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 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 18:25:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 374 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Child Porn Growing on Web; Internet Exploitation Prompting Action (Scherer) Web Inventer, McCartney Sisters Win Awards in Germany (Reuters News Wire) Yahoo Sticks to its $5 Music Service (Michele Gershberg) Web Map Tracks Demand for News (Eric Auchard) Journalism's Fear and Loathing of Blogs (Dante Chinni) Book Review: "Honeypots for Windows", Roger A. Grimes (Rob Slade) SBC Picks Motorola, S-A For Set-Tops (USTelecom dailyLead) More on Verizon FioS Requirements (Lee Sweet) 4-Wire Echo Suppression Conference Calls (WU Tech Review) (Lisa Hancock) AP Article "New N.Y. Law Targets Hidden Net Tolls" (Carl Moore) Re: Online Scammers Pose as Company Executives in 'Spear-Phishing' (mc) Re: Broadband Competition Must Surely be Working (Lisa Hancock) Re: Broadband Competition Must Surely be Working (Matt Simpson) Re: Not so Fast! 'xxx' Startup Put on Hold (DevilsPGD) Re: Not so Fast! 'xxx' Startup Put on Hold (Mark Crispin) 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: Ron Scherer <csm@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Child Porn Rising on Web; Internet Exploitation Prompting Action Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 01:47:33 -0500 http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0818/p01s01-stct.html By Ron Scherer | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor NEW YORK - Despite highly publicized arrests, law-enforcement officials say that the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet is growing dramatically. The more that get arrested, the more there are out there ... Over the past four years, the number of reports of child pornography sites to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) has grown by almost 400 percent. Law-enforcement officials are particularly disturbed by the increased number of commercial sites that offer photos of exploited children in return for a credit-card number. Those fighting child porn say it has become a global multibillion-dollar industry. "We are encountering staggering proportions of violators or offenders we would have never imagined years ago," says Ray Smith, who oversees child exploitation investigations by the United States Postal Inspection Service. "It is an exploding problem worldwide, and particularly in the US," adds Ernie Allen, president of NCMEC. Efforts to stem the upsurge are taking place on multiple fronts. At the G-8 summit in Scotland last month, officials said that Interpol, an international police organization, is putting together a global database of offenders and victims. And this week, 3,000 law-enforcement officials from around the US are meeting in Dallas to discuss ways to attack Internet crimes against children. On the state level, New Jersey and Florida are among those enacting requirements for sexual predators to wear GPS devices that keep track of their whereabouts. One of the biggest pushes against the purveyors is aimed at shutting down the use of credit cards. NCMEC is currently talking to MasterCard about making it even harder to subscribe to the commercial sites. "We're trying to mobilize the financial industry to choke off the money," says Mr. Allen. At MasterCard, spokeswoman Sharon Gamsin says her organization is "appalled people are using our systems for illegal transactions involving child pornography, and finding a way to stop this is a priority." Two years ago, Visa International began a program to try to identify child porn sites allowing transactions with its credit cards. It hired a firm that used retired federal agents to go through the Internet searching for sites, and it says it's still searching the Web for illicit sites today. Good marks for effort Officials generally give the credit-card companies good marks for their efforts. "The financial industry is made up of real people with children, and they want this thing ended for society, too," says Mr. Smith, who has been fighting the illegal merchandise since 1982. To try to help credit-card companies and law-enforcement officials identify websites, NCMEC has hired a consultant to search online for illicit sites. "We provide the information first to law enforcement and then do reviews to see if they follow up," he says. "Otherwise, we send a cease-and-desist order to the method-of-payment services [such as a credit-card company] and try to engage banks and regulators." Allen notes that he recently met with Asian bankers to seek cooperation. Shutting off the money flow could help, agree officials. Jim Plitt, director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Cyber Crime Center, believes that the growth of the child porn industry is part of what he terms the "illegal business cycle" -- where groups watching the huge profits decide to join in. "The emphasis is on the money. That's where you focus," says Mr. Plitt, who adds, "more cases are coming." When law-enforcement officials have cracked the organizations, they often find that the organizations have many illegal websites that are collecting money. That was the case with Regpay, a company in Minsk, Belarus, which provided credit-card billing services for 50 child porn websites worldwide. Indeed, the groups are often international in scope. The Regpay investigation resulted in the initial arrests of 35 people in the United States, France, and Spain. "The actual businesses themselves are not necessarily large, but they have a large membership pool," says Plitt. When Regpay was broken up two years ago, it had 270,000 subscribers -- 4,000 in New Jersey alone. Recently, in fact, 11 more individual subscribers were arrested in New Jersey, and more arrests are on the way, say officials. Because the membership pool was so large, law-enforcement officials have broken the prosecutions down into two phases. The first phase was to dismantle the financial apparatus, including businesses in Florida and California that processed US credit-card transactions. The second phase, which is ongoing, is to arrest individuals who subscribed to the sites. 'Prioritized' arrests "They are prioritized, so we are targeting individuals with access to children, people of trust in the community, and the most egregious subscribers who had lots of transactions," says Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for ICE. "What you'll see in the cases made are schoolteachers, pediatricians, a campus minister, a Boy Scout leader, and other individuals in those types of positions." ICE is now arresting individuals who subscribed to the sites multiple times. Although the arrests themselves get the word out to the pedophile community, some law-enforcement officials are optimistic that technology may ultimately help them stem the tide. "I think there will come a time in the not-too-distant future where, working with the [Internet service provider] community and the financial community, they will be able to package information and put it into computers that will not allow people to subscribe to these sites," says Smith. However, he adds, "We have First Amendment issues so we can't completely shut down all pornographic sites." Steps to keep kids safe . As always, make communication a priority. "One of the main tips is listening to your kids. Pay attention if they tell you they don't want to go somewhere or see someone," Ms. Schwartz says. . Let kids know that they can say no. "They have the right to say no to any uncomfortable advances or touches. Kids are taught to be respectful of their elders, and child predators prey on that." . As far as computers go, be aware of technology, trends, and especially a child's online activity. "Parents [are perceived as not being] up to speed with the technology. It's a great conversation starter to say, 'OK, what websites are you looking at? How do I create an [instant messaging] account?' " That can be a subtle way to monitor a child. . Caution children in giving out information. "Predators ask for phone numbers or personal information, and eventually they want to escalate it to a phone call. People don't realize how little information is needed today in order to find someone." . Be attuned to any changes in behavior. "What if she was just acting different and spending hours and hours online -- if you come up to her and she quickly minimized the screen?" . Suspicious websites or other activities can be reported to www.cybertipline.com or 800-843-5678. - Adam Karlin Copyright 2005 The Christian Science Monitor. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. To read the Christian Science Monitor on line each day with no registration nor login requirements please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html and review the far right hand column (upper part of page). Also see articles 'Not so Fast; xxx Startup Put on Hold' elsewhere in this issue of the Digest. ------------------------------ From: Erik Kirschbaum <reuters@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Web Inventer, McCartney Sisters Win German Awards Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 10:37:34 -0500 By Erik Kirschbaum Britain's Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web and then gave it away, will receive Germany's national Quadriga award on the country's 15th annual Unification Day on October 3, organizers said on Thursday. Also receiving a Quadriga award for courage and vision will be six Northern Irish women who challenged the Irish Republican Army over the murder of a Catholic man, Robert McCartney, in Belfast in January. McCartney's five sisters and fiance will receive the award for their tireless campaign against IRA violence, organizers said. Last month, the IRA pledged to end its armed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland. Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web in 1990 while at the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva to let his fellow scientists work together even when in other parts of the world. But instead of patenting it and reaping a fortune, he chose to put it onto the Internet a year later, opening access to everyone. Quadriga organizers hailed Berners-Lee as the most important scientist of the 20th century after Albert Einstein. "Berners-Lee elected not to patent the World Wide Web for commercial reasons or his own personal profit but gave it away for all of us," said Klaus Riebschlaeger, chairman of the organising committee. "Free and available to all humanity, it became the network for knowledge linking the world." The Web made modern-day surfing possible and transformed the Internet from a domain for scientists and academics into the fastest growing mass medium of all time. Before the Web was developed, electronic files stored on the Internet were exceedingly difficult to find and pages could only be located using an address -- often a vast string of numbers. The Quadriga national awards for courage, vision and responsibility were inspired by ex U.S. President Bill Clinton on a visit to Berlin in 2002. They are presented each year in four categories: political, economic, social and cultural. Other winners of the 25,000 euro prize this year include former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl for his achievements in reuniting Germany in 1990; and the Aga Khan, billionaire spiritual leader of the world's 15 million Ismaili Muslims, for his charitable institution the Aga Khan Development Network. Previous winners include Afghan President Hamid Karzai (2004) and British architect Norman Foster (2003). 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: Michele Gershberg <reuters@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Yahoo Sticks to $5 Music Service Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 11:05:14 -0500 By Michele Gershberg Whether you prefer hard rockers or accordion-pumping folk singers, Yahoo Inc. will stick with an aggressively low $5 monthly fee in the first major marketing push for its online music service. After an introductory roll-out in May, Yahoo on Thursday said it would keep its music download subscription priced well below those of competitors, such as RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody and Napster Inc., in an effort to become "the standard online music service." Yahoo Music Unlimited offers more than 1 million songs, allowing listeners to move tracks to portable music players and share them with other subscribers on its messenger platform. Trial subscriptions were launched at $4.99 per month for an annual commitment, or $6.99 on a monthly basis, and analysts had wondered whether Yahoo would raise the price with its full-scale launch. Yahoo Inc. Chief Marketing Officer Cammie Dunaway said the music service had so far attracted subscribers through public relations efforts and word of mouth. The new Yahoo Music campaign will be the online media company's most aggressive push this year, she said. "It's exciting to see what happens now that we really start marketing it," Dunaway told Reuters. "We're certainly looking to expand the subscription (music) market and think that this pricing is one great way to do it." Pixellated characters representing rock band Green Day and rapper Missy Elliott bounce and bop in the Yahoo Music online ads, with viewers able to move the "Mini-Pop" stars onscreen. The ads were created by agencies Soho Square and OgilvyOne, San Francisco. The campaign debuts on August 28 during the MTV Video Music Awards with the tagline "Over A Million Songs - 5 Bucks A Month - This Is Huge." One television commercial shows an animated spaceship beaming up favorite musicians, then pulverizing a lederhosen-clad accordion player. Commercials will air on MTV and Comedy Central. Yahoo has also planned ads in a new video game from Midway Games Inc., and other nontraditional campaign efforts. PRICE PRESSURE Yahoo's price strategy could heap more pressure on music download rivals. Napster and Rhapsody provide subscribers unlimited streams on demand and other features for about $10 a month, or about $15 with portability. "There will probably be room for some price differences, but if Yahoo stays at a lower price, coupled with its broad marketing reach, it would be tough for the other guys," said Christopher Rowen of Suntrust Robinson Humphrey. Rowen rates Napster shares at "buy" and Real Networks at "neutral." Both companies' shares tumbled after Yahoo introduced its music service in May, as did the stock of online music leader Apple Computer Inc.. Napster has an estimated 400,000 subscribers to its service, while Real Networks has nearly 1.2 million for Rhapsody. Yahoo would not disclose subscriber numbers. Rowen said online music subscription had yet to boom as listeners are focused on copying their own music collections to portable devices, but he noted it would take off once they look to music downloads as their primary source for fresh songs. "Five years down the road, subscription will be the dominant model," he said. 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: Eric Auchard <aychard@telecom-digest.org> Subject: What's Next? Web Map Tracks Demand for Major News Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 11:08:16 -0500 By Eric Auchard It's debatable how big a deal any specific news event is compared to all the other human mayhem that occurs each day. Journalists, editors, historians and the guy at the end of the bar could probably never agree. A news mapping service introduced on Thursday by Akamai Technologies Inc. promises to give unprecedented insight into the relative hunger that millions of Internet users have to learn of breaking events minute-by-minute. Akamai, which helps speed delivery of 15 percent of the world's Internet traffic over its network, is looking to count the sum of page requests across 100 major news sites it serves to rank interest in major events on a scale never seen before. The Akamai Net News Index provides a map of six global regions and measures the current appetite for news relative to average daily demand in terms of millions of visitors to news sites per minute, per week, within each geographic region. Spikes in traffic can reveal the next wave of news demand. "You have never really been able to look at big news events in this way," Akamai Chief Executive Paul Sagan said in a phone interview. "When you can get down to the minute of a day and correlate spikes in news site traffic, you can really begin to see what was going on at that moment," he said. This aggregate news site data -- the company stresses that it does not track individual surfing habits -- is now available publicly on the Web at http://www.akamai.com/en/html/industry/net_usage_index.html/ In two-and-a-half months of testing before the index introduction, Akamai found the biggest Internet news events were the London bombings on July 7, Hurricane Emily July 15, the combined effects of the Space Shuttle launch and monsoon in India on July 26. The fourth most popular recent Web news event was the June 13 Michael Jackson verdict, Akamai data showed. Sagan says his Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company plans to make the data available to its customers and members of the public to see what ways they put the information to work. The news index is in the spirit of the Internet Archive's WayBack Machine, which provides snapshots of vast reaches of the Web in order to preserve online history, or the various Internet Weather Reports, which give Web surfers a glimpse of how essential networks on the Internet are functioning. IN A PLACE TO KNOW Because its computers serve up billions of pages of news to Internet readers each day, Akamai is in the unique position of being able to track news consumption on a global scale. Akamai believes it is in a unique position to be able to track news consumption on a global scale. At any point in time, millions of PC users (and growing numbers of Web-connected mobile phone users) are viewing news on the Internet. Some of the 100 participating news sites include the U.S.-centered NBC, XM Satellite Radio and ESPN, LeMonde in France and the global audiences of CNN.com and Reuters.com. Other major sites in the Americas, Europe and Asia cannot be named, Sagan said. "We think we have a pretty representative sample" of the world's major Internet news sites, he said. When news breaks, studies show that the Internet is displacing television and print media for instant information. Sagan said the index could act as early warning system on major news events, or for retrospective trend research later. "How do you measure an event of a certain magnitude?" Sagan asked. "No one know what that means really," he said, adding that: "We are going to let people draw their own conclusions." Sagan hopes the service can be used to help reveal geographic and sociological trends in public spectacles. Data generated by the index could be used by advertisers and investors to map social patterns and make buying decisions. "How much did it grab public attention? What economic effect did the news have?" Sagan asks. "We can get a real-time, exact view of the data." 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: Dante Chinni <csm@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Journalism's Fear and Loathing of Blogs Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 11:13:40 -0500 http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0809/p09s01-codc.html By Dante Chinni WASHINGTON - Mainstream journalism is running scared. It's watching its audience numbers decline and its public trust numbers drop. Newspapers, magazines, and network television news have been shaken by major scandals. The media have seen the future and it is blogging. Or at least that's the story this year. "Mainstream journalism," however you want to define it, has been under siege so long it's hard to keep track of all the people, things, and outlets that were or are still going to destroy it. Blogs, or weblogs -- websites on which a person or a group of people opines about events, reports what's been heard, or simply links to other sites (many of which are also blogs) - are the latest concern among journalists who look at them with curiosity and fear. Many believe blogs are a dangerous direct competitor to mainstream journalism -- a way for individuals and interest groups to reach around the gatekeeper function that newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio have traditionally held. Some even see them as the future of journalism; an army of citizen journalists bringing the unfiltered news to a public hungry for the inside dope. "The latest, and perhaps gravest, challenge to the journalistic establishment is the blog," Richard Posner wrote last week in The New York Times Book Review. Actually Mr. Posner wrote about a lot of challenges the media faced, but gave blogs a lot of space as he spelled out their advantages. They bring expertise. They bring flair and opinion. They bring more checks and balances than the mainstream media. "It's as if the Associated Press or Reuters had millions of reporters, many of them experts, all working with no salary for free newspapers that carried no advertising," he explained. Ah, yes, in the future news will be bountiful and free with no advertising. Can't beat that. If they throw in complimentary ice cream we've really got something here. Let me just say for the record, I have nothing against blogs. I actually like them. Their formula of opinion, links, and reportage can be refreshing -- though they are often short on the last part of that mix. And the voices they enter into the media dialogue sometimes offer perspectives that otherwise might never be heard. But if you really look closely, all this "and in the future ..." talk seems a bit far-fetched for a number of reasons. For all the bloggers' victories (like raising questions about memos in CBS's Bush/National Guard story) there are numerous failures (gossiping about John Kerry's affair that never happened or how the presidential election was rigged in Ohio). And most bloggers simply don't have time or staff to, say, launch an investigation into the internal workings of the Department of State. Getting leaks and tips is one thing, digging for the fuller story is quite another. But the main reason blogs can't really supplant the mainstream media is what they cover. If you go looking for blogs about national politics, foreign affairs, celebrities or (yes) the media, you won't go wanting. In fact, every one of the country's top 10 most visited blogs deals with one of these subjects, according to www.truthlaidbear.com itself a "portal to the blogosphere." That's not really that surprising. To be a serious blogger - one who can devote his time and energy to the job - one needs to make a name for himself, sell ad space, and get paid. And to make a name, sell ad space, and get paid, one needs a national audience. In other words, if you live in, say, Grand Rapids, Mich. and are looking for the latest developments on the construction on the nearby highway, or the city council budget, or a millage dispute - things that impact people in very real ways -- you're not going to have much luck in the blogosphere. Even large cities and state capitals, except for those that are part of the media/government industrial complex, are relatively blog free. And it's hard to see how that will change. The number of people interested in devoting their life to things like local zoning rules is a bit more limited than those interested in national politics. Getting paid to do it would probably be all but impossible. And that's a problem. For all the fretting, blogging ultimately is bound to be less a replacement for the traditional media than a complement. The fact is, journalism's most critical responsibilities in a democratic society -- seeking, reporting, and analyzing news and holding people accountable -- aren't easy to fulfill. People rightly point out that the media often fail at those tasks. It's just hard to see how making it a volunteer position or a part-time job could improve the situation. . Dante Chinni writes a twice-monthly political opinion column for the Monitor. Copyright 2005 The Christian Science Monitor. 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. Read the Christian Science Monitor at our web site daily. http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html (upper right column). *** 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, Christian Science Publishing Society. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade <rslade@sprint.ca> Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 10:38:36 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "Honeypots for Windows", Roger A. Grimes Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKHNPTWN.RVW 20050614 "Honeypots for Windows", Roger A. Grimes, 2005, 1-59059-335-9, U$39.99 %A Roger A. Grimes roger@banneretcs.com %C 2560 Ninth Street, Suite 219, Berkeley, CA 94710 %D 2005 %G 1-59059-335-9 %I Apress %O U$39.99 510-549-5930 fax 510-549-5939 info@apress.com %O http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590593359/robsladesinterne http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590593359/robsladesinte-21 %O http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590593359/robsladesin03-20 %O Audience i+ Tech 2 Writing 1 (see revfaq.htm for explanation) %P 392 p. %T "Honeypots for Windows" Now, we all know that honeypots can be fun: turning the tables on the blackhats, and watching what they are doing for once. We'll even acknowledge that the information honeypots provide can be useful, teaching us the types of approaches and activities that intruders are likely to undertake. But Grimes, in the introduction, stresses the position that honeypots are important security tools used for protection: that the extensive employment of honeypots will somehow "put an end" to script kiddies and the myriad attacks we see flying around the nets. Part one is about general honeypot concepts. Chapter one is an introduction to honeypots, looking at different honeypots and some common attack types, and has an extremely terse mention of the fact that there are risks associated with using honeypots. Components and simple topologies for honeypots are listed in chapter two. Part two moves specifically to Windows honeypots. Chapter two lists the ports that a Windows computer typically has open, and provides some (but not much) information on how the major ones work. A set of questions to ask yourself about how you want to operate and configure your honeypot are in chapter three, along with generic advice about hardening the computer if you use Windows as the native operating system. There is a table of services that you might want to turn off. There is also an inventory of programs you may wish to remove: it contains rather dated entries such as edlin.exe, but doesn't mention items such as tftp.exe. Chapters five to seven are concerned with the honeyd program and its Windows port, first in regard to description and installation, then configuration options, and finally service scripts. Other honeypot programs; Back Officer Friendly (BOF), LaBrea, SPECTER, KFSensor, Patriot Box, and Jackpot; are outlined in chapter eight, with the commercial entries getting the bulk of the space. Part three deals with the operation of honeypots. Chapter nine has some basic traffic analysis information, mostly documentation for the use of the Ethereal packet sniffer and the Snort intrusion detection system. A number of tools for monitoring your system are listed in chapter ten. Even though the title is "Honeypot Data Analysis," most of chapter eleven records more monitoring tools. Grimes reprises some of his stuff from "Malicious Mobile Code" (cf. BKMLMBCD.RVW), and adds a catalogue of assembly tools, to talk about analysing such code in chapter twelve. As a compilation of utilities, the book will probably be a handy reference for those who are interested in trying out a honeypot, or possibly just getting more information from their Windows computer. Network administrators who are seriously interested in actually running a honeypot or reviewing the data thus collected should probably look into "Know Your Enemy" (cf. BKKNYREN.RVW) or "Honeypots" (cf. BKHNYPOT.RVW), both by Spitzner. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2005 BKHNPTWN.RVW 20050614 ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca rslade@sun.soci.niu.edu In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but, in practice, there is. - Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 13:15:30 EDT From: USTelecom dailyLead <ustelecom@dailylead.com> Subject: SBC Picks Motorola, S-A For Set-Tops USTelecom dailyLead August 18, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=23947&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * SBC picks Motorola, S-A for set-tops BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Yahoo! denies VoIP report * Nokia: No deal with Apple * BellSouth targets small businesses * Intel launches wireless cities initiative USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * New! The USTelecom IP Video Implementation & Planning Guide EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Verizon Wireless to test next-generation 3G technology * VoIP phones hitting their wireless stride REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Sprint Nextel disputes value of Nextel Partners Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=23947&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: Lee Sweet <lee@datatel.com> Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 09:06:37 -0400 Subject: More on Verizon FioS Requirements A bit of reading at Broadband Reports' in the FiOS forum would give a better picture of life in the real Verizon installation world :-) See http://www.dslreports.com/forum/vzfiber Verizon technically does say all that's been reported about removing your copper and requiring use of their router, but: 1. There are many reports that they will leave the original voice copper if you request it. (I don't know if you can use it for 3rd party DSL, VZN probably won't give the wire to them, especially now with the recent FCC decisions [did that mean they didn't have to, period, or they could charge what they wanted?]; you may be able to retain your VZN voice on it in places where FiOS is optional, and then only have Internet on FiOS) 2. There are also many reports that you can have the installers use the supplied 'mandatory' router to test/bring up the connection, shut it down, and then use your old router (any router that can do PPPoE), and be fine. You will want to have their router around to plug in, because it has special diagnostics they can access from their end, but there is no special reason to use it, per se. (This is particularly of note for those that want to use Vonage, etc., adapters, and don't want to cascade routers.) Also, there have been many discussions at BBR about the battery backup, with people not understanding that some COs also only have 8- 12 hours of battery and being all upset that 'the phone will die in 6 hours' or whatever. Me, when I get FiOS (I have no choice, you may recall), I'm going to put a 1500VA APC UPS in back of the VZN backup to run the thing for 24 hours, I hope. (Yes, I have a non-cordless phone to use with it. :-) ) Lee Sweet Datatel, Inc. Manager of Telephony Services and Information Security How higher education does business. Voice: 703-968-4661 Cell: 703-932-9425 Fax: 703-968-4625 lee@datatel.com www.datatel.com ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: 4-Wire Echo Suppression Conference Calls (WU Tech Review) Date: 18 Aug 2005 09:41:09 -0700 The Western Union Technical Review had an article describing how they utilized four-wire connections for voice conference calls to suppress echos. A notable feature was that the four wires apparently went all the way to the subscriber set. Another features was that conference calls were set up automatically by dialing various codes. They used an Ericsson crossbar switch on the WU voice network. Fall 1968. The article goes into considerable technical detail. See: http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/technical/western-union-tech-review/22-4/p144.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 12:39:54 EDT From: Carl Moore <cmoore@ARL.ARMY.MIL> Subject: AP Article "New N.Y. Law Targets Hidden Net Tolls" 1st paragraph says: "A new law that's apparently the first in the nation threatens to penalize Internet service providers that fail to warn users that some dial-up numbers can ring up enormous long- distance phone bills even though they appear local." That law is in New York state. Article notes that long distance within same area code can cost 8 to 12 cents a minute. As far as *I* can tell, the above warning is the same as what I have seen in the front section of the Northeastern Maryland phone book, where police and other public-service telephone numbers are listed with the advice that some of those calls may be toll. ------------------------------ From: mc <mc_no_spam@uga.edu> Subject: Re: Online Scammers Pose as Company Executives in 'Spear-Phishing' Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 10:25:36 -0400 This type of phishing by phone was already known by 1975. It was one of the first computer security issues I ever heard about. "Hello, I'm from the computer center [or, I'm in the corporate office] and I'm working on your account. Can you tell me your password?" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, it is an older style of phishing and does go back twenty years at least. I do recall an office I worked in during the early 1980's which had credit bureau terminal machines, and on the wall behind the machines, a poster of a very stern looking Uncle Sam, his fingers pursed over his lips, with a message saying "Uncle Sam Wants YOU to Keep the Trust. Do not let other employees get YOU in trouble ... neither your supervisor nor any executive of your company is _ever_ going to ask you to provide them with your password, nor ask you to 'pull a bureau report' for them personally, other than in the regular course of your employment. If you receive a telephone call from someone claiming to be in authority to do that, please let your supervisor know immediatly." The message then concluded by telling the penalties for doing so: "Under the law, providing credit bureau information to an unathorized person is punishable by (whatever). Why risk your job and your freedom by helping someone who claims to be _your friend_ in this way? They're not your friend; they're just trying to use you." Then a smaller picture of the stern Uncle Sam once again. Finally at the bottom of the poster the statement, "Has anyone ever bothered you in this way? Do you want to talk to someone about a situation at your place of employment? Call 800 - (whatever) in complete confidence." PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Broadband Competition Must Surely be Working Date: 18 Aug 2005 09:56:42 -0700 jmeissen@aracnet.com wrote: > What has now been confirmed by calls to Verizon is that Verizon has installed fibre ("FIOS") in my area. However, they have told me different things: > - Once the fiber connection is established all services, including > voice, are moved to the fiber and the copper wires are pulled, > making it impossible to return to standard DSL in spite of the > supposed 30-day trial period. Only subscribers who sign up for FIOS will get fibre to their front door. It is rather expensive to run the fibre and terminal box (actually the terminal box is pricey) to your front door. The old phone loop won't go anywhere. > - They will absolutely NOT allow connections to other ISP's over > the fiber connection, essentially limiting ISP's other than > MSN to dialup customers. They stressed this is not a regulated service. As such, they can charge as they wish and run it as they wish. HOWEVER, anyone else can run fibre just as they did. The cable company -- while it was still a small outfit -- obviously was able to run fibre, so the field is open to others. They also need permission to run these lines, they don't have the automatic ROW of a standard utility. While my _area_ overall has FIOS, many specific sections do not have FIOS because permission was not granted by the appropriate parties. I also want to point out that this magical "competition" is no guarantee of lower prices. There are a number of cellular phone providers, but oddly enough, they all charge about the same and all seem to be making very good money. That is, competition does NOT automatically force down prices or improve service. Remember that technology is better than ever and their costs should be lower than the past. Economics include a multitude of factors, one of which is demand. In other words, right now many of us have a choice between phone company DSL and cable company broadband. It just so happens that prices of those are about the same. If a third provider showed up, do you really think prices would go down? Not likely as long as demand remained high. As mentioned, anyone else can come in and run fibre and provide this service if they wanted to. ------------------------------ From: Matt Simpson <msimpson@uky.edu> Subject: Re: Broadband Competition Must Surely be Working Organization: Yeah Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:17:07 -0400 In article <telecom24.372.5@telecom-digest.org>, jmeissen@aracnet.com wrote: > So, while the landscape today includes a diverse collection of local > and national ISP's with a range of services and cost options, the > future will be dialup at $10-15/month or Comcast or Verizon/MSN at > ~$50/mo. No more local businesses, no more local customer service, no > choice of services. For some of us, the current landscape does not include that "diverse collection", and does not even include the more limited choice you describe as the gloomy future. It includes ONLY dialup. If the so-called "independent" ISPs want to be truly independent, and not dependent on infrastructure owned by evil conglomerates, they can provide broadband to those of us who would be happy with even a single choice of broadband provider. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD <spamsucks@crazyhat.net> Subject: Re: Not so Fast! 'xxx' Startup Put on Hold Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 03:08:19 -0600 Organization: Disorganized In message <telecom24.373.9@telecom-digest.org> Mark Crispin <MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I want to just respond to one point > which was stated by Mark ... > Mark said "It would be difficult if not impossible to force the porn > industry to be part of 'xxx'." > Why would that be difficult, Mark? In many communities now, those > places are required (just like taverns) to post notices that persons > of minority age cannot be on the premises. It is not considered a > free-association issue, but rather a matter of public policy and any > challenges to the 'minors stay away' rule are always defeated. Why > would it be a free-speech issue to impose on porn sites in the same > way, with 'xxx' being the equivilent of a 'minors not allowed' sign? > I have never yet seen a tavern, or a gay mens 'bathhouse', or an adult > bookstore for example, which got anywhere trying to argue that that > signs on the wall ordering minors to leave the premises were somehow > an imposition on the establishment (or the patrons therein) rights of > free speech or free association. Or, for that matter, a movie theatre > (adult or otherwise) which attempted to enfore an 'X' or 'PG' rating > making free speech claims, etc. So why would an internet establishment > suddenly have that problem (assuming the law said that public policy > dictated the protection of minors? Go ahead and try to force me to move one of my customer's sites from a .com to a .xxx site. Where will you go? Your ISP? The police? Hire a lawyer and go to court? Which court? See, this internet thing surpasses jurisdictional boundaries. I'm in Canada, my clients are in Canada, and unless a similar law was passed in Canada, the best you'd get is a US court to agree that my site really should be somewhere else, but that's about it. Even if you got ICANN onboard, the site could be in .ca rather then .com, and ICANN has no authority. Next, there are literally millions of sites. With all the crime existing in the world today, who exactly do you expect to pursue sites appearing and disappearing daily? Next, we have the question of who defines "adult" -- Again, the internet is international. What your average rightwing nutjob in the US considers "adult" or "offensive" may be common place and completely legal in the less-inhibited portions of Europe -- The whole world isn't as upright about breasts as Americans seem to be. A more workable solution would be a .kids or .family TLD which would specifically exclude adult material -- This would be enforceable, since it would be controlled by a central authority under a single jurisdiction, and anyone who wanted to purchase a domain in that TLD would need to agree to appropriate terms. > One thing that 'xxx' _would_ do is provide a good screening and > filtering mechanism for 'adult' purveyors who did _not_ want to be > bothered by kids coming around, etc (when combined with their other > validation techniques such as credit card proof of age, etc.). People > who were so inclined could filter out 'xxx' in the same way they can > filter out other spam and trash. What's your objection to that? PAT] There are already tons of techniques to allow legitimate pornographic sites to keep children away. If you use Internet Explorer, go to Tools --> Options --> [Content], click the "Content Advisor"'s [Enable] button, and set some appropriate ratings. ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin <mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU> Subject: Re: Not so Fast! 'xxx' Startup Put on Hold Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 12:34:47 -0700 Organization: University of Washington Pat writes: > Mark said "It would be difficult if not impossible to force the porn > industry to be part of 'xxx'." > Why would that be difficult, Mark? In many communities now, those > places are required (just like taverns) to post notices that persons > of minority age cannot be on the premises. First, you must understand that what is being discussed is access restriction; that is, a definition of "pornography" such that material declared to be "pornographic" must be accessed only via an .xxx TLD. Second, you must understand that a community is a local jurisdiction. Within that jurisdiction, the definition of "booze" and "pornography", for the purposes of access restrictions, can be well-defined. The Internet is not a local jurisdiction. The only way that you can avoid having "pornography" being available outside of the .xxx TLD on the Internet is to declare that *all* material that *any* authority declares to be "pornographic" must be placed within the .xxx TLD. In other words, the effect of what you are advocating is that the standards of Tehran are to apply to an Internet cafe in San Francisco. This problem with variation in standards stymied an attempt to achieve a national concensus in the USA on what constitutes pornography that needs to be access-restricted. Remember the ill-fated Meese Commission? Internationally, material that is considered vile pornography in the USA is considered to be "art" in certain other countries. Material that is considered to be ordinary in the USA (such as a photo of you with your wife with her head uncovered) are considered to be vile pornography in Tehran and Mecca. What about the romance novels that adult women (and teenaged girls) consume in vast quantities? Many of these contain material that would make a Playboy reader blush. More to the point: I'll wager that I have a very different definition of what constitutes "pornography that should be locked inside the .xxx TLD" than your definion. How dare you expose my kids to this vile pornography that you choose to exclude from the .xxx TLD? How dare you deny my kids access to art, literature, and medical information that you misguidedly placed within the .xxx TLD? Simplistic answers to complex problems turn out to be not as simple as they seem. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. Si vis pacem, para bellum. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Also see article on how substantially child porn is growing on the net elsewhere in this issue of the Digest. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 #374 ****************************** | |