From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jun 21 03:43:41 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.3) id i5L7he723195; Mon, 21 Jun 2004 03:43:41 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 03:43:41 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200406210743.i5L7he723195@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 #299 TELECOM Digest Mon, 21 Jun 2004 03:44:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 299 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Telus Prevents Residential Clients From Sending Email (Danny Burstein) Re: Telus Prevents Residential Clients From Sending Email (Evan Ross) Re: Telus Prevents Residential Clients From Sending Email (Ed Clarke) Re: Telus Prevents Residential Clients From Sending Email (jmeissen@) Re: Telus Prevents Residential Clients From Sending Email (Robert Bonomi) Re: Telus Prevents Residential Clients From Sending Email (Barry Margolin) Re: Who Got the Message? There's a Way to Know (AES/newspost) Re: Who Got the Message? There's a Way to Know (Steven J Sobol) Re: Strange 202 Number? (Joseph) Re: SIP Help Please? (Steven J Sobol) Re: Telus Has Fraudulently Forced Advertising on our Company (Steven Sobol) Phone Receptionist to Email? (vjp2.at@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com) 1st Private, Manned Rocket Set for Launch (Monty Solomon) No Use Crying Over Spilled Billions (Monty Solomon) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Danny Burstein Subject: Re: Telus Prevents Residential Clients From Sending Email Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 01:24:39 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In Brian writes: > The following is a letter I sent Telus because they cut off my email > in hope of forcing me to upgrade to a Business high speed ADSL > account. I would like to know how many people are affected by their > decision to force users to use only Telus SMTP servers. [ snip of yet another person who whines about a "port 25" block is destroying life as we know it ] First, get off your high horse. Telus is NOT preventing you from sending e-mail. The port 25 block is a very effective means of reducing spam. If it's inconveniencing you, then talk to the ISP whose SMTP server you're trying to use. You are, one would hope, a valid customer of theirs. Any clueful internet provider which provides remote smtp services has ways of letting their customers authnticate themselves and bypass port 25 restrictions. In fact, I work for one ... _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Telus Prevents Residential Clients From Sending Email Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2004 21:46:02 -0400 From: Evan Ross Pat: Please mask my email address Brian/Pat, Sympatico did the same thing here a few years ago, blocking all SMTP access on Port 25, other than their servers. You should know that it does not matter which SMTP host you use to send your email. What is important is that your email application shows the correct From: address. The only way anyone could tell that you did not send it throught a given SMTP server is by looking at the headers. Your name will still show up correctly in the email. You can continue to use the POP3 server to receive email from your provider. If you had both Telus and ispx addresses, you would set them up as you had for POP3 but both outgoing SMTP servers would be set to Telus. If you really want to use the SMTP server, see if your provider can port-forward to a different port e.g. port 21. Most email clients (Outlook included) will allow you to specify an alternate port. ------------------------------ From: Ed Clarke Subject: Re: Telus Prevents Residential Clients From Sending Email Date: 21 Jun 2004 02:01:05 GMT Organization: Ciliophora Associates, Inc. Reply-To: clarke@cilia.org In article , Brian wrote: > In the name of fighting SPAM and beginning May 14, 2004, Telus > modified its routers to disable customers' ability to use non-Telus > SMTP servers to send mail. This was explained to me today by a Telus > technical support worker, but only during my second call as the first > technician I spoke to was not aware of this new Telus policy which has > caused me to waste almost two days trying to fix the same email setup > I used successfully for over one year on several computers. [snip] > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excuse me Brian, but it is unclear to > me how Telus, or any ISP you wish to use, is able to prevent you from > logging into and using as desired, the mail service of any other ISP > where you have an account and are otherwise authorized to use the > service. What kind of a mailing client (such as Outlook Express to [snip] You block port 25 outgoing at the router from anything except authorized SMTP servers. I do this for my own ISP to prevent spam. The "proper" way to contact an outside SMTP server is via the "submission" port (587) and to use SMTP AUTH on that port. You have to tell Outlook/Mozilla/Eudora to use the alternate port ( and TLS/SSL etc.). You're going to see more and more of this because of the spam that comes from "owned" personal computers. Thank your local spammer and cracker or virus writer for this loss of access to the raw SMTP port. Telus IS correct in blocking port 25; you should use an authorized alternate and TLS/SSL instead. ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: Telus Prevents Residential Clients From Sending Email Date: 21 Jun 2004 04:44:51 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article , Brian wrote: > The following is a letter I sent Telus because they cut off my email > in hope of forcing me to upgrade to a Business high speed ADSL > account. [........] > In the name of fighting SPAM and beginning May 14, 2004, Telus > modified its routers to disable customers' ability to use non-Telus > SMTP servers to send mail. This was explained to me today by a Telus > technical support worker, but only during my second call as the first > technician I spoke to was not aware of this new Telus policy which has > caused me to waste almost two days trying to fix the same email setup > I used successfully for over one year on several computers. Take a deep breath, and calm down. Your anger is directed at the wrong people. If you're going to be angry, direct it at the spammers that force draconian measures like this. Telus is in no way stopping you from sending email, and nothing they've done would force you to upgrade your service. They merely require you to use THEIR mail servers if you want mail to go out via port 25 (SMTP). This is a very good thing to those of us who spend far too much time and effort fighting spam. > Like thousands of Telus residential ADSL customers, I prefer to send > email using another mail server so that my email is seen to come from > an organization other than Telus. My primary email address no longer > works, except to receive messages. Needless to say, this is a major > problem as this business email is among the several used by those who > need to communicate with me and my employer. This is not a problem to anyone but spammers. Why is it so important for the Received: header to not be telus.com (or whatever the domain is)? Your configuration doesn't work because you're too lazy to relay through the Telus server. If it's vitally important to relay through an outside server, then that server will have to provide a service listening on an alternate port, a trivial thing but requires cooperation from the outside party. If you have a good relationship with them, it shouldn't be a problem. > The fact is that only a very small number of internet users are > responsible for SPAM and what Telus is doing is clearly profit-motived > and aimed at forcing thousands of its high speed residential customers > to pay substantially more for business accounts which do not enforce > this rule. You, my friend, have your head stuck in a very dark place where you can't see without the aid of a glass bellybutton. It is currently estimated that 80% of all spam now originates from infected residential systems on broadband networks such as Telus. The only effective way to stem this tide is to do exactly what Telus did. > Telus through its adoption and enforcement of this new > anti-residential client policy has already undoubtedly caused grief > for thousands of British Columbians who over the last month have > wasted time trying to determine why their email accounts no longer > work. Not likely, as most users probably have their mail software configured properly to begin with. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excuse me Brian, but it is unclear to > me how Telus, or any ISP you wish to use, is able to prevent you from > logging into and using as desired, the mail service of any other ISP > where you have an account and are otherwise authorized to use the > service. What kind of a mailing client (such as Outlook Express to > name a familiar one) are you using? He's not referring to receiving mail. He was/is configured to relay his outgoing email through a server that exists outside of the Telus network. Telus has simply instituted a policy of requiring outgoing email to use their mail servers, blocking attempts to connect to port 25 on other systems. Legitimate email will have no problem, but virus-based spam engines will be blocked because they make direct connections to their target addresses. This is a good thing. John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I was not referring to *receiving mail* either but sending it. I do happen to have a shell at a few sites, but that is not material. I am talking about using the existing mail programs at those sites. Seated at my computer, (through typing of course) I 'say' to my ISP Cableone.net "connect me to terraworld.net" and I get connected. If I said "connect me to terraworld.net port 25" I am not so sure they would do that. But I will take terraworld.net's front door. Now having connected to terraworld.net and properly logged myself in, I then say to terraworld.net "I want to send/receive email" and a handy-dandy little program comes up to let me do just that. Or massis, or AOL or Compuserve or ... let me count them all. Now I could see where an ISP might, if they chose, refuse to connect me to someISPsomwhere port 25, but are you suggesting the ISP (in this case it would be Telus I guess) sits there 'listening' all the time just so it can block me in the event I do something 'port 25-like' on that distant site, such as sending mail? "Oh, I heard him say 'port 25' to that ISP in Kansas somewhere, so I am blocking him cause he may be a spammer." This over-simplifies it a little, but I hope you understand me now. And just as I can ask cableone.net to connect me to Terraworld to use Terraworld's mail service (NOT a shell account, just Windows) I can also go to Terraworld and ask for connection to CableOne then use their Windows-based email service. Although my high-speed connection is through CableOne, I also maintain a 'regular' 56-K modem on the telephone line as well, and it goes to TerraWorld. I seldom use it of course. That redundancy is good to have available, especially when I used to use sbcglobal.net in the olden days. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Telus Prevents Residential Clients From Sending Email From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Organization: We Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 05:53:20 +0000 In article , Brian wrote: > The following is a letter I sent Telus because they cut off my email > in hope of forcing me to upgrade to a Business high speed ADSL > account. I would like to know how many people are affected by their > decision to force users to use only Telus SMTP servers. > Brian, Vancouver > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excuse me Brian, but it is unclear to > me how Telus, or any ISP you wish to use, is able to prevent you from > logging into and using as desired, the mail service of any other ISP > where you have an account and are otherwise authorized to use the > service. It is *simple* to to, technically. they simply install filters in their routers that drop any packets exiting their network, destined for 'port 25' (the standard port where a mail-server lives) where the _source_ address is not one of Telus's mail-servers. > What kind of a mailing client (such as Outlook Express to > name a familiar one) are you using? Are you *certain* the POP and SMTP > settings on that client (you use) are set correctly? If you are > attempting to use ISP 'x' and your mail is failing, why didn't you > call tech support at 'x' for assistance instead of Telus who would not > normally be concerned with it? I've got a feeling your calls to Telus > simply confused the issue more, and that the second tech person at > Telus misunderstood what you were trying to say, and thought perhaps > you were trying to use 'x' as an unauthorized relay. Your inability to comprehend the realities of the situation is showing. His current settings *were* working. He didn't change _anything_. His current settings _stopped_ working. Telus *DID* change something. > As an example: I have a personal account with cableone.net and I can > either call into Cable One and use their mail service directly, or I > can use my mail client (Outlook) with the proper settings for POP and > SMTP. I also have (among others) an account with Terra World and can > do the same thing: log into TerraWorld, go to mail, send and receive, > or most of the time just use Outlook with a *second set of parameters* > set up for TerraWorld. Ditto Compuserve, ditto massis.lcs.mit.edu . Immaterial, and irrelevant, to _his_ issue. > Now one day it started flaking out on TerraWorld. I could not pull > mail from there for any reason or send mail through them. I did > *not* call my ISP of record (Cable One) and ask them why ... I > called TerraWorld tech support, naturally. As it turned out, Terra > World had made a slight change in procedures which was that logins > were changed from just 'screen name' (in my case 'ptownson') to > 'screen name@terraworld.net' (or in my case, > 'ptownson@terraworld.net'. ) No other parameters had changed except > that very important one. So before you blame Telus for what may not > be their problem (except lack of good communication with customers) > why not first check with brand 'x' and ask them to walk you through > the login procedures and see if it changed at all. *WHY*?? Telus has _admitted_ that they made a change that blocked his access to 'port 25' on *any* mailserver outside of Telus's network. > And anyway, what currenty prevents you from logging into 'x' and > using their mail service directly while you sort the mess out? PAT] Do you suppose that it is just possible that he _doesn't_ have a 'shell' login on the mailserver he wants to use? Getting a 'command-line prompt' is a service that *very*few* providers offer any more. The *REAL* fix for his problem is simple. "Don't use 'port 25'" to contact the 'foreign' mailserver. This does require some co-ordination with the people that manage that server, The 'industry standard' alternative is 'port 587'. There _are_ numerous 'work arounds' for the "my ISP is blocking port 25 outbound" issue. They have one thing in common -- they all _work_. Most are 'set and forget', in any (even moderately) modern mail client. The original poster is bitching-and-moaning, because he's being slightly 'inconvenienced'. The world changed out from under him. And, he's actually going to have to _change_something_ to get the functionality he desires back. If he doesn't want to do _any_ work, he can simply pay Telus a bunch more money. If he doesn't want to pay any more money, he _will_ have to do some work. "How much" depends on 'how co-operative' the operator of the alternate mail-server he's trying to use is. Assuming that the mail-server operator is aware of the 'ISP blocking port 25' issue, and -has- any of at least half-a-dozen alternatives implemented, _implementing_ the appropriate work- around would take less than 1/4 the time it took the original poster to compose his tirade to Telus. But, then he'd lose the opportunity to climb up on his soapbox and pontificate about what an evil thing they're doing. And the satisfaction that goes with doing -that-. His 'priorities' would seem to be obvious. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excuse me. Telus did not 'admit' any such thing; well one tech person (who may or may not have understood him correctly) did, but the other one did not. And I do not for the purposes of this discussion have a 'shell account'; I just connect directly to whichever ISP I wish to use and from there proceed to use the mail service there. If I dial into TerraWorld to use them then I also tell Outlook to make the outgoing mail 'originate' from Terra World, or if I connect through Cable One then to make the same piece of mail 'originate' from cableone.net . PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Telus Prevents Residential Clients From Sending Email Organization: Looking for work Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 02:03:17 -0400 In article , Brian wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excuse me Brian, but it is unclear to > me how Telus, or any ISP you wish to use, is able to prevent you from > logging into and using as desired, the mail service of any other ISP > where you have an account and are otherwise authorized to use the > service. Have you been living under a rock, Pat? It has become a frequent practice for ISPs to have packet filters that block their residential customers from connecting to port 25 on any address other than the ISP's SMTP server. This is done to prevent spammers and zombies from bypassing the ISP's server, which has throttles to prevent them from sending huge amounts of mail. Some ISPs, like Comcast, are doing this selectively -- if a customer has been identified as a source of spam, they are blocked. But it's more common to have a blanket filter across the network. If your ISP isn't doing this, you're lucky. But quite a few ISPs are doing it -- it's much less overhead than the staff necessary to follow up on spam complaints. Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I'll need to try this and see. When using Outlook for example, if I send outgoing mail through CableOne while claiming it originated from my account at TerraWorld, or the other way around, and see if Terra World will accept mail that Outlook says came from me at CableOne. Maybe it won't work. PAT] ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: Who Got the Message? There's a Way to Know Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2004 19:17:05 -0700 In article , Gary Breuckman wrote: >> They way they work is they hold the email on their server, and send the >> recipient a 'new' email that just contains a link to their server. When >> you open the link to read the mail, they know. >> But the only way to avoid notifying the sender is not to open the link, >> and then you don't get to read the mail. Wonder what portion of the people who use this service are really aware that this is how it works -- if the recipient doesn't respond to the new email (and given my personal level of web paranoia I would certainly never respond to an email like that), do they really realize that their original email will *never* be delivered by the server? ------------------------------ From: Steven J Sobol Subject: Re: Who Got the Message? There's a Way to Know Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 00:58:56 -0500 Tony P. wrote: > Not true -- in the case of didtheyreadit.com they put a web bug in the > message that 'phones home'. If you put an entry in your hosts files that > points didtheyreadit.com to 127.0.0.1 it'll never get back. I tried > several tests and not one of them managed to say I'd read the test > messages on my main mail account. > Yes, if you have to click a link to read the message it kind of defeats > the whole purpose. I refuse to click a link to read an email message and > anyone stupid enough to subscribe to such a service will find out very > quickly how touchy users can be about email. All you have to do is use an email client like the one I use. Mozilla Thunderbird has 3 viewing modes for emails. Original HTML displays HTML emails (the type of emails that can contain web bugs) as they were meant to be displayed - as far as the sender's concerned. Plain HTML displays the emails with many features of HTML disabled. Plain Text displays them as text. I believe web bugs are disabled if you view the email as Plain HTML and I know for sure they are if you display them as Plain Text. So, there's a very simple way to avoid the web bugs. >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Can't you browse to the server holding >> the mail on your own (manually copy only the pertinite parts of the >> URL **less the cookie data** ) and get to it that way? PAT] Not really. Looking at the raw message, you may see HTML followed by plain text, or just HTML, and I mean the raw HTML codes, not the rendered message. :) Depends on how the mail was sent. Gary Novosielski wrote: > Well, if I get an e-mail telling me to click on a link, I'm not fool > enough to do so. If I did, I would presume that absolutely ANYTHING, of > which I might or might not approve, might be going on. Web bugs are usually displayed by creating an tag, which normally causes your email program to display an image - the tag points to some script sitting on a web server somewhere which logs a piece of info about you, and then (usually) displays a graphic so that you don't realize what happened... All you have to do is open the mail. JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Strange 202 Number? Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2004 20:41:26 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.NONOcom On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 00:35:51 GMT, Tony P. wrote: > I was actually surprised to see a number come up as 401-301-xxxx. > Apparently 301 is a valid exchange in RI now. So I wouldn't doubt a > double 0 would also be in service. I'll have to look at the assigned > database and check. 202-700 says there's no CLLI. As to N00 offices there are at least a couple in NPA 206. 206-200, 300 are Verizon Wireless office codes. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - remove NONO from .NONOcom to reply ------------------------------ From: Steven J Sobol Subject: Re: SIP Help Please? Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 00:55:01 -0500 JustSomeGuy wrote: > I'd like to make a test through iptel.org 5060. I believe the sip > protocol is a bit like SMTP If there is someone here who wouldn't mind > answering a few SIP questions.. Let me know? I might be able to. What are you using for your SIP connection? JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. ------------------------------ From: Steven J Sobol Subject: Re: Telus Has Fraudulently Forced Advertising on our Company Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 01:08:09 -0500 Brian wrote: > This is fraud, it is theft, it is the way yellowpages-type advertising services operate (both those owned by phone companies and others). Consult a lawyer. Also find out if the company registering Superpages.ca got any clearance from Verizon. Verizon owns Superpages.com in the US, Superpages is the name for their online directory *and* their paper phone book, and I suspect that they may be able to do something if Dominion Directory Information Services is not authorized to use the name. IIRC, Superpages is a trademark of Verizon, and I know there is a treaty providing for protection of copyrights across country boundaries, and I suspect that the same might prove true for trademarks. A lawyer well versed in intellectual property issues can tell you for sure. Go after them for your money, but let the yellow-pages slimebags from Verizon go after the yellow-pages slimebags from Telus if it's possible. You may be able to cause Telus or their contractor, Dominion Directory Information Services, a lot of pain. The superpages.ca domain, according to WHOIS, is registered to: Admin-Postal: Dominion Directory Information Services Inc. O/A Superpages 4260 Still Creek Drive Burnaby BC V5C 6C6 Canada Admin-Phone: +604-268-4634 JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. ------------------------------ From: vjp2.at@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com Subject: Phone Receptionist to Email? Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 03:10:01 UTC Organization: Samani Marions Panyaught NYC-11357-3436-287-USA In Manhattan there are plenty of telephone receptionist/answering services but none of them transcribe to email (and the cheaper ones can't even pronounce your name right). I seem to remember there used to be some HQ-like service (telephone and mailbox and hourly office/confroom rental) that did this -- once I used to use an HQ-type service and we got all our messages on computer printout when we walked in, so why not just email them? I mean there are all sorts of possible twists on this -- you could even have a receptionist check your business email address to remove spam (and put messages in folders) manually. Your faxes could go to your email. You could even get your postal paper mail scanned and emailed. Depending on where you were and what equipment constraints you have, you could request low or high resolution or just OCR. All of this, of course, is part of the process of my mcimail.com account closing down and my asking what else is available. - = - Vasos-Peter John Panagiotopoulos II, Columbia'81+, Bio$trategist BachMozart ReaganQuayle EvrytanoKastorian http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vjp2/vasos.htm ---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}--- [Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards] [Health Reform means abolishing FDR's insurance tax exemption] [To stop SPAM, Charge net-postage] [Abolish 16th (Inc Tx) Amendment] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 01:19:10 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: 1st Private, Manned Rocket Set for Launch By JOHN ANTCZAK Associated Press Writer MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) -- Aviation enthusiasts began gathering Sunday in the high desert in hopes of seeing the first flight into space by a privately developed, manned rocket. Thousands of people were expected to be watching early Monday when an exotic jet-engined airplane named White Knight was set to take off from Mojave Airport carrying the rocket-propelled SpaceShipOne. If SpaceShipOne is successful, designer Burt Rutan and his Scaled Composites development company will use the craft to make a run at the $10 million Ansari X Prize, a formal competition intended to spur commercial development of spaceflight. White Knight, carrying the rocket plane slung under its belly, was to scheduled for a 6:30 a.m. PDT takeoff, followed by a climb to 50,000 feet, where it would release SpaceShipOne about 7:30 a.m. SpaceShipOne's pilot, flying solo, would then ignite the rocket and pull up into an 80-second powered climb. After the rocket motor shuts down, the craft is to coast up to a target altitude of 62 miles above the Earth, then re-enter the atmosphere and glide for 15 to 20 minutes to a landing back at Mojave. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=42062327 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 01:41:52 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: No Use Crying Over Spilled Billions By DAVID CARR WHEN he became chief executive and, a year later, chairman of Time Warner , Richard D. Parsons was dismissed as a politician who just happened to run the biggest media company in the world. His performance since then suggests that he has a few other skills, but it's the politician in him that has a gift for making an entrance. Appearing before a gathering of employees at the Warner Brothers Studio in Burbank, Calif., two weeks ago, he walked to the edge of the stage, stretched his 6-foot-4-inch frame to full height and smiled demurely as applause several decibels past polite enveloped him. He wisecracked about the cheesy audiovisuals and quickly acknowledged various people in the audience. Two years earlier, shortly after he succeeded Gerald M. Levin as chief executive, he appeared before the same audience as the stock of AOL Time Warner, as the company was known then, was sinking toward a record low, making America Online's 2001 purchase of Time Warner one of the worst mergers in American business history. He escaped unscathed from that unhappy gathering, maybe only because of the absence of fruit markets on the film lot. This time, the road show had fewer bumps and even fewer hard questions. Mr. Parsons, a former banker and lawyer who loves jazz, projects a brand of corporate cool that seems unforced. Barry M. Meyer, who as the chief of Time Warner's Warner Brothers movie studio has shipped bags and bags of loot from the Harry Potter series to corporate headquarters in New York, introduced Mr. Parsons by playing a snippet of Johnny Nash's optimistic "I Can See Clearly Now," but reminded him that, two years earlier, "Yesterday," the Beatles' sung tale of regret, would have been appropriate. Mr. Parsons, 56, recalled the day. "When we were here in '02, Barry said that people were disappointed and somber," he said, then paused a beat for effect. "They were sullen, bordering on mutinous, is what they were." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/business/yourmoney/20time.html ------------------------------ 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. 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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 #299 ******************************