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The Telecom Digest for Tue, 24 May 2022
Volume 41 : Issue 94 : "text" format

table of contents
Re: Meet the parents who refuse to give their kids smartphones
The UK's PSTN network will switch off in 2025
Re: "War upon end-to-end encryption:" EU want Big Tech to scan private messages

Message-ID: <t69m40$lpe$1@dont-email.me> Date: 20 May 2022 23:25:56 -0400 From: "Michael Trew" <michael.trew@att.net> Subject: Re: Meet the parents who refuse to give their kids smartphones On 5/13/2022 9:06, Monty Solomon wrote: > Meet the parents who refuse to give their kids smartphones > > The vast majority of teens and tweens today have smartphones. These > parents said no. > > For Adriana Stacey, it's very simple. > > "I'll never buy a smartphone for any of my children," she says. > > It's a personal stance born of professional experiences. Stacey is a > psychiatrist who works primarily with high school and college students > in Fayetteville, Ark., and in her practice she routinely asks new > patients to swipe open their phones and show her how much screen time > they're clocking per day. > > "I rarely find one that's under nine hours," she says. "So, these > teenagers are spending more time on their phone than they are > sleeping." > > https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/05/09/parents-kids-smartphones/ This is teetering on the edge of "telecom" conversation, but my 7 year old daughter's doctor is _very_ against smart phones and tablets for children. She is adamant that all of this screen time is exacerbating attention deficit issues in children, and causing focus issues in school. Of course, my daughter doesn't have a phone, but we've reduced her screen-time (if it were only up to me, she would have never had the tablet in the first place).
Message-ID: <20220521151342.DA86476D@telecom2018.csail.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 21 May 2022 15:13:42 +0000 (UTC) From: Bill Horne <malQRMassimilation@gmail.com> Subject: The UK's PSTN network will switch off in 2025 What's happening? We're moving all our customers from the old analogue public switched telephone network (PSTN) to a fully digital network. We've already started. We plan to have moved everyone over before Openreach stop the PSTN (and ISDN) service in 2025. By then, every phone line in the UK will be digital, routing calls over IP (Internet Protocol) rather than the traditional PSTN. When you say 'everyone...'? Yes, we mean everyone. Business and home. And it's not just your phone services you need to think about. It's everything else that currently uses the old phone network, all your non-voice services connected to PSTN or ISDN lines. Things like alarms, EPOS machines, door entry systems, CCTV, and faxes. Sounds a bit drastic. Why are you doing it? PSTN has been the backbone of the UK's phone network for decades. But we've all seen the dramatic changes in technology over the past few years, especially recently. It's all around us: smartphones, apps, the cloud, Zoom, Internet of Things, and so on. What you probably don't notice so much is the infrastructure that makes everything work. The telephone lines strung across the streets, the web of copper cables buried beneath your feet, some of which have been down there since the 19th century. It's now time to leap forward from PSTN to embrace the boundless possibilities of digital. https://business.bt.com/insights/digital-transformation/uk-pstn-switch-off/ -- (Please remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ***** Moderator's Note ***** I learned what "Planned Obsolescence" means back in college. It took until this moment to realize that the planning included me. Bill Horne Moderator
Message-ID: <t69n6g$r5h$1@dont-email.me> Date: 20 May 2022 23:44:21 -0400 From: "Michael Trew" <michael.trew@att.net> Subject: Re: "War upon end-to-end encryption:" EU want Big Tech to scan private messages On 5/12/2022 0:38, Monty Solomon wrote: > A European Commission proposal could force tech companies to scan > private messages for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and evidence > of grooming, even when those messages are supposed to be protected by > end-to-end encryption. > > ***** Moderator's Note ***** > > Whatever technical means the EU might /think/ are necessary, they > would be, even if implemented, bypassed by the porn freaks with little > trouble. > > Long story short, neither the EU nor any ISP can block traffic in > pornography, no matter how hard they pretend to try. All they managed to do by attempting to block pornography via Usenet years ago was dismantling and drastically reducing the relevance of Usenet in whole, saving many ISP's a buck in the mean time.

End of telecom Digest Tue, 24 May 2022

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