TELECOM Digest     Thu, 20 Oct 2005 23:12:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 477

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Voice Calls Will be Completely Free in a Few Years (Reuters News Wire)
    Dutch Say Suspects Hacked 1.5 M Computers (Toby Sterling)
    Cisco to Pump $1.1B Into India (USTelecom dailyLead)
    Re: TV Show - Legacy Phone in Scene (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com)
    Re: Recorded Weather Forecast for New York City? (Scott Norwood)
    Re: On Having Telco as a Housemate (was Question Easement) (J Kelly)
    Re: On Having Telco as a Housemate (was Question Easement) (Tony P.)
    Re: Giant Conspiracy or Just Rotten Luck (Tony P.)
    Re: My First SMS Spam (Tony P.)

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
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               ===========================

Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be
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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: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Voice Calls Will be Completely Free in a Few Years
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 16:07:42 -0500


In a few short years, users can expect to make telephone calls for
free, with no per-minute charges, as part of a package of services
through which carriers make money on advertising or transaction fees,
eBay's chief executive said on Wednesday.

Seeking to justify eBay's $4 billion purchase last week of Web-based
communications phenomenon Skype Technologies, Meg Whitman countered
criticism by a financial analyst during the company's quarterly
conference call by agreeing with some of his points.

"The percentage of users that you can actually charge for (phone
services) will actually go down, so I actually agree with that and we
understood that when we looked at Skype," Whitman said in responding
to the analyst's question.

"In the end, the price that anyone can provide for voice transmission
on the 'Net will trend toward zero," eBay's top executive said.

The company is betting that by combining electronic markets, online
payment systems and Web-based communications, eBay can emerge as a
leader in all three businesses.

Skype, which allows free Web-based calls between members, ended
September with more than 57 million registered users. EBay said it
expects Skype to produce estimated revenues of $60 million in 2005,
and more than $200 million in 2006.

Whitman said Skype's explosive success, would -- over the next several
years -- drive the cost of phone calls to nothing.

The chairman and chief executive of the world's largest online auction
site said the transition to completely free voice communications will
not happen in the next year or two, but that could happen in the next
three to six years.

"Our belief is that the winner in this space will be those that have
the largest ecosystem," Whitman said.

"What I mean by that is: the largest number of registered users, the
largest number of voice minutes, the largest number of developers who
develop the platform, the best product ... that users are willing and
want to pay for."

EBay said it had 168.1 registered users for its online auctions as of
the end of September. It had 68.0 million active users who signed on
to bid or sell in its electronic marketplace over the past 12
months. It had 86.6 million current accounts on its PayPal payment
service, it 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: Toby Sterling <ap@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Dutch Say Suspects Hacked 1.5 M Computers
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 16:08:07 -0500


By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer

Three suspects in a Dutch crime ring hacked 1.5 million computers
worldwide, setting up a "zombie network" that secretly stole credit
card and other personal data, prosecutors said Thursday.

The three, who were arrested Oct. 6 and originally were estimated to
have hacked 100,000 computers, have yet to enter a plea.

A court in the town of Breda extended the custody of the 19-year-old
main suspect and a 22-year-old accomplice for a month Thursday, and
ordered the release of the third, aged 27, pending trial, prosecution
spokesman Wim de Bruin said. The suspects' names have not been
released.

Prosecutors said, however, more arrests were likely as the investigation
continues.

The two still being held are accused of blackmailing a U.S. company by
threatening it with a "denial of service" attack, in which thousands
of computers that have been infected are used to bombard a target with
e-mail. De Bruin said the company did not want its identity known.

The software the hackers used, a variation of the worm known as
"W32.Toxbot," was first detected this year. Antivirus software can
remove it, but the hackers adjusted the program constantly to defeat
protections.

The existence of the "zombie network" of infected computers was first
detected by Dutch Internet provider XS4ALL. The company noticed
unusual activity coming from a handful of its users' infected
computers, said the company's chief technical officer, Simon Hania.

The company traced the network as far as it could, and then turned the
matter over to prosecutors.

De Bruin said prosecutors worked with computer crime experts to trace
the network to its source and then installed taps on the suspects'
computers. The taps showed the suspects manipulating the zombie
network to steal passwords and credit card data, De Bruin said.

They also are accused of stealing PayPal and EBay Inc. account
information to order goods without paying for them, he
said. Authorities have seized computers, a bank account, an
undisclosed amount of cash and a sports car in the investigation.

About 30,000 of the infected computers were in the Netherlands. When
investigators dismantled the global network, they found more than 15
times the number of infected computers they originally estimated.

XS4ALL's Hania said that although the zombie network may be the
largest of its kind whose controllers were busted, it was only a "drop
in the ocean."

"It almost destroyed the Internet," he lamented.

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 of interest from Associated Press please go
to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html

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

Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 12:57:50 EDT
From: USTelecom dailyLead <ustelecom@dailylead.com>
Subject: Cisco to Pump $1.1B into India


USTelecom dailyLead
October 20, 2005
http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/wzyAatagCutIipfumy

		TODAY'S HEADLINES
	
NEWS OF THE DAY
* Cisco to pump $1.1B into India
BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH
* EBay chief: Phone calls to be free within six years
* Motorola sues Nortel's new CEO
* Comcast CEO says future is VOD
* Nokia, SBC, Juniper, EarthLink report earnings
USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT
* USTelecom Calls for Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Video Competition
* Register this week for TELECOM '05 and save!
TECHNOLOGY TRENDS
* Lucent announces all-in-one MSAP
* Intel develops system for hybrid networks
REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE
* Cable tells Congress: Adelphia deal won't hurt competition

Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others.
http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/wzyAatagCutIipfumy

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: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: TV Show - Legacy Phone in Scene
Date: 20 Oct 2005 11:47:07 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com


Joe Morris wrote:

> Question: for postpay systems, what mechanism was used to respond to
> the insertion of coins to turn on the transmitter?  Was it merely the
> detection of a coin falling through the mechanism tripping a relay
> (presumably reset when the instrument goes on-hook), or was there
> involvement by the CO (and wouldn't this be necessary if it was
> possible to make long-distance calls from the phone)?

It was a very simple relay set by a change in polarity.

When you dropped in the coins (2 nickels or a dime, the phone held one
nickel until it got a second one) the passing coin(s) pushed on a
lever that turned on the line to the transmitter.  The only
involvement of the CO was a polarity switch from the CO that operated
a relay that turned off the transmitter, thus resetting the line.
This meant that both the pay phone and CO gear was much simpler and
cheaper.

All long distance calls (short and long haul) were handled by the
operator.  You wouldn't deposit money until the desired party answered.

The more conventional pay phone had a holding area above the coin box
and return slot.  That meant CO equipment had to track supervision
(answer or no answer) and keep or return coins accordingly when the
caller hung up.  I believe the keep/return signal to the pay phone was
a 100 volt signal and either polarity or ground indicated where the
coins were to go.

As an aside, in the 1970s they had fully _manual_ (no dial) payphones
in Poconos (Penna) resorts.  This made sense since most calls from a
resort guest would be long distance and the area didn't have TSP/TSPS,
so an operator would be required to complete the call anyway.

(Mountain Bell used computers to augment toll and assistance cord boards
in the 1970s, a common Bell System practice to stretch old equipment's
usefulness and efficiency.  While the operator still worked cords to
connect and disconnect the call, the computer likely handled timing
and ticketing automatically and the operator could likely dial almost
all calls directly using a modern keypad.)

> "Airplane!" was a send-up of the film version of the late Arthur
> Hailey's 1968 book "Airport", which was made into a film by Universal
> two years later.  Google shows it as available on both VHS and DVD.

While "Airplane" was intended to be a spoof of the Airport series of
movie dramas, it was based on Hailey's scripts of "Flight into Danger"
of 1956 and "Zero Hour" of 1957 (See IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053827/, as an aside, James Doohan
"Scotty" was in it; see also http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051221/).

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

From: snorwood@redballoon.net (Scott Norwood)
Subject: Re: Recorded Weather Forecast for New York City?
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 19:14:23 UTC
Organization: Society for World Domination
Reply-To: snorwood@redballoon.net


In article <telecom24.468.8@telecom-digest.org>, George Mitchell
<george@m5p.com> wrote:

> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>> There used to be a recorded weather forecast for New York at
>> 212-976-1212.  Westchester County had 914-976-1212.

> Most of the northeast except Connecticut used 936 for the weather, not
> 976, as I remember (though my memory is not what it was).  976 first
> came into use in the late 1970s for phone sex -- excuse me, value-added
> information services.

True.

In Boston, at least, the Weather has been 617-936-xxxx (where xxxx can
be replaced wth any four digits) since at least the mid-1980s (and
probably much earlier) through the present.  The Time number here is
617-637-xxxx (can be reached as 617-NERVOUS).

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

From: J Kelly <jkelly@*newsguy.com>
Subject: Re: On Having Telco as a Housemate (was Question Easement)
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 16:00:02 -0500
Organization: http://newsguy.com
Reply-To: jkelly@*newsguy.com


On 20 Oct 2005 07:38:23 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> Most people don't read their deed or properly reserach the original
> title of the property their buying or of the surrounding area.  Most
> deed convenants are very tightly binding and very difficult to
> overturn.  An exception was convenants that limited subsequent sale to
> certain ethnicities; they have been voided by law.

> As to the issue of conveying clear title, this is true, and certainly
> the woman could sue the former owner if it turned out IBT in fact had
> an easement that wasn't disclosed in the title.  HOWEVER, there's two
> old expressions in real estate: "you can't sue bricks" and "you can
> sue me if you can find me".  In other words, any questions should be
> resolved before the property is purchased, not after because it's
> damned hard too.

**

> The critical issue in real estate is to get everything in writing and
> keep the papers permanently.  If you're buying a property, make sure
> the seller or agent answers all your questions in writing before you
> sign for it.

Use an attorney.  Always.  I've only bought real estate twice, once
with and once without a real estate agent, but both times I had my
attorney do a title opinion and part of the original offer to purchase
the property had a clause that offer was contingent upon a clear title
and acceptable title opinion from my attorney.  I would never purchase
property of any kind without having my attorney do a title opinion and
review all the documentation relating to the sale first.  Some people
claim that is what the agents are for, but their only concern is their
commision, they could care less about the buyer and seller.

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

From: Tony P. <kd1s.nospam@nospam.cox.nosapm.net>
Subject: Re: On Having Telco as a Housemate (was Question Easement)
Organization: Ace Tomato and Cement Co.
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 17:32:08 -0400


In article <telecom24.475.11@telecom-digest.org>, jmcharry@comcast.net 
says:

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As I suspected would happen, one of
> our readers did some homework and came up with this article which
> first appeared here in February, 1989 and was later repeated in 
> November, 1991.  PAT]

>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone remember the story in the
>> Digest several years ago where an answering service switchboard had
>> been located for several years in a private home -- If I could find
>> the story somewhere I would re-run it here.  PAT]

> Google is Your Friend:

>  TELECOM Moderator  	  Nov 12 1991, 8:30 am     
>  Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
>  From: tele...@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator)
>  Date: 12 Nov 91 06:45:34 GMT
>  Local: Tues, Nov 12 1991 2:45 am
>  Subject: On Having Telco as a Housemate (was Question Easement)

> Here is the story I promised earlier which originally appeared in
> TELECOM Digest on Sunday, February 26, 1989 along with a few replies
> which appeared in the week following.

> PAT

>                     ------------------

>  Date:     Sun, 26 Feb 89 1:04:38 CST
>  From:     TELECOM Moderator <tele...@eecs.nwu.edu>
>  Subject:  On Having Telco As a 'Housemate'

> I will sub-title this report 'The Case of the Box Which Won't Be
> Removed'. The location is Lockport, Illinois; a suburban community
> thirty miles or so southwest of Chicago. It is served by Illinois
> Bell; or should I say the lady I will tell you about serves IBT. One
> way or the other -- anyway --

> Wanting to get out of the city, the lady bought a house in Lockport.
> It is an older place, but very well maintained over the years. One
> room would make a great den, but there was one problem that had to be
> taken care of first.  In one corner of the room sat a box, about five
> feet high and four feet square.  There were about 500 wires running in
> and out of it, all eventually finding their way through a hole in the
> wall. On the outside of the house at that point, the wires ran a short
> distance, then went down into the ground in a metal conduit like
> thing.

> Curious about it, she asked the realtor what it might be for, and was
> told that a former occupant of the house had operated an answering
> service there.  The room she was planning for her den had been the
> switchboard area for the answering service years before.

> The lady called up Illinois Bell to see about having it removed. IBT
> agreed to do so for the mere sum of $2,400. *And they agreed the box
> was dead*. The lady protested; saying that $2,400 seemed a lot of
> money to yank out the old box, especially since nothing was going in
> its place provided by the phone company.

> After asking around, she found an independent workman willing to
> remove the box for $300, and was about to tell him to go ahead with
> the work when two people from Bell stopped by to see her, to warn that
> if any lines were broken or damaged, she would have to pay $70 for the
> repair of each. She said she thought $70 was rather outrageous for the
> repair of useless, dead lines, but the guys from Bell said in fact the
> lines were alive. They did agree to reduce their price and remove the
> box for 'only $1800', and completely indemnify her against damages or
> disruption of service which might occur in the process.

> Her independent workman took another look and confirmed what Bell had
> said: The box was in fact alive, and nearly 500 working pairs were
> terminated inside.  Together they went back to Bell, and got the price
> for removal of the box negotiated down to only $1200.

> The lady said she had no intention of paying *anything* to take it
> out. And really, can you blame her? Finally with no place else to
> turn, she went to see the house's former owner; the fellow who had run
> the answering service.  He said he thought Illinois Bell had been
> granted an easement to have the box there.

> And now the matter becomes even more mysterious. The lady went to the
> village hall and spoke to Lockport officials herself; and yes, they
> said, Illinois Bell *does* have an easement to that room in your
> house. They were unable, however, to show her a signed document from
> the previous owner giving easement rights to Bell. Tbe former owner
> insists he never signed anything; he claims they put the box in when
> he started the answering service back in the middle 1950's; and he
> claims he can't remember ever giving Bell permanent squatting rights
> there.

> After continued negotiations, IBT still insists it needs $1200 to
> remove its equipment and give up its easement rights. In the meantime,
> the lady won't budge, and she is living there with a Pandora's Box
> filled with legal ramifications for a 'roomate'. The search goes on
> for an official record of the easement with someone's signature on it.
> I suspect if and when it is found it will be the signature of the
> former owner. The contractor hired by the woman has identified a dozen
> businesses and several dozen residences in the vicinity which show up
> on terminals in the box.

> I think eventually if an easement record cannot be located, IBT will
> have to bite the dust and relocate the whole thing at thier expense.
> The woman has said if the easement *is* found, and it contains the
> signature of the former owner, she will sue him if necessary to make
> him pay for the removal.

> In the meantime if something goes wrong and Bell has to visit the box?
> Well, let's hope the woman isn't asleep, in the bathroom or otherwise
> 'indisposed' when her 'roomates' visitors show up!

> Patrick Townson

>  Subject: Re: Telco As a 'Housemate'
>  Date: Mon, 27 Feb 89 12:40:48 -0500
>  From: Joel B Levin <l...@bbn.com>

> If I were that lady, and IBT came to the door because they needed
> access to work on one of the lines that came to that box, I would give
> it to them -- as soon as they showed me the document granting telco
> the easement.  Not before.

> Another tack--

> Is there some way a noisy electrical device (an old refrigerator or
> something) next to the box might cause noticeable noise on the lines?
> That also might provide some impetus for them to move the box (or
> really make it dead).  After all, they can't tell her what she can or
> can't have in some corner of her den.

A nice spark gap transmitter would do wonders for the phone lines. 

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

From: Tony P. <kd1s.nospam@nospam.cox.nosapm.net>
Subject: Re: Giant Conspiracy or Just Rotten Luck?
Organization: Ace Tomato and Cement Co.
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 17:41:48 -0400


In article <telecom24.475.9@telecom-digest.org>, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com 
says:

> William Warren wrote:

>> I suggest you take these steps, and ignore any demand that you deal
>> with only one person and/or agency:

> [snipped]

> I know it's a lot of work, but Mr. Warren's advice is excellent.

> Another poster wrote:
 
>> I wonder if there's a forgotten bridge tap off your pair somewhere.

> Many years ago this happened to us, except it was our calls being
> billed to someone else.  (We reported it to cover our butts).  A few
> months later they discovered the error.  The billed party, a business
> customer, had been screaming about the calls, but the phone co at
> first refused to do anything since they claimed it could've been any
> employee.  Finally they did a physical check in the CO and found the
> wiring error.

> In thinking about it, I wonder if the business customer got billed for
> our message units as well.  We had message rate service though we were
> pretty careful to stay within the monthly allotment.  (Flash forward
> to today -- we went to flat rate service, then Metropolitan Area flat
> rate, and now have national unlimited.)

Oh it gets better than that. Firmly into the DMS-100 era I had moved
back into the capitol city and informed then Nynex of the move. Got my
new number assigned and the line was installed, I signed for it and my
service was working.

Well -- a month goes by and no bill. Hmmm. Another month goes by and 
still no bill. This went on for a year. All through that year I'd call 
Nynex and tell them my phone number and they'd say there was no record 
of it. 

Finally after a year of trying they accepted my word for it and set it
up as an account. I paid them something like $150 or so for the
service and all was said and done.

But then I wasn't getting billed for my long distance calls. 

About 6 months later I found out why. At the time I had 401-273-0716
and the local VA hospital had and still has 401-273-7016. A
transposition of two digits was billing all my long distance calls to
the VA hospital.

I found out because a friend in New Jersey knew of my phone phreak
ways and called and asked how I'd managed to hack in to the VA's phone
system. At that point I'd moved and got a new number so that ended
that.

Nynex still used paper records that were sent from plant to
billing. My paperwork mysteriously got lost. Imagine.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This same thing happened once to me 
also, in 1975-76. I was living in an apartment hotel on the near north
side of Chicago. Although the building (like many such places in those
times) has a switchboard serving tenant apartments, many tenants also
had their own private telephones, as did I. My _private_ phone was put
in about a month after I moved into the building, but Illinois Bell
never did get around to sending me a bill. Not for about a year. When
I finally realized what was going on, I took a couple steps to _insure_
the status would not change: The line was set up as 'unlimited call
pack' meaning there would never be any charges for extra units. I did
not _ever_ make any long distance calls on that line, so there would 
never be any 'coin-rated' calls, or reason for any tickets to get
written up to later 'fall out' in billing when the account could not
be found anywhere. That worked fine, and got me by for several months;
I suppose most of a year. 

Then one day, some $#%%#$ phreak had the audacity to give _my_ number
for billing on some fraud credit card he was using. Sure enough,
before long the charges came though the system to the accounting
department; when no account could be found (because plant had never
submitted a copy of the order to accounting after they turned me on),
the charge fell out, and went into the suspense ledger, sat there for
a month or two until some overworked telco investigator who spent all
of her days tracking down charges like this got around to working on
the one charge which was 'mine'. Assuming there is no folio, or
ledger for the number (which usually means no such number) the
investigator tried a different approach, _actually dialing the number._
Instead of getting the usual tones and the 'number not in service'
message which she expected, in this case the number actually rang, 
(although no answer because I was not at home), and therefore the
number _was_ in service. She called plant and asked when the paperwork
would come through, not expecting to be told it had gone through (but
apparently gotten lost or not actually submitted) a _year prior_. Well!

Investigator promptly writes up a bill for me for service for the
past year, plus the usual month in advance, plus the requested
security deposit. I get it in the mail a couple days later along with
the long distance charge the phreak had charged to my bill. I called
my service rep, tried to act indignant, etc and asked my rep to please
write off all these charges on account of you never billed me to start
with. Miss Prissy (my favorite rep, who I always seemed to get) said
to me no deal ... "because, Mr. Townson, you _knew_ what was happening. 
You knew that was a mistake you hoped we would not find." She finally
agreed "I will let you have two or three months to raise the money and
pay the bill; there are many reps here who would place you in
collection immediatly, but yeah, it was partly our fault (although you
could have told us sooner and not let us find it on our own), so I
will give you two or three months to clear it all up. Oh, and I will
remove the security deposit requirement; you've had the phone for
about a year now; I'll also write off the long distance charge which 
was put on your bill by the phreak."  I was ill in a position to 
argue with her that much, or act too indignant. PAT]

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

From: Tony P. <kd1s.nospam@nospam.cox.nosapm.net>
Subject: Re: My First SMS Spam
Organization: Ace Tomato and Cement Co.
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 17:44:09 -0400


In article <telecom24.476.5@telecom-digest.org>, me@mark.atwood.name 
says:

> Tony P. <kd1s.nospam@nospam.cox.nosapm.net> writes:

>> When the woman answered the call I told her I didn't appreciate spam
>> on my cell phone when it was on my dime. She asks if I'd like to be
>> added to the do-not-call list and reads back my number and then
>> pauses. She asks if I'm calling from the AG's office to which I reply
>> that I was.  Click.

> You should have told us what the company and the 800 number was.
 
> Mark Atwood             When you do things right, people won't be sure
> me@mark.atwood.name     you've done anything at all.
> http://mark.atwood.name/   http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus
> 
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I quite agree, Mark. When Tony lodged
> this complaint, he really should have included _full details_ regards
> the name -and any toll free numbers available- for the company so that
> our panel of experts could have looked into it more fully.  PAT]

From: (U just Won)

You just WON a Cruise to the Bahamas

Call 800-732-2952 Ext 981

4:49PM 10/18/05

Have fun!

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


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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
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The MSTM degree draws on the expertise of the OSU's College
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Please contact Jay Boyington for additional information at
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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #477
******************************