From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Mar 12 14:42:06 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i2CJg6L14265; Fri, 12 Mar 2004 14:42:06 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 14:42:06 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200403121942.i2CJg6L14265@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V23 #118 TELECOM Digest Fri, 12 Mar 2004 14:42:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 118 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Googling Up Passwords (Monty Solomon) Anti-Spam Lawsuit Complaints (Monty Solomon) Quantum Crypto Reaches 150 km (Monty Solomon) Howard Stern's Schwing Voters (Monty Solomon) Re: EchoStar Ergen Calls Viacom Deal 'Good Enough' (Barry Margolin) Re: EchoStar May Lose More After Removing Viacom's CBS (Tom Betz) Re: EchoStar May Lose More After Removing Viacom's CBS (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: Seen on a Manhole Cover (Fred Goldstein) Re: One Cell Phone / Two Numbers? (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Spam and the Law was Re: The Price of Email (jmeissen@aracnet.com) Re: SCO's Tapestry of Lies (Corrected URL) (William Warren) Fax Tone at 3 AM. to a Residence (Gary Kelley) Verizon Gets Offers on Upstate NY Properties (John R Levine) Thanks for the Norvergence Red Flags! (A Nunimuss) 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 is 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 00:45:13 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Googling Up Passwords Google is in many ways the most useful tool available to the bad guys, and the most dangerous Web site on the Internet for many, many thousands of individuals and organizations. By Scott Granneman Mar 09 2004 12:58PM PT In my last column, I provided a checklist for Windows users that would help them secure their computers. I created that checklist because it has become increasingly and painfully obvious to me that most home users -- and most small businesses and organizations -- have substandard security practices in place, if they have any at all. The checklist was designed to help secure things on the perimeters: on client computers and at the edges of home and business networks. This week, I want to talk about servers. Specifically, let's talk about the stuff that people are serving without realizing it. Security pros have known about this problem for years, but most computers users still have no idea that they may be revealing far more to the world than they would want. In fact, it wouldn't be far from the truth to say that Google is in many ways the most useful tool available to the bad guys, and the most dangerous Web site on the Internet for many, many thousands of individuals and organizations. http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/224 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 09:35:30 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Anti-Spam Lawsuit Complaints Spam Litigation http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/documents/index.html#spam * Complaint and Exhibits (America Online, Inc. v. John Does 1-40) (March 9, 2004) http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/cyberlaw/aoldoes30904cmp.pdf * Complaint and Exhibits (America Online, Inc. v. Davis Wolfgang Hawke, et al. (March 9, 2004) http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/cyberlaw/aolhawke30904cmp.pdf * Complaint (Earthlink, Inc. v. John Does 1-25, et al. (March 9, 2004) http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/cyberlaw/elnkdoes30904cmp.pdf * Complaint (Microsoft Corp. v. JDO Media, Inc., et al. (March 9, 2004) http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/cyberlaw/msjdo30904cmp.pdf * Complaint (Microsoft Corp. v. John Does 1-50 d/b/a Super Viagra Group) (March 9, 2004) http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/cyberlaw/mssprviag30904cmp.pdf * Complaint (Yahoo!, Inc. v. Eric Head, et al. (March 9, 2004) http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/cyberlaw/yahoohead30904cmp.pdf ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 11:46:06 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Quantum Crypto Reaches 150 km A single photon is sent over a 150 km optical link beating the previous transmission record by 50 km. Scientists at NEC in Japan claim to have smashed the transmission distance record for quantum cryptography. The team says it successfully sent a single photon over a 150-km-long optical fiber link. This significantly extends the previous record of 100 km, which was announced in June 2003. Quantum cryptography uses a stream of single photons to transfer a secret key between a transmitter and a receiver. Each transmitted bit of the cryptographic key is encoded upon a single photon. Any attempt to intercept the key changes the quantum state of the photons, which reveals the presence of a hacker. http://optics.org/articles/news/10/3/11/1 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 02:03:10 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Howard Stern's schwing voters The raunchy jockey is mobilizing his army of listeners against Bush -- and they could make a difference in November. By Eric Boehlert March 12, 2004 | Declaring a "radio jihad" against President Bush, syndicated morning man Howard Stern and his burgeoning crusade to drive Republicans from the White House is shaping up as a colossal media headache for the GOP, and one they never saw coming. The pioneering shock jock, "the man who launched the raunch," as the Los Angeles Times once put, has emerged almost overnight as the most influential Bush critic in all of American broadcasting, as he rails against the president hour after hour, day after day to a weekly audience of 8 million listeners. Never before has a Republican president come under such withering attack from a radio talk show host with the influence and national reach Stern has. http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/12/stern/ ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: EchoStar Ergen Calls Viacom Deal 'Good Enough' Organization: Looking for work Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 01:35:39 -0500 In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Charlie Ergen, chief executive of EchoStar > Communications Inc. (DISH), acknowledged that the contract with Viacom > Inc. ( VIAB) isn't as good as he had wanted but it is "good enough." > Speaking on a conference call Thursday, Ergen said he believed the > final contract is "fair and balanced." This may have resolved the conflict between EchoStar and Viacom, but now he's likely to be sued for trademark infringement by Fox News Channel. :) Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA ------------------------------ From: Tom Betz Subject: Re: EchoStar May Lose More After Removing Viacom's CBS Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 13:45:07 +0000 (UTC) Organization: XOme Quoth Steven J Sobol in news:telecom23.116.6@telecom- digest.org: > First, Jerry Springer is syndicated. > Second, yes, he's the former mayor of Cincinnati, and he's running for > one of the Ohio seats in the US Senate. > He makes me feel embarrassed to be an Ohio native, and I hope he > doesn't get elected. Have you ever heard him give a political speech? You might be surprised about the guy if you did. I know I was. He's not just the putz he seems to be on his show. charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection." - W.S. ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 09:38:51 EST Subject: Re: EchoStar May Lose More After Removing Viacom's CBS In a message dated Wed, 10 Mar 2004 21:45:50 -0800 Mark Crispin writes: > Cable and broadcast channel numbers correspond on 2-13. Higher numbers > are different on cable than broadcast, and are not necessarily in > ascending frequency (for example, 98 and 99 are VHF channels). Analog > cable goes up to something like 125. Digital cable has its own channel > assignments. Another point is that cable and broacast channel assignments may not be the same. In Oklahoma City, Cox Cable has broadcast channel 4, KFOR the NBC outlet, on channel 3. Channel 5, KOCO-TV the ABC outlet, is on cable channel 8. Channel 9, KWTV the CBS outlet, is on cable channel 10. Channel 13, the PBS affiliate, is on cable channel 14. I live in a suburb, and all the auburbs used to be served by Multimedia Cablevision, which had the broadcast stations on the same channels as broadcast. When Multimedia sold out to Cox (which already had everything in the city limits of Oklahoma City, a slightly smaller number of subscribers than the suburban customers served by Multimedia), Cox intentionally moved all the broadcast stations to off-channel assignments on cable. Their justification was that it was easier to prevent leakage of the broadcast signal into the cable system on the same channel causing ghosting and degraded picture. Multimedia seemed to have been able to deal with this adequately, if not always perfectly. But Cox, while they have a theoretical point, isn't perfect either. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 10:21:55 -0500 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: Seen on a Manhole Cover At 10 Mar 2004 20:31:40 -0800, chsvideo@hotmail.com (Lincoln J. King-Cliby) said, > Hoping someone could explain what was going on here for my own > curiosity -- My university's campus is about 14 years old, and is in > an area that AFAIK is 100% SBC (Pac Bell) serviced. > The campus provides its own telephone service off of an Intecom (EADS > Telecom North America) PointSpan mega-PBX (45000 port capacity), fed > by what appears to be a Pac Bell DMS-100 large remote (That's what DSL > Reports tells me thats serving 760-750 -- we have the entire NPA-NXX, > and its at the same address as the university). Long background short > - I don't think any ILECs are anywhere _near_ the campus. > And by the way, what exactly is a "DMS 100 large remote," anyways? The LERG entries, which DSL Reports seems consistent with, are a bit strange. It shows 760-750 as an RSC ("remote switching center", the "large remote"), a remote node off of the San Marcos DMS-100 switch (which also has a lot of Vista prefix codes on it). An RSC can serve a few thousand lines, depending on load. It's run by the host switch's processor, with backhaul trunks to the host, but has its own internal switching matrix (and "emergency standalone" capabilities). It's theoretically possible to put a few trunks onto an RSC, but normally the trunks (to other switches) are all at the host. But if the entire prefix belongs to the university PBX, then the RSC entry wouldn't make sense. PBX trunks are delivered from a host, not an RSC; the purpose of an RSC is to deliver analog (well, and ISDN BRI) lines. Large PBX systems have digital trunks, which are attached to trunk ports on a DMS, and trunk ports are normally at the host. So the PointSpan would be wired to the DMS host, not the remote. On the other hand, if there are a few thousand PacBell lines on campus, or at some point were (e.g., a Centrex, even if used primarily for some random ISDN lines), then the remote would serve them. > ...What gives -- why to we have a GTE manhole out there? Most likely, the campus just happened to be on a backbone route to GTE's territories, which are scattered all over southern California, including the valley north of San Marcos, in western Riverside County. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 15:24:15 GMT From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Re: One Cell Phone / Two Numbers? Organization: Excelsior Computer Services > I'm going to have to start carrying a cell phone for my work. I > really want to avoid carrying two cell phones around with me all the > time. To the best of my knowledge, even though many phones can switch back and forth between two numbers conveniently, there are no phones that will actually answer to two numbers at a time. If you really need two numbers, I would recommend getting a virtual number and forwarding it to your cell. Then your cell will answer to both the cell phone number and the virtual number. If you need to know which line people called before you answer, get a GSM phone (T-mobile or AT&T, but I think TM is better), which will let you know if your number was dialed directly or indirectly. My GSM Ericsson T38, e.g., shows me "forwarded" right on the screen when I forward to my home phone to my cell and someone calls my home number. Some phones may even support different ring tones for forwarded and non-forwarded calls. -Joel ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: Spam and the Law was Re: The Price of Email is Constant Date: 12 Mar 2004 17:25:07 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article , wrote: > In article , > wrote: >> An extremely simple and easy to implement approach is for major >> ISP's to block ALL outbound traffic to port 25 (SMTP). Force all >> customers on their networks to relay outbound mail through the >> ISP's mail server. > I agree with this but only if they ISP makes provisions for a customer > to be allowed to run his own mail server. Blocking outbound SMTP traffic doesn't have to affect running mail servers. That's all inbound port 25 traffic. All the standard mail server software can be configured to relay outbound traffic through another server. It might be an issue if you try to host mailing lists, as the high volume of email would raise some flags. But if you're doing that I would hope you're not connecting through AOL, Comcast and their ilk anyway. John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com ------------------------------ From: William Warren Subject: Re: SCO's Tapestry of Lies (Corrected URL) Organization: Comcast Online Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 12:30:47 GMT Daeron wrote in message news:telecom23.116.16@telecom-digest.org: > SCO's Tapestry of Lies > Bruce Perens Mar 11 2004 > SCO management had a problem. Their quarterly financial report was > going to show only twenty thousand dollars in income for their SCO > Source licensing program. And so, in an announcement timed to distract > people from the bad financial report, SCO announced two new lawsuits > and license purchases from Computer Associates, Leggett and Platt, and > EV1 Servers. > Computer Associates' CEO was quick to blast SCO, pointing out that CA > had settled a breach-of-contract suit unrelated to Linux with Canopy > Group - SCO's main investor - and one of its other companies, Center7 > [..] > On the same day that CA blasted SCO, Open Source evangelist Eric > Raymond revealed a leaked email from SCO's strategic consultant Mike > Anderer to their management. The email details how, surprise surprise, > Microsoft has arranged virtually all of SCO's financing, hiding behind > intermediaries like Baystar Capital .. > [..] > From a finanical standpoint, Canopy Group has already won. Because > it's not a public company like SCO, we can't see all that's going on > there. However, we know that they have swapped some of their other > holdings, including a company called "Vultus", for SCO stock. And of > course they've multiplied the value of their existing SCO stock as > much as forty times over the past year. > I've no doubt that much of this stock has already been converted to > cash. The leaked email forecasts SCO's exit from this business in the > near future. When they exit, Yarro and Canopy will walk away with tens > of millions. http://east.perens.com/SCO/March2004.html ------------------------------ From: Gary Kelley Subject: Fax Tone at 3 a.m. to a Residence Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 07:46:11 -0500 Please remove this number from your dialing system, it is a residence and not a fax machine. The caller id number is 646-539-9007 and I traced it back to Telecom and I'm hoping you could help me with this. 954-433-3573 Thanks, Gary [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Gary, its not *this* Telecom (Digest) you wrote to. I would suggest as an emergency measure you get your local telco involved, by having Call Rejection/Call Blocking (whatever they refer to as *60 there) installed on your line. See if you cannot restrict that number, 646-539-9007 to stop it from reaching you. You should not have to pay for your privacy and well-being even though your local telco may insist there is nothing they can do. They may even decide they cannot block that number since it is out of their immediate network. The above suggestion is just a way for you and your family to get immediate relief temporarily. I feel certain *someone* or *some company* has a misprogrammed fax machine and in their blissful ignorance they are not even aware of the hassles it is causing you. Now as the second step is it possible for you to borrow or rent a fax machine temporarily to install on your line? Let the errant fax machine talk to it and see if you can get any clues, such as the name of the bank, or lawyer or other miscreant trying to get through. If you can get enough clues (such as a voice phone number, company name or the ID of the fax machine itself (note, NOT the caller ID as presented on your display -- most fax machines have a strip on the top of the fax itself with useful information)), then give us here at TELECOM Digest the details you found out and I am sure some of the guys here will be glad to work on it further for you. There was a time, many years ago, when I would have said turn the whole matter over to your local telco's annoynance/nuisance call bureau and ask them to cure it, but there are no longer any really legitimate telcos who care about their subscribers any longer, so some self-help will be needed. Someone here the other day identified 646-539. Its out of New York City, but what telco, tell me again. We can also go that route (through the proprietors of that c.o.) as needed. I am curious about something: if it is true, as is claimed, that 'Ignorance is Bliss' which bunch of droids is the happiest and most contented, Verizon or Southwestern Bell? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 12 Mar 2004 08:50:26 -0500 From: John R Levine Subject: Verizon Gets Offers on Upstate NY Properties http://www.thedeal.com/NASApp/cs/CS?pagename=NYT&c=TDDArticle&cid=1078867378369 They've gotten interest from a bunch of private equity companies. "For sale are thousands of traditional copper telephone lines in upstate New York, which serve several cities including Albany, Buffalo and Troy. The sale does not appear to include back office systems, said one source, which would suggest that a private equity buyer would need an operating company to fold the lines into." It mentioned that some of the interested parties are also looking at Citizens, which is the next largest telco in NY and would be an obvious merger possibility. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner "I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly. ------------------------------ From: A Nunimuss Subject: Thanks For the Norvergence Red Flags! Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 14:23:22 -0000 Organization: Sumco I was contacted by a Norvergence rep a few weeks ago. After determining our telecommunications expenditures fit their targeted client profile, they tried to set up an appointment. I had no problem talking to them. Could I sign financial documents on the company's behalf, they asked. I'm not an idiot. I know the opening to a high-pressure sales tactic when I hear one. If you're using high-pressure sales tactics, I immediately assume you are running a scam. Even though I can, I said no. Could a decision maker also be present, they asked. I asked them why they were running a high-pressure sales tactic if they were selling a legitimate product. They said they don't use high-pressure sales tactics, but that they are so busy due to demand that they like the decision makers to be in the room in order to save themselves a trip back. I told them we'd need time to review the documents and the company in any case, and if they weren't interested in giving us the time to reach a proper decision, they could forget coming out. They'd call me back, they said. A few weeks later, I received another call from Norvergence, likely another rep. I had viewed their website by that time and they seemed legitimate, so I scheduled an appointment, even though I was less than impressed with the "sign-on-the-spot" tactic they seemed to be insinuating they'd use. Could I sign financial documents on the company's behalf, they asked. Yes, I said, having no intention of doing so on the spot. With an appointment scheduled, I did more research on Norvergence, finding the threads in here and the review on the TAA website. I called them back and cancelled the appointment because "based on my research of the company, I didn't think they'd be a 'fit' for us." Thanks to all for posting their opinions here and identifying the risks involved with doing business with this company. I should have gone with my instincts. GP [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are quite welcome, on behalf of most of the readers here. One (of several) of my ojectives here at the Digest, at least in recent years, has been to help educate the general public, especially those who use/manage/administer telephone systems, and the job, it seems, never gets done completely. Two things coming up: I have a copy of the disclaimer letter which Nortel sent out to several of their customers and prospective cust- omers about their (Nortel's) relationship (or rather, lack of good relationship) with Norvergence and it has to be sent by FTP to the archives from my personal email. I will try to get that file here with FTP Friday afternoon so you can all read it, or copy it as desired. (I had to learn the hard way *never* to tell anyone the secret backdoor via email into the Archives; now I deal with that problem by continually erasing large amounts of spam which get lodged in there each day.) Because general email to the Digest is limited in size as to what will be accepted by the mailer here at MIT (deliberatly, as a spam fighting tool) this exhibit of Nortel's disclaimer on Norvergence could not be send by email here; it had to come via my personal email. Anyway, watch for it later today. For next: I think we are going to have a new participant here starting in the next week, a gentleman from Tulsa at the university there who maintains the teaching program on telecom. The University will be a sponsor with its announcements and class schedules, etc. A fellow by the name of Charles Gray. Watch for that to happen soon also. For last, this time around, letters and gifts from *nice readers* are always welcome. Send gifts via Paypal, using the template on our home page at http://telecom-digest.org or snailmail c/o Townson, Post Office Box 50, Independence, KS 67301-0050, with my thanks in advance. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications 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! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. If you donate at least fifty dollars per year we will send you our two-CD set of the entire Telecom Archives; this is every word published in this Digest since our beginning in 1981. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V23 #118 ******************************