From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Aug 7 23:20:44 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.3) id i783KhM06616; Sat, 7 Aug 2004 23:20:44 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 23:20:44 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408080320.i783KhM06616@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 #370 TELECOM Digest Sat, 7 Aug 2004 23:20:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 370 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Security Cavities Ail Bluetooth (Monty Solomon) Onion Routing Averts Prying Eyes (Monty Solomon) Re: Porn Blogs Manipulate Google (Monty Solomon) Passport ID Technology Has High Error Rate (Monty Solomon) Leader: RFID in Prisons - Does Anyone Care? (Monty Solomon) The Wireless Industry and the 411 (Monty Solomon) Re: Any Experience With Verizon NJ Centrex? (Tony P.) Re: PDAs Under Attack (Tony P.) Re: POTS' Dirty Little Secret (sin nombre) Re: POTS' Dirty Little Secret (Tim Shoppa) Re: POTS' Dirty Little Secret (Fred Goldstein) Re: POTS' Dirty Little Secret (Arthur Kamlet) 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: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 16:20:31 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Security Cavities Ail Bluetooth By Kim Zetter Serious flaws discovered in Bluetooth technology used in mobile phones can let an attacker remotely download contact information from victims' address books, read their calendar appointments or peruse text messages on their phones to conduct corporate espionage. An attacker could even plant phony text messages in a phone's memory, or turn the phone sitting in a victim's pocket or on a restaurant table top into a listening device to pick up private conversations in the phone's vicinity. Most types of attacks could be conducted without leaving a trace. Security professionals Adam Laurie and Martin Herfurt demonstrated the attacks last week at the Black Hat and DefCon security and hacker conferences in Las Vegas. Phone companies say the risk of this kind of attack is small, since the amount of time a victim would be vulnerable is minimal, and the attacker would have to be in proximity to the victim. But experiments, one using a common laptop and another using a prototype Bluetooth "rifle" that captured data from a mobile phone a mile away, have demonstrated that such attacks aren't so far-fetched. Laurie, chief security officer of London-based security and networking firm ALD , discovered the vulnerability last November. Using a program called Bluesnarf that he designed but hasn't released, Laurie modified the Bluetooth settings on a standard Bluetooth-enabled laptop to conduct the data-collection attacks. Then, German researcher Herfurt developed a program called Bluebug that could turn certain mobile phones into a bug to transmit conversations in the vicinity of the device to an attacker's phone. http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,64463,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 16:22:14 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Onion Routing Averts Prying Eyes By Ann Harrison Computer programmers are modifying a communications system, originally developed by the U.S. Naval Research Lab, to help Internet users surf the Web anonymously and shield their online activities from corporate or government eyes. The system is based on a concept called onion routing. It works like this: Messages, or packets of information, are sent through a distributed network of randomly selected servers, or nodes, each of which knows only its predecessor and successor. Messages flowing through this network are unwrapped by a symmetric encryption key at each server that peels off one layer and reveals instructions for the next downstream node. In contrast, messages traveling across the Internet are generally not encrypted, and the path of a message can be seen easily, linking users to activities like website visits. The Navy is financing the development of a second-generation onion-routing system called Tor , which addresses many of the flaws in the original design and makes it easier to use. The Tor client behaves like a SOCKS proxy (a common protocol for developing secure communication services), allowing applications like Mozilla, SSH and FTP clients to talk directly to Tor and route data streams through a network of onion routers, without long delays. Onion routing does not guarantee perfect anonymity. But it helps protect users from eavesdroppers who aren't watching both the initiator and recipient of the message at the time of the transaction. Developers say Tor can be used to prevent websites from tracking their users; block governments from collecting lists of website visitors; protect whistleblowers; and circumvent local censorship by employers, ISPs or schools that restrict access to certain online services. http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,64464,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 16:32:25 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Re: Porn Blogs Manipulate Google CyberQuest Disavows Porn Blogs By Daniel Terdiman A series of blogs used in a cross-linking strategy to boost the Google page ranking of three porn sites run by adult site operator CyberQuest was the unauthorized creation of an affiliate, the company said Wednesday. CyberQuest owner Fade Saab told Wired News that he had, until Wednesday, been unaware of the blogging strategy . He also said that the effort -- in which dozens of cross-linked Blogspot blogs were set up to directly promote three CyberQuest porn sites -- was in fact the brainchild of a Vancouver, British Columbia, affiliate partner. Saab said he has demanded that the affiliate immediately remove any links to the CyberQuest porn sites, as well as any images from those sites. He also said CyberQuest will likely attempt to reclaim any profits the affiliate gained from the use of the blogging strategy. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,64468,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 16:39:59 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Passport ID Technology Has High Error Rate By Jonathan Krim Washington Post Staff Writer The State Department is moving ahead with a plan to implant electronic identification chips in U.S. passports that will allow computer matching of facial characteristics, despite warnings that the technology is prone to a high rate of error. Federal researchers, academics, industry experts and some privacy advocates say the government should instead use more-reliable fingerprints to help thwart potential terrorists. The enhanced U.S. passports, scheduled to be issued next spring for people obtaining new or renewed passports, will be the first to include what is known as biometric information. Such data, which can be a fingerprint, a picture of parts of eyes or of facial characteristics, is used to verify identity and help prevent forgery. Under State Department specifications finalized this month for companies to bid on the new system, a chip woven into the cover of the passport would contain a digital photograph of the traveler's face. That photo could then be compared with an image of the traveler taken at the passport control station, and also matched against photos of people on government watch lists. The department chose face recognition to be consistent with standards being adopted by other nations, officials said. Those who drafted the standards reasoned that travelers are accustomed to submitting photographs and would find giving fingerprints to be intrusive. But federal researchers who have tested face-recognition technology say its error rate is unacceptably high -- up to 50 percent if photographs are taken without proper lighting. They say the error rate is far lower for fingerprints, which could be added to the chip without violating the international standard. The new system would differ from U.S. requirements for many foreign travelers, who are fingerprinted when they apply for visas to visit the United States. The visitors then have their fingers scanned when they enter the country to compare against the data on the visa. Similar requirements are to be imposed for travelers from countries whose citizens do not need visas to come to the United States, who will be fingerprinted when they arrive in the country. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43944-2004Aug5.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 16:44:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Leader: RFID in Prisons - Does Anyone Care? by silicon.com US prisons have started using RFID chips to keep track of prisoners, protect staff and increase security. To date this technology has been mired in privacy concerns. Most notably, German shoppers have taken to the streets to protest their shopping habits being tracked via RFID and silicon.com readers have voiced their own fears over whether schoolchildren should be tagged. So in some ways it makes sense that RFID is taking hold in a population which has, at best, limited rights of privacy. Some may argue that this is right and good. Convicted criminals have broken laws and thus do not deserve the right to privacy earned by law-abiding citizens. Admittedly, the uses of RFID in one Ohio prison do not sound overly invasive -- prisoners will wear RFID transmitters on their wrists and staff will wear them on their belts so their location within prison grounds can be tracked. If prisoners try to remove their transmitter or warders are knocked down, computers will be alerted. Compare this to US hospitals' plans to implant chips in the arms of patients and staff. http://management.silicon.com/government/0,39024677,39122815,00.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 16:45:58 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Wireless Industry and the 411 By Yuki Noguchi Washington Post Staff Writer Darlene Mickey is among a minority of cell phone users: She actually wants her wireless number listed with directory assistance. "I live by my cell phone," said Mickey, an Arlington real estate agent who takes most of her calls from her car. "It's my lifeline for my business. I'd like my clients to be able to find me." Almost 90 percent of the 160 million U.S. cell phone consumers have another opinion. They don't want their numbers listed, according to a survey by a market research firm. Nonetheless, the cell phone industry plans to launch a database to list numbers at customers' request. Within the next few months, most customers will be asked by their carriers whether they want to be included in such a database of numbers and addresses. New customers will be asked when they sign up for service. Established customers can expect a form in the mail. The directory service is scheduled to begin early next year. It would allow people to call directory assistance services such as 411 or 555-1212 to get cell phone numbers, along with wire-line phone numbers. Consumer groups say that such a directory would open a door to unwanted marketing and other harassing calls that not only would hassle cell phone users but also cost them valuable minutes for incoming calls. Members of Congress are considering bills to regulate the collection of cell phone information. And the chief executive of the nation's largest provider of wireless communications, Verizon Wireless, derided the directory assistance plan as a "dumb idea." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46711-2004Aug6.html ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Any Experience With Verizon NJ Centrex? Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2004 17:29:32 GMT In article , chrispchang@yahoo.com says: > Hi, I'm new to this group but seems like there are a number of > knowledgeable telecom folks here. I am opening a small office (6 > people with potential to expand to max of 15). In looking at phone > systems, we want basic voicemail functionality, caller id and call > waiting caller id. > I am thinking about using Centrex offered by Verizon NJ instead of > purchasing a phone system. Was wondering if anyone had any opinions > from experience with using this? We intend to get Centrex compatible > display phones so users don't have to deal with switchook/flash button > stuff. > Appreciate any responses. From an accounting perspective, the Centrex is a month to month expense, while buying a system gives you the depreciation over time plus the cost of the loops as a monthly expense. I don't like Centrex because you're on the hook to Verizon until you decide to put your own system in. Right now you can get systems that will expand to what you need for < $1000. You don't mention how many CO lines you'll be using. There is a difference. WIth Centrex, every phone is a CO line that you'll pay for. With you own system, you only pay for those CO lines you tie into the KSU or PBX. Let's say you have 6 extensions with 4 CO loops at $30 a month using a KSU or PBX. Your initial cost going in is $1000, with a recurring monthly expense of $120, or $1,440 a year. So your cost in the first year is $2,440. Subsequent years would be $1,440. At year three you fully staff to 15 people and add 5 CO lines. Perhaps you'll spend $800 or so to upgrade the switch. Monthly your cost would now be $300 a month, $3,600 a year. Six Centrex loops at $25 a month, plus a rental fee on the phones of roughly $10 each per month comes out to $210 a month, or $2,520 a year. All subsequent years would cost approximately the same. When you fully staff, the cost now comes to $525 a month, or $6,300 a year. So you can see that in the long term, Centrex is a losing bet. Unless of course you want to increase your expenses. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: PDAs Under Attack Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2004 17:30:39 GMT In article , monty@roscom.com says: > Kaspersky Labs > 05 Aug 2004 > Kaspersky Labs has detected Backdoor.WinCE.Brador.a, the first > backdoor for PDAs running under PocketPC (based on Windows CE). > Brador is a classic Trojan backdoor program: it opens the infected > machine for remote administration. Brador is 5632 bytes in size and it > infects handhelds running Pocket PC. > After the backdoor is launched, it creates an svchost.exe file in the > Windows autorun folder, thus maintaining full control over the system > every time the handheld is turned on. > Brador then identifies the machine's IP address and sends it to the > author, informing him that the handheld is in the Internet and the > backdoor is active. Finally, Brador opens port 2989 and awaits further > commands. > Brador is created to allow the master full control over the infected > PDA via the port that the Trojan opens. Brador is programmed to upload > and download files and execute a series of further commands. Like all > backdoors, Brador cannot spread by itself: it can only arrive as an > email attachment, be downloaded from the Internet or uploaded along > with other data from a desktop. > http://www.kaspersky.com/news?id=151142122 Hence why I will NEVER buy a Win CE PDA. ------------------------------ From: sin nombre Subject: Re: POTS' Dirty Little Secret Date: 7 Aug 2004 05:32:48 -0700 Organization: Newsguy News Service [http://newsguy.com] In article , Lisa Hancock says... >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well I guess it depends on how you > define 'handsome'. I know that AT&T is the **only** company which has > had a single letter ('T') as their stock symbol and they have > **never** missed a dividend (frequently large) in over a hundred > years. In fact, older (1930-ish) magazines and newspapers had adver- < tisements which glorified telco's stocks; for example the ad they > ran over and over showing an old lady sitting in a rocking chair with > a contented look on her face and the caption said how lucky she was > that her AT&T stock dividends were looking after her in her old age > during the depression. PAT] s. Re stock symbols -- "A" is Agilent (the HP spinoff), "C" is citigroup, and "L" is Liberty Media. There may be others ... :-) "T" is having a very tough time. Consumer long distance is practically worthless. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/040805/at_t_asset_writedown_4.html Associated Press, Thursday August 5, 4:31 pm ET AT&T May Write Down Value of Some of Its $43.8B in Assets; Company May Be Takeover Target NEW YORK (AP) -- AT&T Corp. said it may write down the value of some of its $43.8 billion in assets, intensifying speculation that the nation's largest long-distance phone company is a takeover target. ------------------------------ From: shoppa@trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Subject: Re: POTS' Dirty Little Secret Date: 7 Aug 2004 06:16:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) wrote in message news:: > We have need to support little things like a PSAP -- Public Safety > Answering Point, and guess what -- VoIP doesn't work with when your > life may be in danger. Why, because VoIP can't provide a known > connection point from which an address can be derived. Well, let me > expand a little further. We know where the router is, but where is > the connection being made from to the router on the user side? How is that different than the way many traditional PBX-type systems are installed? Sure, the new ones are technically capable of providing the necessary 911 information, but many aren't set up correctly to do so. And there are still older PBX's where this isn't even technically possible. Tim. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2004 12:27:36 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: POTS' Dirty Little Secret I don't like to get into long debates or anything (yeah, right) but I just thought I'd correct a few errors for the record. On 6 Aug 2004 10:46:39, Lisa Hancock wrote: > I'm not sure I call the Bell's profit "handsome". As a regulated > monopoly, its prices were set by the government. It was of course > to Bell's advantage to have low prices to attract as many customers > as possible, HOWEVER, their prices could've been higher without > loss of their customer base. In other words, without > regulation, they would've made a lot more money. Wait a second. The Bell System made several deals with the government that gave it the right to monopolize telephone service. Between 1912 (when there was still considerable local competition -- "CLEC" is not a new concept) and 1930, the competitors pretty much failed or were bought out, and between the time of the passage of the Communications Act of 1934 (which created the FCC) and the Carterfone decision of 1968, the monopoly was very strict indeed, and enforced. The quid pro quo was that absent competitive forces to control prices, the regulated telephone companies' prices would have to be approved by the government. They were "allowed to earn" specific rate-of-return targets, which were calculated to be roughly equivalent to what that amount of capital should earn in a competitive marketplace. It wasn't bad dosh, and the phone company stocks were a good "widows and orphans" investment. Now without regulation, they could have earned more, but then any unregulated monopoly can earn more than a regulated one -- that's why there are antitrust laws, for instance. Unregulated monopolies are bad for the economy. (I note that some extreme right-wing fringe elements don't like antitrust and think monopolies are just dandy, but then some folks think worms are good food. I'd rather eat a worm.) > Being regulated did not guarantee success. Railroads were a strictly > regulated monopoly HUH? Regulated, but still very competitive! There were LOTS of railroads. They eventually had competition from over-the-road vehicles. > but still went broke. Some did, but some carry on successfully. See, for instance, CSX. *Passenger* railroads had trouble, but that's a complex story. > Western Union went broke. Indeed; their picture is also in the dictionary next to "badly managed company". > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well I guess it depends on how you > define 'handsome'. I know that AT&T is the **only** company which has > had a single letter ('T') as their stock symbol Except for, oh, Agilent, Barnes Group, Citigroup, Dominion Resources, ENI, Ford, Gillette, Kellogg, Liberty Media, Inco, Realty Income Corp, Qwest, Ryder, Sears, Vivendi, US Steel, and Alleghany. Rumor has it that "M" is reserved by the NYSE as an incentive to get a certain very big software house to move over there from the NASDAQ. This stuff is pretty easy to look up on the Internet. > and they have **never** missed a dividend (frequently large) in > over a hundred years. In fact, older (1930-ish) magazines and > newspapers had advertisements which glorified telco's stocks; for > example the ad they ran over and over showing an old lady sitting in > a rocking chair with a contented look on her face and the caption > said how lucky she was that her AT&T stock dividends were looking > after her in her old age during the depression. PAT] There are benefits to having safe investments. Bank CDs didn't exist in those days. I personally think investing in small, well-run banks is a good safe way to earn more than a bank deposit, while investing in tech stocks is a good all-weather alternative to horses. Both types of investments have their value. >> One of the problems with a monopoly is stagnation and AT&T was very >> stagnate. They had no reason to improve things for the users. > Sorry, but that is not accurate at all. Bell Laboratories under > the Bell System was well known for continuing inventions and > technology development. Otherwise we'd still be using manual > candlestick phones. It was the Bell System that developed ESS > and cellular mobile telephones. It was the Bell System that > continually searched for ways to improve the carrying efficiency > of circuits, such as digital transmission and switching. Nice propaganda, but hardly accurate. Bell Labs did raw science, government work, and some telco work. Not always unrelated. It is unfortunately that there's nobody today to fund such activities on such a scale, but that's not a reason to stifle competition in the telecom sector. But it was not AT&T that led most progress in applied telephony. Strowger invented the dial phone in 1893. GTE's predecessors introduced dial service in 1896. Ma Bell didn't have dial until the 1920s -- the independents and competitors were often dial first! Bell did pioneer digital transmission technology (T1, for short-haul use), but did not maintain the lead; Long Lines thought analog was more efficient and stuck with it through the 1970s. AT&T was very late to the party with digital switching. Their whole management philosophy was to maintain old equipment until it broke, and not to promote obsolescence by introducing disruptive technology. Competition does that. > The Bell System's electronic switching systems were so far > advanced that Bell had to develop the hardware itself to make > them work -- the then state of the art in computer hardware was > not adequate to meet their needs. That is rather hilarious. They did develop their own *bizarro* computing architecture, to be sure, with mag core RAM and ferrite-sheet EPROMs, but the 1ESS still used reed relays for the switch elements. They stuck with reed relays into the 1980s. >> Lisa, AT&T wasn't being such a nice guy as you think. What they were >> doing is subsidizing their major customers on the backs of the little >> guys and residential customers. What MCI did was bring that truth in >> the open. > AT&T's flat pricing policy wasn't a secret -- it was mandated by the > government as part of the regulation. Obviously on some sectors AT&T > made money but also obviously AT&T lost money on other sectors -- again > because the government ordered it so. It was a joint decision -- ever hear of "regulatory capture"? AT&T figured out long ago that "universal service" would make their network more valuable, so they set up cross-subsidies to fund it. This grew worse over time, peaking in the 1970s and even into the 1980s. Economists will point out that non-cost-based pricing creates economic inefficiency in the greater economy. Much effort was wasted by companies trying to get around Bell overcharges. (Though it was good for me, professionally, as a telecom manager and consultant.) Now back to the original topic: There's a lot of baggage attached to "POTS" and "VoIP". Truth is, all other things held constant, TDM for voice is almost always more reliable and better quality than IP, and often cheaper. But all other things aren't being held constant; *implementations* of TDM tend to be older, while VoIP wasn't around long enough to have old gear providing it! There are also current opportunities for regulatory arbitrage that make VoIP look cheaper. VoIP as raw technology can provide good service or mediocre-to-poor service, depending on how it's used. So can TDM! The weak points in more telephone networks are at the raw transmission level -- wires on the pole -- and when a drunk driver (or careless cement mixer operator) takes down a pole, the wire doesn't care what protocol runs across it. People confuse VoIP technology with VoIP service providers, such as Vonage. That's like confusing "wine" with "Gallo Hearty Burgundy". One's a subset of the other. You may like Coors beer more than Gallo Hearty Burgundy, or vice-versa. But you can't generalize from Vonage to define all VoIP. That's a mistake many regulators are making. my real email is fgoldstein at, uh, ionary dot com. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There follow a couple of correction messages about my error on 'one letter stock abbreviations' but after those, we really should close this thread on 'POTs Dirty Little Secret' once and for all; thank you to all who participated in it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kamlet@panix.com (Arthur Kamlet) Subject: Re: POTS' Dirty Little Secret Date: 7 Aug 2004 15:23:27 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: ArtKamlet@aol.REMOVE.com In article , Lisa Hancock wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well I guess it depends on how you > define 'handsome'. I know that AT&T is the **only** company which has > had a single letter ('T') as their stock symbol and they have > **never** missed a dividend (frequently large) in over a hundred > years. There are other one-letter stock symbols. This link is about 15 months old and changes have occurred, but you get the idea: Subject: Trivia - One-Letter Ticker Symbols on NYSE Last-Revised: 18 Mar 2003 Contributed-By: Art Kamlet (artkamlet at aol.com), Doug Gerlach (gerlach at investorama.com) Some of the largest companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange have 1-letter ticker symbols, and some relatively unknowns do also. Not all of the one-letter symbols are obvious, nor does a one-letter symbol mean the stock is a blue chip, a US corporation, or even well known. Originally when the symbol had to be written down on transaction slips, it was faster to write down the real big companies, like T (Telephone), F (Ford), K (Kellogg), G (Gillette), X (Steel), and Z (Woolworth, recently morphed). But later just anyone it seems was able to get 1-letter symbols. Yet when Chrysler (C) was absorbed by Daimler to become DCX, note that Citicorp (which had just merged Citibank with Travelers) jumped to claim the C for themselves. This page shows all of the one-letter ticker symbols listed on the NYSE. Since the US exchanges avoid overlaps, this means that only the NYSE uses one-letter ticker symbols. In the following list, the ticker links will take you to the appropriate page at Yahoo! Finance with a current quote and price chart. Ticker Company A Agilent Technologies (split-off from H-P; previously Astra AB) B Barnes Group C Citigroup (previously, Chrysler had 'C') D Dominion Resources E Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi SpA (ADR) F Ford Motor Company G Gillette H Harcourt General I None - formerly First Interstate Bancorp - merged into Wells Fargo J Jackpot Enterprises K none - (formerly Kellogg ) L Liberty Media M None - formerly M-Corp - merged into BancOne N Inco, Ltd. O Realty Income Corp P Phillips Petroleum Q Qwest Communications R Ryder Systems S Sears, Roebuck & Company T AT&T Corp U vacant (fcormerly US Airways) V Vivendi Universal W vacant (formerly Westvaco) X US Steel Y Alleghany Corp. Z vacant (formerly Woolworth who is now Foot Locker) The Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange has publicly said that he is holding the symbols "M" and "I" for two companies he hopes to convince to switch from Nasdaq to the NYSE -- Microsoft and Intel. http://invest-faq.com/articles/triv-one-letter-tick.html Art Kamlet ArtKamlet @ AOL.com Columbus OH K2PZH ------------------------------ 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'. 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