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The Telecom Digest
Monday, May 29, 2023

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Copyright © 2023 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.
Volume 42 Table of Contents Issue 149
Re: Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars
Telephone And Texting Compliance News: Federal Trade Commission Takes On Overseas Robocallers
Google pushes .zip and .mov domains onto the Internet, and the Internet pushes back
Message-ID: <u4ts14$16ni$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu> Date: 27 May 2023 21:17:25 -0000 From: "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org> Subject: Re: Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars In article <b9f59bd7860a49c59b93fcf54cc0f2ca@mishmash.com>, Fred Atkinson <fatkinson@mishmash.com> wrote: >> Garrett Wollmann <wollman@bimajority.org> wrote: >>> Fred Atkinson <fatkinson@mishmash.com> wrote: >>> You are splitting hairs here in a semantics issue. > >>> Suppose the cellular infrastructure is down due to an attack on our >>> nation. > >>> Think you are going to get those alerts then? > >> Such an attack would also take out the broadcast infrastructure, >> which is a lot more physically concentrated and easier to disrupt. > > Maybe, or maybe not. > > No doubt some of the stations would [go] down. > > But maybe not all of them. > > They are not entirely dependent upon network programming. You might be surprised how many radio stations, after conditioned analog lines and ISDN ceased to be available for new installs from ILECs, came to depend on the Internet for their studio-transmitter links, especially now when it's audio-over-IP all the way from the mixing console to the transmitter. Many radio transmitter sites have just a commodity Internet connection that feeds their remote control and the transmitter: no Internet = station off the air. More profitable stations, especially those that haven't moved around a lot, may have an analog microwave path for backup, or even an optical wide-area network, but this costs a lot more money and is hard for many engineering managers to justify to barely-profitable companies constantly seeking to cut costs. The "primary entry point" stations, of which there are currently 77, have received substantial capital investment from FEMA to support the survivability of their transmitter sites. These stations monitor a FEMA radio system for presidential emergency messages, but most people do not listen to them, and would depend on other stations receiving and relaying emergency alerts. Each of these stations has an emergency studio that would allow station personnel to go on the air -- if they could get to the transmitter site -- as well as a diesel generator with a multi-day fuel supply. -GAWollman --
Garrett A. Wollman | “Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can, wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together.” my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)
Message-ID: <20230518172852.GA319465@telecomdigest.us> Date: 18 May 2023 13:28:52 -0400 From: "The Telecom Digest" <digest-replies@telecomdigest.net> Subject: Telephone And Texting Compliance News: Federal Trade Commission Takes On Overseas Robocallers by Russell H. Fox and Jonathan P. Garvin The Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") announced that it is increasing its efforts to stop illegal robocalls that originate overseas from reaching Americans' phones. On April 11, 2023, the FTC said that it would be implementing "Project Point of No Entry" ("Project PoNE"), which targets Voice over Internet Protocol ("VoIP") service providers that serve as "point of entry" or gateway providers. Under Project PoNE, the FTC plans to: "1) identif[y] point of entry VoIP service providers that are routing or transmitting illegal call traffic, 2) demand they stop doing so and warn [that] their conduct may violate the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and 3) monitor them to pursue recalcitrant providers, including by opening law enforcement investigations and filing lawsuits when appropriate." https://www.mondaq.com/article/news/1314512?q=1803232&n=789&tp=10&tlk=26&lk=95
Message-ID: <CDD90F38-0702-484E-AED8-F5688F7E39AC@roscom.com> Date: 18 May 2023 20:23:33 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Google pushes .zip and .mov domains onto the Internet, and the Internet pushes back Google pushes .zip and .mov domains onto the Internet, and the Internet pushes back https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/05/critics-say-googles-new-zip-and-mov-domains-will-be-a-boon-to-scammers/ Many security practitioners are warning that these two TLDs will cause confusion when they’re displayed in emails, on social media, and elsewhere. The reason is that many sites and software automatically convert strings like "arstechnica.com" or "mastodon.social" into a URL that, when clicked, leads a user to the corresponding domain. The worry is that emails and social media posts that refer to a file such as setup.zip or vacation.mov will automatically turn them into clickable links–and that scammers will seize on the ambiguity.
End of The Telecom Digest for Mon, 29 May, 2023
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