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TELECOM Digest Sun, 24 Jul 2005 17:02:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 337 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Next Version of Windows to be Known as "Vista" (AP News Wire) News Consumers Become News Editors (Anick Jesdanun) An Unsettling Surprise: Victimized by ID Theft (Andrew Plato) TV Telephone History (John L. Shelton) Re: Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster (DevilsPGD) Re: Ethics of Deterrence (John Levine) 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: Associated Press News Wire <ap@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Next Version of Windows to be Known as 'Vista' Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 14:11:10 -0500 Next Version of Windows Named 'Vista' Microsoft Corp. dropped the code name Longhorn on Friday, announcing the next version of its flagship Windows operating system will be called Windows Vista. The world's largest software maker also said it will release the first of two test versions to developers and information technology professionals by Aug. 3. The company did not say when it expects to release a second test version to a broader audience, but said it remains on target to ship the oft-delayed update to Windows XP sometime in the second half of next year. Microsoft gave an internal gathering of its employees in Atlanta the first word about the new name Thursday. "The core idea around Windows Vista is bringing clarity to the user so they can focus on what matters most," Brad Goldberg, general manager for Windows product management said Friday. Vista's features will include better ways to visualize data, such as seeing through windows that are stacked atop each other, more natural file organization and faster searching. The operating system will also be designed to better protect computers against viruses and spyware. On the Net: Vista: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista 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: Anick Jesdanun <ap@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Online News Consumers Become Own Editors Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 14:09:37 -0500 By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer J.D. Lasica used to visit 20 to 30 Web sites for his daily fix of news. Now, he's down to three -- yet he consumes more news online than ever. Lasica is among a growing breed of information consumers who use the latest Internet technologies to completely bypass the home pages of news sites and jump directly to articles that interest them. He can scan some 200 Web journals and traditional news sites -- all without actually going out and visiting them. Online news consumers are increasingly taking charge, getting their news a la carte from a variety of outlets. Rarely do they depend on a single news organization's vision of the day's top stories. "The old idea of surfers coming to your Web site and coming to your front door, that's going away," said Lasica, a former editor at The Sacramento Bee. "People are going to come in through the side window, through the basement, through the attic, anyway they want to." Some Web sites are already responding. "When we all started this 10 years ago, we wanted to be the one and only place people come to," said Jim Brady, executive editor of The Washington Post's Web site. These days, he said, the Post is happy simply to be one of many sources checked daily. He sees his home page as a starting point, and during the July 7 bombings in London, the Post even linked to the BBC, something unfathomable a few years ago. The Post and Knight Ridder Digital, meanwhile, are redesigning Web sites to spread elements previously found only on home pages. And in a case of "if you can't beat them, join them," Knight Ridder Inc., Gannett Co. and Tribune Co. collectively bought three-quarters of Topix.net, a startup that provides tools for readers to bypass news home pages. The New York Times has been paying an undisclosed amount to have its headlines featured there. Many smaller, privately owned web sites used the syndicated RSS news feeds of each other as well, and frequently contribute their own news items in the same way. Topix provides direct links to news stories it collects and sorts from more than 10,000 sources, and it slices story by category as well as region, down to the ZIP code. Many of the links are to other web sites as well as the more traditional media. A news aggregation service from Google Inc. scans more than 4,500 English sources and uses software to rank and display stories to which it links, while America Online Inc. and Yahoo Inc. offer services that rely more on humans. Yahoo News, rather than trying to keep readers from leaving, provides easy access to articles elsewhere using Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, a technology that immediately notifies users of new entries on their favorite news sites and Web journals. "In this world where people are looking for multiple points of view, if all you're giving them is your view, ... they are going to leave anyway and maybe be less likely to come back," said Neil Budde, general manager for Yahoo News. Many news organizations have tried to render online a packaged product in the mold of the traditional newspaper or broadcast. That mentality is changing, but slowly, Budde said. News outlets are starting to add tools to untether readers from home pages. The Associated Press, Reuters and others, for example, are adding RSS support so readers can use tools like Yahoo's to display summaries and access stories directly. In return, they allow their own RSS feeds to be used on small web sites, a sort of 'scratch each other's back' approach. Web journals, or blogs, present another way to bypass home pages. Many are topic-centric and carry links that present the blogger's rather than a news editor's vision of the top news items. Some traditional news sites, including the Post, are even beginning to let their columnists link to outside sources. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, Yahoo News had 24.9 million visitors in June, more than any single news outlet on the Internet, and only MSNBC and CNN had more visitors than AOL News. Google News ranked 13th among news sites. At The New York Times' Web site, referrals from RSS feeds account for only 2 percent of traffic but represent the fastest growth -- 8.5 million page views in June compared with about a half million in late 2003. The new tools bring opportunities such as better ad targeting, but they also present some challenges. The news agency Agence France-Presse, for one, has sued Google for copyright infringement over Google News' use of photos and story excerpts. Aggregators and feeds also potentially let readers select only the topics they care about, ignoring other developments editors might deem important, said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project and former managing editor at U.S. News and World Report. But Charlie Tillinghast, general manager and publisher for MSNBC.com, said the new tools can also alert readers to once-obscure items they might not otherwise have seen. Knight Ridder considers tools like Google News and Topix as "nothing but incremental traffic from people who might not have otherwise seen the site," said Ross Settles, its vice president of strategy. During the Scott Peterson murder trial, for instance, the chain's San Francisco area papers saw increases in traffic from outside the area. The new age of online news will still need reporters to produce stories and editors to make judgment calls. The need for partners to provide content will never go away, said Lewis D'Vorkin, editor in chief for AOL News. Home pages will continue to serve as a jumping off point for some readers, and MSNBC recently beefed up its home page to include customized headlines that are chosen based on stories the reader recently read. But to stay relevant, online news sites must ultimately overcome their reluctance to point elsewhere, said blogging pioneer Dave Winer. "The reader wants lots of sources and doesn't particularly care whether you point offsite or onsite," Winer said. "They just want the story." And while news executives insist their brands will remain important as trustworthy destinations, some readers prefer to trust individual bloggers or friends who forward news items via e-mail or their own web sites. Nicco Mele, webmaster for Howard Dean's presidential campaign, said he rarely visits news sites directly anymore and instead trusts bloggers like Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, a Dean supporter. Pointing to Moulitsas at a recent conference, Mele remarked, "I'll read what he thinks I should read." Anick Jesdanun can be reached at netwriter(at)ap.org 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: Andrew Plato <oregonian@telecom-digest.org> Subject: An Unsettling Surprise: Victimized by ID Theft Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2005 20:02:59 -0500 IN MY OPINION Andrew Plato Recently, I opened my mailbox to an unsettling surprise: a cellular telephone bill for more than $500. Of course, it was not my phone bill, nor had I made any of the calls it listed. Like millions of other Americans, I was a victim of identity theft. The irony of my experience is that I am a computer-security professional. I make my living helping organizations secure their information systems from break-ins and theft. The theft of my identity, like millions of others, was not because my home computer was infected. It was not because I lost a charge receipt. My identity was stolen from a large, multinational corporation's computer database, similar to the recent theft of 40 million credit card numbers from a company in Tucson, Ariz. When I called the police to report this crime, the officer was blunt about my predicament. He said police get hundreds of identity-theft claims every week, and almost all of them go unpunished. And because credit firms don't hold consumers liable, these crimes are considered victimless. But there are victims: all of us. Identity theft has become the perfect crime for crooks and drug pushers. With stolen identities, criminals are getting a free ride while the rest of us get stuck with the bill in the form of higher interest rates and expenses. All crime has two components: motivation and opportunity. People must be motivated to commit a crime and have the opportunity to do so. We cannot do much about motivation, but we can surely do something about opportunity. It has become far too easy for hackers and thieves to access a network and take what they want. Armed with a home PC and free software tools, anybody with a little technical savvy can break into a network, plant malicious software and walk away with valuable data. In my line of work, I've seen the data centers for hundreds of companies. I've seen large financial companies that have networks infested with worms and viruses. I've also seen the development of critical governmental systems outsourced to companies that are so incompetent that the systems they built were broken into minutes after being put online. The fact is, our public and private organizations are ignoring their security problems and by doing so are needlessly creating the opportunity for identity thieves. Security is too often placed at the end of projects as a luxury that never gets implemented. But information security and privacy is no longer a luxury. It's time for action. Unfortunately, the only way to get action these days is to hit companies and governments where it really hurts: their wallets and the voting booth. We need to steer purchasing power away from organizations that cannot secure information and toward those that can promise security and privacy. And when data are stolen, there must be accountability. There must be penalties. Class-action lawyers are starting to sue companies for damages in such cases. My firm has already assisted in one such lawsuit. The fear of lawsuits is a powerful motivator for companies. But we also need to make information security a priority agenda item for our elected officials. Government technology spending is highly flawed, often awarding contracts to incompetent low-bidders, many of which are incapable of handling complex security issues. Identity theft will continue to go on unchecked until there is a serious effort on the part of public agencies and private companies to make security an integral part of their information systems. Let's face it: Identity theft is no longer merely an inconvenience. And it is not acceptable for corporations and governments to continue building and using insecure information systems. Andrew Plato is president of Anitian Enterprise Security, a computer security consulting firm in Beaverton. Copyright 2005 OregonLive.com. 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. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, OregonLive.com For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 11:30:18 -0700 From: John L. Shelton <john@jshelton.com> Subject: TV Telephone History While watching TV Land, I realized I could learn about the phone-wealth of various TV families. For example: Rob & Laura Petrie (The Dick Van Dyke Show, early 1960s) had 5 telephones, very unusual at the time. There were model 500 desk phones in the breakfast room, kitchen, dining room, living room, and master bedroom. There may have been a sixth phone in the garage; I'm still trying to confirm. In one episode, their phone number is given as 636.9970; in another, it's NEw Rochelle 6-9970. This should have been area code 914, and area codes were known back then, but not in widespread use. TV writers later learned to use the exchange "555" (or KLondike 5) for fictitious numbers, but perhaps weren't doing this back then. The "99" portion of their phone number used to indicate a coin-operated telephone in some exchanges, so perhaps this convention was good enough. By the way, the number "9970" appears in many dialing examples from "Englewood NJ 1951 Customer Long Distance Dialing", posted to this list by Mark Cuccia in 1996. And in the movie "The Manchurian Candidate", a quoted phone number is "El Dorado 5 - 9970". Do others have good examples of TV family telephones? =John= john@jshelton.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As best as I can recall, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez ('I Love Lucy', a 1950's invention mostly, had two phones; one in the front room which was nearly always the one used on the show, but also a phone in the bedroom we only saw when an episode needed a bedroom phone.(In one show, Lucy called Ethel from the bedroom.) Their number was MUrray Hill something, I do not remember what, although a couple shows had them saying the number. The Cleaver Family (Leave it to Beaver) had a phone in the Den, and a reader here said they had one in the upstairs hallway also, but I do not recall seeing it. Their phone number was always given as 'Klondike 5-' something, with one or two digits generally muffled and unintelligable. And who can recall Sheriff Andy Taylor's phone number, both at the jail and at his home? Barney Fife's number at the rooming house where he lived was '407' on the one occassion I heard someone on the show ask 'Sarah' the operator to be connected. PAT] ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD <spamsucks@crazyhat.net> Subject: Re: Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 13:27:15 -0500 Organization: Disorganized In message <telecom24.336.10@telecom-digest.org> Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net> wrote: > Pat said: >> Also I would like to comment on your allegation 'the only way to get >> infected is by user stupidity'. I think that is sort of a harsh >> assessment. _Not everyone_ who owns a computer knows everything about >> it > Pat's right. > You can be computer-savvy, even, and not necessarily know within hours > every time a new exploit comes out. It's not a question of > stupidity. New malware releases tend to happen quickly. While true, the vast majority of malware released post-XPSP2 requires explicit user intervention to install it. It doesn't install itself, it asks for permission (often more then once). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is very true also, but often times that request to install is couched with the colors and logo of a Windows Update or some other circumstance that would lead a reasonably intelligent person to go ahead and okay it, only to realize a few seconds later that they may have done something they should not have done. Even though they do sometimes ask, it is rare or _never_ that they are forthright about their intentions or _exactly what_ this 'important update' will actually accomplish. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 2005 06:22:29 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> Subject: Re: Ethics of Deterrence Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Did you miss the part where they say that they send a warning first? > If you've been framed by the spammer, you'll have a chance to let them > know that it was a forgery. This should hopefully forestall the > attack. First question: why do you expect that legitimate websites will cooperate with what is in essence a protection racket? ("Nice web site you've got there, better do what we say if you ever want to see your home page again.") Second question: why do you expect that spammers will not say "we didn't send that, it's a joe job"? Do you think that Blue Frog can tell if they're lying with perfect accuracy? If not, what happens when BF DOS'es an innocent site? Anyone who thinks that Blue Frog is a good idea hasn't thought through what they're doing. R's, John [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder if anyone besides me has noticed how this whole thing has deteriorated from evil nasty spammers as the _true_ villians to evil nasty netizens trying to harm a good and pure web site; for how many ever years, when filtering was thought to be the answer to everything, so many netters would say 'ho hum, lets crank up the filter a little more' to desparately try to eliminate them. Now that we are close to the hundred percent saturation point with spam (as some of us predicted long ago) and filtering has been shown to be a dismal failure, at least among netizens who have to shovel it out by the truck load each day, and thought has been given to taking a more agressive deterence posture, these same guys who were so, well, almost _casual_ about installing more and more filtering are now getting desparate in their paranoia as they defend the spammers and their (spammers) 'right of free speech' as it were. Tell me this John, is there some sort of 'Spammers Legal Defense Fund' you guys sponsor or contribute to? When spammers (ever so rarely) get sued by a government agency do you guys hire lawyers to help defend them? Why did ICANN (and its cheering squad on the net) fight so vigorously against the federal government's CAN-SPAM proposed legislation; making up all sorts of mumbo-jumbo about 'how it will not work, so do not waste your time on it'? Why does ICANN interject itself, with its so-called 'expert testimony' in all these cases where legislation is pending, when instead of giving expert testimony they merely want to hawk their own agenda? It all really amazes me. Why do you guys object so vigorously when netizens try self help? If our ideas are such a damn fool waste of time, then please, __let us find it out for ourselves__; quit trying to save us from ourselves. Obviously your passive filtering solutions have not worked; why can't we try our way instead? What is your _real objection_ anyway? 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 #337 ****************************** | |