From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Apr 14 16:19:35 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i3EKJZl25106; Wed, 14 Apr 2004 16:19:35 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 16:19:35 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200404142019.i3EKJZl25106@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 #187 TELECOM Digest Wed, 14 Apr 2004 16:19:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 187 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson E-mail Fingerprinting Attacks Bounce Storms (Monty Solomon) Some Marketers Finding ways Around Do Not Call List (Monty Solomon) Consumer Groups Rally Against 'Fees' (Monty Solomon) EchoStar Says Dish Network May Lose Turner Channels (Monty Solomon) Intel First Quarter Revenue $8.1 Billion; Earnings Per Share (M Solomon) Verizon Offers Free Wireless Router With Rebate Promotion (M Solomon) AT&T Wireless Announces Aggressive New Offer (Monty Solomon) Verizon to Add DSL Fees (Monty Solomon) QLLC Question, Please Help (Tom N.) Re: Calif. Lawmaker Moves to Block Google's Gmail (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Spam Issues (Jim Rusling) Re: Spam Issues (Paul Vader) Re: Spam Issues (Robert Pierce) Re: Spam Issues (Matt Simpson) 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: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 12:22:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: E-mail Fingerprinting Attacks Bounce Storms Uses encryption technology to create a unique signature for each outbound e-mail News Story by Paul Roberts APRIL 13, 2004 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - E-mail provider Everyone.net Inc. is trying to head off one type of spam with an encryption technology designed to create a unique signature for each outbound e-mail message. The Total Protection 2.0 e-mail protection service zeros in on bounce storms, in which e-mail users who have had their e-mail addresses stolen by spammers or e-mail worms receive a flood of returned messages. The service, being launched this week at the ISPCon conference in Washington, includes a technology dubbed Email Fingerprint, which adds an extension header to each outbound e-mail message. The header will contain a unique signature, created with a symmetric encryption key and based on information such as the e-mail user's ID, the time stamp for the e-mail and more, said Wayne Lewis, Everyone.net's chief technology officer. http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/groupware/story/0,10801,92191,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 12:28:47 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Some Marketers Finding Ways around Do Not Call list Even the law can't stop all sales calls By Bob Sullivan Technology correspondent MSNBC It sounds like every other sweepstakes entry you've seen, but in the age of the Do Not Call list there's a twist. The Ecology First Sweepstakes' "$25,000 cash or car giveaway" comes with this catch in the small print: "By completing this form, you agree that sponsors and co-sponsors of this sweepstakes may telephone you, even if your number is found on a do not call registry or list." The company which operates that contest, LiquidSoapProducts.com, did not immediately return phone calls for comment. But consumer agencies say desperate telemarketers are turning to all sorts of creative methods in an attempt to connect with new customers. Sweepstakes entries with small print designed to circumvent Do Not Call provisions are only one method. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4702892/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 11:05:18 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Consumer Groups Rally Against 'Fees' Rate Hikes in Sheep's Clothing Consumer groups rally against 'fees' Written by Karl Bode As previously discussed, BellSouth recently added a "regulatory cost recovery" fee of $2.97 to customer DSL bills. Letters informing customers of the change caused a long discussion over the tactic in our BellSouth forum, and now SBC has unveiled their own -- much to the chagrin of consumer advocates. The fee is not assessed by the government, and consumer groups argue it's simply a rate hike in sheep's clothing. The biggest problem is that the fee isn't included in the cost that these companies are advertising. Critics charge this allows the companies to advertise one rate, charge another, and then blame the government when you get angry. We've been changing our own price comparisons to reflect this. http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/41691 Hiding Hikes in a 'Fee' Users angered by new BellSouth fee Written by Karl Bode Users in our BellSouth forum began receiving letters this week informing them of a new $2.97 "regulatory cost recovery fee". Oddly, the fee isn't actually imposed by the FCC or government, and yet isn't being included in the price of BellSouth DSL listed on promotional materials. http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/40794 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for another good example of why I was **so happy** to get Southwestern Bell out of my home once and for all, a little more than a year ago. They play the same kind of games with their DSL that BellSouth does. And whatever happened to the federal law a few years ago which said it is unlawful to collect some money and *claim* it is for taxes when in fact no such tax exists. If I started a business, quoted one price and collected more, claiming it was (some flavor of tax) then did not remit the money as 'tax' because there was no such tax, the feds would quickly arrest me for fraud (against the government, the taxpayers, my customers) would they not? Why does telco get a free ride on this? And why does telco furthermore charge (legitimate) taxes on these (bogus fees) as well? Isn't there also a law against double 'taxation'? Illinois Bell found this out the hard way several years ago when they had a class action suit brought against them on behalf of 'all pay phone users'. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 22:38:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EchoStar Says Dish Network May Lose Turner Channels NEW YORK, April 13 (Reuters) - EchoStar Communications Corp. (NASDAQ:DISH) Chief Executive Officer Charles Ergen warned viewers of its Dish Network satellite TV service that they may soon take CNN, Cartoon Network, CNN Headline News, and Turner Classic Movies off the air in a fee dispute Turner Broadcasting System. EchoStar's broadcast agreement with Turner, a unit of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) expired at the end of 2003 and was renewed on a multi-month basis while the parties continue talks. In a signal that the talks haven't gone particularly well, Charles Ergen took to the airwaves Monday night in one of his "Charlie's Chats" to explain the impasse to viewers and the reason they might lose CNN in the midst of renewed hostilities in Iraq. An EchoStar spokesman said the company is seeking to wean the networks off a "satellite premium" the company had to pay in the past when the service was much smaller. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=41064093 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 22:53:47 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Intel First Quarter Revenue $8.1 Billion Intel First Quarter Revenue $8.1 Billion; Earnings Per Share of 26 Cents Includes Impact of Approximately 1.7 Cents from Intergraph Agreement - Apr 13, 2004 04:15 PM (BusinessWire) SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 13, 2004--Intel Corporation today announced first quarter revenue of $8.1 billion, down 7 percent sequentially and up 20 percent year-over-year. First quarter net income was $1.7 billion, down 20 percent sequentially and up 89 percent year-over-year. Earnings per share were 26 cents, down 21 percent sequentially and up 86 percent from 14 cents in the first quarter of 2003. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=41065206 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 22:55:07 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Offers Free Wireless Router With Rebate Promotion to Keep Verizon Offers Free Wireless Router With Rebate Promotion to Keep Everyone in the Family Online With DSL New DSL Customers Eligible for Full Rebate Until July 17 NEW YORK, April 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Mom is checking stock reports in the family room, the kids are listening to music in their bedrooms, and dad is making airline reservations on his laptop outside on the patio. They're doing all this using the same high-speed DSL connection, and it doesn't cost them a penny more a month. Starting today, Verizon Online is offering new DSL customers a full rebate on the $99.95 price of a new wireless router. The three-month promotion, which lasts until July 17, is aimed at families with multiple home-computers and those who want the mobility of a wireless broadband connection. Unlike some of its competitors, Verizon Online doesn't charge customers extra every month for connecting more than one computer to a single DSL connection in their homes. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=41065560 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 00:44:15 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T Wireless Announces Aggressive New Offer AT&T Wireless Announces Aggressive New Offer That Eliminates Roaming Charges - Apr 14, 2004 12:01 AM (PR Newswire) Offer made possible by doubling of company's national GSM coverage area and by significant quality improvements in GSM network REDMOND, Wash., April 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AT&T Wireless (NYSE:AWE) today announced an aggressive new national flagship offer, AT&T Wireless GSM(TM) America, which eliminates roaming charges for many customers. The new offer is made possible by the company's doubling of its national GSM coverage area in the last year and by significant quality improvements in its GSM network, AT&T Wireless said. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=41067787 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 07:56:21 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon to Add DSL Fees Verizon to add DSL fees By Jim Hu Staff Writer, CNET News.com Verizon Communications on Tuesday said it will begin charging its broadband subscribers an additional $2 to $3 monthly "regulatory fee," joining a trend embraced by other local phone giants. The charges will begin appearing on Verizon digital subscriber line (DSL) bills in May or June, depending where a customer lives. Verizon charges $34.95 a month for DSL, or $29.95 a month when purchased with long distance and local phone service. Verizon joins other Baby Bells, including SBC Communications and BellSouth, which have begun introducing additional regulatory charges to customer DSL bills. These fees are part of a regulation requiring phone companies to contribute to a federal Universal Service Fund (USF) that underwrites phone service costs in low-income or rural areas. While the Bells charge USF fees for all phone and DSL services, they claim they have up to now absorbed all DSL charges. Verizon said the decision to add regulatory fees was based on a number of factors, including the growing expense in running a DSL service. But like its Bell cousins, Verizon also blamed the Federal Communications Commission for regulations that favor its cable competitors, who are not required to contribute to the USF. http://news.com.com/2100-1034-5190830.html ------------------------------ From: Tom N. Subject: QLLC Question, Please Help Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 10:48:31 -0400 I have to look at how SDLC frames are put into TCP/IP packets. I've been told one way to do it is to put the SDLC frame into an X.25 data packet, using QLLC. Then the X.25 data packet will be encapsulated into TCP/IP using the XOT protocol. The XOT document is available at the IETF web site, but I have had no luck in finding the QLLC specs. Could someone help me by giving a pointer or by giving me a brief description of how SDLC is converted into X.25 as specified by QLLC? Thank you very much in advance. Tom ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 13:52:39 GMT From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Re: Calif. Lawmaker Moves to Block Google's Gmail Organization: Excelsior Computer Services > SAN FRANCISCO, April 12 (Reuters) - A California state senator on > Monday said she was drafting legislation to block Google Inc.'s free > e-mail service "Gmail" because it would place advertising in personal > messages after searching them for key words. I must say -- I don't understand either the motivation behind this attempt or its legality. Google is offering a service, making it clear what it is. There are lots of people who would be happy to put up with targeted ads in return for free e-mail, just as there are lots of people who put up with targeted ads in return for lower prices at the supermarked (with "bonus" or "discount" cards). Where's the problem? -Joel [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have to wonder why Yahoo is not getting the wrath of this silly legislator as well. Yahoo has placed ads around its free email and groups things for a long time now as well. In fact, Yahoo tries to grab you the minute you come in the door with its spy cookies supplied by the 'Avenue A' promotions thing, although I do not accept Avenue A spy cookies. My copy of 'Ad-Aware' dispenses with those when it sees them coming. Yahoo does not even tell you about them. They just dump them on your hard drive. I wonder why the California legislator feels obliged to pick on Google. Who do they think is going to pay for the cost of 'free email', Catholic Charities, perhaps? Aren't legislatures silly people most of the time? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jim Rusling Subject: Re: Spam Issues Organization: Retired Reply-To: usenet@rusling.org Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 22:23:41 -0500 SELLCOM Tech support wrote: > sin nombre posted on that vast internet > thingie: >> I say hooray for FIVE-TEN; and stop whining and dump your spam- >> friendly provider. Blocklisting an entire /16 or /24 block of IP's >> will sometimes get a provider's attention when all normal measures >> such as abuse@ notifications have failed. > What an idiot! Verizon does not let spammers run on their network. That why they let spammers relay through their mail servers for years, if you knew a trick or two. I think they may have been fixed for a while though. > The trash at FIVETEN are also known for refusing to remove blocks > even when ISPs deal with the spammers. > Steve at SELLCOM > http://www.sellcom.com Jim Rusling Partially Retired Mustang, OK http://www.rusling.org ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: Spam Issues Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 15:19:37 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe some of you guys who know about > this kind of thing can give me some advice. What do you show, if > anything about 24.119.225.28 and any blacklists? Thanks. PAT] If it's working, you can simply go to openrbl.org and plug in an address for a quick check against more than 30 common (and not-so-common) blocklists. Your particular address isn't listed in any of those. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Spam Issues Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 11:40:50 -0400 From: Robert Pierce [Pat, please remove my e-mail address. Thanks, Rob] SELLCOM said: > The trash at FIVETEN are also known for refusing to remove blocks > even when ISPs deal with the spammers. So don't use FIVETEN. I don't. Esteemed Moderator said: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe some of you guys who know about > this kind of thing can give me some advice. What do you show, if > anything about 24.119.225.28 and any blacklists? Thanks. PAT] Pat, Most blacklists have a web interface available. There is a list at http://www.spews.org/lists.html. At the bottom of the list there is a note with some good advice: "Make sure you know what you are getting into before using anyone's spam advisory list or blocking/filtering system. Some are known to be much stricter than SPEWS and also note that, unlike SPEWS, some will never remove network address ranges once spam has originated from them. Spammers and spammer hosts should pay heed to this as well." About the ip address, whois says, "24.119.225.28 = [24-119-225-28.cpe.cableone.net ]" http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=24.119.225.28 reports: 24.119.225.28 is not listed in the SBL 24.119.225.28 is not listed in the XBL http://www.spews.org/ask.cgi?x=24.119.225.28 reports: This was NOT found in SPEWS. http://www.five-ten-sg.com/blackhole.php?ip=24.119.225.28&Search=Search reports: 24.119.225.28 is not listed here. http://www.ordb.org/lookup/?host=24.119.225.28 reports: This host is not listed in ORDB as an open mail relay Sam Spade's blackhole checker is back up (it was down for a while, I believe due to spammer DDOS attacks), and it says, 24.119.225.28 not listed Sam Spade notes that "The XBL [extreme blocking list] has been removed [from this web page] for two reasons. 1) Nobody uses it. 2) It appears to list almost the entire Internet. "Listing a blocking list here doesn't consititute an endorsment of it, nor a suggestion you use it to block email with (just the opposite, in some cases). This tool is primarily to help those whose mail is bouncing find out why." Also, http://mail-abuse.org/cgi-bin/lookup?24.119.225.28 reports The IP address 24.119.225.28 does not appear on the MAPS RBL. Hope this helps. Rob Pierce ------------------------------ From: net-news02@jmatt.net (Matt Simpson) Subject: Re: Spam Issues Date: 14 Apr 2004 09:58:40 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Pat asks: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe some of you guys who know about > this kind of thing can give me some advice. What do you show, if > anything about 24.119.225.28 and any blacklists? Thanks. PAT] One good site I have found is http://www.dnsstuff.com. They have a whole bunch of stuff there, including an option to check an IP against a whole bunch of blacklists. 24.119.225.28 doesn't show up in any of the ones they check. And back to the original topic: I'm not very familiar with fiveten or what kind of claims they make about their service. But, in my opinion, as a happy user and big fan of blacklisting, as long as the blacklist provider is very clear about what criteria they use for blacklisting, I see no problem with it. If fiveten is blocking whole ISP ranges because some individual customer of that ISP is spamming, I think that's a little bit extreme. I certainly would not use any blacklist that is that aggressive. But if other email server administrators are willing to take a chance on throwing away legitimate email because it comes from someone who uses the same ISP as a spammer, that's their business. If fiveten makes it clear that they're doing that, then the users are free to make an informed decision about using the blacklist. I'm not going to use their list, because I'm doing a pretty good job limiting spam with the lists I am using, and I don't want to risk throwing away good mail. But everybody is free to make their own choice; if someone chooses to use an overly aggressive list, that's the fault of the person using it. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: "FiveTen" sort of sounds like one of those old-fashioned dime stores, the Kresge/Woolworth variety, doesn't it? So tell me this: despite all those obstacle courses spammers have to run through, and Spam Assassin and the other things users keep on their own computers, why does so much spam slip through anyway. I never get fewer than a hundred or so pieces of that junk everytime I look here on massis, which is several times per day. And Spam Assassin also catches about the same or more. I guess, like cockroaches, spammers are a very sturdy breed, or as someone once said, after the very short-lived Third World War the only things that would survive would be cockroaches and spammers, the latter perhaps mutated by the radiation so they also had extra appendages to get out more spam than ever. You've all heard of giant, mutant cockroaches taking over the world, imagine giant, mutant spammers doing their thing. 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. 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