From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 4 00:45:23 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i844jN404624; Sat, 4 Sep 2004 00:45:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 00:45:23 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409040445.i844jN404624@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 #413 TELECOM Digest Sat, 4 Sep 2004 00:45:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 413 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson My New DVR From Cable One (TELECOM Digest Editor) Cordless Phones Not Working on Working Phone Line (doggie-bert) Solzano Rides Again! (A. Reader) Telephone Vocabulary -- "Straight Line" (Steve Kl.) Re: Sender ID Finds Followers Ahead of Approval (Fred Goldstein) Re: Vonage Dual Ring, was Considering VoIP For Home (John Levine) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (Steve Sobol) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (T. Sean Weintz) September Share Day (TELECOM Digest Editor) 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, 4 Sep 2004 00:07:43 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: My New DVR From Cable One Friday afternoon I went downtown to pay some bills and one place I stopped at was the CableOne office on Penn Street. CableOne is where I get my internet service and my cable television/radio. I get a monthly package through them called 'Digital Internet' which costs about $95 per month and includes half a T-1 for internet, a 'cable modem' and a couple hundred channels of television; the package also includes 38 channels of non-commercial radio, including a couple channnels of classical music. I almost never watch television; I was more inter- ested in having fast cable internet around. Also, quite coincidentally the cable carries 89.5 FM (NPR from Tulsa) and 89.9 FM (NPR from Pittsburg, KS) and those two services on the cable (totally free) offer me all the classical music I want, including channel 938 on the cable itself which is non-commercial uninteruppted classical music all the time. So I got downtown to pay today and the lady takes my money then brings me a large box, and says "this is your new converter unit, I will have my husband bring it out to your house this afternoon and remove your old converter and swap this one in its place." After she assured me it would *not* affect my bill at all, she explained it was their 'new style converter unit' which is actually a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) combined with all the features which had earlier been on the box. This new converter unit looks exactly like the old one, but it includes an 80 gig hard drive, and the ability to record shows as you watch them, or record one show as you watch another, or watch 'live television' but stop it for a few minutes to go the bathroom or get a phone call, etc. By the time I got home in the cab, the guy from CableOne was sitting in front of my door with the unit. Its about the size of a standalone VCR player, and weighs five to ten pounds. It plugs in the cable line exactly as the older unit did with the same outputs to television and radio or other speakers. I called back to the office to be certain I had the facts correct, that there was no additional charge. She confirmed for me this is now the 'standard converter unit' being given out to customers who have 'Digital Internet' service here in Independence. The last thing in the world I need is a Digital Video Recorder/Cable Converter but since I got it free I am not going to refuse it. Totally tapeless, it can store several hours of programs in its memory, has the ability to speed past commercial messages in a second or two, etc. Really, not a bad deal for their 'standard converter box'. PAT ------------------------------ From: dreisc@gmail.com (doggie-bert) Subject: Cordless Phones Not Working on Working Phone Line Date: 3 Sep 2004 20:43:26 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com 2 days ago both of the cordless phones in my apartment stopped working. Thinking that the phones had died we went out and bought a new cordless phone, but this new phone also isn't working. I've tried every phone jack in the house and corded phones work fine as well as the new answering machine. My DSL is also working fine. All 3 of the phones are 900 Mhz, so it could be something interfering with the signal, but I don't know what. Anyone out there have any ideas? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 20:47:56 -0400 From: A. Reader Subject: Solzano Rides Again! NOT FOR PUBLICATION under my e-mail address, but you may wish to pass these along to Digest readers if no one else sends them in (I'll bet someone will, though): Norvergence Money Trail Brothers already planning new startup http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/53552 The Matrix unraveled How two wrecked telecom companies have put lessors and small businesses on the hook for $300 million. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5907255/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess this time the Solzano brothers have the money to do it right. At least one would hope so. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevekl@panix.com (Steve Kl.) Subject: Telephone Vocabulary -- "Straight Line" Date: 3 Sep 2004 18:53:47 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. I have posted here from time to time over the past many years and have occasionally asked questions relating to my field -- lexicography. One of my colleagues, Joan Hall, editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English knows I have an interest in telephone history, and asked me the following question: > Do you know the term "straight line," used to mean a direct telephone > line rather than a party line? And do you have any ideas where we might > find citations with the term? (My family had a party line when I grew up; however, as far as I recall, the opposite of a party line was a "private line") Anyhow, if you are aware of the term "straight line" in this use, please drop me an email, and include what part of the country you were in when you used this term and your age. Additionally, if any of you own any old phone books or other telecommunications materials that use this phrase that DARE can cite as written evidence, please let me know what the name of the publication is. I'll pass it on to DARE, and they can contact you if they need further information. (For information on the Dictionary of American Regional English, see http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/dare.html ) Thank you! Steve Kleinedler Senior Editor American Heritage Dictionary -- Steve Kl. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 16:18:31 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: Sender ID Finds Followers Ahead of Approval In V23 I412, Pat wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What exactly is the problem with the > Open Source proponents? That *they* did not think of it first? That > Microsoft may get the credit? It is really a damn shame when these > intelligent men and women fight and squabble among themselves while > the rest of the world has to fight with the spammers. But oh well, > most of them probably never even see spam (save one or two pieces > each day which slip past the myriad of filters used by their > secretary to get rid of it), and those one or two pieces which they > do have to view makes them angry enough to squabble with other > professionals about it, but not so angry that they would even > consider for a minute getting off their own high horses in order > to wade through the sewer that the net has become with the rest of > us. Do most of those people even realize how tragic and awful the > problem of spam has become? I don't think so, otherwise they surely > would not be blocking the restoration efforts as much as they do, > would they? PAT] Pat, you totally miss the point! The open source people get spammed at least as much as everyone else, and want to do something about it. But Microsoft is claiming a patent on a little piece of it -- probably not valid, btw, due to prior art, but that hasn't been adjudicated yet, and that piece of the protocol probably could be removed without loss of capability, but for an agreement with Microsoft to use it -- and therefore is dictating its own terms for a license. Their terms are, by design, incompatible with any open source project. Most Internet email transport is open source! Some is under Berkeley-style license, some GPL, some under other licenses. But the Microsoft terms forbid redistribution of the source code as part of an open source system. It's a proprietary software license, merely given at a zero license fee to licensees who agree (one by one, no sharing or passing it along) to work with Microsoft. That's not how open source works. Microsoft knows this. Maybe some imbecile there thinks that the Internet will migrate all ISP email to massive Exchange servers. That will happen some time after George W Bush goes on pilgrimage to Mecca. Another interesting study, from CipherTrust, has just shown that the primary users of Sender Policy Framework are (drumroll, please) -- Spammers! Yes, it's trivial for a spammer to pass an SPF screen. So the main potential benefit is, I suppose, making phishing a bit harder or easier for educated users to detect. But as an anti-spam weapon, it's nearly worthless. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/03/email_authentication_spam/ ------------------------------ Date: 3 Sep 2004 22:45:02 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Vonage Dual Ring, was Considering VoIP For Home Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Your script that sends an instant message to your cell phone sounds > good. Any possibility you would post how that's done here? It sounds > like something Vonage should create for it's customers. My mail system is qmail running on a Unix box, so it sends the voicemail to a unique address where the .qmail file runs a little perl script that picks out the interesting bits and remails them to the cell phone: ------ #!/usr/bin/perl while(<>) { $from = $1 if /From: *(.*)/; $date = $1 if /Date: *(.*)/; } if ($from =~ /\((.*)\)/) { $num = $1; } else { $num = "someone"; } open(MSG, "| new-inject 000000000\@mobile.mycingular.com johnl"); print MSG <<"EOF"; From: my voicemail address To: 0000000000\@mobile.mycingular.com Subject: vm $num $from $date EOF close MSG; John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com, Mayor, http://johnlevine.com, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 10:56:47 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Pat wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Can't you think of any more hypothetical > examples why you must be allowed to tamper with your caller ID? I > mean, that's all totally ridiculous. Tell your people to walk over to > an 'A' phone or a 'B' phone or a 'C' phone and use the appropriate > line for the particular business. PAT] That's a huge oversimplification. If you're behind a PBX you may get whichever line is open no matter which phone you're at. I have no problem with spoofing caller-ID as long as you're sending a phone number over which you have control, where people can reach you. In other words, if a business has 555-1214 through 555-1217 but their main, advertised incoming number is 555-1214, I can't see any issues with setting that as the caller ID. Real-life example: if I call you over a VoIP line, it will be set up so that you get my toll-free number over caller ID. It's not the main number associated with the line, but it's a real number and you can use it to call me back. I have incoming calls pass 888-480-4638 as the caller ID too; that 888 number forwards calls to my cell phone, the tollfree number comes through on CID and I have a distinctive ringtone set up for the calls so I know immediately when people are calling me on that number. (Unless I have the phone on vibrate, of course, but then I just open the flip and look at the CID on the display.) 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: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 15:40:03 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Hank Karl wrote: >> Allowing these outgoing calls to be given the appropriate Caller ID for >> the function A, B or C associated with the given call, no matter who >> makes 'em or from where, seems perfectly sensible to me. >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Can't you think of any more hypothetical >> examples why you must be allowed to tamper with your caller ID? I >> mean, that's all totally ridiculous. Tell your people to walk over to >> an 'A' phone or a 'B' phone or a 'C' phone and use the appropriate >> line for the particular business. PAT] > Pat, this is not hypothetical with me. I represent four companies, > and have only one phone line. There are a number of "reps" out there > who represent more than one company. Some will try and establish > their own company identity, others work as part of the company they > represent (like a consultant). So the above example is by no means > hypothetical. Not hypothetical to me, either. Here at work I have two PRI lines set up in a hunt group with about 60 or so DID's. Most of the DID's go to specific extension. Many of our clients are mentally challenged to say the least -- they can't remember the correct number to call back on, but they CAN read the number oiff a caller ID box. Now, what do I do if I want the caller ID for an extension to show the DID for that extension instead of the main number for the PRI hunt group? I set our PBX switch to transmit the did number for that extension, of course! Not having the ability to do that would seriously cripple us! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 00:42:53 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: September Share Day Instead of changing the Digest over to an advrtising supported forum, I have always elected to keep it as a user supported forum, and for the most part keep it spam and virus free. I am *only* able to do this because of financial support from readers here, and if you would rather not see these messages every month, then please pitch in and help now and then! Consider it sort of like public radio, which goes on for days at a time trying to raise money ... and maybe I should adopt the same system. Turn over the entire Digest once or twice a year to fund raising (entire issues, etc) and stop doing it when the budget for the year has been raised. But for now, I will stick with the present system of devoting a few messages at the end of each month to raising money for the Digest publication expenses. Out of 400-500 messages per month, in a spam, virus free environment, two or three (only) devoted to fund raising. You know who you are; please provide some help here financially. You can use Pay Pal to donate with a credit/debit card by going to our web site http://telecom-digest.org and at the bottom of the home page look for the PayPal 'donate' button. 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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 #413 ******************************