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The Telecom Digest for Sun, 29 Aug 2021
Volume 40 : Issue 241 : "text" format

table of contents
Miami Man Pleads Guilty in Lucrative Fraud Scheme involving Cell Phones
UK to Hang Up on Landline Phones in 2025
FCC seeks $5M fine for robocalls telling Black people that voting helps "the man"
Here's How I Tracked Down the People Selling My Data, Then Stopped Them

Message-ID: <20210828180328.CA75379B@telecom2018.csail.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 18:03:28 +0000 (UTC) From: Moderator <telecomdigestsubmissions@remove-this.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Miami Man Pleads Guilty in Lucrative Fraud Scheme involving Cell Phones PITTSBURGH - A resident of Miami, Florida, pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of conspiring to commit wire fraud and money laundering, Acting United States Attorney Stephen R. Kaufman announced today. Samuel T. Johnson pleaded guilty to two counts before United States District Judge W. Scott Hardy. https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdpa/pr/miami-man-pleads-guilty-lucrative-fraud-scheme-involving-cell-phones
Message-ID: <B12A7B3D-0B89-405B-BB10-12984B3726F8@roscom.com> Date: 25 Aug 2021 22:14:46 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: UK to Hang Up on Landline Phones in 2025 The traditional landline phone will be consigned to the rubbish bin by 2025, at least as far as telephone companies in the United Kingdom are concerned. The move comes as the telecommunications industry wants to no longer have to maintain the cooper wires and switching gear required for landline phones and also wants to be able to offer more robust Internet services. Telecommunication companies in Britain have told customers that they won't need to get new phones or change their number, and that the changes will largely take place behind the scenes. They did however say that people might need to plug their phone into their Internet router to keep using it and basic Internet service would be required for the phone to work. http://www.frequentbusinesstraveler.com/2021/08/uk-to-hang-up-on-landline-phones-in-2025/
Message-ID: <6A2F30FC-FD38-46DE-B10B-17B910C1FA99@roscom.com> Date: 26 Aug 2021 10:14:29 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: FCC seeks $5M fine for robocalls telling Black people that voting helps "the man" Robocalls claimed mail-in voting is used to track down warrants, collect unpaid debt. By Jon Brodkin The Federal Communications Commission yesterday proposed a $5.1 million fine against two right-wing political operatives accused of making over 1,100 illegal robocalls. The calls were an attempt to convince people not to vote. The recorded messages sent before the November 2020 election "told potential voters that if they voted by mail, their 'personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts,'" the FCC said. Those messages were apparently targeted at Black voters and told them, "don't be finessed into giving your private information to the man." https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/fcc-seeks-5m-fine-for-robocalls-telling-black-people-that-voting-helps-the-man/
Message-ID: <7EC20F1F-249E-44CD-82C7-9FBE301CD87D@roscom.com> Date: 28 Aug 2021 01:22:37 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Here's How I Tracked Down the People Selling My Data, Then Stopped Them By Shubham Agarwal Keeping your data private online often feels like walking through a minefield. One wrong step and BOOM! -- heaps of your personal information are suddenly in the wrong hands. For this reason, most of us go the extra mile to ensure our data doesn't get compromised. We dial up privacy settings to the max, block web trackers, and maybe even browse in incognito mode. But I hate to break it to you: You've likely blown up all of that minefield a while ago. The harsh truth is that there's a good chance that shady "data brokers" are already trading your identity for pennies on the web, even if you've been super-careful online in the past, like me. I consider myself more privacy-minded than most, but despite all my years of treading softly on the web and locking down my data beneath layers of authentication, I recently discovered that many of my personal details were being collected and traded. https://www.digitaltrends.com/features/how-to-stop-data-brokers/

End of telecom Digest Sun, 29 Aug 2021

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