From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Aug 10 01:16:04 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.3) id i7A5G3m03250; Tue, 10 Aug 2004 01:16:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 01:16:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408100516.i7A5G3m03250@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 #372 TELECOM Digest Tue, 10 Aug 2004 01:16:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 372 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Competition, New Technology Take Sting Out of Long-Distance (VOIP News) Fahrenheit FBI (VOIP News) A Global Call For Help (Eric Friedebach) Forsee: Sprint Gambles On Charge Waiver Deal (Eric Friedebach) Re: Any Experience With Verizon NJ Centrex? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Up and Down, All Around (Robert Bonomi) Re: FCC Restricts Reports on Telecom Disruptions (Tony P.) U.S. TV Networks See Young Men Return to The Fold (Monty Solomon) US FCC Denies Will and Grace, Buffy Shows Indecent (Monty Solomon) SBC, DSL and the Local Phone Service Bunble (Kevin Blackwell) Re: Liabiltiy For Neglegent Storage of Data? (Lisa Hancock) 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: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 13:03:55 -0400 Subject: Competition, New Technologies Take Sting Out of Long-Distance Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04222/358706.stm By Christopher Stern, The Washington Post "Shush, it's long-distance!" For decades, a long-distance call was something special -- and expensive. It could instantly quiet a dinner-table conversation and infuse a household with an aura of anxiety or romance. Over time, long-distance became cheaper and more routine. And now it appears close to disappearing entirely as its own category, thanks to the popularity of unlimited telephone packages. For millions of people, it no longer makes a difference if they call across the country or across the street. What began as a slow change has been accelerating in the past year or so, upending an industry long viewed as a steady utility. A combination of deregulation and new technologies has spawned a sometimes bewildering choice of pricing plans for consumers from different players -- traditional phone giants, wireless firms, cable systems and Internet companies. Most of them offer connections for much less than what separate local and long-distance used to cost. Further roiling the industry, consumers have begun to embrace a technology that allows them to make calls over their high-speed Internet connections instead of phone lines. Such services are driving prices down further. The technology has been waiting in the wings for several years but has begun to take off now that 25 percent of the nation's homes have subscribed to a high-speed Internet service. In the past few months, Verizon, AT&T and other large telephone companies have introduced Internet-based offerings. The technology is already popular with businesses that have been able to cut their long-distance bills by as much as 50 percent. American West Transportation, a furniture shipping company in California, used to pay $30,000 or more as it kept in touch with customers and employees nationwide. But in December, American West signed a contract with Covad Communications Group Inc. to move all of its telephone traffic onto the Internet. Now American West's monthly long-distance bill is around $20,000, and when the transition is complete -- sometime next month -- costs should drop to about $15,000, said Curt Scott, who is in charge of American West Transportation's phone system. Full story at: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04222/358706.stm How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 13:55:18 -0400 Subject: Fahrenheit FBI Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-5302080.html By Declan McCullagh CNET News.com COMMENTARY--A new U.S. government decision extending wiretapping regulations to the Internet raises far more questions than it answers. The Federal Communications Commission voted 5-0 last week to prohibit businesses from offering broadband or Internet phone service unless they provide police with back doors for wiretapping access. Formal regulations are expected by early next year. But the commissioners didn't give the FBI and its allies at the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration everything they wanted. In the police agencies' original request, submitted in March, they asked the FCC to force surveillance back doors into instant-messaging programs and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications that do not use the traditional telephone network. The FCC politely declined, with Chairman Michael Powell saying those services were exempt from the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) and that it was "unnecessary to identify future services and entities subject to" mandatory wiretapping requirements. So what happens next? Here are some questions that could be asked of Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller: Full story at: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-5302080.html ------------------------------ From: friedebach@yahoo.com (Eric Friedebach) Subject: A Global Call For Help Date: 9 Aug 2004 11:31:33 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Marianne Hayes, 08.09.04, Forbes.com NEW YORK - When disaster strikes in a place where there isn't a working mobile phone close at hand, calling for help can be a challenge. So it is for hikers, boaters and mountain climbers and others who find fun or work beyond the bounds of civilization. The global equivalent of the 911 call for pilots and mariners has for years been the COSPAS-SARSAT International Satellite System for Search and Rescue. In an emergency, a beacon can be triggered that sends a call for help and gives its location by taking a reading from Global Positioning System satellites. Upon detection of a signal from a beacon, authorities on the ground then contact search-and-rescue authorities in the relevant area. In a little more than 20 years of operation, the system has been credited with saving more than 15,000 lives in more than 4,000 incidents. http://www.forbes.com/technology/2004/08/09/cx_mh_0809tentech.html Eric Friedebach /Favorite OnStar commercial: crying woman drops keys in toilet/ ------------------------------ From: friedebach@yahoo.com (Eric Friedebach) Subject: Forsee: Sprint Gambles On Charge Waiver Deal Date: 9 Aug 2004 12:21:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Greg Levine, 08.09.04, Forbes.com Like an officer who bunks with the enlisted men, Sprint is tying its success to its customers' good fortune with the service. Helmed by Chairman and Chief Executive Gary Forsee, 53, the telecommunications firm said it will offer service-level deals to both new and renewing business wireless subscribers with a strong guarantee: If users suffer more than "minimal" hurdles with their voice service, up to 30% of that month's recurring charges will be wiped out. With Verizon Wireless, Cingular and Nextel part of the heavy competition, the gauntlet has been thrown down to Sprint to seize a larger wedge of business customers. http://www.forbes.com/2004/08/09/0809autofacescan02.html Eric Friedebach /Favorite OnStar commercial: crying woman drops keys in toilet/ ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Any Experience With Verizon NJ Centrex? Date: 9 Aug 2004 12:44:30 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com chrispchang@yahoo.com (Chris Chang) wrote: > Was wondering if anyone had any opinions from experience with using > this? Works fine, always reliable no matter what. Fast connections -- that is, other PBXs sometimes have a few second pause before the number is passed through. I don't know about cost, but I suspect Verizon will do things for you instead of you hiring someone to do them. That can save you the salary/cost of an inhouse telco administrator, depending on the size and nature of your business. If you get your own system, you'll have to shop around and evaluate quality and reliability and service. Presumably you've heard of the many problems of that Newark-based private company. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Up and Down, All Around Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 20:51:05 +0000 In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > You may have noticed there was no issue of the Digest on Sunday. No > matter, it would have been a little thin anyway, as weekends often are > here, with spam so high and the real meat lower on weekends. But my > real complaint is one I ask for yor comments on: the frequency with > which the network (internal LAN) blows up, quits running, has to be > rebooted. > The configuration is this: in from the cable line into the cable modem > which is 192.168.100.1 . From the cable modem into the Motorola TA box > for Vonage (192.168.102.1), out of the Motorola into a Netgear > Wireless router (192.168.0.1 [from the inside], 192.168.102.101 [when > it looks at the Motorola TA]) and out of the router via wires to the > various computers (192.168.0 [.2 through .5], one of which is the > 'wireless' device (192.168.0.3 most of the time). So in other words, > there are *two* firewalls sitting next to each other, the Motorola TA > box then the Netgear router right behind it. > About once per day, the whole thing crashes. Computers cannot reach > the net and cannot see each other. Normally a reboot solves the > problem but the reboot has to be done a very specific way: > 1) *everything* turned completely off > 2) cable modem and both firewalls unplugged, shut down > 3) then the process reverses, with > a) cable modem allowed to reset, plugged back in, restarted > b) Motorola TA plugged back in, allowed to reset to cable modem > c) Netgear router plugged in, allowed to reset to Motorola > d) various computers turned on, they find one another and the net > If I do not do it in that order, or if I 'rush the process' by > restarting the Motorola before the modem has correctly initialized > or the Netgear before the Motorola is happy, or the computers before > the Netgear --> Motorola --> cable modem have each initialized and > are waiting, then it just won't work and has to be done over. Or like > yesterday, over and over and over and over and over, fifteen minutes > or so each reboot. > My question: is that 'normal', that a network looks/acts like a house > made out of playing cards, forever falling apart and requiring massive > amounts of time, in a precise way, to get restarted? Shouldn't it stay > together a little better than it does or have to be deliberatly > tampered with to make it fall down? For a badly-designed / badly-implemented one, yes, such failures are absolutely 'typical'. I've had _two_ device lock-ups on my network in somewhat over three years. power-cycling the _single_ affected device restored 100% operation. Unsupported, unscientific, WAG -- It appears likely that you're using multiple layers of DHCP, and that things are getting screwed up when the 'leases' expire. [[.. munch ..]] > .... Meanwhile of course spam kept flooding in to all my accounts > causing Outlook Express to get 'wedged' as it tried to pull the mail > (both huge in size and volume) out of my accounts. Moral of story -- use a _real_ mail-reader program. Which excludes, by definition, _anything_ put out by MicroSoft. 'The Bat!' is one very good option. Google for it > Another computer > has a local issue where it won't access the CD Rom; the Bios has to be > adjusted. A very common situation. > In short, 15-16 hours of total hell yesterday; one of the by-products > of my brain disease is growing tired and impatient very easily. All > logic failed me; I was reduced to chanting and cursing God for every- > thing. Is that the way 'computers' are for everyone, or am I missing > something? Several varieties of cable-modem and firewall-type boxes have known 'lock up' problems when certain kinds of hostile events occur. There are various 'fixes' for those problems, ranging from uploading new software into the box to modifying _and_ disabling certain services on the box (note:in some cases, _just_ disabling the service is *NOT* enough -- the box is still 'listening', even though it isn't 'acting' on the packets, and 'listening' is enough to induce the problem.) You should _not_ have to *unplug* anything. Tturning the power off, waiting 15 seconds or so, and turning power back on (in the right order) should be sufficient. You should =not= have to power-cycle everything. Just the box or two that have locked up. The most likely culprits are the vonage box, and the cable modem. The next time it happens, _before_ mucking with things, try the 'ping' command (from a DOS 'command' prompt, or a LINUX shell prompt), to the _other_ addresses internally on your network. See which device(s) respond, and which do not. Try it from several _different_ machines, that are hooked in at different places. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The three devices which pain me the most -- the cable modem, the Vonage Motorola TX box, and the Netgear Wireless router box -- do not have 'off/on switches' on them to toggle as needed. They simply have plugs from power supplies (plugged in wall outlets) to the back of the units. You want to power the device down you have to unplug them from the back of unit or the wall. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: FCC Restricts Reports on Telecom Disruptions Organization: ATCC Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 02:29:50 GMT In article , bernies@netaxs.com says: > And at the request of the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal > Communications Commission yesterday agreed to restrict public access > to reports of telecommunications disruptions, Congressional Quarterly > Homeland Security reported today. > DHS argued that information about communications outages could provide > -- what else? -- "a roadmap for terrorists." > "The commission concluded that the information needs to be not > routinely available for public inspection, and the commission is > treating all outage reports filed as being presumptively confidential > under the Freedom of Information Act," FCC official Kent Nilsson told > CQ Homeland Security. While they're at it, they better take down Telcodata, etc. Look, CO's are usually big boxes/buildings and breakout boxes, fiber runs etc. are all well marked. But I've noted that Verizon of RI seems to be having some trunking problems. Lots of fast busies lately. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 22:07:19 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: U.S. TV Networks see Young Men Return to The Fold By Ben Berkowitz LOS ANGELES, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Television networks that cried foul almost a year ago over data that suggested young men were renouncing television are breathing easier this summer -- the guys are back and may never have left after all. The fall 2003 television season kicked off a controversy between the networks and ratings tracker Nielsen Media Research, which reported a sharp drop-off in viewing, especially among young men. But for the first eight weeks of this summer season, in prime-time the four major networks -- ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox -- were down only 3 percent in the rating for male audiences ages 18 to 34 compared to a year earlier. Each rating point represents 1 percent of the total audience being measured. And while the audience may have been slightly smaller, actual TV usage -- the total of collective time spent watching television by the group -- was up 3 percent over the same period. The rating decline is much smaller than at the start of the 2003-2004 season last fall and one the networks say can be explained away by changes to the way viewers are measured. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43003877 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 22:11:09 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: US FCC Denies Will and Grace, Buffy Shows Indecent WASHINGTON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - U.S. communications regulators have denied complaints that TV stations violated indecency rules when they aired episodes of NBC's "Will and Grace" and UPN's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" with fake lesbian and heterosexual sex, according to orders released on Monday. The Federal Communications Commission ruled that two women kissing and faking sexual intercourse on "Will and Grace" did not violate regulations that limit indecent material to late night hours and bans outright obscene material. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=42997369 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 13:04:31 -0500 From: Kevin Blackwell Subject: SBC, DSL and the Local Phone Service Bumble In June or July, http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-sbc10jun10,1,4839600.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business The firm is ordered to cease its practice of refusing to provide the service to people who switch phone carriers. By James S. Granelli, Times Staff Writer I live in Illinois, and SBC won't provide DSL unless you have them as a local carrier. Does anyone know what the above decision means for the DSL subscribers in Illinois? Kevin [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am not positive about this but I heard two versions: version one says SBC claims the ruling only applies to people in California, and version two says SBC has not obeyed the ruling at all and has not decided if/when/how to appeal. I know here in Kansas, SBC has taken the same posture of using DSL as their hostage or trump card to keep people on their lousy and expensive phone service. When people challenge them on that (at least around here) SBC's response is "well, you could always sue us like happened in California." Of course SBC knows full well no one in their right mind is going to bother with that expense. Duane, (owner of Prairie Stream Communications and TerraWorld [our local ISP]) simply laughs and tells folks, "let me handle your phone service, and Mike Flood (Cable One local manager) will handle your high speed internet. So what's the big problem?" The problem is people who are unfamiliar with telling Traditional Bell to shove off are afraid they will 'get in trouble' doing that bypass. Kevin, have you considered dumping DSL and SBC for far better service from a cable provider? PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Liabiltiy For Neglegent Storage of Data? Date: 9 Aug 2004 14:20:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com chsvideo@hotmail.com (Lincoln J. King-Cliby) wrote > I was notified yesterday that my personal data (SSN, name, etc.) was > included in a fairly-highly-publicized loss of data (er, "misplacement > of data") on the part of the California State University-Office of the > Chancellor. I would recommend consulting with an attorney with experience in this particular field. You may find different attorneys give different answers which makes the issue all the much tougher. When you say "lost", do you mean they no longer have the files and must re-enter the information in them, or, do you mean the files were released unto the world. If it's the first (data destroyed), I don't think you have much of a claim. > I _WILL_ be filing a claim with the State Board of Control (the first > step before one can sue a state agency) on, among other things, the > basis that the Auditor (and by extension the Office of the Chancellor, > Civ. Code 2338) was grossly negligent in that: If someone were to make use of your data, then you could sue for damages. But for all we know, the lost disk drive is in a dump never to be seen again. > a) The data was allowed on a laptop hard drive to begin with, without > my knowledge or consent [It's not entirely clear how they got my SSN > to begin with]; Unless that is expressly prohibited by statute, I am not aware of any restriction as to where personal data may reside. Your personal data is also on pieces of paper in file cabinets or in someone's briefcase. > b) The data was not encrypted; Again, I am not aware of a statute requiring this. > c) The data was not adequately secured or supervised, and the Auditor > should have been plainly aware that the data was not adequately > secured; IMHO, if you were to sue for damages this would support your claim of negligence. You would have to provide an acceptable definition of what "adequately secured" means and then prove they failed to uphold it. The situation has described is kind of a gray area, it's not like someone left a laptop with the data in a public restaurant. > d) My [state] Constitutional Right to Privacy was violated (Cal. > Const. Art. 1, Sec. 24); A lawyer would have to answer that one. > e) The use of my SSN since (IIRC) Jan 1, 2004 may violate certain > provisions of California Law (depending on what they were using it > for ... I certainly never received the notice also required by those > provisions); You would have to know exactly what the law requires and what the SSN uses were. This situation sounds irrevelent to the loss of the disk drive; they were or were not permitted to use your SSN in this particular data application. > - As to bullet B, am I unreasonable to expect that IF the data was > allowed "out in the wild" it would be encrypted in some way? Because it is personal data, I would expect some reasonable form of protection on it, though not necessarily encryption. If someone could say pull up the data in unformatted raw form (just long strings of numbers), I'm not sure if that constitutes a release of data. Somebody would need considerable skill to (a) bypass a password and use a file dump to get to data and (b) interpret unformatted number strings into real usable information. > - Any idea of the damages I should seek in the claim? I'm still > looking through CA law/case law, and have not yet located any > statutory guidance as far as penalties are concerned. A laywer would have to advise you. As I (a layman) understand tort law: 1) you actually have to suffer damages; that is, someone actually has to find and make use of the stolen data. I suppose "potential" damages have been won in some cases, but they're tough. 2) Actual damages would be the real costs you incurred as a result of someone using the stolen data. That can vary tremendously. 3) "Punitive damages" is to punish the institution for its negligence. A lawyer would have to discuss that with you considering the actual loss. > I'm not usually this ... angry ... but quite frankly what was done here > was stupid and unnecessary, lacking even basic protection for the > data. I've never said this before, but I almost hope some idiot looses > their job over this. My gut feeling is that the disk drive was inadvertently thrown out in the trash and will never be seen again. I'd be surprised if this turns into identity theft. From what I've read, identity thieves work more in retail environments, and do stuff like make copies of your credit card when you pay your restaurant check, or copy your driver's license when you try out a car at a dealer. Whatever, please keep us posted as to what transpires. My big objection to identity theft is the easy way credit companies issue credit on the spot. Not that long ago you filled out an application and signed it for a credit card; it was checked and approved, then a card mailed to you. Now they give you instant credit at a store and that makes things very ripe for abuse. Big companies (banks, stores, utilities) used to have branch offices in the neighborhood where you'd walk in person and discuss things. They all discourage that now and want it all done over the phone. That opens up the risk. Some companies are very sloppy with ID, some are very secure. It bothers me that I can use my community swimming pool photo ID as 'official identification' in some places. Some forged driver licenses are obvious fakes if someone looks carefully and is trained to look. Another problem I've read is that companies/cops don't bother going after small losses, so criminals get away with it very easily. The newspaper had a story of someone screwed through ID theft but since the overall lost money wasn't that high they company and police didn't bother chasing it down. I realize they can't go after a person who might steal a quarter, but this was serious. ------------------------------ 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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