From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Apr 12 17:14:59 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i3CLExv01710; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 17:14:59 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 17:14:59 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200404122114.i3CLExv01710@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 #181 TELECOM Digest Mon, 12 Apr 2004 17:15:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 181 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Janet Jackson on 'SNL,' Back in a Pixelated Flash (Monty Solomon) Intel Unveils Next Generation Processor (Monty Solomon) Google's Gmail and Your Privacy - What's the Deal? (Monty Solomon) Google's GMail Highlights General Privacy Concerns (Monty Solomon) DISH Network Launches New Interactive TV Programs (Monty Solomon) Re: Spam Issues (Barry Margolin) Re: Spam Issues (SELLCOM Tech Support) Long Distance: Conversion From 'Delay' to 'Demand' Lines? (Lisa Hancock) Migration Path For UNE-P Companies (John Bartley) Re: Who Needs a Spam Trap Address? (John Levine) Re: Wal-Mart Mix Up Balancing Credit Cards (J Kelly) Re: Philly Area Miliwatt (1004 Hz) Test Number Needed (T. Gerald Dyar) Re: Blackberry Not Receiving Messages - Please Help! (Matt) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 02:17:29 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Janet Jackson on 'SNL,' Back in a Pixelated Flash By Tom Shales Janet Jackson and "Saturday Night Live" gave Congress and the Federal Communications Commission a richly deserved nose-thumbing over the weekend when Jackson guest-hosted the irreverent and influential satire show. In the very first sketch, before the opening credits, Jackson did a bull's-eye impression of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice testifying, as she did last week, before the commission investigating the 9/11 tragedy. Outfitted with prosthetic teeth that helped with the flashing of a coldly faked smile, Jackson as Rice rehearsed for her testimony with a sinister and snakelike Vice President Cheney, played by master impressionist Darrell Hammond. If all else were to fail, Cheney advised, "I think you should flash a boob," a reference to Jackson's notorious gig during halftime of this year's Super Bowl. "Just one headlight, real quickly," the Cheney character went on, as the audience laughed. Jackson-as-Rice rejected the notion, but when testifying -- with Jackson edited into footage of the actual hearing -- she did indeed reveal a breast to the commission, then uttered the iconic cry "Live from New York, it's 'Saturday Night!' " The breast was electronically blurred so America would not have to go through the apparently painful ordeal of once more seeing Jackson's nipple. Actually there was no chance of that anyway; an NBC spokesman took pains to point out yesterday that Jackson was wearing a bra during the scene and therefore not even the studio audience saw any offending epidermis. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4502-2004Apr11.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 02:26:03 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Intel Unveils Next Generation Processor By MATTHEW FORDAHL AP Technology Writer SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- The next generation of Intel Corp. microprocessors for cell phones and handheld computers will, for the first time, include hard-wired security features that can enforce copy protection and help prevent hackers from wreaking havoc on wireless networks. Intel's PXA27x processors, announced Monday at a conference in Taiwan, contain a security "engine" that's on the same piece of silicon but separated from the area where general processing takes place. The engine also has access to secure memory. Today, security tasks such as handling the keys that unscramble data are typically processed like any other task. As a result, it's possible that an errant program can alter, intercept or damage jobs that are supposed to be secure. With Intel's new chips, cell phone makers and carriers can guarantee a greater, hardware-based level of security for customers who use the devices to access corporate networks or need to lock down information. Carriers, for instance, can secure the software that boots up a phone, making it next to impossible for hackers to tweak the device and cause trouble. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=41052266 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 14:50:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Google's Gmail and Your Privacy - What's the Deal? EFFector Vol. 17, No. 12 April 9, 2004 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 284th Issue of EFFector: * Google's Gmail and Your Privacy - What's the Deal? * Comcast Tracks Websurfers, EFF Calls for Wipeout * Courts Reject Record Companies' Bulldozer Litigation Strategy * EFF Seeks Socially Responsible Technical Director * You Can Still Donate Your CD Settlement Check to EFF! * MiniLinks (23): Unfriendly Skies: ACLU to File Suit Over No-Fly Lists * Staff Calendar: 04.13.04 - Fred von Lohmann speaks at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, New York, NY * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/17/12.php ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 14:51:59 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Google's GMail Highlights General Privacy Concerns CDT POLICY POST Volume 10, Number 6, April 12, 2004 A Briefing On Public Policy Issues Affecting Civil Liberties Online from The Center For Democracy and Technology (1) Google's GMail Highlights General Privacy Concerns (2) Background on Web Email and GMail (3) Policy Concerns Associated with Content Searching (4) Policy Concerns Associated with Third-Party Email Storage (5) CDT's Preliminary Recommendations http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_10.06.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 14:46:52 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: DISH Network Launches New Interactive TV Programs DISH Network Launches New Interactive TV Programs: Buzztime's Trivia, Fantasy Cup Auto Racing ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 12, 2004-- DISH Network Leads Pay TV Industry by Delivering Interactive Television to 8 Million TV Households EchoStar Communications Corporation (Nasdaq:DISH) announced today that its DISH Network satellite television service launched two new interactive TV channels, Trivia offered by Buzztime, and Fantasy Cup Auto Racing offered by Silverstar Holdings. DISH Network delivers 22 channels of interactive TV programming to more than 8 million households, elevating DISH Network to the position of the leading worldwide distributor of interactive TV services. DISH Home, located on channel 100, is DISH Network's interactive TV menu and is the gateway to an entire suite of interactive TV programs, including Customer Support, Weather, Games, Sports and Entertainment. DISH Network customers receive interactive TV programs as an added benefit to their programming packages. With DISH Home, customers can pay their bill online, check out their local weather and sports scores, or play DISH Network's newest interactive games like Fantasy Cup Auto Racing or Trivia. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=41055132 ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Spam Issues Organization: Looking for work Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 01:09:02 -0400 In article , jmeissen@aracnet.com wrote: > In article , Barry Margolin > wrote: >> In article , jmeissen@aracnet.com >> wrote: >>> Fortunately, or unfortunately, blackhole sites are nothing more than >>> publishers. >> Isn't this similar to the argument given by people who operate web >> sites that list abortion doctors, when they are included as >> conspirators or accessories when these doctors get murdered? > Hardly. One advocates murdering doctors, the other preventing spam. I > fail to see any similarity at all. What they're advocating is irrelevant -- the similarity is in the fact that they advocate something. They try to absolve themselves of blame by claiming that they're just providing information, and what the readers do with this information is out of their hands. Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well then, Barry, since the Internet is a huge collection of lists and people providing information of one kind or another, then none of us who provide information while claiming what the readers do with the information is not of any concern to us have clean hands do we? All of us -- each and every one of us -- who posts anything on the net is guilty as hell when we try to 'absolve ourselves of blame' aren't we? Why are you singeling out the listing of 'abortion doctors'; because some no-good scoundrels may be encouraged to murder them? People either behave themselves and act decently or they do not. There is *nothing* on the net in 2004 we could not get *from the public library* in 1954 except the collec- tion and compilation of the same information was more unweildy and cumbersome in those days. Shouldn't your real complaint be with the speed and ease with which we can collect and disseminate information these days? Would you agree with the author/lecturer I print here from time to time that in this computer age we are 'informing ourselves to death'? Its about time that I reprint that essay from our archives; give me a day or two to think about it and find it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: Spam Issues Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 18:15:18 GMT TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to jmeissen@aracnet.com by posting on that vast internet thingie: > And when I used to run my 'business directory'-- remember those? -- > chock full of spammers toll free numbers (when spammers were foolish > enough to have those; a few still do), I guess the same thing could > be said about me; my 'express intention' was to encourage people to > abuse the spammers by bankrupting them on their phone bill. Your defense would have been that what you had published was true. But what if you had just put random 800 numbers that just happened to be close to the spammers 800 numbers like the slime at FIVETEN are doing with IP addresses? Of course I don't mean to suggest that you would have done anything like that because you are a responsible person. Taking it a step further, if some clown similar to the FIVETEN crew were to create such an "anti-spam" directory and also list the 800 numbers of innocent businesses how would you feel about that? No one seems to be getting my point that I believe that the irresponsible trash at FIVETEN are doing harm to the legitimate anti-spam community by their deliberate negligence. Steve at SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.com Discount multihandset cordless phones by Siemens, AT&T, Panasonic, Motorola Vtech 5.8Ghz; TMC ET4000 4line Epic phone, OnHoldPlus, Beamer, Watchguard! Brick wall "non MOV" surge protection. Mini-Splitter log splitter! If you sit at a desk www.ergochair.biz you owe it to yourself. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And no one seems to want to believe me when I say that the best friend a spammer could have are the guys who quarrel and fuss about the best way to stop spam. While their egos run rampant fussing over the best way to end it, the spammers pay no attention and ship out another umpty-trillion pieces of it. That hurts their feelings, that I pick on them because they cannot get their act together and stop it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Long Distance: Conversion From 'Delay' to 'Demand' Lines? Date: 12 Apr 2004 10:11:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Through the 1930s, making a far long distance call on the Bell System was serious business. It was very expensive, and required a number of operators to set the call up. It was known as "delay" calling. Years later, the system had enough capacity and automation so that a local operator could quickly place a call without delay. This was known as "demand" calling. I was wondering when the bulk of the Bell System was able to make "demand" calls. (Obviously the whole system didn't switch at once, even into the 1970s some obscure locations were manually reached by old style operator "build up".) Was it ok around 1940? (Obviously the war years don't count due to traffic volume; although how hard was it to make a moderate call on a main route such as Boston to NYC or NYC to Washington? Could your dial 0 operator or basic long distance operator do it quickly)? Initially: They had little long distance line capacity since a wire could only carry a few conversations with the technology available. Repeaters and loading were expensive and tricky. Because of limited capacity, calls were made on a 'delay' basis. That meant a customer requested a call, and was then called back when the call was finally set up. First a line had to be available. Then the connection built up from city to city until the ultimate desired party (directory assistance had to supply the number since most people called by name back then.) Routing had to take into account line characteristics so that echo and problems were kept down-- too many intermediate junction points would degrade transmission. But in the 1930s electronics improved greatly and better transmission and carrier systems were developed. As more experience was gained, the call set up process was streamlined. Around 1940, the Bell System was planning significant automation but WW II intervened. (They did install a #4 crossbar in Phila during the war which helped). After WW II, the Bell System installed #4 crossbar, created uniform numbering for the nation, installed microwave and coaxial cable for high capacity channels; all of which allowed faster calling. [public replies please] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 11:38:23 PDT From: John Bartley or K7AAY@ARRL.NET Subject: Migration Path For UNE-P Companies Good article on how some telco providers now relying on UNE-P are planning for business after the FCC pulls the plug on it. http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=91823 John E. Bartley, III K7AAY telcom admin, PDX - Views mine. celdata cjb net - Handheld Cellular Data FAQ *This post quad-ROT13 encrypted. Reading it violates the DMCA.* ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 2004 05:09:33 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Who Needs a Spam Trap Address? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Well, I would like to volunteer an address I have here at the Digest > (through massis.lcs.mit.edu) -- not my own, but another one I do not > use at all -- as a spam catching/trapping service. It receives at > least a dozen pieces of mail each day which are nothing but spam, I know a few people who collect spam for research and filter tuning, but a dozen a day is an awfully small feed. The biggest one I know gets over a million a day. Mine get about 20,000 a day, peaking on really bad days at about 350,000. > By the way, John, those are all very good pages. Did you write them > all yourself? For a very good tehnical education on spam I recommend > everyone look at http://www.taugh.com PAT] Thanks. I wrote them myself. If you know anyone looking for an e-mail or spam expert for hire, tell them to take a look and drop me a line. Regards, John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY http://www.taugh.com PS: Ta-GANN-ick [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I will do that, John. I was not trying to claim anything special about the sewer/cesspool which clogs up with with all the output from my toilet each day; I just wanted to do my part to help the guys researching it, etc. In fact, I am reminded of a couple researchers working on esoteric things like radio signals from outer space: Anyone who wants to volunteer unused CPU time on their computer can get in touch with these guys who will send them data for their computer to investigate during the time it would otherwise be asleep. You probably know the kind of thing I mean. Well, I was thinking that if there was a 'community spam bucket' where every interested person could ship theirs, then perhaps some massive computer could munch on it all day and give its findings to the guys who know about that stuff and hopefully some day there will be a cure for spam. Is any spam researcher at all interested in this idea? PAT] ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: Wal-Mart Mix Up Balancing Credit Cards Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 08:36:43 -0500 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com On Fri, 9 Apr 2004 10:54:02 -0400 , Charles Cryderman wrote: > I wrote: >> I have tried to use a "debit card" to reserve a hotel room and >> retinal car and was told by both that banks do not permit "debit >> cards" to be used for those purposes. If you don't use a credit card >> they told me I couldn't have the reservations. > Pat, I didn't say anything, after I presented the card number, they > came back and said the card number I gave them was for a "debit card" > and that the banks do not permit "debit cards" to be used for those > purposes. How they knew it was a debit I don't know. I gave them > another number for a real Visa card, got to Acapulco, had my room and > car, and had a blast with the wife with no kids. I guess I am screwed then if I ever need to reserve a room. I don't have a credit card. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well look at my case. My credit of late is so lousy (your's would be also if you had been in a coma in a hospital for three months and gotten brain surgery and a three hundred thousand dollar hospital bill to pay afterward) I have to mostly rely on debit cards, although just recently one of the no-name el-cheapo VISA card issuers with high interest charges and late penalties sent me a VISA card with a *two hundred dollar limit, mind you*. So when I *must* use plastic. i.e. purchase on the internet or mail order thing, I use either my VISA debit card or my VISA credit card (from different suppliers of same), and they work okay to get my groceries every week over at Marvins. I was invited to travel this summer to New York City for a three day weekend conference (same bunch later in the summer in San Francisco) but how would I get there? Jefferson Bus (and their sister Greyhound) could get me there in a few days one way, where an airplane from either Tulsa or Wichita (two closest places) would get me there in a couple hours; but -- BIG BUT -- airlines don't like to take cash any longer -- that would make me a terrorist suicide bomber you know -- and by grabbing all the cash advances I could on my two debit cards and (now) one credit card, I might be able to raise three or four hundred dollars. So you are not the only one who is screwed. PAT] ------------------------------ From: T. Gerald Dyar Subject: Re: Philly Area Miliwatt (1004 Hz) Test Number Needed Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 14:26:46 GMT Tony P. wrote in message news:telecom23.168.7@telecom-digest.org: > In article , tgdyar@sbcglobal.net > says: >> I posted this message on comp.dcom.telecom.tech with no luck so I >> thought I'd try here. >> My daughter lives in a very old row house in the Philadelphia area >> and the inside wiring is a mess. I live in CT but on my next visit >> to her I want to bring down my telephone test set and check out the >> inside wiring to find out what needs fixing. She's already >> determined, using the NIC, that the problem is not with the tel line >> coming in. Since I'm from CT I need the local number there, nearest >> to 215-887 to get the 1004 hz, miliwatt, test tone. Contact me >> direct if you don't want to divulge this to the world. > Why not just buy a cheap toner off of ebay? From the description > you're giving I'd say this is what you're trying to accomplish, > tracing of a line. Even a new one is $50.00 or less. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: He does not even really need to do > that much. Just attach a good battery or a little pocket size radio > at the demarc (less the working phone line of course) then go up and > down the line with a buttset or receiver listening for the radio or > the battery. There is nothing sacred about the 1004 hz tone signal. > PAT] Thanks. I'll put my toner on the house side of the demarc with the telco disconnected and measure the tone levels on all the wires and lines to see which which ones are marginal. The rest of the tests don't need the miliwatt tone. Common sense rules again. I'm so used to using the tone I didn't think the problem through completely. Gerry ------------------------------ From: Matt Subject: Re: Blackberry Not Receiving Messages - Please Help! Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 16:51:11 +0100 Organization: ntl Cablemodem News Service James Lynx wrote in message news:telecom23.137.3@telecom-digest.org: > I am in charge of the distribution and installation of Blackberries at > my organization. We are using the 7230 model of Blackberry. We are > using the T-Mobile as our data carrier. We have probably about 50 of > these on our network and of those about 5 of them are not receiving > messages from about 6:30 PM and on. Then when these end users check > their BBs in the morning there are still no new messages (even tho > there are some in the queue that seem not to deliver) received by the > unit. > The user seems to be able to kick the thing in by emailing himself > from the BB and then a bunch of messages come in that were originally > queued up and haven't been delivered. Mind you, these end users say > that they don't live in areas that there is little or no reception. > They have four out of five bars indicating great reception. Weird > that every night from about 6:30 and on they don't receive messages at > all and the reception is four out of five bars. I checked with > T-Mobile and they don't know what the problem is and I check with RIM > and they don't know. > We use Blackberry Enterprise Server and we are on Microsoft Exchange > for our email. Have you experienced this and how did you fix the > issue? Just strange that only about five of 50 users have this > problem. > Thanks, > James James, My blackberry 7230 exhibits the same problem, using BES on Exchange 5.5, with all the latest service packs. As far as I can tell, I am the only person in our organisation who has encountered the problem. It first occurred last year, and having the unit replaced seemed to fix it, but it has now recurred. I have been working with our corporate messaging team and with Vodafone (our service provider), as yet no-one has been able to get to the bottom of it either. Please let me know if you find out a root cause - I will post group if we do. In the meantime, I have to periodically initiate a network action (using the lookup function is easier for me than sending myself mail) to kick off receiving messages. Regards, Matt. remove NOSPAM from email address to reply direct. ------------------------------ 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 2004 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 #181 ******************************