TELECOM Digest     Tue, 14 Jun 2005 22:35:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 268

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Yahoo Buys Internet Phone Provider Dialpad Communications (Lisa Minter)
    Norwegian Start up Opens Skype to all Mobile Users (Lisa Minter)
    EBay Ends Live 8 Ticket Sale After Geldof Jibe (Lisa Minter)
    Another Kiddie Porn Sweep Nets Sixty More Arrests (Lisa Minter)
    Spanish Firm Aims to Revolutionize Online Music (Lisa Minter)
    1A2 Ringer Matrix Blocks (Henry Cabot Henhouse III)
    Please Explain LATA (pisicuta60634@yahoo.com)
    Recommendations Wanted for Good External Faxmodems (Colin)   
    Re: 'Phone Tapping' Modem Traffic (Laura Halliday)
    Re: Bellsouth Caller ID (Isaiah Beard)
    Re: Cell Phone Rental in Europe (Sandyman)
    Re: Koppel: Take My Privacy, Please! (Lisa Hancock)
    Re: Cellular Phone Spam (John Levine)
    Re: Cellular Phone Spam (Mark Crispin)
    Re: Cellular Phone Spam (Jared)
    Re: Schools Prohibit Personal E-mail Sites (Dean M.)
    Re: Schools Prohibit Personal E-mail Sites (Lisa Hancock)
    The Internet If There Had Been no Divestiture (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: Yahoo Buys Internet Phone Provider DialPad Communications
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:24:07 -0500


By RACHEL KONRAD, AP Technology Writer

Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) said Tuesday it had acquired DialPad
Communications Inc., a 6-year-old company whose software lets people to
place calls over the Internet for a fraction of the cost of regular
telephone service.

The companies would not release financial details of the deal, which
closed Monday.

The Internet's leading portal will use DialPad to expand its product
array in the burgeoning niche of Voice over Internet Protocol, or
VoIP, said company spokeswoman Joanna Stevens.

The technology converts conversations into data packets that traverse
the Internet over broadband connections. Some in the industry think
VoIP will eventually nudge the 130-year-old circuit-switched phone
network into obsolescence.

Milpitas-based DialPad, which has about 40 employees, competes with a
growing number of startups that reroute calls from computers to
servers to telephones.

Current mainstream VoIP services let callers use standard phone
handsets or even cell phones to make or receive calls, a big
improvement on the computer-to-computer of early Internet telephony.

Depending on the subscription plan, Dialpad charges as little as 1.7
cents per minute for calls, including international calls to more than
200 countries. DialPad subscribers can also buy a prepaid VoIP calling
card. The company has been offering calling plans for about two years
and has more than 14 million users.

New products from Yahoo that integrate DialPad technology could debut
within a month, Stevens said.

It's unclear what Yahoo might charge for VoIP service involving calls
to traditional phones.

"We still need to integrate the technology and roll out a product, and
we haven't disclosed those details," Stevens said.

The acquisition is Yahoo's second VoIP announcement in less than a
month. In May, Yahoo introduced a test version of its instant
messaging software with an Internet telephony component that lets
users make free computer-to-computer calls.

On the Net:

http://www.yahoo.com
http://www.dialpad.com

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.

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

From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Norwegian Start up Opens Skype to all Mobile Users
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 14:34:10 -0500


An invention by a Norwegian start-up company allows consumers to use
their everyday mobile phones to make free long distance Skype calls
over the Internet, for the price of a local call.

The company, called IPdrum, said on Tuesday its software enables
consumers to call their own personal computer (PC) from any standard
mobile phone and set up a Skype call over the Internet. Skype calls
can also be received on that cellphone.

Skype's free software is used by 42 million individuals and the
company is adding 150,000 new customers every day. The three-year-old
firm, with offices in London and Luxembourg, said it was not involved
in the project.

Skype users usually make phone calls sitting at front of their PC with
an attached headset, limiting its usability.

The trick with IPdrum's software is that a second mobile phone is
connected to the PC with a small USB cable. IPdrum's software uses
that cellphone to set up a connection between the Skype application on
the computer and the consumer's cellphone in his or her pocket.

"You still need to pay for the local call between the two cellphones,
but most mobile operators offer flat rates for local calls or selected
numbers," said IPdrum's boss Kjetil Mathisen.

The product will be available worldwide by mid-August for a price
between $60 and $80. The company has a distributor in Europe and is in
talks with distributors in Asia and America.

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: EBay Ends Live 8 Ticket Sale After Geldof Jibe
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 14:35:47 -0500


By Kate Holton

Internet auction site eBay ended a sale of free Live 8 tickets on
Tuesday after Bob Geldof, the organizer of the awareness-raising
concerts, labeled the site an "electronic pimp" and urged people to
swamp it.

Tickets to the star-studded London show, which aims to pressure world
leaders into fighting poverty in Africa, were given away to the
winners of a text lottery. But they immediately started appearing on
eBay for hundreds of pounds.

Geldof criticized the site and urged people to swamp it with bogus
offers of tickets or massively inflated bids.

"What I would ask you to do tonight is to get on eBay and mess up the
system," he told Sky News.

"Everyone should go on and pretend they have got tickets for Live 8
 ... otherwise go on and bid ridiculous amounts of money for the
tickets already on the site," said the feisty Irish rocker.

His appeal did not go unheeded. Within minutes bids which had been
running in the hundreds of pounds surged to 10 million pounds.

eBay, which earlier on Tuesday rejected Geldof's call to end the sale
saying there was nothing illegal about it, capitulated.

"eBay has decided to not allow the resale of Live 8 tickets on the
site," a spokesman told Reuters.

"We have listened to eBay's community of users and the message has
been clear -- that they do not want the tickets to be sold on the
site. Once we are made aware of any Live 8 tickets being resold they
will be taken down," he added.

Geldof organized the July 2 concert 20 years after his Live Aid
sensation which raised money to help the starving in Ethiopia.

Rather than raise money, the 2005 concert aims to raise the profile of
African poverty and influence leaders of the G8 group of
industrialized nations who meet in Scotland next month.

Four other concerts will be held in Paris, Rome, Berlin and
Philadelphia on the same day and a sixth on July 6 in Edinburgh -- the
day the two-day G8 summit starts in nearby Gleneagles.

More than 2 million text messages were sent by people hoping to get
tickets in the draw.

Performers for the London concert include a reformed Pink Floyd, U2,
Paul McCartney, Coldplay, Madonna and REM.

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.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here in the USA, we Episcopalians had
been giving money to help with the various social problems and
poverty in Africa; not through concert ticket sales or anything like
that -- more just get in pocket, take out money and hand it over, and 
as a church, Episcopalians have _almost_ as much money as Catholics,
coming from the same historical background, etc. But the Africans said
"we do not want your money any longer" and asked us to quit giving it,
which we did. Its something to do with our beliefs with which they
disagree. PAT] 

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

From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Another Kiddie Porn Sweep Nets Sixty More Arrests
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:32:23 -0500


              Child Porn Sweep Nets Nearly 60 Busts
            Posted by Robert T DeMarco on 06/13/05 @ 23:10:43

            A task force established to fight internet crimes against
children carried out more than 50 search warrants this past week
netting a few local (in the Carolinas) arrests.

The State Bureau of Investigation has carried out more than 50 search
warrants in the past week to fight the spread of child pornography,
says Attorney General Roy Cooper.

The North Carolina Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force led by
the SBI has served a total of 58 search warrants since June 6 on
suspects in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Charlotte and other cities
across North Carolina.

The joint operation involved 45 law enforcement agencies across the
state and is expected to yield charges that will be prosecuted by
local district attorneys and federal prosecutors.

Already 10 of the searches have resulted in arrests of suspects with
several other cases pending forensic review of computer evidence
seized by the SBI during the searches.

"Those who trade in child pornography exploit children and seek to make
a profit off of their victims' pain," said Cooper. "Using technology
and good cooperation with local and federal law enforcement, SBI
agents have been able to bust dozens of suspects who thought they were
safe sitting behind a computer screen."

The operation began in October 2004 with SBI investigations that
culminated in a statewide sweep over the past week to fight the
growing use of file sharing programs to trade and distribute child
pornography.

Investigators with the SBI Computer Crimes Unit worked with
investigators from across the country to locate Internet addresses in
North Carolina that were being used to share child pornography videos
and images via peer-to-peer networks.

One well known example of a peer-to-peer network is the Fastrack
Network over which programs like KaZaa operate and allow users to
share files with each other. Users of the peer-to-peer software have
been targeted in the past for sharing illegal copies of everything
from software to music.

Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) is a nationwide network of law
enforcement agencies and prosecutors dedicated to protecting children
from online dangers. The United States Department of Justice's Office
of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention founded ICAC and
provides funding for it. The SBI has been a member of ICAC since 2000.

To help local law enforcement track criminals who use the Internet to
exploit children, Cooper has also asked legislators to expand the SBI
Computer Crimes Unit that he helped create by adding four new field
agents. The agents would partner with the ICAC Task Force to crack
down on child pornography and online predators who cruise the Internet
in search of victims. In addition, Cooper is seeking three more
computer forensic experts to recover and analyze information from
computers submitted to the SBI Crime Lab.

The NC House on Friday indicated that it would include funding for all
seven of these new agents in its budget. A bill backed by Cooper that
will give SBI agents and local law enforcement more tools to catch
predators who pursue children online recently passed the NC House and
Senate. The Child Exploitation Prevention Act would make it a felony
for an Internet predator to solicit anyone, including an undercover
officer, he or she believes to be a child. Under current law, a
predator who solicits an officer posing as a minor could only be
charged with a misdemeanor.

The measure would also require convicted online predators to be added
to the state's Sex Offender Registry and to provide DNA samples for
the state's convicted offender database.

"Good law enforcement is essential to cracking down on criminals who
use the Internet to hurt our children, but parents also need to get
involved," said Cooper. "By using parental controls and setting
household rules for Internet use, parents can give their kids the
wonders of the Internet while shutting out its dangers."

            The sweep netted several local people:

            -56 Male White Burlington Alamance SW NC SBI, Burlington
Police 6/10/2005 Pending Forensic Review

            - 18 Male White Winston-Salem Forsyth SW NC SBI,
Winston-Salem PD 6/8/2005 Pending Forensic Review

            - 28 Male White Winston-Salem Forsyth SW NC SBI,
Winston-Salem PD 6/8/2005 Pending Forensic Review

            - 25 Male White Greensboro Guilford SW NC SBI, Greensboro
PD 6/7/2005 6/7/2005 Poss Intent to Sell And Deliver Greensboro
Guilford SW NC SBI, Greensboro PD 6/7/2005 Pending Forensic Review

            - 33 Male White Greensboro Guilford SW NC SBI, Greensboro
PD 6/7/2005 6/7/2005 2nd Degree Sexual Exploitation of a Minor

            - 32 Male White Greensboro Guilford SW NC SBI, Greensboro
PD 6/7/2005 Pending Forensic Review

            - 15 Male White Trinity Randolph SW NC SBI, Randolph Co.
Sheriff's Office 6/7/2005 Pending Forensic Review

            - 31 Male White Reidsville Rockingham SW NC SBI,
Rockingham Co.  Sheriff's Office 6/7/2005 Pending Forensic Review

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

From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Spanish Firm Aims to Revolutionize OnLine Music
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 14:32:48 -0500


By Daniel Flynn

A Spanish Internet start-up that tracks how people listen to music on
computers and other devices hopes to profit from enhancing the success
of the online music business, its chairman said on Tuesday.

MusicStrands aims to grow by using its exclusive new technology to
delve into listeners' computers, mobile phones or i-Pods to help
determine their preferences, not just what they purchase, and make
recommendations. "You can have fairly crude forms of recommendation
technology, which is just if someone picks A then you recommend B,"
Chairman Derek Reisfield told Reuters. "We are going to the next
level. We can personalise the recommendation.

"We'll look at your hard-drive and see what's out there and make
recommendations based on your music library," said Reisfield, a former
president of CBS New Media.

"We look at actual behavior patterns in terms of usage, not just
purchases."

The technology can make selections based even on the time of day or
the type of music the user typically listens to following another type
of music, he said. The company asks its members for permission before
accessing their files, he said.

A third of the company's 30 employees have doctorate degrees,
including Andreas Weigend, the former chief scientist at Amazon.com
Inc. from 2002 to 2004.

Musicstrands offers its service free to users via its Internet
site. It earns revenues by licensing its technology to other companies
and by making referrals to online music stores such as Amazon.com and
Buy.com Inc. For each referral that turns into a sale, it collects a
fee.

The company, which launched its Web site in February, aims to have
revenues in seven figures next year and to turn a profit within three
to five years.

"Creating the surprises of a physical shopping experience is very
difficult on the Internet, and that is something we want to address,"
said Reisfield.  "We want to give people different ways to navigate."

Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, said last week it
was interested in offering an online music subscription service. It
launched its MSN Music download service last year to rival Apple
Computer Inc.'s iTunes.

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: Henry Cabot Henhouse III <sooper_chicken@hotmail.com>
Subject: 1A2 Ringer Matrix Blocks
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 13:59:39 -0700


I've search high and low, I've Googled and Yahooed, I've checked with
the local Psychic, and can't seem to find a couple of the old 1A2
ringer diode matrix blocks with a bunch of pins. I'm wondering if any
of the Digest readers may know of a place to find them.

Thanks!

Dave

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

From: pisicuta60634@yahoo.com
Subject: Please Explain LATA
Date: 14 Jun 2005 14:38:42 -0700


Can somebody tell me what LATA is?

Thanks.

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

Subject: Recommendations for Good External Faxmodems?
From: colin@nospamamail.com
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 18:35:39 -0500


Are there any good external faxmodems to be used for a VOIP connection
for under $35?

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

From: Laura Halliday" <marsgal42@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: 'Phone Tapping' Modem Traffic ?
Date: 14 Jun 2005 16:33:02 -0700


PrinceGunter <slippymississi...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Not even encryption will prevent your messages from
> being read, if the LEA really want to read them bad
> enough.

Depends on the encryption. Properly applied, one-time pad encryption
cannot be cracked. The mathematics are clear (and beyond the scope of
this newsgroup), but you might consider how to create an algorithm to
crack encryption that wasn't generated by an algorithm in the firs
place.

All examples of one-time pad encryption being cracked (e.g. Venona)
are the result of agents misusing key data.

Laura Halliday VE7LDH     "Que les nuages soient notre
Grid: CN89mg                    pied a terre..."
ICBM: 49 16.05 N 122 56.92 W       - Hospital/Shafte

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

From: Isaiah Beard <sacredpoet@sacredpoet.com>
Subject: Re: Bellsouth Caller ID
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 15:42:30 -0400
Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com


Choreboy wrote:

> Caller ID won't show names for some cellphone callers.  I decided to
> ask Bellsouth if their Caller ID would show names of cellphone callers
> with any cellphone carriers, and if so, what carriers.

> So Bellsouth won't tell me what cellphone carriers provide names for
> their Caller ID.  Is this information available anywhere?

Only through BellSouth really.  The reason is that in order to pass
Caller ID name data, Bellsouth (and other landline phone companies,
for that matter) must either subscribe to a third party database that
can cross reference phone numebrs to their subscriber names, OR
directly negotiate with the various carriers to pass the name
information.  Generally, a telecom company (wireless or wireline) will
charge a fee per name that is passed along, while the number-only
information is free.

What frequently happens is that a wireline phone company will decide
they are paying too much for this service (prices typically run $.02
to $.04 per name accessed), and refuse to sign a new contract until
the originating carrier is willing to negotiate a lower price.  The
idea is that the wireline company beleives they can strong-arm the
other carrier; if caller id for that carrier is "broken," then they
believe that customers will not want to subscribe to that competing
phone company.

So in essence, you are right in contacting BellSouth.  They have made
a decision not to provide accompanying name data, beacause they don't
want to pay other phone companies for the privelege (yet they're
probably quite happy to charge others for the same info).


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

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

From: Sandyman <mshawn@roadpost.com>
Subject: Re: Cell Phone Rental in Europe
Date: 14 Jun 2005 13:02:13 -0700


Try Roadpost http://www.roadpost.com .  You can get a rental that
includes 30 flat rate minutes (no long distance charges!) for less
than $60 or $70 if I remember right, with their summer special.  If
you get their Greece service, the incoming calls when you're in Greece
will be free.  I think that phone will also work in Turkey.  I've used
them, I was very happy.

marty@ceflorida.com wrote:

> Traveling to Greece and Turkey (Istanbul)and am seeking a reliable and
> competitively priced company to rent a cell phone from. Would also
> like a recommendation as to which phone I should select.

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

From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Koppel: Take My Privacy, Please!
Date: 14 Jun 2005 13:09:48 -0700


Monty Solomon wrote:

> By TED KOPPEL

> THE Patriot Act - brilliant! Its critics would have preferred a less
> stirring title, perhaps something along the lines of the Enhanced
> Snooping, Library and Hospital Database Seizure Act. But then who,
> even right after 9/11, would have voted for that?

This was an excellent article.

I wonder if kids today read 1984 in school as we did.  Even if they
do, does the now old title lower the book's impact?

IIRC, the book was written soon after WW II reflecting on the changes
in society coming in both England and the Soviet Union.  England was
introducing television and having the govt much more involved in
people's lives.  The Soviets were totalitarian--people were dirt poor
and every aspect of life was controlled by the govt.  England also had
the V-2 experience.  WW II ended with east and west facing each other.

Since much of this history has changed and other parts become so
distant, I wonder if the book is as meaningful toward young readers
today.

We don't have nuclear war hanging over our heads as in the 1950s and
1960s and the conflicts between the west/China/USSR.

I wonder if it bothers people that so much of their daily movements is
tracked by CCTV cameras everywhere they go -- in schools, on the job,
in stores, and along the road.  People have been arrested wrongly
based on CCTV viewings (a school principal was fired after being
"seen" alone in a room with a student).

On the one hand, I suppose the cameras could clear us if we were
accused of a crime by providing us with an alibi proving we were where
we said we were.

But on the other hand, if we happened to be near a crime scene when it
occured, could we be falsely accused of that crime (like the
principal)?

Does anyone out there think this lack of privacy and constant
electronic and data surveillance is a good thing?

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

Date: 15 Jun 2005 00:23:23 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Spam
Organization: I.E.C.C. Trumansburg NY USA


> If they won't credit you, tell them that you want to close your cell
> phone account immediately.

Good idea.  I'll try that next time.

> I immediately closed it, and told them the reason why.  There's some
> hole through which spammers are able to collect Hotmail addresses.

No, they just blast spam a billion randomly generated addresses every
day.

R's,

John

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

Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:31:42 -0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)
From: Mark Crispin <MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU>
Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Spam
Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing


On Tue, 15 Jun 2005, John Levine wrote:

>> If they won't credit you, tell them that you want to close your cell
>> phone account immediately.

> Good idea.  I'll try that next time.

Good luck.

AFAIK, Verizon credits the victims of SMS spam automatically.

>> I immediately closed it, and told them the reason why.  There's some
>> hole through which spammers are able to collect Hotmail addresses.

> No, they just blast spam a billion randomly generated addresses every day.

I know that's the case for "mrc", but I think that it's rather
unlikely that they could have randomly guessed my late unlamented
Hotmail userid.  It would have required trillions, not billions.

Also, a blast-spam of one billion requires a sustained rate of 12,000
spams/second.

Mark

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

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

Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 19:23:28 -0600
From: jared@nospam.au (jared)
Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Spam


It seems to me that in this case, the spam would originate from
someone harvesting e-addresses from the Usenet. It wouldn't take much
to do this automatically; it wouldn't be surprising if there were such
software on the net and/or for sale.

> My "NOTvalid@XmasNYC.Info" started getting spam within 24 hours of
> using it on Usenet. Needless to say it is now REALLY NOTvalid.

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, yet another netter victimized by
> the 'mere coincidence of a spammer using directory attacks'.  PAT]



[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, indeed there is. I get offers at
least daily to buy the same from other spammers.  PAT]

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

Subject: Re: Schools Prohibit Personal E-mail Sites
From: Dean M. <cjmebox-telecomdigest@yahoo.com>
Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 22:31:54 GMT


A couple of thoughts on this issue:

I don't believe there's any way to prove the Internet is less reliable
than printed material. What makes any information source reliable is
the value it places on it's reputation. That generally translates to
more trust and thus brings back the consumers of that source's
information.  That in turn usually translates into money (hey, maybe
there's a way to measure it: how big is the online vs offline
information market).

The Internet is still new. However, it is continuously evolving and
producing better ways for us to rate information providers who thus
quickly build an online reputation which can make them or brake
them. The more the Internet helps do that, the more the qualityof the
information improves (as opposed to only the quantity) whether it be
ebay/amazon ratings or the online reputations of bloggers, publishers
or news organisations. It'll always be imperfect (the long tail can
hide a lot of trash) but I think unltimately it is a better
information market than printed matter.

Dean

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 07:45:48 -0700, <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note:
>> 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]

> Regarding vanity press, the reality is that most books printed that
> way end up in the author's basement.

> I recall reading a "tell-all" book about the phone company a
> disgruntled employee wrote years ago.  He made fun of the standardized
> office layout, decor, and furnishings of each level of management.
> His books had an occassional point of interest, but most of it was
> griping of someone who just didn't fit in a strictly standardized
> world (and a lot of people do have trouble with that.)  If they had
> the Internet back then, I bet he have a huge web page collecting
> gripes from every person who had a fight with their service rep.

> My argument is that sure -- there were plenty of disgruntled Bell
> System employees and plenty of customers poorly served.  But one must
> look at the bigger picture of the TOTAL number of happy employees and
> satisfied customers.  I doubt the above writer would bother to mention
> that statistic on his webpage.

> I doubt too many people read his book (I found it at a yard sale).
> But with the ease of the Internet and search engines it may have
> reached more people and spread inaccurate information.

> Another concerns is that information overload depreciates the value of
> information.  Part of that concern is the ease of Internet
> information.

> I've been in a number of discussions (both on-line and off-line) about
> issues where debaters use Internet sources to bolster their case.  But
> often times those sources tell only a small part of the story.  For
> issues that interest me, I have printed copy references from either
> books I own or library resources that tell a bigger picture and
> different story.

> For example, in a debate about public transit in Philadelphia, several
> people claimed the system was losing money for years and near
> collapse.  I have the company's annual reports that show that claim
> was wrong.  In debates about Amtrak, I have printed literature stating
> Amtrak's purpose was to supplement highways and airways that were
> unable to handle all national travel needs.

> The ease of the Internet/computer databases are a wonderful tool and I
> don't dispute that at all (more below).  But I remain troubled that
> the Internet has too much garbage on it drowning out valid
> information.

> * * *

> Admittedly, researching material in print is tiring.  I recently did
> some research the old fashioned way -- pulling out bound indexes,
> scanning them multiple times in multiple years for various keywords,
> then writing down the hits.  Then, I searched the microfilm rolls for
> journals and dates for the hits.  Then, the individual roll of
> microfilm had to threaded through the reader and slowly searched
> sequentially for the particular issue date and finally the article.
> Sometimes the reward for this would be merely two sentences.  THEN, I
> have to start all over with another reel.  After a while this gets
> quite tiring.  The only saving grace is that no one seems to use
> microfilm anymore and I have the reader room all to myself.

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

From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Schools Prohibit Personal E-mail Sites
Date: 14 Jun 2005 14:58:46 -0700


Fred Atkinson wrote:

> Is it really harder [to find trashy books]?

Yes, it is.  Porn books supposedly do not allow minors to enter.  Porn
bookstores are often off the beaten track.  I dare say there are a lot
more legitimate bookstores and newstands than porn stores out there.

To find other trashy printed material, one must make somewhat of an
effort, such as to find and get to a specialty store.

> Have you ever visited a pornographic book store?

No.  I have heard from several sources that beyond the items they
sell, they also serve as a meeting place to set up liasons; and some
activity takes place in back rooms.

> If not, do you deny they are out there or what kind of books are
> distributed?

Of course not.  But they are harder to get than ordinary books.

> Have you ever seen 'The People versus Larry Flynt'?

No.

> And there's a lot of stuff published by hate groups and other
> extremists, too.  Do we give up freedom of speech to keep this stuff
> from being disseminated?

Again, it is harder to find hate group literature than ordinary
publications.  The stores in my town have a rack for the free
community newspaper and several have racks for newspapers and
magazines.  However, none stock any hate speech literature.  Obviously
that stuff is around if one chooses to go out and search for it.  My
point is that in hard copy it is harder to find.

> If we shot everyone who was wrong about something, most of us would be
> dead, wouldn't we?

Your point being?

>> 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 telephone users who are quite malicious (ask the telephone
> company as they have to investigate obscene and/or harrassing callers
> from time to time), their are licensed automobile drivers who are
> quite malicious (I've nearly been hit by more than a few), there are
> truck drivers who are quite malicious (and I drove eighteen wheelers
> for just under a year and I know), there are police officers who are
> quite malicious, and the list goes on and on.  But for the most part,
> the intentionally malicious ones are very much in the minority.  And
> I've had more than one police or security officer in trouble with his
> superiors over completely inappropriate behavior that I observed.
> That is because I determined it was inappropriate and I dealt with it
> by contacting superiors.  What if I hadn't been afforded the
> opportunity to learn to be able to determine that it was indeed wrong?
> The behavior they exhibited and inflicted upon others would have
> continued.

You are making an apples to oranges comparison.  You are talking about
_actions_ that have always been around, my point was about
_information distribution_ that is a new thing.  Yes, you have
channels to do something about bad cops, but what are the channels to
deal with a web site giving out bad info?  AFAIK, not a thing, even if
the information is really bad.  In extreme cases, where the aggrieved
have a lot of money (ie Hollywood stars), they can take legal action;
most of us don't have that luxury.

> And it goes back to not believing everything you read or hear.  Kids
> have to learn to balance it sometime.  Depriving them of that
> information robs them of the chance to learn to decide for themselves.

Are you saying there should be no age restrictions on what kids can
see or read (ie "R, X, NC-17" rated movies, X-rated literature?)

Are you saying you would have no objection of some kid brought in and
distributed hate literature at an elementary school?

Are you saying you would have no objection if someone put up a
non-traceable offshore website saying the most vile things about you,
your family, and your job?  Or if someone distributed literature
around the neighborhood calling you a criminal of the lowest sort who
ought to be ejected from the neighborhood?

> And what about schools that took books like that off the library
> shelves?  What about Huckleberry Finn?  Tom Sawyer?  And the list goes
> on and on?  With Mark Twain's writing style as it was, it would be be
> considered quite racist by today's standards.  Do we censor it?  Of
> course not.

I stand by my statement that schools and libraries 'censor' reading
materials all the time, for a variety of reasons.

Who decides what is "literature" and what is "trash"?

There are a zillion books out there and schools and libraries do not
have the money for every one.  They must make choices on what to buy.
They also make choices on what to discard.  Is that "censorship"?

> And it is the reader's job to decide how they feel about who is
> posting or writing and whether their views should be taken seriously.

Yes, it is.

But that job is made harder by the Internet, when it is harder to have
a benchmark to judge the quality of a work, especially on an
unfamiliar topic.

I will generally give an article in the New York Times more
credibility than an article in a supermarket tabloid because I know of
the quality concerns of each publisher.  But what is the quality of
some website?

For instance, recently Robert B and I had an debate here on various
legal issues and we disagreed.  How would an outside reader,
unfamiliar with the law, know who, if any, is correct or as you say,
"to be taken seriously"?

I know my local newspaper, before publishing a guest editorial or news
article, requires substatiating claimed facts.  They would not except
either of our posts without some backup, and would also consult with
their inhouse sources.  Thus, a reader of the newspaper has more (note
I didn't say total) confidence in accuracy than something on the 'net.

> Are we really protecting the kids when we deprive them of the
> opportunity to learn to decide for themselves?  Or are we going to
> have to protect them from it all their lives?  And if they don't
> learn, who's going to protect *their* kids?  And what about when we
> pass on and leave them to their own judgement?

Certainly kids do learn to decide for themselves but kids also
need protection, too.

Most kids in third grade aren't ready to learn calculus so we don't
tell them about it.  Likewise with other subjects that may be too
advanced for a kid to properly and safely understand.  Otherwise, the
right to vote and legal status would be in effect at birth rather than
age 18.

Some kid in my area was just arrested for having a very considerable
amount of bomb making chemicals in his room at home.  The kid was
making bomb threats at school.  How did the kid get these dangerous
chemicals?  How did he learn about them?  Did the kid fully understand
the import of what he was doing?

To put it another way, should be we bother with childproof locks
on gun cabinets?

Regarding your comments on whacky radio ideas, I agree about free
speech.  However, how would you feel if someone had a nice looking web
page filled with the stuff you heard -- given as advice to new users?

Lisa Hancock 

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

From: Lisa Hancock <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com>
Subject: Internet With an Undivested Bell System
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 18:00:00 EDT


TELECOM Digest Editor posted a question to the group: What would the
internet be like today if Bell System had not been divested. Would it
all or most of it, be run by the telephone company? I will discuss
this more later in this message. 

As to the Bell System:

> The telephone system never improved all that much over the years (at
> least, to the perception of the end user) until the Bell companies had
> to compete.

The Bell System was greatly improved over the years.  Users had
greater reliability, more service options, and lower costs.  While
perhaps a home user didn't see as much change (other than Touch Tone
and ESS features), business users saw many improvements.  Long
Distance rates were dropping rapidly before divesture

> Thus, competition played a big role in bringing prices
> down.

I submit that Bell Labs technology and greater economies of scale
bought prices down.

I also note that the initial chief competitor, MCI, got into the
market through lawsuits, and their more recent history of fraud isn't
not exactly nice.

We must also subtract from total net savings the losses from fraud
like Norvergence and others.  (Like the horrendous prices charged at
pay phones for collect calls!)  That's all part of the new world, too
and must be included.  Not everybody did so well from divesture.

Further, costs merely SHIFTED from the phone company to businesses
themselves.  That is, stuff the Bell System did for business as part
of the base service now had to be done by the business itself.  (Many
Bell System employees took jobs at their clients).  Shifted costs are
not saved costs.

Lastly, businesses suffered from finger pointing between equipment
owner, local company, and long distance company.  For data senders,
this was a nightmare.  Many network adms told me divesture greatly
added to costs from aggravation and finger pointing.  In the old days,
they'd call Bell and Bell would fix it.  Now, Bell would blame AT&T or
MCI, and MCI would blame the customer's equipment.  Add that cost in.

> And the end user got a lot more say so about his/her telephone
> service(s) and got what they wanted at prices they could afford.  I
> remember when an answering machine could only be provided and
> installed by the phone company.

Not true.  Answering machines were available that used a lever to lift
the handset and speakers to transmit the message in the early 1960s.

Remember the logic technology to control an answering machine's
function wasn't as freely available in those days.  Many people
preferred to use a human answering service anyone for better customer
service.  And in the early 1960s, Touch Tone was rare so it would've
been hard to access messages remotely.

> Then came Carterphone, thank goodness.

Carterphone was a separate issue than divesture.

> Because everyone was trying to provide something that the other
> carriers didn't provide (to target their niche in the marketplace),
> the technology began to develop and new things were offered.  I often
> doubt that we'd have ever seen the Internet if the industry hadn't
> become competitive (or at least not for many more years to come).

You must remember that electronic technology was rapidly growing AT
THE SAME TIME of divesture and that was responsible for the low cost
of many products and services.  At the time of divesture, personal
computers, for example, were very expensive yet very limited compared
to today.  Newer chips in both CPU and memory kept coming and the
price went down and performance went up.  That same growth enabled
telephone products and services to become cheaper.  Divesture didn't
inspire cellular telephone service, but cheap enough electronics to do
everything a cell phone and base switching station needs to do.  How
much would a computer with today's RAM, disk space, and CPU horsepower
cost in 1980?  I don't know.  But I do know memory and disk space were
a lot more expensive in those days.

The Bell System utilized the same technology as everyone else.  It
sounds like you expect the Bell System to have had today's cheap
electronics back in 1970.  Not realistic.

The cheap electronics also reduced the cost of long distance
by increasing media capacity and the cost of the terminal units
and that helped lower long distance pricing.

> He published yours even though he took issue with your position,
> didn't he, Lisa?

I agree that Pat does a good job.

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here is a question for the collected
> readership: _If_ Bell had not gotten divested, and was still in
> charge of most everything relating to telecommunications, what would
> the internet be like today?  Would it all be run by 'the telephone
> company'? Would we be getting all our attachments and peripherals from
> the telephone company? I suggest that might be the case. What do the
> rest of you think?  PAT]

Undoubtedly the Bell System would've continued to improve the
technology and price/performance of its network and customer
equipment.  It was doing so already.

"Divesture" was specifically the break up of AT&T owning the local
phone companies.  The customer ownership of equipment didn't have to
come along with it, or it could've come along separately.

I understand the Bell System was looking to dump the old system anyway
since the cost to them of having men ready to go out at 2am to fix an
extension set in a home no longer was cost justified.  I think they
realized the cost of building a telephone set to last 50 years was not
justified either.

The IBM Corp went through a tremendous turmoil in the 1990s and even
without divesture AT&T would have, too.  IBM is a very different
company today, though it actually has returned to its roots of selling
service.  I don't know how the Bell System would've evolved--unlike
IBM, much depended on the regulators.

Remember too that AT&T (like IBM) was forbidden to enter many markets.
AT&T had hoped at divesture to enter those forbidden markets and make
a lot of money, though it bombed out.  IBM got rid of its restrictions
and entered new markets successfully.

I don't know how the Internet would've evolved in a Bell System world.
But I wonder if its random growth and mysterious relay stations (per
our other discussion) would've been better managed.

Pat, what do you think?


[public replies please]



[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I will withhold comments on 'Internet 
in an Undivested Bell System World' until we get a few more responses.
For now I want to comment only briefly on one statement of Lisa's:

fatkinson said: > he published your's even with disagreements.
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com replied: > Pat does a good job.

But PAT says: Not everyone would agree with you, Lisa. If we go back
to the middle 1980's when I inherited this assignment from Jon
Solomon, _many_ of the old-line netters (meaning, in context, netters
who had been around from the 1970's and early 1980's) were definitly
_NOT_ pleased to see me move into their playground. Now, a
quarter-century later, some of them are still around and still as
hostile as they were 'way back when'.  You see, I did not come from
the same sort of background as most of them. Instead of a university
background with a god-given right to connectivity, as they presumed
they had, and a very generous and liberal employer who allowed them to
spend considerable time each day on their .arpa and Usenet newsgroups,
which they took for granted, I came from the original non-university
ISP to gain admission to the net, a company named Portal Communications,
out of the San Francisco Bay area, in Cupertino, CA I think. Prior to
that, I 'did' a couple BBS's locally in Chicago, such as the Chicago
Public Library BBS, and was active on Ward Christianson and Randy
Suess' CBBS system in Chicago. Many guys looked down their noses at me
from 'that sort of background' and others, just on the general
principal so prevalent in those days about 'allowing outsiders'
(meaning non university [that they approved of] users in their
playground.) That was long, long before AOL or any other ISP had any
connections here at all. No Google, no Yahoo, no AOL, no Compuserve,
no Panix, nothing; just .edu this and .edu that.

They were all afraid that by letting in non (approved of) university
users, they would inherit a bunch of idiots.  I started posting
messages here in telecom when I was a user at Portal Communications.
Jon Solomon said to me one day that "the reason 'they' (meaning the
old-guard on the net in those days) decided to allow Portal Com to
come on the net was because 'Townson is not _as much of an asshole_ as
most of _those people_'. " Everything is relative I guess. And there
are other participants who do not care for my more 'activist' position
on many issues. They feel a moderator should be seen, but not heard, I
guess. 

I still feel like somewhat of an outsider on the net. And Bill
Pfieffer was more of an outsider than myself, by anyone's definition,
but I trained him and got him and his Usenet group r.r.b. (that's all
we had in those days) started while the old-guard sat around with
their jaws hanging open at his (Pfieffer) and my audacity at saying we
would play in the same playground with or without their cooperation or
help or friendship. Some are still hostile for that reason, but that
is their loss, not mine.  PAT]

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


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