From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 2 03:11:50 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i827Bn913908; Thu, 2 Sep 2004 03:11:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 03:11:50 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409020711.i827Bn913908@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 #409 TELECOM Digest Thu, 2 Sep 2004 03:11:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 409 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Philly Considers Wireless Internet for All (Monty Solomon) WIPphone to Offer Free Local Phone Numbers to Top 20 U.S. (M Solomon) 53 Million American Adults are Instant Message Users (Monty Solomon) Scummy Spyware Gets Even Scummier (TELECOM Digest Editor) Skype2Phone and Phone2Skype Function (John) Re: Book Review: Fighting Spam for Dummies, Levine/Young/Church (Smith) Re: Cable Addresses? (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (John R. Covert) Re: Verizon Cable TV? (Neal McLain) Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 (Jim Haynes) Re: Last Laugh! A Visit to Doctor's Office (Tom Smith) Re: Vonage dual ring, was Considering VoIP For Home (John Levine) Re: You Can Still Send a Westren Union Mailgram (SunGard BSR) Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram (J Kelly) Re: Dating an Old Phone Number (elgart@earthlink.net) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 22:56:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Philly Considers Wireless Internet for All By DAVID B. CARUSO Associated Press Writer PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Forget finding an Internet cafe. For less than what it costs to build a small library, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot. The ambitious plan, now under discussion, would involve placing thousands of small transmitters around the city _ probably atop lampposts. Each of these wireless hot spots would be capable of communicating with the Wi-Fi network cards that now come standard with many computers. Once complete, the $10 million network would deliver broadband Internet almost anywhere radio waves can travel _ including poor neighborhoods where high-speed Internet access is now rare. The city would likely offer the service either for free, or at costs far lower than the $35 to $60 a month charged for broadband delivered over telephone and cable TV lines, said the city's chief information officer, Dianah Neff. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43441706 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 23:00:15 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: WIPphone to Offer Free Local Phone Numbers to the Top 20 U.S. NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 1, 2004-- Callers Can Now Reach Customers around the World for the Cost of a Local Call The latest salvo aimed at the likes of Vonage, AT&T and Verizon in the "VoIP Features War" is being launched as Worldwide Telco ( www.wIPphone.com ), a New York-based telecom company, establishes the first VoIP local access number network providing free local numbers for the top 20 U.S. cities. Additionally, callers to these numbers will be able to reach any wIPphone subscriber around the world for the price of a local call. The following markets will be offered in wIPphone's local access network: New York Houston Los Angeles Miami Chicago Seattle San Francisco Phoenix Washington St. Louis Boston Minneapolis Atlanta San Diego Dallas Denver Detroit Tampa Philadelphia Cleveland - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43431659 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 00:13:37 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: 53 Million American Adults are Instant Message Users http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/89/press_release.asp 53 Million American Adults are Instant Message Users Some 42% of online Americans use instant messaging, and 24% of instant messagers say they use IM more frequently than email. 9/1/2004 Some 42% of online Americans use instant messaging, and 24% of instant messagers say they use IM more frequently than email. This translates to 53 million American adults who instant message and over 12 million who IM more than emailing. On a typical day, 29% of instant messengers-or roughly 15 million American adults-use IM. The new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project also finds that instant messaging is especially popular among younger adults and technology enthusiasts. 62% of Gen Y Americans (those ages 18-27) report using IM. Within the instant messaging Gen Y age group, 46% report using IM more frequently than email. http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/89/press_release.asp How Americans Use Instant Messaging Eulynn Shiu, Amanda Lenhart 9/1/2004 http://www.pewinternet.org/report_display.asp?r=133 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 14:59:19 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Scummy Spyware Gets Even Scummier Several months ago in an Editor's Note I told you that this kind of thing was becoming more prevalent. Other than repeatedly flushing your computer with products like Ad-Aware or other tools to seek out spies, which should be done on a regular basis anyway, another fool-proof solution (at least for now) is to keep your on line cameras *pointed at a wall or corner* when not in use and keep your audio capture (i.e. microphones) turned off through hardware (using the off/on switch or otherwise disconnected). Now, as this story from Yahoo News reported yesterday, your Moderator was not as paranoid as some of you accuse me of being. ------ From Yahoo News / Reuters / other reports Tuesday 8/31 ---- It was creepy enough when virus writers designed worms able to steal our financial data and password information off our PCs. Now, in a new twist on the standard Trojan, virus writers have managed to make spyware even seedier. The W32/Rhot-GR worm is able to hijack webcams and microphones to spy on users in their home or workplace, according to Sophos security consulting firm. It spreads via network shares, exploiting a number of Microsoft security vulnerabilities, and installs a backdoor Trojan as it travels. Besides spying on users via the webcam, it also is able to steal personal data. Industrial Espionage By Day, Peeping Tom By Night In theory, this is a very worrisome development. "In the workplace, this worm opens up the possibilities of industrial espionage. At home, it is equivalent to a Peeping Tom who invades your privacy by peering through your curtains," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "If your computer is infected, and you have a webcam plugged in, then everything you do in front of the computer can be seen -- and everything you say can be recorded." With many home users keeping poorly defended PCs in their bedrooms, there is considerable potential for abuse, Cluley observes. However, the worm is not able to manipulate images -- it can only capture them as they stream. Not in the Wild Yet The good news, Panda Software CTO Patrick Hinojosa told NewsFactor, is that there have not been any occurrences of this virus in the wild -- yet. "If it is out there, it is not spreading very fast," he says. Also, it is not a virus that is likely to get past the high-end computer security systems that many companies now have installed. Another factor that would limit the worm's spread is the issue of bandwidth. "I don't believe this will be a very effective worm even if it does get out there, because you are talking about a huge amount of bandwidth to support all these webcams." "It's a creepier development than anything else," Hinojosa says. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance Yahoo News, Reuters News, others. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------- End of news report ------- Of course, if your thing is exhibitionism, if you enjoy putting yourself on public display, you can ignore all this. Yes, at one point I did enjoy operating a full time cam page of myself, but no longer. And when I do present camera images such as the street in front of my house and my back yard, I prefer to do so in a judicious and discrete manner. I'm afraid with this latest development not all members of the internet community will take the care they should to keep their cameras under *their exclusive control*. PAT ------------------------------ From: johns_95110@yahoo.com (John) Subject: Skype2Phone and Phone2Skype function Date: 1 Sep 2004 17:54:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com The product works great with Skype I can forward my incoming Skype call to my cell if I am not at home. www.cuphone.com/skype ------------------------------ From: John Smith Subject: Re: Book Review: Fighting Spam for Dummies, Levine/Young/Church Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 23:50:00 GMT I've used the Windows version of Spam Assassin ever since it was favorably reviewed by none other than Consumer Reports magazine a year or two ago. It takes a minute or two to set up, but the instructions are not rocket science. ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 20:32:36 EDT Subject: Re: Cable Addresses? In a message dated 8/30/04 2:23:33 PM Central Daylight Time, editor@telecom-digest.org writes: > From: Mike Riddle > Organization: Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish & Short > Subject: Cable Addresses? > Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 12:59:49 -0500 > "To Reply Replace the Obvious 'mriddle'" > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The above header arrived here with no > text of any sort from Mike Riddle. Since the subject had a question > mark after it, my assumption is his question may have been 'What is > a Cable Address' or 'Do they still have them'. The answer would be > yes they still have them, although rarely used (in the sense that > 'cable messages' these days are rare. When they were prevelant (when > telegrams were prevelant) they functioned like 'vanity numbers' or > 'easy to remember' telex/TWX numbers. A business place or organization > in its advertising would often times give their address, their > telephone number and their 'cable address', typically one or two words > you could say to the telegraph clerk when you wished to send a message > to that place. A couple cable addresses I remember were 'Symphony' > which referred to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (in place of its > longer telex number) and 'Beacon Hill' although I do not remember who > that one was for. Just as modern day telco charges extra to give you > an easy to remember number, so did Western Union charge extra, and > although domestic messages were called 'telegrams' and international > messages were called 'cables' or 'cablegrams', in either case easy to > remember word phrases in place of numbers were called 'cable addresses'. > Some cable addresses also functioned like modern day '800 toll free > numbers' but not absolutely unless the subscriber agreed to pay for > them. I hope this answer to Mike Riddle is satisfactory, given that no > text showed up with the header; and thanks for the old memory! PAT] I believe you have missed the point about the reason for "cable addresses", which were used for both cablegrams and radiograms. For cablegrams and radiograms, the "to" address was charged for at the full rate per word at the same rate as words in the text. And the cost per word was often considerable. An address like "Engineering Department, Detroit Diesel Division of General Motors Corporations, 000 Whatever Street, LaGrange, Illinois" would be pretty expensive for the sender (or, if collect, to the receiver). So the cable address was not like a vanity address ... it was a significant cost saver. "Locomotives LaGrange" was a whole bunch cheaper than all the words in a full address. (The country of address was free.) Incidentally, I don't believe Western Union recognized cable addresses in domestic telegrams ... only cablegrams and radiograms. And Western Union was not the dominant international record carrier; there were many competing cable and radio carriers, both U.S. and foreign. A cable address had to be registered with each carrier, and I believe there was a monthly or annual fee charged by each carrier. Often besides the "cable address" there would be information as to what carriers it was registered with. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are correct that cost was a factor since the full name and address were counted in international messages, at least inbound into the USA. But I recall once or twice *many* years ago when I had occassion to send a telegram to a company here in the USA and I told the message taker I wanted to send it to a 'cable address' instead of a company name and address. At first she objected saying 'cables are only international, domestic messages are telegrams'; but then she corrected herself and said "Oh, you were not referring to sending a cable, but a telegram to a *CABLE ADDRESS* which is different. That we can do." PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 20:53:12 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service > Complaints would be registered by dialing *55, which would not only > "tag" The call in the telcos database, but immediately inform you > whether ANI and CID matches. You're making two assumptions: 1. That ANI is passed along through the network. There is no need for it to be passed anywhere billing information is not needed. 2. Even if it is passed along, the assumption that it should be the same is not true. The ANI for a call from a DID PBX is likely to be the main number, whereas the caller ID could be either the main number or the actual DID number. Or even the other way around. Or from a VoIP phone, the ANI is the number at which the call enters the network, and the Caller ID is the actual number. Or for a call forwarded through another number, the ANI is the number of the phone doing the forwarding and the caller ID is the number of the original caller. /john ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 22:07:11 -0500 From: Neal McLain Subject: Re: Verizon Cable TV? Lisa Hancock hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > I thought cable TV was deregulated nationally; in my area > it's been deregulated for some time. Upper tiers (any tiers other than basic) have been deregulated nationally. The basic tier is regulated if your local franchising authority (LFA) chooses to regulate it, subject to FCC oversight. You can get more information about this from your LFA. Your cable bill should specify the name and telephone number of your LFA. By FCC definition, the basic tier contains: - All domestic local television broadcast stations. For the purpose of this definition, "domestic" means US stations, but excludes Canadian and Mexican stations; "local" means within the Designated Market Area (DMA) [as defined by Nielsen Media Research] in which the cable system is located. - All public-, educational-, government-access channels designated by the LFA for carriage on the basic tier. - Anything else that the cable company chooses to add. Source: 47 CFR 76.901(a) . > The prices have gone up. Your LFA should be able to provide you with copies of documentation concerning basic-tier rate regulation. Increases in the license fees for non-broadcast programming have driven most of the recent upper-tier price increases. See my post about this in TD V23#394 . Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 03:38:05 GMT In article , Kenneth P. Stox wrote: > For those who don't know the joke, Extel was short for Ex-teletype. I used to think that too, but actually it wasn't. This I got straight from a conversation with Walt. There was an English stock exchange telegraph association called Extel, and that name wasn't taken in the U.S. so Walt and Peter Mero, who founded Extel, took that for their company name. Their original product was a stock ticker with an electronic selector to limit what was printed to a dozen or two stocks the individual was interested in. This was called Quotemaster, and the idea was that they would be installed in homes or offices of individuals. The product and the name was sold to TransLux, who never produced it. Hence the company needed a new name and they took the name of the London company which was named Exchange Telegraph but popularly abbreviated Ex Tel. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ From: Tom Smith Subject: Re: Last Laugh! A Visit to Doctor's Office Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 04:45:32 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet DevilsPGD wrote: > 'Tis far better to have snipped too much than to never have snipped > at all.' Not if you are describing your circumcision. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Sep 2004 18:56:22 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Vonage dual ring, was Considering VoIP For Home Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I have Vonage set to ring my cell and Vonage phone simultaneously so I > can answer the call with either phone. At home I hear both phones > ring at the same time. I have voicemail set up so that Vonage > voicemail picks up the call before cell phone voicemail so all my > voice messages are on Vonage. I do the same thing, except that I don't have voice mail on my cell phone (I told them not to turn it on) so people call my Vonage number, it rings both the office phone and cell phone, and it goes to Vonage voicemail if I don't answer one of them. Since Vonage can send e-mail notifications when you get voicemail, I have a little script on my computer that catches the VM mail, scrunches it down to one line including the phone number and time, and sends that as a text message to my cell phone. So I always can tell if I have voicemail, since my office phone has the flashing light and the cell phone has its SMS messages. I give my cell phone number to almost nobody, but it's occasionally been handy that someone can call and let it ring in case I'm in the car and need to pull over to answer it (I live in NY) or otherwise can't get it in the 10 seconds before it would otherwise go to voicemail. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies, Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 14:54:28 -0400 From: Carpenter, J (SunGard BSR) >> Because I just received one today. There's a toll-free number on >> the back to reply by Mailgram - 800-325-6000 > The Western Union website IIRC says Mailgrams are no longer provided. > Could it be that the Mailgram is provided by a separate company? I found both mailgrams and telegrams on their web site as still being provided. http://www.westernunion.com/info/bsMessaging.asp?country=3DU1#mailgram http://www.westernunion.com/info/osTelegram.asp ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 14:04:54 -0500 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com On 31 Aug 2004 21:14:28 -0700, rayta@msn.com (Ray Normandeau) wrote: > hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote in message > news:: >> haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) wrote: >>> Because I just received one today. There's a toll-free number on >>> the back to reply by Mailgram - 800-325-6000 >> The Western Union website IIRC says Mailgrams are no longer provided. >> Could it be that the Mailgram is provided by a separate company? > Could it be that the Postal Service delivery service quality control > has fallen futher then I suspect. > I am expecting a package that says attempted delivery, and that a > note was left when no attempt was made. > This is as per USPS WWW tacking site. > I think the workers just scan the pacjage and let it sit at the Post > Office. Yes, sometime they do. I sent a package once that said it was delivered to the recipient. The guy kept emailing me wanting to know where it was. After a couple weeks of that I went to my post office and asked the Postmaster about it. He said it had been delivered according to the Delivery Confirmation number. Upon further investigation using the tracking number on the insurance tag we find out that it was NOT delivered, and was in fact waiting for the customer to pick it up at the Chicago P.O. Had I not insured the package it is probable that we never would have found that package since the post office never left a notice that it had attempted delivery. I should add that I send and recieve a fair number of USPS Priority Mail packages, and only once has anything like that happened, usually they get where they are supposed to go quickly and without incident. ------------------------------ From: elgart@earthlink.net Subject: Re: Dating an Old Phone Number Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 18:15:01 -0400 On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 16:39:08 -0400, Arthur Kamlet wrote (in article ): > In article , Joseph > wrote: >> On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 14:31:29 -0700, wrote: >>> I am hoping you can help ... I have an old picture that has a "antique" >>> phone number. I am trying to date the picture. Below is the phone >>> number located in Brooklyn New York: >>> TRiangle 5-7871 >>> Can you date this phone number? I have searched the internet with no = >>> luck. > My best guess is East New York around late 40s early 50s. > Art Kamlet ArtKamlet @ AOL.com Columbus OH K2PZH That number was in downtown Brooklyn and could date from any time after 1930 when New York City phone numbers were converted from 3 letters 4 numbers to 2 letters 5 numbers. At that time TRIangle (874) became TRiangle 5 (875). I have a list of old and new exchange designations taken from the New York Times of August 24, 1930 and in about 35 of them the first number of the new designation did not correspond with the third letter of the old designation. I suspect that was done deliberately to force people to learn the new numbering scheme. I did notice one oddity in the list: SCHuyler (in upper Manhattan) which became SChuyler 4 and SAInt George (on Staten Island) which became SAint George 7 conflicted with each other during the 3L-4N period. This could only have been possible if calls between Staten Island and the rest of the city were long distance and had to be completed by the operator. ------------------------------ 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. 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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 #409 ******************************