For your convenience in reading: Subject lines are printed in RED and
Moderator replies when issued appear in BROWN.
Previous Issue (just one)
TD Extra News
Add this Digest to your personal
or  
TELECOM Digest Mon, 20 Jun 2005 16:11:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 280 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Lost Credit Data Improperly Kept, Company Admits (Monty Solomon) Cablevision Seeks to Go Private and Spin Off Non-Cable Assets (Solomon) Spam Sign-up Man Convicted of Harassment (Monty Solomon) Thanks to Geniuses in Congress, TV May No Longer Work (Monty Solomon) Skulls Trojan Poses as Antivirus (Monty Solomon) Ping Between PC Through PABX (yuniarsetiawan@gmail.com) France Telecom Eyes Cable & Wireless Takeover (Telecom dailyLead USTA) Re: '80' Country Code (John R. Levine) Re: '80' Country Code (Geoff) Re: Power Strips for Home Networks (Bit Twister) Re: Power Strips for Home Networks (Bob Vaughan) Re: Power Strips for Home Networks (James Carlson) Re: Power Strips for Home Networks (David B. Horvath, CCP) Re: Power Strips for Home Networks (John Hines) Re: Power Strips for Home Networks (Howard Wharton) Re: Power Strips for Home Networks (Robert Bonomi) Re: DSL Speed (Lisa Hancock) Re: Is it Possible to Buy a Cell Phone With no Plan? (John Levine) Re: Is it Possible to Buy a Cell Phone With no Plan? (Joseph) Re: Bell Divestiture (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) Re: Bell Divestiture (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) Re: Bell Divestiture (AES) Re: Bell Divestiture (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Pod Slurping Dangerous to Your Company (jtaylor) Re: Worst Phishing Fraud Attack Ever! 40 Million Cards (Wondrous One) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 01:45:54 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Lost Credit Data Improperly Kept, Company Admits By ERIC DASH The chief of the credit card processing company whose computer system was penetrated by data thieves, exposing 40 million cardholders to a risk of fraud, acknowledged yesterday that the company should not have been retaining those records. The official, John M. Perry, chief executive of CardSystems Solutions, indicated that the records known to have been stolen covered roughly 200,000 of the 40 million compromised credit card accounts, from Visa, MasterCard and other card issuers. He said the data was in a file being stored for "research purposes" to determine why certain transactions had registered as unauthorized or uncompleted. "We should not have been doing that," Mr. Perry said. "That, however, has been remediated." As for the sensitive data, he added, "We no longer store it on files." Under rules established by Visa and MasterCard, processors are not allowed to retain cardholder information including names, account numbers, expiration dates and security codes after a transaction is handled. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/20/technology/20credit.html?ex=1276920000&en=04e9ba4fe5ae0543&ei=5088 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 01:50:03 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Cablevision Seeks to Go Private and Spin Off Non-Cable Assets By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN June 20, 2005 The Dolans, one of New York's most powerful and fractious families, moved yesterday to buy out the public shareholders of their media empire, Cablevision Systems, and create a separate company for its prized entertainment assets, which include Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall. In a letter to the company's board, the family made a $7.9 billion bid to take Cablevision's lucrative cable systems in New York's suburbs private. The move came two weeks after the family succeeded in staving off competition for Madison Square Garden by blocking the construction of a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan. As part of the transaction, the family proposed putting all of its other entertainment assets -- which also include the New York Knicks, the New York Rangers and several cable channels like American Movie Classics -- into a separate company. The deal would move the Dolans, who own 71 percent of the voting rights of Cablevision, away from the spotlight and scrutiny of Wall Street, which has grown concerned in recent months about the company's direction amid a series of strategy shifts and feuds within the family. Charles F. Dolan, the company's 78-year-old founder and chairman, and a son, Thomas C. Dolan, lost a boardroom showdown earlier this year with another son, James L. Dolan, Cablevision's chief executive, over the sale of a money-losing high-definition satellite unit. For a time, Charles and James Dolan stopped speaking to each other. Charles Dolan then ousted several of the company's directors who had voted against him and replaced them with his friends. Then, in April, Mr. Dolan, by then reconciled with his son James, again surprised Wall Street by making an 11th-hour bid for Adelphia Communications, a move that was roundly derided by analysts, in part because it would have diluted its focus on the New York area. Adelphia was later sold to Time Warner and Comcast. In their letter yesterday to the board of Cablevision, which is based in Bethpage, N.Y., Charles and James Dolan said they believed that the cable business could do better as a private business without the pressure to meet quarterly earnings targets. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/20/business/20cable.html?ex=1276920000&en=c74dc9a230b3f3c9&ei=5088 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 00:14:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Spam Sign-up Man Convicted of Harassment By John Leyden (john.leyden at theregister.co.uk) A US man who signed his boss up to various spam lists has been convicted of harassment. Scott Huffines, 41, from Essex County near Baltimore, Maryland, was sentenced to probation and 100 hours community service this week after pleading guilty to misuse of electronic mail, the Baltimore Sun reports http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-bz.md.email09jun09,1,7553997.story?coll=bal-local-headlines . The Web designer signed Alex Vitalo, his female supervisor at Maryland Public Television, up to dating services and job sites. But the revenge ploy backfired when his victim forced an investigation that traced the sign up messages back to Huffines. The case is reckoned to be the first of its kind considered by US courts. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/10/spam_harrassement_lawsuit/ Baltimore Sun story also at http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-bz.md.email09jun09,1,4404859.story ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 00:15:28 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Thanks to Geniuses in Congress, Your TV May no Longer Work Mike Himowitz ONE DAY in the not-too-distant future, all the TV sets in your home that aren't hooked to cable boxes will turn into pumpkins. If you want to receive over-the-air broadcasts, you'll have to replace them with sets that cost at least twice as much, or pay a $100 "digital TV tax" for each set. That's what I call the estimated cost of a converter that will enable your set to do what it did for free the day before -- receive TV broadcasts. You can thank Congress for this opportunity. Back in 1996, our lawmakers, the nation's broadcasters, the Federal Communications Commission and the folks who make consumer electronics hatched a scheme that will cost households hundreds, if not thousands of dollars each for something they have demonstrated only a marginal appetite for so far -- high definition digital television (HDTV). Collectively, the cost will run to billions, most of which will go into driving up a trade deficit that's already past 100 percent on the scary meter. And as usual, the burden will fall heaviest on those who can afford it least. Every now and then, the Federal Communications Commission does something more to remind me just how stupid this deal really is. Last week, it voted to speed up the pace at which TV manufacturers will have to make sets with digital tuners available to the public. Not that manufacturers have paid much attention to past deadlines. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's how the scheme works: http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-bz.himowitz16jun16,1,3109176.column?coll=bal-technology-headlines ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 00:28:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Skulls Trojan Poses as Antivirus Skulls Trojan puts on antivirus mask By Joris Evers A new variant of the Skulls Trojan horse for cell phones is trying to trap victims by posing as antivirus software, F-Secure has warned. The Skulls Trojan horse, which affects Symbian-based cell phones, first surfaced in November. This latest Skulls.L variant is similar to Skulls.C, the only difference being that it's disguised as a pirated copy of F-Secure Mobile Anti-Virus, the Finnish antivirus maker said in an alert posted Thursday. Like earlier versions, the new Trojan attempts to disable system applications and replace their icons with images of skulls. It also drops two versions of the Cabir worm on the device. The worms aren't activated until the user clicks on their icons, F-Secure said. http://news.com.com/2100-7349-5741033.html ------------------------------ From: yuniarsetiawan@gmail.com Subject: Ping Between PC Through PABX Date: 20 Jun 2005 00:08:26 -0700 Hi there, I'm trying to connect two computer using PABX. So the PABX will be act like a hub. This is the diagram: [Computer 1] -> [Modem] -> [PABX] <- [Modem] <- [Computer 2] Both computer using Windows 2000 and both has sucessfully connected to the PABX after doing dial up. But why can't I ping between those computer? Both computer has been connected to the pabx, but they just can't ping/communicate each other. Is there anything wrong here? It is possible to do this, right? Thank you so much for the response. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 12:52:46 EDT From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA <usta@dailylead.com> Subject: France Telecom Eyes Cable & Wireless Takeover Telecom dailyLead from USTA June 20, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22469&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * France Telecom eyes Cable & Wireless takeover BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Dolans seek to take Cablevision private * Report: Africa has world's lowest Internet penetration * Telecoms plan WiMAX trials * TBWA\C\D to handle ad launch for Sprint-Nextel merger USTA SPOTLIGHT * Marketing Strategies Webinar: How to Get the Most from Your Resources HOT TOPICS * BT launches world's first fixed-mobile service * Free Wi-Fi turns into enemy for some cafe owners * T-Mobile focuses on Wi-Fi * Nokia unveils new phones * Sprint posts details of EV-DO launch EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Startup makes computer networks run faster * Cash? Nah, I'll pay with my cell REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * High Court ruling expected on file-swapping * High Court to issue precedent-setting ruling in broadband case Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22469&l=2017006 Legal and Privacy information at http://www.dailylead.com/about/privacy_legal.jsp SmartBrief, Inc. 1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005 ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: '80' Country Code Date: 20 Jun 2005 00:06:08 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > with '803' but there is no country with an '80' and '803' dialing > code. Any ideas where the call came from? You can download the current country code list from the ITU's web site, and it says that code 800 is international freephone, and all other 80x are unassigned and reserved. Possibly the number was screwed up in your logs, which certainly happens. Or maybe Pat's right and a leading 1 fell off on the way and it was really from South Carolina. Regards, John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY http://www.taugh.com PS: Helsinki? ------------------------------ From: Geoff <nospam@nospam.com> Subject: Re: '80' Country Code Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 07:10:16 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Or maybe it was _area code_ 803, > which I think is somewhere in the Carolinas? PAT] I do not think so because for calls within the US, the number is displayed as (803) xxx-xxxx. This number was displayed as +803xxxxxxxxx. -g ------------------------------ From: Bit Twister <BitTwister@mouse-potato.com> Subject: Re: Power Strips for Home Networks Organization: home user Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 01:50:35 -0500 On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 17:49:42 PDT, Fred Atkinson wrote: > I've accumulated so many devices on my home network (and some devices > that are not network related as well) that power strips are an issue. > Most of these devices have the big 'calculator charger' type of power > supply that plugs directly into the AC outlet. One solution I saw was an extension cord about 3 inches long. That let you use every slot on the strip and let the _wall wart_ hang off to one side. ------------------------------ From: techie@tantivy.tantivy.net (Bob Vaughan) Subject: Re: Power Strips for Home Networks Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 12:17:15 UTC Organization: Tantivy Associates In article <telecom24.279.1@telecom-digest.org>, Fred Atkinson <fatkinson@mishmash.com> wrote: > I suspect that some of you are experiencing this or have already > solved it. So, maybe one of you can tell me where I can find > something to solve this problem. > I've accumulated so many devices on my home network (and some devices > that are not network related as well) that power strips are an issue. > Most of these devices have the big 'calculator charger' type of power > supply that plugs directly into the AC outlet. > I've been looking for some type of power strip that has eight or more > outlets that are spaced far enough apart that you can plug all of > these things into them without overlapping each other. > Searching the Internet, I've not found anything like this. The best > is one of those long power strips that you usually install on the wall > as a permanent part of the house electrical system. I think there > might be something much better. Or maybe someone has a better > suggestion. > Any ideas? You mean something like: 10 outlets, (5 duplex outlets side by side). (II) (II) (II) (II) (II) 15' cord (II) (II) (II) (II) (II) I've been able to fit 10 smaller wall warts on a single strip, or 6 large wall warts, plus 4 cords. Belkin F9D1000-15 (I've found these at Home Depot, but not on the Belkin website) or Waber UL800CB-15 http://www.waber.com/products/product.cfm?productID=1961 Waber/Tripp-Lite also has the long (4-6') strips with cord/plug. http://www.waber.com/products/powerstrips/index.cfm power strips PS2408 (24"/8 outlets) PS3612 (36"/12 outlets) PS4816 (48"/16 outlets) PS6020 (60"/20 outlets) PS7224 (72"/24 outlets) surge strips SS7415 (48"/16 outlets) SS7619 (72"/24 outlets) -- Welcome My Son, Welcome To The Machine -- Bob Vaughan | techie @ tantivy.net | | P.O. Box 19792, Stanford, Ca 94309 | -- I am Me, I am only Me, And no one else is Me, What could be simpler? -- ------------------------------ From: James Carlson <james.d.carlson@sun.com> Subject: Re: Power Strips for Home Networks Date: 20 Jun 2005 08:55:36 -0400 Organization: Sun Microsystems Fred Atkinson <fatkinson@mishmash.com> writes: > I've accumulated so many devices on my home network (and some devices > that are not network related as well) that power strips are an issue. > Most of these devices have the big 'calculator charger' type of power > supply that plugs directly into the AC outlet. How I hate those wall warts ... > Searching the Internet, I've not found anything like this. The best > is one of those long power strips that you usually install on the wall > as a permanent part of the house electrical system. I think there > might be something much better. Or maybe someone has a better > suggestion. There are short (1' or less) extension cables available to move the transformer off of the power strip: http://www.pccables.com/01208.htm (There are probably other sources of these things; I just found this one on a quick Google search.) James Carlson, KISS Network <james.d.carlson@sun.com> Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.234W Vox +1 781 442 2084 MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.497N Fax +1 781 442 1677 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 09:39:50 -0400 Subject: Re: Power Strips for Home Networks From: David B. Horvath, CCP <dhorvath@withheld_on_request PAT -- please remove email address, too much SPAM. On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 17:49:42 PDT, Fred Atkinson <fatkinson@mishmash.com> wrote: > I've accumulated so many devices on my home network (and some devices > that are not network related as well) that power strips are an issue. > Most of these devices have the big 'calculator charger' type of power > supply that plugs directly into the AC outlet. Yes, you are not the only one with this problem. My current solution is multiple power strips plugged into multiple outlets. However, I've also seen (sorry, can't remember where, try a web search) short extension cords for use with wall-worts and power strips. The cords get the blocks away from the strip so you can use all the available power jacks. - David ------------------------------ From: John Hines <jbhines@newsguy.com> Subject: Re: Power Strips for Home Networks Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 09:32:09 -0500 Organization: www.jhines.org Reply-To: john@jhines.org Fred Atkinson <fatkinson@mishmash.com> wrote: > I suspect that some of you are experiencing this or have already > solved it. So, maybe one of you can tell me where I can find > something to solve this problem. www.cyberguys.com part number 121 2510 or search for "liberator" and find a bunch of solutions. Here is a clunky url which may work. http://www.cyberguys.com/templates/searchdetail.asp?T1=121+2510&dept=lch28&search=1ca54&child= ------------------------------ From: dwolffxx@panix.com (David Wolff) Subject: Re: Power Strips for Home Networks Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 17:02:40 UTC Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. In article <telecom24.279.1@telecom-digest.org>, Fred Atkinson <fatkinson@mishmash.com> wrote: > I suspect that some of you are experiencing this or have already > solved it. So, maybe one of you can tell me where I can find > something to solve this problem. > I've accumulated so many devices on my home network (and some devices > that are not network related as well) that power strips are an issue. > Most of these devices have the big 'calculator charger' type of power > supply that plugs directly into the AC outlet. > I've been looking for some type of power strip that has eight or more > outlets that are spaced far enough apart that you can plug all of > these things into them without overlapping each other. Another solution is short extension cords, probably available from all electric / electronic supply places. They are heavy-duty, three-prong cords about a foot long. So the normal-sized three-prong ends fit nicely in any power strip. They're also pretty cheap. Thanks, David (Remove "xx" to reply.) ------------------------------ From: Howard S. Wharton <yhshowie@acsu.buffalo.edu> Subject: Re: Power Strips for Home Networks Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 13:27:05 -0400 Organization: The University at Buffalo Pat, By daisy chaining your power strips, you are causing the first ones in the chain to be overloaded and possibility the circuit it's plugged into. And it is a fire waiting to happen. Howard S. Wharton Fire Safety Technician Occupational and Environmental Safety Services State University of New York at Buffalo ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Power Strips for Home Networks Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:46:39 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article <telecom24.279.1@telecom-digest.org>, Fred Atkinson <fatkinson@mishmash.com> wrote: > I suspect that some of you are experiencing this or have already > solved it. So, maybe one of you can tell me where I can find > something to solve this problem. > I've accumulated so many devices on my home network (and some devices > that are not network related as well) that power strips are an issue. > Most of these devices have the big 'calculator charger' type of power > supply that plugs directly into the AC outlet. > I've been looking for some type of power strip that has eight or more > outlets that are spaced far enough apart that you can plug all of > these things into them without overlapping each other. > Searching the Internet, I've not found anything like this. The best > is one of those long power strips that you usually install on the wall > as a permanent part of the house electrical system. I think there > might be something much better. Or maybe someone has a better > suggestion. > Any ideas? "build it yourself", using "PlugMold", from wire-mold corp. Available at most of the home-improvement superstores. (this is the permanent wiring stuff.) Radio Shack used to sell exactly what you're looking for, their part 61-2155 *discontinued*. Browse through industrial supply catalogs, looking for outlet strips to go into 'Rack cabinets'. Be prepared to pay $100 or so. *Somebody* -- AHA! here it is! "Improvements" <http://www.improvementscatalog.com> sells bundles of 'shortie' (ie. 1-foot) extension cords, for exactly that use. (plug the wall-wart into the extension cord, and the extension cord into the strip.) my catalog shows a package of 5, for $13. Their item #238359 There are also "strips" (they're not really strips, but biggish rectangles) made expressly for wall-warts, have the outlets located 'sideways' to typical, so that the xformer hangs off the side of the thing. And have several inches of space between the outlets, to accomodate the width of the xformer. Check a biggish hardware store and/or the home-improvement stores. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: DSL Speed Date: 20 Jun 2005 10:38:11 -0700 Choreboy wrote: > On dialup, the farm couldn't negotiate modem speeds quite as fast as I > could in town. I assumed the limitation was in the wire. That's why > I was amazed to see that DSL seems to use the wire in the same way as > dialup. Was I wrong to think the reason dialup data rates were slower > at the farm was that the wire to the CO is longer? The length of the wire DOES play a part. Also, how the wire is buried or cabled, along with it being 'concentrated' by multiplex equipment en route to the central office. This is why the farm would be slower than in town. > What's the downside for the telco? With the right pricing, I think > they could tap a huge market for increased bandwidth. There is no downside for the telco and there is a huge market for increased bandwidth. The speed of DSL will vary though depending on physical set up of the wire pair between the home and central office, as mentioned. What is perfectly fine for voice may cause interference in high speed data transmission and force the speed to be lower. The physical arrange- ment of the wire, known as the "loop plant" varies tremendously. Some of it is old. Some of it is bundled in cables in such a way that works for voice but not so good for data due to tiny bits of interference -- just enough to cause a bit drop out in high speed communication. Other cables go through multiplexors that may limit throughput. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jun 2005 04:12:10 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> Subject: Re: Is it Possible to Buy a Cell Phone With no Plan? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Can anyone recommend somewhere online where a cell WITHOUT A PLAN can > be purchased? Is it even possible? eBay. I buy phones there all the time. But you have to understand what you need and what you're buying or you're likely to end up with something that for your purposes is only a pricey paperweight. > I'm trying to buy a cell phone WITHOUT A PLAN. I am sending it to a > relative in another country where they will activate it. I hope you realize that mobile networks in North America use different frequencies and signalling schemes than everywhere else. Tell us what country, and maybe we can give you some more useful advice. R's, John ------------------------------ From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Is it Possible to Buy a Cell Phone With no Plan? Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 06:35:07 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 23:12:49 GMT, John McHarry <jmcharry@comcast.net> wrote: > The other problem is that most countries use GSM, which uses > frequencies that differ from the "GSM" used by some carriers in the > US. From *some* carriers in the US? All carriers in the US use either 1900 Mhz "PCS" or 800/850 Mhz "cellular" frequencies. Most of the rest of the world except for the Americas uses 900 and 1800 Mhz (with a very few minor exceptions in South America [Venezuela] and Cuba.) > I think the US protocol is also somewhat bastardized. Be sure you > get a phone that is intended to roam in the country you intend to send > it to. And what is *that* supposed to mean? GSM is GSM and the specifications are the same no matter where it's used. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Bell Divestiture Date: 20 Jun 2005 07:17:47 -0700 Fred R. Goldstein wrote: > I was there. I was doing traffic engineering for AOLnet in 1996, > during the America On Hold debacle. > Going to my point -- the Telecom Act of 1996 prevented a total > meltdown of the network because it allowed CLECs to take over the > high-volume dial-in traffic *just in time*. None the less, by that time the Bell System was LONG GONE. The telephone system was running under a totally different mold. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: [1978] ... > Standard Oil Credit Card Office in Chicago I had an IBM terminal on > my desk. I knew very little about the thing, except that it was > intended to eventually replace the punch cards which were around > everywhere. By 'everywhere' I mean that there were shopping carts > like used in a grocery store, and women would push these carts around > the room all day, every day, taking 'trays' (metal containers with > four or five hundred cards) off your desk, put them in the shopping > cart with others that had been gathered up, leave you a few new > 'trays' of several hundred cards each in their place, then come back in > a couple hours and repeat the process. As we examined and made correc- > tions to the cards, we were to keep them in _exactly_ the same order > (within the tray) as they had been given to us. I'm surprised such a high volume installation wasn't using a new technology such as the previously mentioned Mohawk Data Systems key-to-disk. Your cards may have been from an old style 'reproducer*' that read gas station charge slips and converted the contents to a punch card (that's why the charge number and amount were in those funny letters). But again I'm not surprised more modern electronic readers weren't in use since they were common by the late 1970s. (*IBM reproducers also converted the tiny tickets from dept. store clothing purchases into punch cards. They were also used go gang-punch common information into a series of cards, or copy permanent information from a master card into a transaction card.) > Sometime in 1977 or early 1978 the Bell and Howell Company of Skokie I see their name advertised sometimes. They were big into commercial film equipment (ie move projectors, slides, microfilm). I wonder what became of the company now? At one time many companies used 16 mm sound films as a way to communicate to employees, stockholders, and customers. The largest companies had their own film depts while smaller ones contracted it out. A great many large firms had at least one 16 mm sound projector available to show training or otherwise films. There were somewhat portable models corporate spokesmen would take around to social clubs and organizations and show a film showing the company. Today these films are extremely valuable historically. They show attitudes and trends of business. Sadly, I suspect a great many are being destroyed as companies merge or fold. Some films from the Bell System (which made a great many) are available on VHS from collectors. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My grandfather got me on at Standard Oil in the credit card office in Chicago in June, 1967, _not_ in 1978! His boss had gotten me the phone room job at University of Chicago when I was in high school in 1959; grandpa was with the company as an executive at Whiting Refinery for several years, but did not think I should be doing refinery work. You see, I am not really all that good at doing hard labor jobs. Grandpa's boss was going to put me to work in the superintendent's office either in Whiting or maybe send me back to Neodesha, KS (where grandfather had worked at one time); I thought I should stay around Chicago where my friends were so he suggested the marketing department or credit card processing office would be good for me. In the credit card processing office in 1967 they had IBM 370 computers but also relied heavily on a combination of optical scanning and key punching and manual verification. That's when we had those women with their 'shopping carts' full of metal trays which in turn were full of cards. The tray-full of cards was considered a 'batch'. No desktop terminals in sight anywhere. After we had corrected mistakes found in the batches all the cards were taken to an IBM 'gang-punch' machine where they were stacked up thousands at a time, and run through a machine which could read them and punch them. The cards fell out in two pockets. One pocket was the correctly punched cards; what fell in the other pockets were rejects, and you had to put this stack in a second time in the hopes _that time_ they would get punched correctly. Some cards just never would punch for some reason. There were other cards which got mangled up or mutilated by the gang punch machine, and these had be handled specially/ I had to use a rubber stamp and stamp the letters 'NMU' on the card (these were all gas station customer invoices.) Then I had to take a fresh, crisp blank card, which was entitled 'substitute for invoice', fill in all the details by hand and run that one through the gang-punch instead, along with another 'control punch' in one of the columns which meant it was intended to replace the NMU (or Non Machine Usable) card. That special punch caused the card to fall out of the stack when the customer bills were sent out (about seven hundred thousand customers were billed each day, 22 days per month), and when that one fell out, that customer's tickets were taken to someone who kept the mangled card in a pile on her desk, and the substitute was swapped out for the mangled card which was actually sent out, at the end of the line. In 1970 I guess, I do not remember for sure, they brought around terminals, sat them on the desks and told people 'Do not Touch These' until we explain what to do, which was about a month later. We were told these would be replacing some of the job functions that had been done manually before. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Bell Divestiture Date: 20 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EDT Robert Bonomi wrote: > Revisionist history at work. Computer "time sharing" did not exist > _at_all_ before mid-1964. It was running at Dartmouth College -- the pioneer -- in 1963. It quickly became a commercial service. Let's remember too that dataphones were coming into use. In 1964 my bank installed an on-line teller system. The work was developing in the 1950s and coming into actual service in the early 1960s Let's also remember that on-line or "real-time" computer processing was developed and used in the 1950s and gradually rolled out to wide service in the early 1960s. IBM lagged behind on this for commercial service. > By 1968, capacity was up to several dozen simultaneous-use > terminals. By 1968 even public schools had dial up time sharing terminals. Soon mini computers were providing widespread time sharing use in the early 1970s. Big LIFE magazine article about it in 1969. > IBM didn't have an interactive time-sharing system offering until > late 1967. IBM was a late-comer on this and time sharing was a lesser priority. Other computers, such as GE, had it out. >> That is a tariff issue. Rates for a business and residential line are >> based on expected use. A non-profit is still considered a business. >> Seems to me a high volume BBS should've been classified as a business >> line due to high volume of use. > _WHAT_ business?? In Randy's case it *was* just a hobby. No income, > no membership 'fees', no nothing. All the expenses came out of his > personal pocket. Repeat: A non-profit is still considered a business. Who paid for it wasn't the issue. Bell was correct to charge business rates for this service. > Well, it was the "Baby Bells" that couldn't handle the demand. That is irrelevent. We're talking about the pre-divesture Bell System. Once divesture was decided (even before it happened), it was a whole different ball game. > Same management, same planning process. NO! Once divesture was decided upon everything the Bell System once stood for turned on its head. The old priorities and ways of doing business no longer mattered a bit. The "Planning" style under the Bell System was completely obsolete by divesture because all the _rules_ AND _players_ had changed. There was no longer a seamless tie with all those involved in providing service to a customer. As mentioned, large organizations had to change, too, and spend a lot of money hiring telecom people to do what previously was done automatically. The process became far more complex and expensive. As others pointed out, in the new model there was more _specific_ cost/profit control, so each tech unit had to know what it was getting into and what it would get out of it. > Speed of call set-up is irrelevant to the number of > _connected_and_running_ calls that can be handled Sorry, but faster speed makes for a more efficient system. Faster speed allows a more sophisticated route selection and alternative paths. Control and connection need not even be in the same physical place. Connection facilities could be shared among a wider audience because the fast connection gear can make use of many more choices. >> Regulated monopolies were NOT _guaranteed_ a minimum rate of return. Others confirmed that statement. > Western Union and most of the railroads were 'regulated common > carriers'. Not regulated monopolies. The Bell System was a common carrier. Railroads had "monopolies" in their service territories; they were hurt because those service territories were very narrowly defined in a very different age (the distance a farm wagon could travel). > You are claiming that these features were available on Bell-provided > PBX gear on customer premises, before they were available on > Bell-provided PBX gear in the central office. Go read the Bell Labs Eng & Sci history book and you'll see what they were doing. Go read Ball Labs Records for the 1960s and you'll see what they were doing. > Hint: the SxS _was_not_capable_ of *native* touch-tone operation, a > front end translation from touch-tone to pulse was required. Right. That contradicts your claim that Touch Tone actually saved the company money. ------------------------------ From: AES <siegman@stanford.edu> Subject: Re: Bell Divestiture Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 08:52:38 -0700 Organization: Stanford University One thing the pre-divestiture Bell System did well was to 1) Set specific, quantitative numerical standards for quality and reliability of service, and publish them internally. [E.g., how many service outages per year a residential customer could expect to experience and for how long; the average number of rings a customer would have to wait before a service or inquiry call was answered; and so on.] [I was once told that the standard for service outages, for example, said that no residential customer should be without dial tone for more than 18 minutes/year for any reasons under Bell System control (including for example line losses due to failure to trim tree limbs regularly).] 2) Then actually **measure**, record, and monitor their own performance (i.e., the performance of individual LBOCs) to these standards. 3) And finally, actually respond when their performance was below standard. I once asked a Bell Labs old-timer, "So, did the career advancement of a local Bell company manager actually depend in any way on their performance against these standards?" Answer was, "You bet it did!!!". Interesting to ask your current electrical power provider, for example, what their **published, quantitative standards** for power service outages are? Or ask your airline frequent flyer plan when you call in seeking award seats what their published, quantitative standards are for providing you an award seat on the day you want to go. ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan <userid@camsul.example.invalid> Subject: Re: Bell Divestiture Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 06:56:59 GMT hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: >> Home computers didn't *exist* until the mid 1970s. The Altair 8800 >> plans ran in PE's Jan 1975 issue. The APPLE-II didn't exist until >> late 1977. > But businesses and schools were heavy users of time sharing by the mid > 1960s -- using dial-up Teletypes. Businesses were also getting dial > up dataphone services between computers. Very large businesses were moderate users of time sharing by the mid 1960s, and smaller and midsize businesses were not. Schools were not. Commercial time sharing only got started in the 1962-64 time frame. Dartmouth began its time sharing system -- the first academic TSS, the first step into TSS for its vendor, GE, and the first broadbased TSS -- in 1964. I used it starting in 1965, when my high school got a single TTY connected to it, either the only or one of a very few high schools connected to time sharing in the mid 1960s. (Dartmouth professors Kemeny and Kurtz invented BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) for the Dartmouth TSS in 1964; it initially allowed only 26 variables (A-Z), and no string variables. By 1965, it allowed A-Z and A0-Z9, or 286 variables, as well as matrices, so it became a bit more useful.) By the late 1960s, time-sharing was much more widespread and was heavily used. But not in the mid-60s. >> The Bell system, like any regulated monopoly was _guaranteed_ a >> certain minimum rate-of-return on investments. > Regulated monopolies were NOT _guaranteed_ a minimum rate of return. > If they were Western Union would not have gone broke nor would the > railroads. In some locations of the Bell System and even today, > regulators mandate below-cost services for social reasons or deny rate > increases. They are not, and have not been, guaranteed anything strictly speaking. They are allowed a "reasonable" rate of return for purposes of ratemaking, which has traditionally meant they have been permitted to set a target of X% return on used-and-useful investment in plant, where X is based on cost of capital plus a kicker. The standard ratemaking formula is that R, the "revenue requirement," equals X times the used-and-useful investment in plant (after depreciation) plus reasonable expenses plus depreciation. That revenue requirement is then used as the target in setting rates for a plethora of services, some of which are priced below "cost" for many reasons and others are priced above "cost" to offset them. So if the PUC says that rural residential subscribers pay the same as urban, residential service is below "cost" (i.e., doesn't pay the required return), and other services are priced to make it up -- i.e., business and long-distance services. The problem for regulators and regulated telcos comes when the services that are providing the subsidy for below-cost residential service are subject to competition. If you were MCI in the late 1960s, you would have targeted your service (after getting into the business by saying you'd be providing specialized microwave service for truck lines) to businesses paying phone bills providing the highest subsidies for residential service. This was referred to as cream-skimming. It only makes sense. The problem is, it upset all of the factors on which the traditional ratemaking scheme depended. MCI could offer long-distance service for half the price of AT&T because AT&T was using the excess revenues of long-distance service to keep residential and rural service prices low to please regulators. When MCI came along, AT&T had to lower the prices of its most profitable services, but it couldn't raise the price of residential service due to those darn regulators. As a result, AT&T earned below its regulatorily-established rate of return. It wasn't guaranteed, after all. Of course, AT&T then got the FCC to move the subsidies around by creating access charges, and then there was the divestiture, which changed everything. Now AT&T was in the same position as MCI with respect to subsidies. >> Very, *very* rarely was 'how' that money was spent questioned. > *NO*, <that> is _not_ true. > As Pat pointed out, Ma Bell was under constant scrutiny by the news > media and govt and advocates. Shareholder gadflies made a point of > disrupting stockholders' meetings every year. Activists filed > constant lawsuits against the system. I can't speak to the issues raised by shareholders, or activists' suits. There were, however, many regulatory inquiries into the "costs" incurred by the telcos and the pricing of their services. The FCC was very diligent in trying to prevent abuse of the telcos' ability to classify costs. Unfortunately, cost is a very complex concept in the area of regulated telephone service, because a given expense is used to support many different services. How the cost is allocated is a can of worms: in the old days, AT&T had an incentive to allocate costs to long-distance, to keep that price as high as possible within its rate of return and keep local residential service low, but with competition, telcos have an incentive to allocate costs to the services least subject to competitition, keeping those prices as high as possible. Back in the old days before MCI, when there was no real long-distance competition, the FCC conducted an inquiry into the below-cost pricing of TELPAK service (a high-volume long-distance service used by large businesses and the government) and was unable to come to any definitive conclusions after ten years because the costs were as slippery as eels, so it defused the issue by allowing resale and shared use of long-distance circuits, including TELPAK, and AT&T responded by discontinuing TELPAK, which it had to do because otherwise resale of TELPAK would have eliminated its captive retail long-distance traffic. And AT&T's TELPAK tariff was, in turn, a response to the FCC's 1959 "Above 890" decision that allowed private entities to set up private microwave networks instead of having to use AT&T for long-distance service. The Above 890 and Resale and Shared Use decisions presaged the end of the traditional Bell System and set the stage for our current competitive telecom arena. I can't think of a single shareholder gadfly or consumer lawsuit that had a comparable effect. There were much more significant cost allowance and allocation issues in other regulated industries, such as whether to allow electric utilities to charge consumers for the humongous cost of constructing nuclear power plants before they were producing electricity. >> Can you name a feature/capability introduced by the Bell System after >> 1970 that was not present in third-party-provided, customer-owned, PBX >> equipment first? The only one I can think of is the "picturephone". Your one example is off. AT&T introduced the picturephone at the NY World's Fair in 1964 and the Bell System never introduced it into service at all, as far as I can tell. Does your phone show pictures? Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) ------------------------------ From: jtaylor <jtaylor@deletethis.hfx.andara.com> Subject: Re: Pod Slurping Dangerous to Your Company Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 09:37:18 -0300 Organization: MCI Canada News Reader Service Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net> wrote in message news:telecom24.279.9@telecom-digest.org... > BIOS passwords are only as good as that little CR-2032 lithium > battery. Remove or short the battery and kiss passwords goodbye. I believe this to be incorrect. On Ebay there is a brisk trade in BIOS password chips, as well as kits for soldering them onto the motherboard. More trouble than shorting a jumper, to be sure, but it requires more equipment, and that equipment is unlikely to have any other reasonable purpose; being discovered with such tools would be a dead giveaway. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 10:56:10 -0500 From: The Wondrous One <trulywondrous@gmail.com> Reply-To: The Wondrous One <trulywondrous@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Worst Phishing Fraud Attack Ever! 40 Million Card Holders I read the article and could not find any evidence of phishing as defined at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing at all. Was something left out of the article? I see evidence of fraud due to lax security, lack of data protection, lack of verifying "authorized" agents, but no phishing. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 'Phishing' as strictly defined, was probably the wrong term to use. Phishing is when one individual does social engineering to obtain details from other (usually not as smart individuals is it not? What is the correct term for building in a 'back door' or amending the software to cause the computer to do things it was not intended to do? PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2004 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE JUST 65 CENTS ONE OR TWO INQUIRIES CHARGED TO YOUR CREDIT CARD! REAL TIME, UP TO DATE! SPONSORED BY TELECOM DIGEST AND EASY411.COM SIGN UP AT http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest ! ************************ Visit http://www.mstm.okstate.edu and take the next step in your career with a Master of Science in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) degree from Oklahoma State University (OSU). This 35 credit-hour interdisciplinary program is designed to give you the skills necessary to manage telecommunications networks, including data, video, and voice networks. The MSTM degree draws on the expertise of the OSU's College of Business Administration; the College of Arts and Sciences; and the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology. The program has state-of-the-art lab facilities on the Stillwater and Tulsa campus offering hands-on learning to enhance the program curriculum. Classes are available in Stillwater, Tulsa, or through distance learning. Please contact Jay Boyington for additional information at 405-744-9000, mstm-osu@okstate.edu, or visit the MSTM web site at http://www.mstm.okstate.edu ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #280 ****************************** | |