From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jan 17 23:49:16 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i0I4nGB23177; Sat, 17 Jan 2004 23:49:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 23:49:16 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200401180449.i0I4nGB23177@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 #26 TELECOM Digest Sat, 17 Jan 2004 23:49:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 26 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Diebold Gets Stay in California (Monty Solomon) Push Into Living Room is a Gamble (Monty Solomon) Cell Phone Cameras Share Blotchy Moments (Monty Solomon) CBS Shields Pigskin Fans From Ads (Monty Solomon) Re: Credit Counseling Telescammers Ignoring Do-Not-Call list (Wesrock) Re: Credit Counseling Telescammers Ignoring Do-Not-Call list (jbl) Re: Credit Counseling Telescammers Ignoring Do-Not-Call list (R.T.Wurth) Re: Domain Registrars Sued Over URL Patent (Paul Vader) Re: Domain Registrars Sued Over URL Patent (Barry Margolin) Re: Domain Registrars Sued Over URL Patent (Rahul Dhesi) Re: Norvergence (Paul Vader) Place Name for 610-388 (Carl Moore) Wireless Home Networks (Michael Quinn) ITT TEL-TREX Model 320 CORTELCO - Questions About Unit (Chad) 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: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 13:40:13 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Diebold Gets Stay in California By Kim Zetter SACRAMENTO, California -- Delay was the order of the day in California Thursday as the secretary of state's Voting Systems Panel, or VSP, postponed announcing any sanctions against Diebold Election Systems. Voting activists from across California converged on the secretary of state's office to see what action, if any, the government would take against Diebold for violating voting-system certification laws and to see whether the state would certify the company's latest touch-screen voting machines. But the VSP tabled its decision for a second time, a move that frustrated activists who hoped the panel would decertify the Diebold machines currently used in California and bar the company from selling new machines in the state. At least four counties recently purchased the new touch-screen model, the AccuVote-TSx, and are waiting for it to be certified for the March and November elections. TSx certification was made conditional in November on the results of a statewide audit of Diebold machines. The audit was conducted after the state discovered that the company had placed uncertified software on some touch-screen machines used in elections. The audit, completed last month, revealed that the company had installed uncertified software upgrades in all 17 counties using its touch-screen or optical-scan machines. But the panel decided not to take action against Diebold until more information could be collected. http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61947,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 17:39:40 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Push Into Living Room is a Gamble By Ed Frauenheim and Richard Shim Staff Writer, CNET News.com LAS VEGAS--Computer companies face major obstacles in the consumer electronics market despite optimistic claims that it represents a promising new frontier for a waning PC industry. Practically all the major PC manufacturers are expanding into home entertainment products, specifically targeting the flat-panel television sets that have boomed in the last year. Large computer makers such as Gateway, Dell and Hewlett-Packard have entered the TV market, hoping to undercut traditional electronics leaders such as Sony, Philips and Panasonic. In the near term, the strategy may pay off: With their direct distribution systems and other cost efficiencies, computer companies are well-positioned to lower prices on these products while still maintaining profit levels that exceed the margin range of 8 percent to 15 percent historically earned from PCs. However, if prices on flat-panel sets plummet as expected, it is unclear how the computer companies will respond to extreme competition in an unfamiliar territory. Already, the average price for flat-panel TVs in the 26-to-30-inch category has dropped from about $6,700 in 2002 to roughly $3,200 at the end of last year, according to research firm iSuppli/Stanford Resources, and will likely plunge to about $1,800 by the end of this year with increased competition. In addition to the PC companies, other players such as Samsung, Motorola and Epson are joining the flat-panel rush. http://news.com.com/2100-1003-5137997.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 12:52:17 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cell Phone Cameras Share Blotchy Moments By BRUCE MEYERSON AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) -- The photos are grainy, blotchy and blurry, but for millions of people now toting cell phones with built-in digital cameras, it doesn't seem to be about the megapixels _ or at least not yet. Tens of millions of these less-than perfect pictures were snapped and e-mailed from cell phones in the United States during 2003, the first full year such services were available. News organizations are publishing cell photos from their readers to help cover stories. And an untold number of mobile phone snapshots are being posted daily to "moblogs," a visual form of the online journals better known as Web logs, or blogs. In short, corny as it sounds, cellular photography seems to be about adding new immediacy to the old Kodak pitch, "share the moment." But much as this country has lagged Asia and Europe in many facets of the mobile phone revolution, cell photography is still a rather niche hobby in the United States _ a major challenge for wireless companies desperate to generate new revenues from non-voice services. Of the roughly 75 million camera phones shipped worldwide in 2003, only 6 million went to the United States, compared with more than 35 million to Japan, according to Strategy Analytics Ltd., a British consulting firm. Likewise, North America accounted for just 1.7 million of the world's 24 million "active" users of camera phones, compared with a combined 21.6 million in Japan and South Korea. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=40209433 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 13:28:45 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CBS Shields Pigskin Fans From Ads Reuters 12:55 PM Jan. 16, 2004 PT LOS ANGELES -- U.S. football fans will not see ads featuring scantily clad vegetarians or a political attack on President Bush during February's Super Bowl after CBS said on Thursday that advocacy advertisements were out of bounds on professional football's biggest day. The network, over the years, has rejected dozens of advertising proposals by advocacy groups, which argue that the network only airs controversial messages that it agrees with. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,61949,00.html ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 10:58:48 EST Subject: Re: Credit Counseling Telescammers Ignoring Do-Not-Call list In a message dated Fri, 16 Jan 2004 10:47:13 -0800 Mark Crispin writes: > So much for the Do-Not-Call list. I've been on it since inception. > At 9:29AM today I got a prerecorded telemarketing call with a useless > Caller ID (404-523-0000). The robot thought that the Qwest No > Solicitation announcement was a human answering the call, and > proceeded to babble its spiel. > By the time it rung and I picked up the phone it was at the tail end, > so the only thing that I caught was that it was a prerecord for some > credit counseling scam. > -- Mark -- > http://staff.washington.edu/mrc > Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. > Si vis pacem, para bellum. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Mark, did you try 404-523-0000 to see > if anyone was there? Four zeros following a prefix *can* be valid. > For example, there is a NNN-0000 number here in Independence. It seems > like an odd number, but they do have them and often times they are > working. And also, was the credit counseling service a non-profit? > Aren't there different rules for some of those places like charities > and politicians? PAT] During the last month or two I have been having dealings with a local firm (in the 405 area code and Oklahoma City metropolitan exchange) with the number 858-0000. Seems to be just as valid and functional as any other number. (Their literature gives their fax number as 858-0001. I haven't had occasion to try it.) Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com ------------------------------ From: jbl Subject: Re: Credit Counseling Telescammers Ignoring Do-Not-Call list Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 14:28:44 -0700 Organization: On the desert Reply-To: jbl@spamblocked.com In , Mark Crispin wrote: > At 9:29AM today I got a prerecorded telemarketing call with a useless > Caller ID (404-523-0000). The robot thought that the Qwest No > Solicitation announcement was a human answering the call, and > proceeded to babble its spiel. I got my first one since the DNC list went into effect this week also, again a "credit counseling" service. The one to my "home" line disconnected when I answered live; the one to my "office" line was happy to put its whole message onto voice mail. Mine came in as "unknown caller"; no number. So not only was this a DNC violation (I verified that my numbers have been on the list since last June), but also a TCPA violation, since these were prerecorded. I filed the DNC violations on the government DNC web site. (You can get there from links on the www.ftc.gov home page.) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: . . . > . . . And also, was the credit counseling service a non-profit? > Aren't there different rules for some of those places like charities > and politicians? PAT] There are some which claim to be tax exempts, though in some cases research as shown that this is a lie. In any case, these are only front ends for profit-making organizations; if you get "credit counseled" your account gets turned over to a for-(big)profit company that does the bookkeeping chore of taking your monthly check and disbursing the funds to the creditors (maybe) for a fee. /JBL ------------------------------ From: rwurth@att.net (R. T. Wurth) Subject: Re: Credit Counseling Telescammers Ignoring Do-Not-Call list Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 00:29:30 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet In article , Mark Crispin wrote: > So much for the Do-Not-Call list. I've been on it since inception. > At 9:29AM today I got a prerecorded telemarketing call with a useless > Caller ID (404-523-0000). The robot thought that the Qwest No > Solicitation announcement was a human answering the call, and > proceeded to babble its spiel. [...] > -- Mark -- Part of the credit counseling scam is that the for-profit operators set up a non-profit front-end recruiter that performs the "community service" of "helping debtors out" invariably by referring them to the for-profit remittance agent. This arrangement has the recently-added bonus of providing exemption from Do Not Call lists. Rich Wurth / rwurth@att.net / Rumson, NJ USA ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: Domain Registrars Sued Over URL Patent Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:45:38 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations Monty Solomon writes: > used a so-called third-level URL, www.john.smith.com, the e-mail > address would be john@smith.com. This is patentable?! * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Domain Registrars Sued Over URL Patent Organization: Looking for work Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 03:47:26 GMT In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > The suit accuses Network Solutions and Register.com of selling rights > to Web URLs and e-mail addresses that infringe on a patent that was > granted to Javaher and Weyer on Dec. 20, 2003. The patent covers the > method of assigning URLs and e-mail addresses of members of a group > such that the "@" sign is the dot in the URL. For example, if a group > used a so-called third-level URL, www.john.smith.com, the e-mail > address would be john@smith.com. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: How in the *hell* could those turkeys > have been granted a patent on December 20, *2003* for a system which > has been in common use for about twenty years? Although I think the patent is kind of silly, I'm not sure I agree with you that the system "has been in common use". They're not trying to patent the general system of email addresses, just a very specific kind of email address that is linked to a subdomain and a database of forwarding addresses. Can you provide a handful of examples of systems where the maintainer of automatically arranges for email addressed to @ to be relayed to the owner of .? Try to include some examples from two decades ago (the very birth of the DNS system), since you claim this system has been in use that long. Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA ------------------------------ From: c.c.eiftj@DomainXReg.usenet.us.com (Rahul Dhesi) Subject: Re: Domain Registrars Sued Over URL Patent Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 13:48:29 UTC Organization: a2i network Monty Solomon writes: [ quoting cnet.com ] > The patent covers the > method of assigning URLs and e-mail addresses of members of a group > such that the "@" sign is the dot in the URL. For example, if a group > used a so-called third-level URL, www.john.smith.com, the e-mail > address would be john@smith.com. I began allocating subdomains to users approximately in 1994 or 1995. I had quite a few customers who had an email address of the form joeuser@rahul.net and a domain of the form joeuser.rahul.net. The domain of the form joeuser.rahul.net would typically have an "A" record in DNS pointing to the user's static dial-up IP address. I don't recall offhand if any of these subdomains of the form joeuser.rahul.net pointed to any web site. From a DNS point of view, however, the scheme was the same as the one described above. And once an "A" record was created in DNS, if any of these users had ever run a web server on his home machine while dialed in, that web site would automatically have appeared as http://joeuser.rahul.net/ . email address = USER@rahul.net domain with A record = USER.rahul.net home machine web site, if any = http://USER.rahul.net/ The earliest instance of this scheme that I can find in the CVS log for rahul.net is: revision 1.7 date: 1994/09/11 05:17:18; author: dhesi; state: Exp; lines: +3 -3 originmm.rahul.net The DNS entry added on that day ws: originmm IN A 192.160.13.189 The reverse DNS entry is also in RCS for the zone 13.160.192.in-addr.arpa : 189 IN PTR originmm.rahul.net. > From my billing records for user 'originmm', email address 'originmm@rahul.net': 10 Sep 94: originmm: ip start date was (none), changed to: 1994/09/10 10 Sep 94: originmm: host IP address was (none), changed to: 192.160.13.189 10 Sep 94: charge $5 : customized domain originmm.rahul.net So on or around September 10 or 11, 1994, both the domain originmm.rahul.net and the email address originmm@rahul.net existed. Due to the openness of the systems in those days, all of this was freely publicized. Anybody doing 'finger' would have seen users logged in, and if this user had been logged into the UNIX shell at that time, people would have seen the host name originmm.rahul.net. Anybody doing a DNS query, or a zone transfer (and zone transfers could be done by all in those days) would have easily seen the DNS information. The general subdomain scheme was public knowledge because it was sent to anybody requesting subscription information. I don't mind mentioning the specific user 'originmm' because this account is no longer an active account and there is no privacy violation here. (Note: My email address in this posting is valid for email replies only if the original Subject line (below) is preserved: Subject: Re: Domain Registrars Sued Over URL Patent If you use any other subject line, your email to me will bounce back, and the bounce will suggest an alternative email address.) Rahul [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So Barry, I was a little off in saying *twenty years ago*, but I knew I had seen that addressing method a long time before the turkeys gobbled up the patent on it. As Rahul says it was happening in the early/middle 1990's. So how could they have gotten their patent if the patent examiner, et al had done his homework? PAT] ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: Norvergence Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:43:13 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations Ken Lyle writes: > Pat, > I left you a message on your cell. Our Lawyers suggested I find all > the info I can on Norvergence on the web about complaints. Your page > seems to have the most on it. What is it with all these people bothering Pat Townson with Norvergence queries? If I was paranoid, I might think these were attempts to get him to say something bad on the record, which wouldn't stand up to the defenses a compiler of a mailing list has. Oh wait, I *am* paranoid. My vote is to silently toss anything further concerning requests for information about Norvergence. If someone is asking you directly and calling on your cellphone, they're not telcom digest subscribers. * P.S. On the other hand, it is amusing in a black comedy sort of way. * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Two points, Paul. For people 'like that', I never state any opinion of my own. My sentences are always phrased, 'reports I have read say,' or 'the attornies tell me,' etc. I do not wish to be accused of practicing law, or practicing slander either for that matter. Second point: most of the people who ask me directly or call on the phone never even heard of TELECOM Digest, let alone subscribe to it. Most new netizens these days never heard of Usenet either, only http://whatever, which they use liberally for the various things they like on the net. Many of the guys, however, do stick around once they get a comprehensive (and hopefully correct) answer to their inquiry. And here at Telecom Education School I can always be assured of correct answers from our 'faculty' if I get it wrong or pass over it. Do you remember back about 1990 or so when an article by Monty Solomon in the Digest said 'it is estimated that X million Americans use the net each day' and my reply to that was 'wait fifteen years or so until the entire country is wired if you think things are a mess now ...' Well we are now getting to that point, where things are a mess; relatively sophisticated people are finding out how dumb they are on telephones and they are all asking at once. But regards doing manual searching for people, I agree that has gotten a bit ridiculous. People with no idea at all of the extent of our archives are always saying 'send me whatever you have on topic X ...' I have to tell them to look it up for themselves, but at least I answer; I don't just toss it in the wastebasket. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 15:22:16 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Place Name for 610-388 610 area, part of old 215 in southeastern Pennsylvania, includes the Delaware-Pennsylvania border. Recently, I made a call from my home (via AT&T) to a phone on 610-388, which is along the Delaware border (is local to Wilmington, Del.) and reaches up to a stretch of U.S. 1. AT&T bill which includes that call has arrived, and it gives the place name as Chadds Ford (do not recall seeing Chadds Ford in that context before), but nanpa.com (and the old phone books for that area) give 388 (which is a holdover from the 215 area) as Mendenhall. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 15:37:34 -0500 From: Michael Quinn Organization: Booz Allen Hamilton Subject: Wireless Home Networks The recent articles on DSL availabilty prompted me to check with Verizon yet again to see if Verizon had at last made DSL available in my neighborhood in Northern VA. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had, and with a little bit of searching discovered a wireless hub and small wireless USB adaptors at buy.com on sale for about $35 each. The wired versions -- either conventional NIC cards using CAT 5 cable or the HPNA stle which use phone lines are both more expensive and the former of course entails running and terminating cables. Three colleagues, all more knowledgeable and opinionated than me, have strongly warned against the more expedient wireless solution because of security vulnerabilities. I thought these things were range limited Part 15 devices, and I live on a culdesac where someone "cruising for hots spots" would be pretty conspicuous. Would appreciate any ideas or experiences, good or bad, that the readership would be willing to share, either here in the Digest or off net. TD is a teriffic resource. Thanks, Mike Quinn Springfield VA quinnm@bah.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for your kind words about the Digest. If you go with wireless solutions to *anything*, I suggest you make certain your security is **very tight** at all times. From years ago where the technique of 'cruising for dial tone' was a commonplace activity -- people drive down the street with a cordless handset listening for dial tone from *your* cordless phone then proceed to make a few long distance or premium charge (a/c 900 for example) calls on your bill -- to more modern times where like the naked man in Toronto they drive down the street with a laptop PC and a WiFi connection downloading kiddie porn behind your back, and then when postal inspector Zipp or FBI Inquisitor Laws get to your house you wind up taking the rap for it because *their* knowledge of computers is so woefully lacking (like any police officer) -- well, you don't want to get in that kind of mess, I am sure. If you go wireless then KEEP IT LOCKED UP TIGHTLY. Or better still, keep it all wired, and still keep yourself locked up. I still have to giggle a little about the day the FBI came here to my house during that Cameraware scam, and the Inquisitor said to me in a self righteous tone of voice, "well yes, I agree with you that spam can be a bad problem but the spammers do not send out kiddie porn." Oh yeah? Keep a good firewall up all the time, either wired or wireless. That's IMO, and note, there is no 'H' as the third letter there; that's because I do not give Humble opinions. PAT] ------------------------------ From: c.warren@wdtc.biz (Chad) Subject: ITT TEL-TREX MODEL 320 CORTELCO - Questions About Unit Date: 17 Jan 2004 17:02:58 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Does anyone know anything about this system? I cannot find a site with any specs on it. I am not sure, but I do believe it is an older system. I found it for sale online. I am just looking for a small pbx for a home business. I have 2 toll free lines which are currently being forwarded to our home business line. One goes directly to our main business line and the other uses distinctive ring from the Telco. I would like to have an auto attendant and voice mail. I don't have much money to spend on one. Does anyone know if you can hookup an auto attendant and voice mail to this model? The ITT Tel-Trex Model 320 from Cortelco? Any help or sugesstions would be appreciated. ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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 second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #26 *****************************