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TELECOM Digest Thu, 29 Sep 2005 00:57:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 443 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Few Phones, Little Drinking Water, But New Orleans Re-opens (Adam Nossiter) FEMA Under Fire Again, This Time for Rita Effort (Juan Lozano) US Congress Told to Wait on File Sharing Action (Reuters News Wire) Cingular to Sell Nokia Email Phone (Sinead Carew) Can't Trust Spyware Protection? (Andrew Brandt) Who Will Control Mobile Entertainment? (Monty Solomon) 10 Out of 10 For Idea, -1000 For Implementation (Chris Farrar) Re: Why is VOIP Getting Hot Now? (Tony P.) Re: Oakland Calif Conversion From 6 to 7 Digit Dialing? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Stealing Your ID Can be as Easy as ABC (Tony P.) Re: How Come www Has Number as in http://www31.website.com (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: Adam Nossiter <ap@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Few Phones, Little Drinking Water, But New Orleans Re-opens Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 22:05:19 -0500 By Adam Mossiter, Associated Press Writer Areas of New Orleans Reopen to Residents More areas of New Orleans that escaped flooding from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita will be formally reopened starting Thursday, Mayor Ray Nagin said. The areas include the French Quarter, the Central Business district, and Uptown with its historic Garden District. Business owners will be allowed in on Thursday, and residents on Friday. "The re-entry started Monday and is going very well -- exceedingly well," Nagin told legislators at a hearing Wednesday at the state capitol. "Everything you hoped to happen is happening. Algiers is alive and well and breathing." On Monday, Nagin opened the Algiers neighborhood, which has electricity, telephones and clean water. Nagin said checkpoints where officers stop people will be pulled back Thursday so that only areas that were flooded will be off limits. Homes in those areas were heavily flooded and most are likely beyond repair. If all goes well, as of Oct. 5 only the Lower Ninth Ward, which was hit especially hard by the flooding, will be cordoned off, Nagin said. Electricity has been restored to some dry parts of the city, but the water is not yet drinkable. The mayor disagreed with the head of the state's Health Department about the condition of the city's water, insisting residents could now wash in it, though they shouldn't drink it. "The two things that are absolutely necessary to ensure public health -- clean drinking water and proper sewage systems -- simply are not available in the east bank area of New Orleans at this time," said Dr. Fred Cerise, secretary for the state Department of Health and Hospitals. "People who re-enter the city may be exposed to diseases such as E. coli, salmonella or diarrhea illness if they do not allow time for the necessary inspections to ensure public health and safety," Cerise said. Many residents of the city have returned ahead of Nagin's official timeline, and the mayor appeared eager Wednesday to get more of them back. Nagin complained that state opposition was feeding a misperception about New Orleans, saying: "We're fighting this national impression that we're tainted, we're not ready." Yet a handout from the mayor's office to returning motorists struck a more cautious tone than Nagin himself. Police and National Guardsmen handed out notices to each arriving vehicle which described the sorry state of affairs: "You are entering the city of New Orleans at your own risk," it reads, before going on to detail potential health hazards from water, soil and air, and advising residents to bring in food and drinking water, batteries and other needed items. Returning motorists were advised to "drive slowly and carefully and be observant to any road obstructions which might block the way; do not drive through water where any utility line (electric or telephone) is laying in the street. Do not touch or try to remove such wires. Stay away from them." Nagin also noted that telephone service was still 'mostly non-existent' in much of the city, and where it existed, service was 'spotty' at best. People who are aquainted with the specifics of telephony said what that meant was that corrosion had damaged much equipment and excessive water from Rita and Katrina caused a lot of 'crosstalk' and noisy lines, in addition to 'traffic jams' on fewer than normal circuits; frequent disconnects, etc. Bell officals told Associated Press that lines were being restored 'on a daily basis'. 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: Juan A. Lozano <ap@telecom-digest.org> Subject: FEMA Under Fire Again, This Time For Rita Effort Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 19:29:39 -0500 By JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press Writer Saying they were caught off-guard by the number of people in need, FEMA officials closed a relief center early on Wednesday after some of the hundreds of hurricane victims in line began fainting in triple-digit heat. The midday closing of the Houston disaster relief center came as officials in areas hit hardest by Hurricane Rita criticized FEMA's response to the storm, with one calling for a commission to examine the emergency response. Across southeastern Texas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency delivered ice, water and packaged meals to residents who rode out last week's hurricane, which blew ashore at Sabine Pass in East Texas early Saturday. But the agency was not ready for the roughly 1,500 people displaced by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina who sought help at the Houston center when it reopened Wednesday. The center, offering help from a variety government and private organizations, initially opened for Katrina refugees. It closed last week when Houston was evacuated before Rita. The line started forming Tuesday night, and as temperatures reached record highs, some people fainted and had to be carried off by police and other refugees. FEMA spokesman Justin Dombrowski said the agency closed the center for the day because of the heat and the unexpectedly large crowds. Those already in line were allowed to enter. The center was expected to reopen Thursday morning. Frances Deculus, 65, of Beaumont got in line at 3 a.m. and emerged shortly before the center shut down. She said that all she was able to do was register for FEMA assistance, and that she will have to return to actually get any help. "We don't know what to do. It's frustrating. We have five small children," said Deculus, who is staying in a Houston hotel with 12 other relatives. Dombrowski said FEMA is asking refugees who do not need help right away to wait a few days. He also encouraged refugees to register with FEMA by telephone or the Internet. Local officials, including Port Arthur Mayor Oscar Ortiz and Jefferson County Judge Carl Griffith, whose county includes Beaumont, said FEMA's response has been inadequate. Griffith said he has asked Gov. Rick Perry to set up a commission to study the emergency response to Rita. Congress is holding hearings this week on the federal government's response to Katrina. FEMA spokesman Ross Fredenburg in Austin said communications between Austin and rural East Texas have been troubled, in part because of power problems. But he said FEMA had set up 27 distribution points in 27 southeastern Texas cities. "I don't know what could have been done better since the materials were in place before the hurricane," Fredenburg said. "We're doing everything we can to get water and ice to whomever remains." Perry, meanwhile, issued an emergency order allowing the utility Entergy to immediately erect temporary lines and plug into the Houston area's power supply to get electricity flowing to the hardest hit areas. But it could take three to four weeks to restore power to those areas of southeast Texas where nearly all transmission lines are down and homes are so damaged they can't safely receive electricity, said Paul Hudson, chairman of the state's Public Utility Commission. In rural Tyler County, north of Beaumont, volunteer firefighters distributed food, water and ice to hundreds of residents trapped in their homes by fuel shortages or by huge fallen trees blocking the one-lane, dirt roads out. Firefighters are climbing over the trees to get to stranded residents until crews can cut the debris away, said Roger McGee, a firefighter. McGee said the firefighters had been collecting the supplies on their own until Tuesday, when FEMA showed up to give them meals, water and ice to distribute. "We're tired. We're wore out, but we ain't giving up," McGee said. Ortiz said he expects to allow residents back into Port Arthur by the weekend, even though as of Wednesday, the industrial town of about 58,000 had no power, telephone, water or sewer service. Ortiz said it could take three to five weeks to fully restore electricity and phones. Associated Press writers Pam Easton in Tyler County and Abe Levy in Port Arthur contributed to this report. 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. For more news headlines and stories from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org> Subject: US Congress Told to Wait on File Sharing Action Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 22:07:05 -0500 Congress should probably wait and see how lower courts apply a recent landmark Supreme Court ruling on file-sharing networks before trying to legislate on the subject, the U.S. official in charge of copyrights said on Wednesday. The Supreme Court's decision in June that anyone who distributes a device used to infringe copyright is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by others may well have resolved questions about boundary-setting in file-sharing networks for now, said Marybeth Peters, the U.S. Register of Copyrights. But the Supreme Court also sent the case back to a lower court for further action on whether the file-sharing networks encouraged its users into infringing action. "It may be that legislation should be enacted, but my own preference would be to see how the courts deal with this at this time," Peters told the Senate Judiciary Committee. The ruling to date has caused a ripple effect among file-sharing services. Several have curtailed operations or sought to align themselves with legitimate business partners. The president of the developer of the popular file-sharing site eDonkey testified on Wednesday that he expected all existing open peer-to-peer companies in the United States to cease operating in coming months due to the legal uncertainty surrounding their operations. He warned there was a danger of driving all peer-to-peer networks offshore, but said his company would comply with a cease-and-desist letter it had received from the trade group Recording Industry Association of America. "The direction we're headed in is compliance rather than litigation," Sam Yagan, president of MetaMachine Inc., developer and distributor of eDonkey. "Because we cannot afford to fight a lawsuit, even one we think we would win, we have instead prepared to convert eDonkey's user base to an online content retailer operating in a 'closed' P2P (peer-to-peer) environment," he said in testimony. He told reporters after the hearing he had been talking with Ali Aydar, the chief operating officer of SNOCAP Inc., a company formed by Napster founder Shawn Fanning to enable authorized digital distribution of content through peer-to-peer service. 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: Sinead Carew <reuters@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Top US Service Cingular to Sell Nokia E-Mail Phone Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 22:08:20 -0500 By Sinead Carew Nokia, the world's mobile phone leader, said on Wednesday No. 1 U.S. mobile service Cingular Wireless will sell Nokia's top-of-the line computer phone and Blackberry e-mail pager. The deal with Cingular gives Nokia's 9300 line of phones a leg into the U.S. market, where rival Palm Inc. Treos and Blackberry phones from Canada's Research In Motion Ltd. are in hot demand among business professionals. It also helps raise the profile of Finland's Nokia in a region where it trails Motorola Inc., the No. 2 maker of mobile handsets worldwide, but the leading U.S. supplier. "This is extremely important. This takes them out of the airplane magazine and into a great distribution channel," Yankee Group analyst John Jackson said. But he added that the device's success would depend largely on how aggressively Cingular promotes it to its business customers. "It's not something that's going to fly off retail shelves," he said. Nokia's 9300 phone, which was introduced earlier this year and is part of a line that has long been available in Europe, is sleeker and more compact than a bulky predecessor nicknamed "the brick." The device will include Research In Motion's popular Blackberry e-mail software in a bid to compete against an upcoming Treo phone that will run Microsoft Corp. software. It also will compete against "Q," an ultra-slim device due from Motorola that also uses Microsoft software. Nokia's 9300 is based on software from Symbian, a European-centered consortium that is controlled by Nokia. Analysts forecast more than 20 million computer-like phones will be sold this year, a tiny fraction of the more than 700 million mobile phones expected to be sold this year. But this so-called "smartphone" category is expected to grow rapidly to 170 million units a year in about five years. Cingular is the wireless venture of SBC Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp.. Its biggest rival Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc, said this week it would sell the new Treo, which will ship early next year. 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: Andrew Brandt <tech-tuesday@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Can't Trust Spyware Protection? Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 22:10:44 -0500 by Andrew Brandt The next time you run a scan with your anti-spyware tool, it might miss some programs. Some adware companies, arguing that their software is benign, have petitioned anti-spyware firms to stop warning consumers about their software. Other companies have resorted to sending cease-and-desist letters that threaten legal action. In the past year, at least two anti-spyware firms' products temporarily stopped detecting certain kinds of adware -- a process called delisting. Last year, Lavasoft (maker of Ad-Aware) delisted advertising software WhenU from its detection database. Lavasoft said the delisting happened as the result of an employee error, and the company quickly added WhenU back to Ad-Aware's detection list. Computer Associates, which makes the PestPatrol anti-spyware tool, temporarily delisted adware made by Claria after Claria asked to have its software reevaluated, but Computer Associates later restored detection of Claria to PestPatrol. In most cases, it's difficult for customers to determine whether their anti-spyware tool has delisted anything and, if so, which adware it skips. "When a spyware program gets delisted, users won't be aware of its presence," says Harvard law student and spyware researcher Ben Edelman. The practice, he says, "offers spyware makers a new lease on life, letting them keep users who otherwise would have removed their software." Degrees of Spyware Of course, some spyware apps are worse than others. One spyware program may make severe changes to your computer's settings, while another merely displays ads. Claria and WhenU are making the case that their adware programs don't resort to illegal tactics, such as exploiting security holes, to install themselves. And though this software can be annoying, adware developers argue that merely being listed in an anti-spyware scanner's database tarnishes a company's reputation by linking its relatively benign adware application with far more harmful and intrusive spyware programs. According to Avi Naider of WhenU, though some other adware companies will track your Web meanderings and sell that data, WhenU's privacy policy doesn't permit it to track the search queries that users type or the Web pages that they browse. Each anti-spyware firm uses its own set of criteria to decide whether to remove or detect a file or Registry key related to spyware. Usually even a few bad behaviors suffice to red-tag a file as spyware or adware. One company, Aluria Software, is taking a middle road when dealing with some software that serves advertising. The company, which makes an anti-spyware product called Spyware Eliminator, last year gave WhenU's SaveNow toolbar its "Spyware Safe Certification," and now categorizes WhenU's program as consumerware instead of spyware within Spyware Eliminator. Aluria defines consumerware as "useful applications, often given away free, [which] provide value to the end user, pose no spyware risk, and are easily and completely removed" via the Add or Remove Programs control panel. Spyware Eliminator still gives users the option of automatically removing SaveNow if they choose. Aluria publishes a list of 26 criteria software must meet to be declared Spyware Safe. Other software publishers disagree with that approach. Peter Mackow of PCTools, maker of the Spyware Doctor anti-spyware program, says that his company won't publish the entire list of its criteria for fear that spyware companies will use the information to design a spyware application that skirts every rule. Many others who fight spyware share that position. "The spyware guys want a really rigid set of rules defining spyware so they can then make an end run around [all of them]," says Eric L. Howes, who tracks the spyware business for Spywarewarrior.com and consults for anti-spyware software companies. Experts recommend that you employ two -- or even three -- anti-spyware tools. The more you use, the likelier they are to counter the individ- ual biases of each anti-spyware company. To Delist or Not It's unfair to permanently blacklist a company based on its past behavior, so some delisting is inevitable. But delisting an adware application is a dangerous proposition for anti-spyware developers. In the past, some spyware and adware makers have changed their software enough to get delisted, only to resume the activity that got them flagged in the first place. As a result, the anti-spyware industry has developed a thick skin. Delisting is rare because, Edelman says, anti-spyware firms "stand up to strongly worded demand letters." Adware companies also decry the word spyware itself as inherently negative, so some anti-spyware firms have tried to create terms that mean essentially the same thing, using more-neutral language: "grayware," "potentially unwanted programs," or "potentially unwanted software." But Webroot CEO David Moll argues that matters could get more confusing if the anti-spyware companies try to refer to spyware by other names, just when many people are beginning to understand what spyware can do. Andrew Brandt is a PC World senior associate editor and author of the monthly Privacy Watch column. Copyright 2005 Yahoo! Inc. and Tech Tuesday 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. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 17:03:58 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Who Will Control Mobile Entertainment? By Susan Kuchinskas SAN FRANCISCO -- Mobile entertainment is the next hot thing -- and it's been the next hot thing for a good five years now. But phones and mobile devices may finally be growing up enough to support the kind of rich content industry that's developing on the Web. The launch of the Motorola iPod phone earlier this month and the expected release of a Treo smartphone running Microsoft's Windows embedded illustrate that mobile devices may be ready for prime time. The Mobile Entertainment Summit is being held a day ahead of the CTIA Wireless & Internet show, which kicks off on Tuesday. While devices are getting smarter, the business model for mobile content in the U.S. still remains stalled in the "walled garden" model, where network operators limit subscriber access to content, services and wireless Web sites on the operator's wireless Web portal. But this model makes it hard for small content providers that don't have the revenue or business connections to land such a deal. Carriers that enable subscribers to go "off-portal" or "off-deck" to access any available content help grow the mobile content industry, mobile upstart companies contend. In this model, the operator's revenue comes from increased usage, rather than from a slice of revenue from the content. http://www.devxnews.com/article.php/3551571 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 19:28:12 -0400 From: Chris Farrar <cfarrar@sympatico.ca> Subject: 10 Out of 10 For Idea; 1000 for Implementation I was driving down I-95 today from Philly to Baltimore, and for most of the time my GSM phone (which is on Fido/Rogers out of Canada) was showing that it was on AT&T Wireless as the carrier. As I came past the airport, it switched over to showing T-Mobile as the carrier. A few seconds later I received a text message from T-Mobile (subject is "905") welcoming me to the USA and telling me to dial home use 011- or "+" and the number. Its nice to see that T-Mobile is looking for non-US phones and letting you know what to do to "call home", but it isn't set to deal with region 1 phones, as to call back to Toronto from Philly on T-Mobile, you definitely wouldn't dial 011 to start the call. Perhaps someone from T-Mobile will see this and tweak their system so it doesn't send this to Canadian phones when roaming in the USA. Chris ------------------------------ From: Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net> Subject: Re: Why is VOIP Getting Hot Now? Organization: ATCC Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 18:39:41 -0400 In article <telecom24.439.7@telecom-digest.org>, jbradshaw777@yahoo.com says: > Hi, > I am looking for some insight on this VOIP thing. Why is it, seems to > me, getting hot now? This thing has been around for many years (I > remember using Internet Telephony application almost a decade ago), > why is it getting hot now? why does it take so long for it to get some > tracking? Is there anything different now that makes it more > appealing than a decade ago? Because those of us who are VoIP evangelists finally got the message out. I've made a half dozen referrals to Vonage in my office and that's in the last couple of months. When people are paying $45 for basic local loop and find out I'm paying $27 (That includes the damned tax!) and getting unlimited local/ld, plus CLID, three way, call-waiting and voice mail they tend to start looking at Verizon as a bad company. Granted, Verizon is a bad company and I'll do anything I can to drive the last nail into their tariff ridden coffin. In article <telecom24.441.11@telecom-digest.org>, JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com says: > On 27 Sep 2005 10:53:32 -0700, John <jbradshaw777@yahoo.com> wrote: >> I am looking for some insight on this VOIP thing. Why is it, seems to >> me, getting hot now? This thing has been around for many years (I >> remember using Internet Telephony application almost a decade ago), >> why is it getting hot now? > Likely because the technology has improved enough that people are > using it on a regular basis. >> why does it take so long for it to get some >> tracking? Is there anything different now that makes it more >> appealing than a decade ago? > Sure. It works better than it did a decade ago. Also, it's popular > now because of the perceived value as compared to pricing for regular > wireline service. In my case it was $88 a month to Verizon vs. $27 a month to Vonage. Big difference. It's the only thing that hasn't inflated in the last year or two. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Oakland Calif Conversion From 6 to 7 Digit Dialing? Date: 28 Sep 2005 13:25:48 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor noted in reply on this topic: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Chicago was 3L-4N throughout the 1930's > and 1940's, (that is, from the start of automated calling through the > final cutover of same.) The original third letter (as in ALBany and > ROGers Park) became the first number in the new 2L-5N system, (which > is to say ALBany became ALbany-2, KEDzie became KEdzie-3 and ROGers > Park became ROgers Park-4. When Philadelphia converted from 3L to 2L-N, the third dial pull was definitely NOT the third letter in almost all cases. That is, WAVerly (928) became WAverly 4 (924) and WAverly 7 (927), WALnut (925) became WAlnut 2 (922), BARing (227) became BAring 2 (222), BALdwin (225) became BALdwin 9 (229). In other words, in effect almost everyone got a new phone number. I suspect they did that intentionally to make the change clear. I forgot the year Philadelphia changed, but it was very close to or even within WW II. At that time the Bell System absorbed the competing Keystone Telephone company (which served only business customers with flat rate service and some outlying towns) and had to create more lines from them. In 1943, Philadelphia cut over to the first #4 Crossbar for toll switching. I'm surprised this happened during the war, but perhaps it happened because of the war and the need for faster switching and efficiency. Someday I'll have to search newspapers if there's any mention. There is no index of those years and it requires a manual search through the microfilm. The above 3L to 2L merited only a very brief newspaper mention the day after and nothing the day before, to my surprise. (To show how priorities changed, the introduction of new el cars in 1960 was full front page major news, with numerous side bar articles. Suppliers of car components had ads in the paper. In contrast, a 1982 replacement of subway cars had far less coverage, still front page, but much smaller and no sidebars. New buses get no coverage today but in 1954 got a full page ad by the transit company.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In Chicago, the third 'L' nearly always became the first 'N' _except_ in a few cases from pre-dialing days when there was a conflict. Then, some other first 'N' was chosen. As certain exchanges filled up with customers but geography dictated retaining the same name (such was the case with GRAceland-2 and a few years later GRaceland-7; Graceland Cemetery on the north side of town is a major place; quite a historical spot.) But generally they very cleverly worked around those problems, as with MIChigan-2 and MIDway-3 and MItchell-6. (MIChigan is both the lake and the street downtown while MIDway Plaisance is the main thoroughfare criss-crossing the University of Chicago. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net> Subject: Re: Stealing Your ID Can be as Easy as ABC Organization: ATCC Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 18:35:40 -0400 In article <telecom24.437.2@telecom-digest.org>, monty@roscom.com says: > By Joe Light, Globe Correspondent > Self-proclaimed identity thieves have a message for you: personal > information is frighteningly easy to get. > Tammy Martin, a 37-year-old instructor at the University of Hawaii, > couldn't believe it. > "This is wild," she said. "You can't live your life in a balloon, > you know? But this is just wild." > Her shock was warranted. I had just called her on an unlisted > cellphone number and informed her that I had her Social Security > number, Visa card number, bank account and personal identification > numbers, and eBay account name and password. > If I chose, not only could I drain her bank account and rack up > charges on the Visa, but with her Social Security number, I could > probably open new credit cards -- maybe even a mortgage -- long before > she discovered a problem. Ultimately, she would likely not be > responsible for the charges, but it might take days -- or months -- to > rectify her credit. > Martin was not a victim of identity theft. But the information was in > the hands of a self-proclaimed identity thief. I received the > information during an interview with someone who goes by the online > nickname Bart Maza. He said he is an 18-year-old high school dropout > in Russia. In total, he gave me the data of 17 people. > I'd written several articles about identity theft for the Globe, but > this was the first time I attempted to directly contact an apparent > identity thief. Although I had spoken to many law enforcement > officials, private security investigators, victims, and consumer > advocates about the issue, I decided to go to the source to truly > understand how the identity theft supply chain operates -- from the > time that the data are stolen to the time that information is used > fraudulently. > http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/09/25/stealing_your_id_can_be_as_easy_as_abc/ What this means is all the data held by the credit bureaus is bunk. They can't even tell if identity theft has happened or not until it's far too late. Of course as I've said before, banks are notoriously insecure. But they spend an awful lot of money making sure you or I never see news that they have serious flaws in our banking and financial systems. Best option is to just use real cash for everything. Of course it makes it inconvenient to buy online, etc. Oh, and never, ever, write a check. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 2005 04:13:00 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> Subject: Re: How Come www Has Number as in http://www31.website.com? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA In article <telecom24.441.14@telecom-digest.org> you write: > How come I saw some web site has some number after www, how can they do > that? > i.e. http://www31.website.com, http://www52.website.com It's just a name, which can be anything the site owner wants. The www prefix is a convention but there's no technical requirement that a site have www in its name. When you see sites named wwwNN, that invariably means that they have a bunch of web servers sharing the load, and when you first visit the site as www.example.com, it redirects you to one of the numbered servers picked either at random, or picking one with a relatively low load. R's, John ------------------------------ 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. 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