages of 21 and 32,
and 14% use the Internet 38 hours or more per week," Tabrizi and
Sarafan wrote.  "Iran's young population is more likely to turn to
Google than Qom (Iran's main Shiite Muslim theological center) for the
answers to their questions."

The campaign has dominated the Internet in Iran, including thousands
of weblogs, known as blogs. Derakhshan started the trend.

A Web designer who wrote tech columns for Iranian newspapers,
Derakhshan, 30, immigrated to Canada in 2000 after the hard-line
Iranian judiciary closed his paper, Asr-e-Azadegan, along with other
reform-minded publications. In 2002, he devised a way to use Farsi
with free software and provided instructions on his site. Soon,
Iranian writers shut out of the newspapers, young people looking for
dates and others hungry for independent information moved into the
blogosphere. Farsi is now the third most common language of blogs,
according to Tabrizi and Sarafan, after English and French.

Iranians reuniting over Web

Unlike China, which has devised a way of blocking dissident sites, the
Iranian government either does not have the means or has chosen not to
filter out all political sites, Derakhshan says. Last fall, the
government arrested a few dozen bloggers whose sites were overtly
political. Most have been released.

About a third of Farsi-language blogs originate in Iran and the rest
in a sizable Iranian diaspora of about 3 million, 2 million in the
USA, Derakhshan says.

Among the most popular sites within Iran are Gooya.com, which
originates in Belgium, and the Farsi service of the British
Broadcasting Corp. Others include the weblogs of the reformist
candidate Moin and Mohammed Abtahi, a former vice president.

An encouraging aspect of the Internet boom, says Abbas Milani,
director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford, is that it has
reunited Iranians in Iran with those who fled the Islamic revolution,
a dynamic that could dramatically accelerate democratic change.

"We in the diaspora can seriously participate in Iranian politics as
vibrantly as those inside," Milani says." "allowing democratic forces
to keep in touch."

"Those guys (in the Iranian leadership) don't know what has hit them
yet," he says.


Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

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.

To read USA Today on line each day with no registration or login
requirements, go to http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/othernews.html

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

From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Sony Ericsson Unveils New Phones
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:04:16 -0500


Mobile phone group Sony Ericsson, a venture of Sony Corp and Ericsson,
on Monday introduced five new phones that it hopes will boost its
presence in the low and mid-segment market.

The group, the world's fifth largest mobile phone maker, unveiled the
W600, a version of its Walkman brand music phone aimed at North
American consumers; the S600, aimed at the youth market; and a
clamshell-shaped phone, the Z520.

It also presented the J210, for those who want mainly simple functions
like making calls and writing messages; and a new third-generation
(3G) high-speed data phone, the K608i.

"We are widening our range in the low cost and medium segment," Per
Alksten, product market chief, told Reuters.

The announcements were made on the same day that Sony Ericsson's
biggest rival, Nokia, launched seven new phones, including a 3G phone
and three other high-end camera phones.

Sony Ericsson, which used to focus on advanced, more expensive models,
has said that it wants to expand its low-end range to become a
top-three player.

The company did not reveal precise prices for the new phones but
Alksten said the J210 is expected to cost less than 2,000 crowns
($362). Urban Gillstrom, president of the company's U.S. unit, said he
expects the W600 digital music phone to go on sale in the fourth
quarter for less than $300.

Ohman analyst Helena Nordman-Knutson said she was positive about the
launch of the new Sony Ericsson phones for expanding the market
segments where the group was already present.

"But I still expect them to release a basic telephone for under 50
euros," she added. She said Nokia sold a fifth of its phones in the
first quarter of the year for less than that price.

(Additional reporting by Sinead Carew in New York)

($1=5.525 Crown)

Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. 

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.

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

From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Cellular Phone Spam
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 13:26:53 -0500


        WesSalmon.com
      The personal ramblings of Wes Salmon

What is the Internet coming to?

What is the Internet coming to when I have to be more concerned with
spam in my inbox than "l33t h4x0rs" or viruses bringing my system
down? Case in point, last night before bed my phone beeps, I have an
SMS waiting. This is odd in itself since I rarely get an SMS unless
I'm at a trade show or other event where people are trying to catch up
with me. I check the message, and low and behold ... it's spam, and
not even well targeted spam since it's a message offering me a
back-to-school loan. What made this one especially annoying is that
SMS messages aren't free for the most part, I buy 'em in blocks and
this SMS spam just directly cost me up to a dime! Sure a dime is chump
change, but I'm a chump who doesn't like being advertised to at my own
expense.

To compound my frustration, this morning before venturing out into the
unbelievably crazy morning rush hour here in Seattle, (5 miles in 30
minutes, but that's another story entirely) I check my newly created
Hotmail account that I plan to use for IM'ing at my new job. Guess
what, more spam.  Already I'm a marketing target and the email address
is not even 12 hours old. I guess I'm partly to blame for using my
name as the email, but what kind of crazy, mixed up Internet world are
we living in where we have to disguise our own names just so we can
have an email account void of "See Britney Spears nude!!!" messages in
our inbox? I can't even USE my old hotmail account (4+ years old) due
to all the porn spam I get since I'm sure even the subject lines would
get me fired.

*sigh*

Posted by: Kalel on July 9, 2002 10:36 AM

you get 50 SMS for $5?! I get 100 per month with Cingular for $2.99
What service provider do you use for your phone?

Posted by: Kalel on July 9, 2002 10:38 AM

also with Cingular I could bump up my SMS messages to where I could get 250
per month for $5.99 or 500 for $9.99

Posted by: ronb on July 9, 2002 10:52 AM

We pay 2 cents per, no minimum charge.

Posted by: ronb on July 9, 2002 10:54 AM

Sorry, that's on my wife's phone. Mine are no cost to receive, but don't
tell your spammer friend.

Posted by: ronb on July 9, 2002 11:19 AM

But to comment on the main point here ...

I had a similar situation when buying a new PC a year or so ago. Free
MSN for a year at Best Buy. Picked a user name at the register. Get
home, set up PC, log on and there is porn spam waiting for me.

What's it coming to? I really think this is going to be the death of
the Internet as we have known it. I've read plenty of ideas on how
spam might be dealt with. Most of the ideas plain aren't going to
work. Can't legislate something if you can't enforce it from
overseas. Can't charge for email unless EVERYONE, including overseas,
charges. Anything that might work is going to split us off onto a
separated sub-internet or require significant maintainence on the part
of the user. It's too bad, really.

The only thing I can think of is if you use a private domain name,
spammers will be less apt to find it. But that costs you extra and you
make your email address that much harder for people to remember. As
for SMS, the network is a lot more under control, and with fewer
players. The providers will have to deal with it or people will churn.

Posted by: Wes on July 9, 2002 11:55 AM

Thanks for the comments guys, I'll have to check my bill to see what
I'm currently paying for my SMS package. I'm with Cingular and when I
signed up earlier this year, the deal included a $4.99 messaging
package. It's possible I've been moved to a newer, cheaper SMS plan or
that I'm still paying a premium because I haven't bothered to look. :)

On another note, did anyone who is subscribed to get notifications
when I post an article (sign up on the front page if you missed it)
get two copies of the notification email? I got two myself and I want
to make sure the system isn't doubling up for some reason.

Posted by: Steve on July 9, 2002 12:48 PM

Re: Spam. Don't feel bad. I work for IBM and one of the hot items on
the company intranet is how to deal with spam. Apparently some wise
person listed the entire company directory on the IBM website a few
years ago, thinking it would facilitate communications between
potential customers and IBMers. What it did is open the entire company
e-mail system to spam.  They're able to filter a lot, but employees
still get the occasional porn or commercial spam. Some folks are
getting overloaded by it ... Sigh...

Posted by: PDA Gerbil on July 9, 2002 01:00 PM

You guys PAY to recieve SMS????? Weird. Here is the UK it's sender pays - a
much better system. You phone, you pay, you SMS, you pay, fair really.

RE: 10 cents per SMS

Looking at Cingular's messaging pricing here:

http://www.cingular.com/beyond_voice/im_pricing it would seem I'm getting
the short end of the stick if I'm still paying $5 for 50 messages.

Reminds me of my good 'ol days with Sprint PCS (what am I talking
about, I still have two phones with them. :( ) when you'd have to call
in every few months to switch to the new, cheaper pricing plan to get
more hours and goodies. The catch was every time you changed your
plan, you committed to another year of service from that point
forward. Sneaky dogs.

I'll call Cingular and get a better SMS plan if I don't already have it,
besides I need to get GPRS up and running on my phone pronto.

Posted by: Michael Ducker on July 9, 2002 03:52 PM


I get 500 SMS messages for $2.99 extra from VoiceStream. That's on top of
the 50 that are included.

Plus, receiving SMS on voicestream AFAIK is always free :)

Posted by: scottmag on July 9, 2002 03:55 PM

I don't want to open a can of worms here, but this is one area where
the U.K. "caller/sender pays" system is far superior. Spam is
absolutely destoying the Internet's "killer app" - email.

I just read a great article on spam and email filtering in the latest
issue of TidBITS. Check it out here:
http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-637.html

I highly recommend it. (TidBITS itself is mainly Mac-focused, but I highly
recommend it as well.)

Scott

Posted by: Wes on July 9, 2002 06:29 PM

RE #2: 10 cents per SMS

Ok so I've figured it out after looking at my bill and Cingular's
offerings.  I pay $4 a month to use my minutes as data minutes, then
$2.99 for wireless messaging (100 messages apparently), with every
message over my allotment costing me 10 cents. I knew I had a dime per
message in there somewhere, just in the wrong place.

I've updated the story a little to reflect my confusion of my Cingular
bill where even the itemizations are itemized. Now I see why I simply
look at the total, and if it's near what I expected to pay, I pay
it. I'm just the type of sheep .. err I mean consumer the phone
companies love for this very reason.

So to conclude, this spam cost me 3 cents since I haven't used up my
100 messages, unless of course I get 50 free additional messages with
my internet package, bringing the total cost to 2 cents. :)

Posted by: Shane on July 10, 2002 11:03 AM

I fixed my SMS message problem with getting spam. I'm a Voicestream
customer so SNS messaging is included, but it eats into my minutes. I
got a spam message once, and what I did was call the number back that
was listed in the message, and told the answering service that
answered that if they continue to send me messages to my phone, that
it costs me money. If they did not immediately stop sending me
messages I would report them to the FCC and also to the Better
Business Bureau for harassment. It worked like a charm, and I never
got another message.

As for the Hotmail account, I've learned that you can't use your real
name or any version of it. What I've found to be the biggest
contributor of spam to my Hotmail mailbox is the Hotmail service
itself. I hate my AOL account, because it gets so much crap from other
AOL members. I've started to just report any and all objectional
pieces of e-mail to AOL.

Posted by: RLBorg on July 11, 2002 07:29 AM

Well, MS hotmail seems to be a hot bed of spam. I don't use my name on my
hotmail, but constantly get the junk anyway. My guess is that MS allows
companies to spam to pay for the service. I get far more spam their than I
get in any of my other email ids.

Posted by: Arminius on July 11, 2002 07:41 AM

You use Sprint??? HAHAHA :P

Posted by: nobody on July 15, 2002 09:14 AM

Wes, What would you expect from Microsoft services? I mean really,
Hotmail, MSN? MSFT is like a junky and needs massive amounts of green
in it's veins.  Income from SPAM is probably part of their business
plan for those "services".

I'll bet if you read the fine print you'll see that you gave them the
rights to everything that goes thru their servers. So don't write or
email any articles on those accounts that you want to copyright.

Netscape or Yahoo will be better about this. After all, they've not
been found guilty of illegal business practices.

    ================================

My thanks to Wes Salmon for allowing the use of this old thread (not
that old, really) on cellphone spam via Cingular. Patrick just now
told me he has gone for years with his cell phone and never gotten
any spam through the email function; now in the past two weeks, two
blasts of it, five or ten pieces at a time.   

Lisa

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

Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 13:52:39 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: T-Mobile HotSpot Announces Network Expansion, Roaming Agreements


BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 13, 2005--T-Mobile HotSpot, the
largest carrier grade, commercial Wi-Fi network in the United States,
today announced continued wireless broadband leadership with strong
customer growth and usage statistics, and new roaming relationships.

Since the service launch in 2002, T-Mobile HotSpot has evolved to
become an expansive wireless broadband network. T-Mobile HotSpot meets
the needs of mobile professionals and wireless data hungry consumers,
whether they're on-the-go in the United States or roaming while
traveling abroad.

These same customers are accessing the service more frequently, using
the service for longer periods of time and are moving more data across
the network. Customers typically now spend 64 minutes online per
session, up from 45 minutes last year. This growth in time spent
online demonstrates that T-Mobile HotSpot's premium branded locations
are where people already go and want to spend their time -- in some
cases these locations serve as their office away from the office.

The Wi-Fi generation has embraced T-Mobile HotSpot as a category
leader, and that is being further proven as T-Mobile HotSpot today
serves more than 450,000 unique customers who have paid for T-Mobile
HotSpot service in the past 90 days. This number is in addition to
previously reported T-Mobile voice and data customers.

     - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=49802170

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

From: zortan@email.com
Subject: Acadamy Services Nuisance Calls 215-320-0424
Date: 13 Jun 2005 13:10:55 -0700


This company has been calling and hanging up for over a month now.
They are located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  They apparently can
not spell very well as the correct spelling is Academy.  If anyone
knows anything about this company please respond.

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

Date: 13 Jun 2005 18:34:17 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: Cell Phone Rental in Europe
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA


> Their URL is http://www.cellhire.com/.

Cellhire is perfectly legitimate, but why pay $99/mo to rent a phone
that you could buy for under $50, with airtime at about $2/min?

R's,

John

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

Date: 13 Jun 2005 18:47:31 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: 'Phone Tapping' Modem Traffic ?
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA


>> How difficult is it for them to 'decode' my modem [to ISP] traffic ?

On modern modems at 9600 bps and up it's fairly hard.  The traffic in
both directions uses the full bandwidth, and each end does echo
cancellation, subtracting out a time-delayed copy of what it sent, to
recover the other end's signal.  If you're sniffing in the middle
without a copy of what's been sent from either end, I suppose it's
possible with a sufficiently sophisticated signal processor, but it's
not something you could do by plugging in an off the shelf modem and
tweaking settings like you could do at 1200 bps.

R's,

John

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

From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Schools Prohibit Personal E-mail Sites
Date: 13 Jun 2005 12:07:36 -0700


> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Lisa Hancock, I really do not care for
> your attitude on this. If books are good (because they were very
> time-consuming and costly to prepare and edit) and web pages are bad
> (basically for the lack of the same reasons) then how do you explain
> some of the total crap which has been published over the years, such
> as the literature published by A. Hitler and others in Germany during
> the 1920-30's and much also in America?

I didn't say "all books are good and are web pages are bad".  What I
discussed was the conditions that tend to make books a more
authoritative source than web pages.

Certainly some very trashy books have been and continue to be
published and distributed.  But I dare say it is harder for one to
find such trashy books in normal channels than it is for one to find
trashy stuff on the Internet.  Finding paper copies of hardcore
material requires some effort and some material may not be available
to children; but that stuff is freely available on the Internet.

My concern is that there is a lot of garbage masquerading as fact on
the Internet.  The controls that exist on other printed matter do not
exist and the unscrupulous take advtg of that.  (For instance, I
learned long ago that many sites pulled up by a search engine are
actually porn sites loaded with common key words to trigger a hit.)
People have put up health-information sites and claimed to be a doctor
when after some careful reading it proved to be garbage.

Sure some of the Internet garbage is merely inconvenient, not harmful.
Like when someone recommended a particular restaurant and I went to
it, only to find it had been closed for several years.  The poster who
recommended it 'thought' he had been there very recently but then
maybe it was a few years after all.  This was an honest error and of
no great harm.

But I know there are some computer users out there who are quite
malicious, and some of them will go to considerable trouble to post
seriously misleading advice or information just to be an SOB or
satisfy their own immaturity.  They thrive on the anonymity of the
Internet.  Presently, there is no real check or balance on such web
pages.

There are some posters whom I feel know nothing (and probably more
than a few who feel that way about me.)

> And although I am only a mere web publisher and could not begin to
> meet the expenses required of having an editorial/fact-checking
> staff, my attitude is that the _truth will eventually prevail_ and
> any sort of ethical web publisher tries his best to make room for
> _all sides_ of an issue to be aired.

That's all well and good.  There is certainly useful information to be
found, and I hope I've contributed a bit of it from time to time.  But
there is no guarantee all posts include _all sides_ of an issue to
begin with.  Further, there is no guarantee that any one post is
totally accurate.

> What you have done is give a slap in the face to everyone who has
> attempted to present some social issue or another using the web as
> the media of choice because of its low cost and ease of use. Not
> everyone can _afford_ the cost of fancy printing and binding; all
> they want to do is present the facts as they know them to the
> largest number of people possible. Many or most of us under those
> circumstances do at least use a kind of peer-review policy. PAT]

I most certainly did not give any "slap in the face".  I merely
pointed out the fact that not all web pages may contain reliable
authoritative information, and I stand by that statement.  Yes,
there's not guarantee that a healthcare book from the library is 100%
authoritative, but at least a published book has an audit trail of
reviews where as a web page does not.

Discussing social issues are more of a matter of opinion so there's
less of an issue of facts being right or wrong.  Often people agree on
a fact but disagree beyond that.  For example: it is a fact that long
distance rates went down after AT&T divested.  I say that was merely a
continuation of technical improvements that had been going on all
along.  But others disagree and say it was due to competition forcing
prices down.  Who is right?

But I will note I've seen web sites who claimed that before divesture
"the phone company offered any telephone set you wanted as long as it
was black", which we all know is nonsense.

I've also seen newsgroups ruined because of one or two people
constantly flood the group with nasty postings disagreeing and
disrupting every discussion.  I don't think the truth gets out in such
cases.  I think moderated groups -- with a reasonable moderation
policy -- are better to get out the "truth", but then many complain of
censorship.  Is the person with the biggest bullhorn saying the truth?


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That 'biggest bullhorn' effect has come
close to happening even here. As you may have noticed, Lisa, some of
our readers do not like to be contradicted. You respond to them with
a 5 K-byte message; their more agressive response comes back with all
of the previous message quoted and another 10 K-byte reply. If you
respond to that, then they return with a full quote and another 20-25
K-byte response. The more the discussion continues, the 'louder' and
'longer' the blast on the bullhorn. They'd be content, I suspect, if
the entire Digest overflowed with one loud, long blast on the 
bullhorn. And what is the truth? Often times, my only honest answer
can be 'you tell me' ...

And regards the 'slap on the face', here is what you _actually_ said
in issue 265 earlier today:

> While anyone can write a book and pay to publish it, getting it
> distributed and purchased is another matter entirely.

> There is a big difference between book publishing and Internet web
> pages.  Anyone can set up a web page at very modest cost that looks
> authoritative and accurate but may be actually garbage or even a scam.

> On the other hand, to get a book published and distributed takes a lot
> of effort.  Reputable book publishers make some effort to edit serious
> non-fiction offerings (not including fad books such as diet books).
> Books for libraries are reviewed and rated.  It is by no means a
> perfect system; but my point is that there is at least some editing
> and selection process going on at various levels; on the Internet
> there is none whatsoever.

You've heard, I assume of 'vanity presses' or 'vanity publishers'; 
people who pay to have their books printed. One of the biggest of the
'vanity presses' is a company called Unity Press (?). They print 
anything and everything handed to them; of course you, the author,
have to pay them a couple grand up front. _If_ they can sell your
book, then fine; if they cannot sell it they ship you the several
hundred copies which were printed, and _you_ try to sell them, along
with all the footnotes on each page, and the preface and the addendum
in the back, etc. Either in hard cover, cloth or paper-back; they 
don't care ... they print it as you requested. Some of us just regard
the internet as the "poor man's vanity press system". 

As we 'Inform Ourselves to Death' (see the Digest #263, over last
weekend), it has truly gotten to the point that information has no
value any longer. But Lisa, some of us do _try_ at least.   PAT]

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


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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #266
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