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TELECOM Digest Sun, 11 Dec 2005 15:05:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 558 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Court Rules Against Mother in Downloading Suit (Ted Bridis) CNN Pours Into Broadband Pipeline (Paul Grough) Sprint Showing Full Length Movies (Robert McMillan) Privacy implications of Microsoft's Windows Live Local (Monty Solomon) Can This Man Reprogram Microsoft? (Monty Solomon) Re: One in Four Netters Get Phony E-Mails (DevilsPGD) Re: One in Four Netters Get Phony E-Mails (Steven Lichter) Re: FTC Do Not Call List (Mark Crispin) Re: FTC Do Not Call List (Lena) 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: Ted Bridis <ap@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Court Rules Against Mother in Downloading Suit Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 23:18:48 -0600 By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer A federal appeals court late Friday upheld the music industry's $22,500 judgment against a Chicago mother caught illegally distributing songs over the Internet. The court rejected her defense that she was innocently sampling music to find songs she might buy later and compared her downloading and distributing the songs to shoplifting. The decision against Cecilia Gonzalez, 29, represents one of the earliest appeals court victories by the music industry in copyright lawsuits it has filed against thousands of computer users. The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago threw out Gonzalez's arguments that her Internet activities were permitted under U.S. copyright laws. Gonzalez had rejected a proposed settlement from music companies of about $3,500. A federal judge later filed a summary judgment against her and ordered her to pay $750 for each of 30 songs she was accused of illegally distributing over the Internet. Gonzalez, a mother of five, contended she had downloaded songs to determine what she liked enough to buy at retail. She said she and her husband regularly buy music CDs and own more than 250. However, the appeals panel said Gonzalez never deleted songs off her computer she decided not to buy, and judges said she could have been liable for more than 1,000 songs found on her computer. "A copy downloaded, played, and retained on one's hard drive for future use is a direct substitute for a purchased copy," the judges wrote. They said her defense that she downloaded fewer songs than many other computer users "is no more relevant than a thief's contention that he shoplifted only 30 compact discs, planning to listen to them at home and pay later." Gonzalez could not be reached for comment. Her lawyer, Geoff Baker, said comparing Gonzalez to a shoplifter was "inflammatory" but declined to comment further until he had more time to review the decision, which was released late in the day. Gonzalez was named in the first wave of civil lawsuits filed by record companies and their trade organization, the Recording Industry Association of America, in September 2003. "The law here is quite clear," said Jonathan Lamy, a senior vice president for the Washington-based RIAA. "Our goal with all these anti-piracy efforts is to protect the ability of the music industry to invest in the bands of tomorrow and give legal online services a chance to flourish." 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. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or) http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html ------------------------------ From: Paul J. Gough <reuters@telecom-digest.org> Subject: CNN Pours Into Broadband Pipeline Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 23:21:22 -0600 By Paul J. Gough CNN has finally joined the broadband big leagues, lifting the veil on an extreme makeover of its Web site that has been in the works for more than a year. The long-awaited premium broadband service, dubbed Pipeline, went live December 5 and already has signed up a number of subscribers in its initial week, though CNN executives decline to cite specifics. The killer app for Pipeline is four live video streams, which offer mostly unedited looks at news events throughout the world. These streams -- or "pipes" -- can be played in a special video player and chosen by Pipeline's editors in Atlanta. On Thursday night, Pipeline offered video streams from CNN International, a memorial service for slain Beatle John Lennon in Central Park, the House of Representatives and a traffic cam on a snowy Chicago night. That last pipe turned out to be prescient an hour later when news broke out from Chicago's Midway Airport when a Southwest Airlines jet slid off a runway. The third stream became video live from the scene at WFLD-TV. A day earlier, when a passenger was shot and killed by federal agents at the Miami airport, Pipeline offered several live camera angles of the scene. "When the plane shooting happened, we had three different affiliates' coverage. We had multiple angles on the story; you could select the one you wanted," said David Payne, senior vp CNN News Services and general manager of CNN.com. "I think even more intriguing, as that was happening, there was a bank robbery in Oregon and a rescue in Georgia." All were represented on the streams. NEWSROOM'S-EYE-VIEW Payne thinks this is the promise of Pipeline. He said the mostly anchorless live streams show what the news is. The live coverage of the plane shooting allowed viewers to see the same feeds that the network control rooms were viewing at the same time. "As the story was unfolding for the plane shooting, and it became clear that that was under control, all these other events were happening," Payne said. "That really shows the power. On linear television, you're so limited in what you can do and what you can show. We have four times the capability." Live coverage isn't the only hallmark of CNN Pipeline. The video player offers users the ability to see the top stories in video, get other news on demand and even browse CNN's vast archives. But the one thing you won't see: whole programs. Payne doesn't think that's a good thing, despite what others in the news industry are doing on their Web sites. "We think that showing shows, creating specific programing, is not the right approach. Consumers are pretty loud and clear about that to us," Payne said. "Our goal is to let the news take you to wherever it goes and we're going to go along with it. I don't anticipate creating shows or linear programing." Payne doesn't think the $2.95 a month -- or $24.95 a year -- price tag is a deal-killer, despite the evidence that consumers are generally still resistant to paying for premium content on the Web. "There's no question in my mind that there's a $2.95 value that can be created of an entire month that would enable somebody or cause somebody to this," Payne said. "I can't even find an analogy to spending 9 cents a day." More innovations are coming, predicts Payne, that will go far beyond the mostly TV-centric news Web sites. "We can do so much more than a set-top box or rabbit ears on a TV," Payne said. "Once you think about your computer as a set-top box, with all the capability it has and all the advancements it has, I think in the future what we see on our converging scenes is something that we can't even dream of." Reuters/Hollywood Reporter 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. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or) http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html ------------------------------ From: Robert McMillan <reuters@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Sprint Offering Full-Length Movie Downloads Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 23:16:53 -0600 By Robert MacMillan Using a mobile phone to buy movie tickets and check showtimes is one thing, but Sprint offers the whole movie. Sprint Nextel Corp. is expected to announce on Monday that it has begun selling a service which allows users of its mobile video phones to watch full-length movies, television shows, concerts and comedy specials. Provided by vendor MSpot, the service offers unlimited shows and movies for a monthly flat fee of $6.95, on top of regular service charges. The announcement comes as Sprint and other wireless phone services are looking to video content like TV programs, music and sports to boost revenue. They also are spending billions of dollars building up their networks for mobile video and speedy Internet service so they can grow revenue despite cheaper calling plans and a shrinking pool of first-time wireless phone subscribers. The initial lineup includes films that are far from anyone's first-run list. Among them are "One-Eyed Jacks," the Marlon Brando-Karl Malden Western, as well as "Angel and the Badman" with John Wayne. Other titles include "Night of the Living Dead" and the most recent -- "Short Circuit" from 1986. "This is what we could get rights to quickly," said Dale Knoop, Sprint's general manager for multimedia services. He said the company and MSpot are in negotiations for more current content, but declined to say which studios are involved. Sprint plans to debut seven new films a week. Knoop also declined to say how many people have watched the films. One question facing Sprint and the wireless industry is whether handheld-device users want to watch a feature-length film on a 2-inch or 3-inch screen. Sprint found that many people have a shorter attention span when it comes to mobile phone video, a Sprint spokeswoman said. Allowing for that, the service lets viewers watch movies in segments, similar to a DVD. Apple Computer Inc. also is exploring longer video content. The company earlier this week said it would offer iPod downloads of full-length NBC-owned television shows, including recent ones such as "The Office" and "Law & Order," as well as older shows like "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "Knight Rider." It also offers replays of ABC programs "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost." The NBC and ABC shows cost $1.99 each. 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. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or) http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 22:29:20 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Privacy Implications of Microsoft's Windows Live Local by David Pescovitz Mike Liebhold, my colleague at the Institute for the Future, is deep into the geohacking scene. He just took a look at Microsoft's new Virtual Earth incarnation, Windows Live Local and found some big privacy concerns. Below is the entirety of Mike's post to the Geowanking listserv: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/12/09/privacy_implications.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 23:33:03 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Can This Man Reprogram Microsoft? By STEVE LOHR Redmond, Wash. THINK back to Round 1 of the Internet, when things really got rolling in 1995. The computing landscape was shifting, and a cool, fast-growing young company symbolized the new order: Netscape. At the time, Microsoft looked to be a lumbering old war horse, trapped in the yesteryear of desktop personal computer software, word processors, spreadsheets and operating systems. It seemed, in other words, so 1980's. But, of course, Microsoft emerged a winner. It embraced the Internet and vanquished the Netscape threat with hard work, ingenuity and strong-arm tactics that a federal court ruled violated the nation's antitrust laws. Microsoft's shares soared to a record high at the end of 1999. The Internet, Round 2, is now under way. Again, the computing terrain is changing remarkably, helped along by free software like Linux and the spread of high-speed Internet access. Today, all kinds of computing experiences can be delivered as services over the Internet, often free and supported by advertising. Clever Internet software can now turn flat, view-and-read Web pages into snappy services that look and respond to a user's keystrokes much like the big software applications that reside on a PC hard drive. New companies are even sprouting up to offer Web-based word processors and spreadsheets, products long regarded as mature - and long dominated by Microsoft's desktop programs. Champions of the Internet services model range from I.B.M. to start-ups. But the totemic company in this next big evolutionary step in computing is Google, the Internet search power whose ambitions appear to be growing as fast as its profits. And Microsoft? It once more finds itself surrounded by doubt and dismissed as a laggard. Some of its own senior engineers have defected to Google and elsewhere, and its stock price has barely budged in three years, despite solid earnings growth, because others appear to be winning the race for the future. The familiar pattern of a decade ago begs the question that Bill Gates was asked when he met last month with a group of executives and journalists from The New York Times: Will you do to Google what you did to Netscape? Mr. Gates, the Microsoft co-founder and chairman, paused, looked down at his folded hands and smiled broadly, as if enjoying a private joke. "Nah," he replied, "we'll do something different." The man whom Mr. Gates is counting on to make a difference is Ray Ozzie, a soft-spoken 50-year-old who joined the company just eight months ago. He has the daunting task of galvanizing the troops to address the Internet services challenge, shaking things up and quickening the corporate pulse. The forces arrayed against Microsoft, analysts say, may well prove more formidable than ever. "The problem Microsoft faces today is that there is a totally different model emerging for how software is created, distributed, used and paid for," said George F. Colony, the chairman of Forrester Research, a technology consultant. "That's why it's going to be so difficult for Microsoft this time." Yet there are optimists. Big industry shifts, they say, create opportunity. Inevitably, they note, Internet computing erodes Microsoft's power to set technology standards, but the company can still benefit as the overall market expands. That's what happened in the 1990's. They say that if Microsoft shrewdly devises, for example, online versions of its Office products, supported by advertising or subscription fees, it may be a big winner in Internet Round 2. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/business/yourmoney/11micro.html?ex=1291957200&en=d6cd667b8d963552&ei=5090 ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD <spam_narf_spam@crazyhat.net> Subject: Re: One in Four Netters Get Phony E-Mails Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 21:16:13 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message <telecom24.557.9@telecom-digest.org> kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote: > Jennifer C. Kerr <ap@telecom-digest.org> wrote: >> About one in four Internet users is hit with e-mail scams every month >> that try to lure sensitive personal information from unsuspecting >> consumers, a study says. > Who did this study? > Pretty much all of my users get at least a couple dozen a day. Some > of them get a couple dozen an hour. > Where can I go where only a quarter of the users get them a month? Unplug your server from the internet and the phishes dry up :) ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter <shlichter@diespammers.com> Reply-To: Die@spammers.com Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. (c) 2005 A Rot in Hell Co. Subject: Re: One in Four Netters Get Phony E-Mails Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 04:26:33 GMT Barry Margolin wrote: > In article <telecom24.556.2@telecom-digest.org>, Jennifer C. Kerr > <ap@telecom-digest.org> wrote: >> About one in four Internet users is hit with e-mail scams every month >> that try to lure sensitive personal information from unsuspecting >> consumers, a study says. > Only one in four? I figure almost all netters get spam, and at least > 75% would get phishing spam. > Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu > Arlington, MA > *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** Shoot, every day I get at least 6 telling me they want to buy stuff freom my store, I won a lottery; they I did not remember entering or that my Ebay, PayPal, or other account is being violated. Funny I don't use the e-mail account for any of them. It all started with just one post here before I got my e-mail client to crunch my address, before that never got one. The Nigerians are going to have to do a better job of killing off the scammers, now they are moving to Romania and Russia. The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: All you get each day is only six? I get six each day from people doing bogus PayPal entries, and a couple dozen more from people impersonating various other banks. Over all, I get 30-40 phish attempts daily, an additional 20-30 viruses, and at least 150-200 'regular' spams (many of which fall directly into my spam file, but not all of them.) All the above is just my account here at massis.lcs.mit.edu on behalf of telecom. A good thing about a text- based account (like here at massis) is that those html-based items (spam, scam and phish) stand out like a sore thumb; their size is so large (even a very short spam can easily take 50-75 K) as opposed to a legitimate text-based email (usually 3-5 K) that you can spot them almost immediatly without reading anything other than maybe one line or so. Now, with my personal Cableone.net account although the ratio of virus/spam/scam is about the same as Telecom mail (85-90 percent junk), at least cableone.net screens it out before showing it all to me. What they percieve to be unwanted junk, they put in various folders for me so that one click gets rid of it all even though it is all html-based. What is amazing about some phishers and other con-artists there are the ones who go to so much trouble to actually 'invent' an entire bank (not just divert the front page in order to capture your data before then turning you over to the real bank). These guys make up an entire bogus bank to convince victims that the (bogus) bank is holding some sum of money for them as 'next of kin' or associate of the 'bank officer' who wants to transfer a huge amount of money to you, etc, as long as you first part with your life savings to them. But Steve, I guess we should not complain, since after all, we live in the United States under the governorship of ICANN and Vint Cerf, and as one of the readers here would say (a real First Amendment nut if ever one existed) we dasn't dictate how others 'run their sites' or the contents therein. And as another old fool reading this message would proclaim, it is wrong to return such mail to the _LEGITIMATE_ and _BONAFIDE_ senders of same, since doing so might be construed as a Denial of Service for them and cause us to get sued or imprisoned for causing _them_ grief for doing that. I don't know about you, Steve, but I am about ready to pack a lunch and a clean pair of underwear and report to the nearest prison. That probably is where I belong, as an enemy of ICANN, and all the 'good and decent' things the net has become under their governorship, taking all my complaints with me. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin <MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU> Subject: Re: FTC Do Not Call List Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 22:00:56 -0800 Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing On Sat, 10 Dec 2005, Fred Atkinson wrote: > Not just those who can't remember a four digit code, but how about > those who never got your code? I tried to call an old friend the > other night whom I hadn't spoken to in years. He's got that feature > installed and I have no idea what his code is. So, I didn't get to > talk to an old buddy I hadn't been in contact with in a very long > time. And there's no way to leave him a message letting him know I > called. I sympathize. But does he have the "*" emergency break-through enabled? If so, then you can break through the lock; you just have to state your name and see if he takes the call. If not, then he's chosen to lock out people who don't have the code; and you'll have to use email or buy a postage stamp. Not long ago, I heard from two old friends from 30 years ago. One wrote a letter, the other sent email. After that long a period of time, it's probably better to use written contact rather than suddenly barging in with a phone call. You don't know how someone's life has changed in the past several decades, much less whether a phone call would be a burden or even unwelcome. Note that in a true emergency, you can ask the phone company to make an emergency contact with someone and pass along a message. They pass along "so-and-so is dying, call such-and-such number immediately" type messages to estranged family members all the time. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. Si vis pacem, para bellum. ------------------------------ From: Lena <lenagainster@gmail.com> Subject: Re: FTC Do Not Call List Date: 11 Dec 2005 06:25:15 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Fred Atkinson wrote: > Lena wrote: >> I think an amendment to the Telemarketing Laws is in order, to >> prohibit any telemarketer, calling on behalf of any charity or >> political organization, from calling any number more than once a year. > They've done one better than that. They've passed a law allowing you > to have your number listed as a number that telemarketers are not > allowed to call. And when they do call, you can report it to the FTC. Fred, I've done that; added my name to the "Do Not Call" register. The telemarketers that call are part of the exemptions in the law that allows political and charitable organizations to call, even those on the "Do Not Call" list (as well as those businsses who have done business with the person being called). These are the ones I would like to see limited to one call per year. Lena [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But Lena, when you limit those people to 'one call per year', wouldn't that be like saying spammers and scammers and phishermen should be limited to one spam, scam or phish per year? Are you trying to dictate what people can talk about on their phone? 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! 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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 #558 ****************************** | |