From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 27 22:06:57 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8S26uD25522; Mon, 27 Sep 2004 22:06:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 22:06:57 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409280206.i8S26uD25522@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 #452 TELECOM Digest Mon, 27 Sep 2004 22:07:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 452 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls (John Levine) Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls (Paul Vader) Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls (N Landsberg) Re: Out of Area Calls (Paul Vader) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device (Clarence Dold) Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device (jmeissen) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Paul Vader) Re: Realtime Keyword Voice Recognition; Not Just for NSA (M Covington) Re: Get an Unlocked Motorola V220 Camera Phone Almost Free (A User) Re: Get an Unlocked Motorola V220 Camera Phone Almost Free (John Covert) Re: Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, (Gene Berkowitz) Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Informing Ourselves to Death (Digest Reprint) (Lisa Hancock) On Why the Mac's Small Population is Not Defense (Monty Solomon) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Sep 2004 18:04:50 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> Cost to telcos to implement the overlay area code in your plan, >> several billion dollars. > There are a number of incoming overlays, so making such numbers > dialable would be close to de minimus. Huh? Do you mean 456 or something else? >> Service cost to users who'd have to buy CLID service to hide from >> telemarketers but don't want CLID otherwise, three bucks a month ... > Many, if not all, telcos that offer CLID will throw in anonymous call > reject for free to subscribers to CLID. That's nice, but 311 calls would be different from CLID blocked calls so ACR wouldn't help. If you want a 311 reject, that's a switch upgrade. >> Cost to telcos to implement the overlay area code in your plan, >> several billion dollars. ... > My understanding (glad to be corrected if I'm wrong) is that > Caller ID can be easily "faked" purely locally (i.e., by the > caller, at the caller's location), and that doing this requires > only modest equipment and no telco involvement -- Only if the switch is misprogrammed. If a customer is on an ISDN line, he can provide CLID, but the CO switch is supposed to allow only numbers assigned to that line, typically a block of DID numbers assigned to a PBX. It's a security bug to permit numbers not assigned just like spammers fake other people's e-mail addresses. You could certainly adjust the switch programming to allow some customers to send 311 numbers unrelated to their inbound numbers, but that's a switch upgrade and it's not free. >> Service cost to users who'd have to buy CLID service to hide from >> telemarketers but don't want CLID otherwise, ... > A red herring, I think. More and more people are getting CLID, > one way or another, and usage is likely to grow toward > saturation, You're waving your hands. I would be surprised if as many as half of residential subs have CLID. I can easily believe that all of your friends do, but Palo Alto isn't typical. >> Hardware cost to phone users who'd all have to buy special CLID boxes >> that recognize the magic area code and don't ring, say $20 each .... > Sounds dramatic -- but for most people, cost of a 20 buck > gadget from Radio Shack, if it did this job, would be in the > noise level compared to their total phone costs. Why should I pay anything for a system that won't work as well as the current do-not-call list? Either way, honest telemarketers will follow the rules and won't bother me, crooked ones won't follow the rules and will bother me, and it'll take legal sanctions to make the bad guys behave. To make the bad guys behave, if you're going to file a TCPA suit, it's a lot easier to establish that someone called you than both that they called you and that they sent a particular CLID. The do-not-call list is public info, no problem demonstrating that you're on it. > The telemarketers' current excuses that "Oh, we must have been > given an old list" or "Oh, there must have been a glitch in your > getting your number on the list" would be eliminated. Those excuses aren't valid now, either. If you're on the do-not-call list, they can't call you. >> In case you haven't been paying attention, the cost of the do-not-call >> list is paid for by telemarketers in subscription fees. Cost to >> recipients, zero. > Not so -- cost to recipients of present system comes in > having to get your number (or multiple numbers) on the list; > having to remember to change or add numbers every time > you change your service; and difficulties in confirming that > you've even been added (is there any formal way to confirm > that your number has been added?) I don't know about you, but my main phone number hasn't changed since 1994 and my cell number hasn't changed since 1996. I think that's more typical than the technogeeks who get new numbers every month. Why don't you spend two seconds and visit www.donotcall.gov so you know how the current system works, rather than speculating and guessing wrong? Yes, it's easy to confirm that you're on the list. R's, John ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 20:55:57 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations AES/newspost writes: > Not so -- cost to recipients of present system comes in > having to get your number (or multiple numbers) on the list; > having to remember to change or add numbers every time > you change your service; and difficulties in confirming that > you've even been added (is there any formal way to confirm > that your number has been added?) All of these things are free; they can be done via a toll-free call, or by using the website. And yes, you can verify that a listing exists. > to maintain the bureaucracy to manage the system in > perpetuity (who really does this job, by the way?). Would AT&T. It's not exactly a deep dark secret. > you want to bet the system is really well run? Or really > pays its own way? It sure seems to be well run. The only telemarketing calls I get these days are from people NOT using it. I report all of these on the website. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: Nick Landsberg Reply-To: SPAMhukolautTRAP@SPAMattTRAP.net Subject: Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 21:21:46 GMT AES/newspost wrote: > I wrote a short while ago: >>> Said it early on, will say it again: The intelligent and effective way >>> to handle telemarketing would have been legislation requiring that any >>> and all telemarketing calls be made using Caller ID with a distinctive >>> and national standardized Area Code, e.g. 311 or something similar, so >>> that recipients who didn't want to receive such calls could easily >>> filter and reject them. >>> Would have been cheap and easy to implement (for callers and >>> recipients); > and John Levine -- whose postings to this > group I regularly read, and whose technical knowledge in these > areas I respect -- replied: >> Well, let's see. > and I'm responding to his arguments below. [ SNIP ] > Anyone else want to weigh in on this? As a non-scientific sample of one (well, maybe two) I have two lines into my house. One is the residence (published) number and the other is an "office at home" number (non-pub). Both have caller ID and both have answering machines (either attached or built-in to the phones.) I put both numbers on the national DNC list last year. Observations: - There seem to be considerably fewer telemarketer calls since then. If it's important, and the call comes through as "anonymous," whoever is calling can leave a message on the machine. If we happen to pick up, for some reason, we either hang up on them after a few seconds or play mind games with them (depending on our mood). For example, for a while, we had a local newspaper (The Asbury Park Press) calling us to try to get us to subscribe. After a while, I started telling them that I worked for the Newark Star Ledger (which I don't). The calls stopped shortly thereafter :) Note: We answer anonymous calls just in case a daughter or granddaughter needs help and has to call from a pay phone or the equivalent. If it's not them, we just hang up or play mind games as in the above. - I always answer the "office" line with the company name rather than just "hello". This almost always causes a pause at the other end if it's a telemarketcritter who doesn't know what to do next because it's not in his script. (Note that several company locations seem to be behind PBX's which do not send CID, so I answer the "anonymous" calls again, just in case.) - Both of the above observations are based upon the fact that I have caller-id. Yes, I pay for that. Without the DNC list and the CID, I would probably be much more ticked-off at telemarketers than I am now. My opinion is that somehow, the national DNC list has done some good, and that additional measures aren't necessary. Your mileage may vary. NPL P.S. - Now, can we somehow do the same for SPAM Emails? But that's a subject which is being debated in other newsgroups. "It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" - A. Bloch ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 19:14:57 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) writes: > pointed out that the law made *no* such provision for delay on an > -internally-maintained- list, and required that they update my > _customer_record_ with a note that 'customer has ordered us -never- to > make marketing calls to him', and the date/time. Three days later, > somebody "didn't read" the notes, and called me. I promptly demanded > a supervisor, had them read the account 'notes', and asked if they > wanted to pay the statutory $500 minimum, or if I needed to go to > court, in which case I would allege 'knowing and wilful' violation, This is totally lovely. I'm going to use that trick from now on. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? Date: 27 Sep 2004 12:44:51 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Stanley Cline wrote: > The places where one would expect to find the last steps (Alaska bush > country, small independents in general, etc.) actually went digital > quite early on, largely because of things like environmental concerns > (Redcom's MDX series switches, popular in extremely remote areas, are > specifically built with harsh environments in mind) and human resource > needs and in part because small independents' generally higher USF > receipts compared to Bells and large indeps allowed for earlier > conversion to digital. What I was told that the superior remote maintenance facility of ESS vs. electro mechanical was a big factor. AFAIK, when changing a number or services for a customer, an office visit by a craftsman is needed on electro mechanical to reroute wires from the distributing frame. However, on ESS, that is all done electronically. Also, SxS requires periodic maintenance since it is mechanical moving parts; ESS does not. When a craftsman has to drive a considerable distance to service something like that, the savings are significant. Some other rural areas may not be as rural anymore and facing growth. Going to ESS over SxS allows a bigger switch to fit in the same size building, saving expensive building expansion. ------------------------------ From: dold@XReXXHelpX.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 19:58:31 UTC Organization: a2i network Patrick Townson wrote: > I have a four port Netgear Router with wireless 802.11 capability. > My problem is the range of the wireless part seems rather skimpy. I just threw the box for my two year old wireless router away. Emblazoned on the front of the box is the optimistic "up to 1000 feet" claim. Of course, I assumed that 1000 feet might be achievable on Lake Hosgol in the dead of winter, but I expected to get 50 feet or so at home. I didn't. The real range of 802.11b is pretty short in an urban environment. Walls hurt a lot. Exterior walls, with stucco and the reinforcing chicken wire, are very hard to penetrate. Most of the commodity consumer units are similar, with the same considerations you might apply to brand name and cost as any other product. Linksys-DLink-Netgear are going to be very similar. The first thing to do is to try a free reflector. I tried to form the "original" reflector without much success mechanically. The EZ-10 is less antenna gain, but sufficient for my needs, and very simple to make. The EZ-12 would be a tad better, but I haven't tried one of those. I am able to get good coverage anywhere in my house and on the decks in the front and back using the EZ-10. http://www.freeaantennas.com < http://www.rahul.net/dold/clarence/SMC/EZ10-strength.htm > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for your *very realistic* appraisal. I am going to look at your page on EZ-10 tonight and see how I can make it apply to me. I'd be very pleased to get as far as my *front* yard or most of my back yard, or evem my rocking chair in my parlor. I just do not want to have to sit in the same room all the time. Do you think your 'reflector' device will work out okay with a rubber ducky type antenna built into the router? PAT] ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device Date: 27 Sep 2004 20:34:21 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: With what I say next, I mean to give > no offense, nor take any: What is the group's general impression of > the NetGear four port wireless router and its companion 'PCMCIA-like' > card to go in the laptop? Good? Bad? Total Crap? I am lucky to get > about 50-75 feet *reliably*. I just remembered, I do have *two* > cordless phones also plugged in which are 900 mhz units, and they > get me about a half block away from home with no trouble. Might *they* > be causing interference with the wireless router? PAT] It's unlikely that the 900mhz phone would interfere. Unfortunately, it's been a year or more since I read that newsgroup, so I wouldn't be able to tell you what the latest scuttle is regarding NetGear. All I know is that whenever someone complained about reception problems they were told to try an Orinoco card, and when they did they would invariably return with high praise. And that matches my own experience. I have heard a lot of negative talk about D-Link equipment lately, and know people who returned theirs for a different brand. So if you look around for an alternative I think I might stay away from them. What are the model numbers of the router and card? John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The router model number is MR814v2. The card model is MA521. They came as a set; one router and one accompaning card. PAT] ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 20:37:18 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations wolfgang+gnus20040924T232812@dailyplanet.dontspam.wsrcc.com writes: > 1) The pilots didn't want the passengers to have better navigation > equipment in the cabin than they had in the cockpit. Planes back Snort. That's pretty funny, but I doubt that pilots even think about stuff like that. Since the passenger doesn't know (probably) the details of all the directions given during the flight by the air traffic controllers, you could hardly second-guess the pilots like that. Back when handheld GPSes were fairly new, I used one a bunch of times during flights ('cause I could -- it gave a fairly nice read how far into a long flight I was), and once plotted an entire trip from Chicago to St. Louis on a map just to pass the time. I made no secret of it -- you pretty much have to jam the receiver against the window to get a good reading. One thing that does occur to me -- security. Maybe I don't want someone on the flight being able to call in the plane's exact position to someone on the ground. I seem to remember that the maximum groundspeed that terrestrial GPSes would work at was reduced at some point (I can for a fact say that my old unit works beautifully up to at least 500mph); maybe this is the reason. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: Realtime Keyword Voice Recognition; Not Just the NSA Anymore Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 16:54:54 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) This is a good application for voice recognition because errors are (we hope!) inconsequential. The system will probably be designed to get lots of false positives. Let's just hope that in the hands of brain-dead human operators, it doesn't cause more frustration. Danny Burstein wrote in message news:telecom23.451.3@telecom-digest.org: > "Phone a call centre and you are likely to spend ages on hold > listening to canned music -- and then find the operator cannot find > the information you need. But an artificial intelligence system that > hunts down the required information is aiming to slash the time people > waste this way. > "Using a mixture of speech recognition and search engine technology, > the system, being developed by IBM, will trawl a call centre's > databanks for the information a customer wants and present it to the > operator before the caller has finished explaining what they want. By > giving operators rapid access to the right information, calls will be > dealt with faster. > "The system works by listening in to the conversation and identifying > keywords spoken by the customer." > http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99996430 ------------------------------ From: A User Subject: Re: Get an Unlocked Motorola V220 Camera Phone Almost Free Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 08:26:14 +1000 Organization: Posted via Forte APN, http://www.forteinc.com/apn/index.php On 27 Sep 2004 00:54:01 -0400, John R Levine wrote: > My wife decided that she needs a cell phone, so we dropped by the > local Cingular store to get one and add it to my account. (Cingular > has excellent coverage here due to the antenna that I lease them space > for on my water tower.) So after the nice sales lady told me that > most of the free phones were far crummier than my Nokia 6340i (no > longer available because it's GSM/TDMA and now they only sell GSM), we > looked at a Moto V220 camera phone for $50. > As we set up the account, I asked her to turn on international roaming > since it's a triband phone, and she said "if you use it in Europe > much, you can get a local SIM and use that." "Isn't it locked?" > "Naah, they don't usually bother." > I happened to have a Swiss SIM here and whaddaya know, she's right, > it's unlocked. Not a bad deal. Unfortunately the phone is > 850/900/1900 and the SIM is from Orange Switzerland which is 1800 > only, but it's easy enough to get a different SIM next time. Since when do SIMS know about frequency? It's the phone. > Regards, > John Levine johnl@iecc.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 19:27:54 -0400 (EDT) From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Get an Unlocked Motorola V220 Camera Phone Almost Free > Unfortunately the phone is 850/900/1900 Er, tri-band GSM phones are 900/1800/1900. The V220 is supposed to be a quad-band phone, 850/900/1800/1900. All the GSM there is. http://www.cellphones.ca/news/000607.cfm AFAIK, there is no such thing as a phone which does only 850/900/1900; there would be no good reason for such a product to even exist. If a phone can do 900 and 1900, then 850 (because it's a multiple of 1900) and 1800 (because it's a multiple of 900) is a no-cost additional option. Tri-band phones were tri-band because they came out before there was any 850 MHz GSM in operation. I have seen European pages claiming the V220 is tri-band 900/1800/1900. I believe those pages would be wrong. But then I might be wrong. They might have crippled it for Cingular. Why they would do that, since Cingular HAS roaming agreements with European carriers operating on 1800, I have no idea, and I find it unlikely (but not impossible) that they did. /john ------------------------------ From: Gene S. Berkowitz Subject: Re: Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, or SxS? Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 20:42:20 -0400 In article , jdj@now.here says: > On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 23:14:25 -0700, vu huong wrote: >> Hello, >> Does anyone know of any movies or documentaries that show footage of old >> telco technology? > "Three Days of the Condor" with Robert Redford. The Condor enters a > switch to call up the CIA and diddles the switch to keep his call from > being traced. The CIA scene shows automated tracing in use. > There are some espionage-thriller B movies from the 1950's with footage > where the G-men enter switches and get the techs to trace calls. Nothing > but loud background music can be heard in those scenes. THX-1138, which is now in theatrical re-release, contains a scene with Robert Duvall wandering through a very large switch. --Gene ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? Date: 27 Sep 2004 16:35:56 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Ariel Burbaickij wrote: > tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) wrote in message news:: > Excuse me but I do not see hop by hop nature as the main hurdle for > defining unique call id. One obvious solution would be to include some > number unique to the originating switch (its pointcode?) plus gmt plus > some random value. It's not a "hurdle", it's the reason there's no _need for_ a unique call ID: because there is already a unique tuple identifying any call, for the duration of that call: OPC, DPC, TCIC. This tuple is different between any pair of switches in the call path, but because the standard makes very clear the ordering of the messages (and message reordering is severely restricted) and the transitions in the call state machine you can nonetheless follow a call from A to Z through the network, using OPC, DPC, TCIC for every pair of switches involved. Standard SS7 diagnostic tools, in fact, do exactly this. As I pointed out in my earlier message, the treatment of the SLS field in most national variants is intended, in point of fact, to make it easier to catch the right messages for any call even when debugging with an extremely simplistic protocol analyzer -- or even by hand (believe me, I've done it). > Not always ISUP is actually hop-by-hop as you surely know. ISUP over > SCCP will give you end-to-end nature. That depends what meaning, exactly, you put to "end-to-end". In practice, even when run over SCCP, ISUP signaling is necessarily logically hop-by-hop with the hops corresponding to the hops in the actual voice path -- as it has to be, because *the trunks must be allocated hop by hop* and that is exactly what ISUP does. Even if you are running ISUP over SCCP, except in extraordinarily simple networks (in other words, *not real world networks*) the calling party's end office switch cannot know _a priori_ the entire path the call will take through the network even if it could know the address of the called party's end-office switch; so trunk signalling _can only_ proceed hop-by-hop, which is what it does. > Sure, for one link. What about debbuging which involves several > switches. How are you going to guess which messages belong toghether > in such an environment? This is easy, and it's done all the time. You get into the links between the switches in the call path and you find the messages in ascending time order that have the right calling and called party ID and that are in the right state in the call state machine (for example, IAM and RLC will cascade through the network in an obvious way). There are a few -- very few -- corner cases where things can get a little tricky, but in practice the order of trunk allocation on all major-vendor switches guarantees that you don't see them. This is not rocket science. Telco personnel do it all the time, in busy networks. Students in Telcordia protocol classes do it _by hand_, which is tedious but entirely possible. Most good SS7 protocol analyzers do it automatically, for what it's worth. Even the old HP sets that are often used as teaching tools have features intended to help with this. I assure you, it works. In practice, one very quickly zeroes in on a particular hop in the call path when diagnosing SS7 or trunk troubles; so really, very little time is spent trying to chasx calls end-to-end anyway. You mention "ISUP over ISUP" as an example of end-to-end ISUP signalling. With the exception of the incompletely-specified pass-along message (PAM) that I referred to before, I'm not entirely sure I know what you mean. Can you give me more details? One thing that bears remembering about ISUP is that when it was designed, compact encoding of messages was a major concern -- there was serious grumbling already about the link upgrades that would be required in order to handle the increases in message size compared to the original CCIS that it replaced. Another thing to keep in mind is that later protocols in the same protocol suite have much more in common with computer data protocols of the mid 1980s (e.g. extensive use of ASN.1 encoding) than with ISUP, which is really best understood as a slight tweak of the rather ugly result of tearing CCIS apart into two (or did I mean three? ;-)) layers for standardization. So niceties that one expects from other protocols, e.g. an end-to-end transaction ID, aren't likely to be there unless they're really needed; and it's not tremendously surprising to me that in this case, the judgment was that that feature was not. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com But as he knew no bad language, he had called him all the names of common objects that he could think of, and had screamed: "You lamp! You towel! You plate!" and so on. --Sigmund Freud ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Informing Ourselves to Death (Digest Reprint) Date: 27 Sep 2004 13:23:46 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > Date: Tue, 18 Jan 1994 18:12:41 -0600 (CST) > Bill Pfeiffer Editor AIRWAVES RADIO JOURNAL (info@airwaves.chi.il.us) > After all, anyone who has studied the history of technology knows that > technological change is always a Faustian bargain: Technology giveth > and technology taketh away, and not always in equal measure. A new > technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes, it > destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided. This is so true. But I've very rarely heard anyone speak against a new technology. There are usually two separate forces that bring out new technology. One is the inventor/engineers who actually develop something new. The other is the business people who figure out ways to advertise, market, manufacture, distribute, and sell the technology to consumers in a mass market. Neither IBM nor Henry invented the personal computer or automobile, but their skills put those products in the hands of the masses. Bill Gates didn't invent the PC operating system, but knew where to find one and put it in the hands of IBM. Sometimes both the inventor and marketer are the same person, sometimes it involves a whole group of separate people. But normally there are least two separate people or groups involved. Each of those groups has a different agenda. We need both of them, and we get both the good and the bad of both of them. > Another way of saying this is that a new technology tends to favor > some groups of people and harms other groups. School teachers, for > example, will, in the long run, probably be made obsolete by > television, as blacksmiths were made obsolete by the automobile, as > balladeers were made obsolete by the printing press. Technological > change, in other words, always results in winners and losers. Also very true. The phone company used to claim it employed more operators than ever because higher calling volumes, despite automation, required more operators to serve the volume. The computer industry used to claim that clerical workers displaced by computers were offset by technical people who ran the computers, and also by more business requiring more clerks despite automation. Unfortunately, often times the displacement is not easily solved. The abandonment of streetcars for buses isn't too bad--a streetcar motorman can learn to drive a bus. But the transfer of travel from railroads to airplanes is harder. A railroad locomotive engineer can't be easily retrained to a commercial jet pilot, and locomotive mechanicals into jet technicians. Of course some predictions don't work out. It's been said for many years that schoolteachers would be displaced by television, yet it hasn't happened. > ... But to what extent has computer technology been an advantage > to the masses of people? To steel workers, vegetable store owners, > teachers, automobile mechanics, musicians, bakers, brick layers, > dentists and most of the rest into whose lives the computer now > intrudes? These people have had their private matters made more > accessible to powerful institutions. They are more easily tracked and > controlled; they are subjected to more examinations, and are > increasingly mystified by the decisions made about them. They are more > often reduced to mere numerical objects. They are being buried by junk > mail. They are easy targets for advertising agencies and political > organizations. The schools teach their children to operate > computerized systems instead of teaching things that are more valuable > to children. In a word, almost nothing happens to the losers that they > need, which is why they are losers. I'm not sure I fully agree with that. Yes, computers have made privacy an issue, but that is also very much a social and political problem. Computers don't share data, it is people who make requests and answer those requests for personal information. Who are those people? Should they have that ability? Those are the tougher questions that need to be answered. Cars don't kill people, errant drivers do. As far as being reduced to "numerical objects", in some cases that's true, but in others computers have actually helped reduce that. In a big company using clerical procedures, the masses were nothing but the masses, there was simply no time for the clerks to accomodate any individuality. If you look at old payroll ledgers employees didn't even have a name, just a row number in the book and hours worked. > ... The result is that certain questions do > not arise, such as, to whom will the computer give greater power and > freedom, and whose power and freedom will be reduced? This is not necessarily a binary question--social change does not require one group to give up _anything_ in order for another group to gain something, be it power or freedom, money, affluence, etc. At the end of WW II the GI Bill allowed thousands of men to go to college who otherwise never could. That greatly improved the standard of living of such men, but not at the cost of anyone else. The availability of a better skilled and educated labor force after WW II was a contributing factor to a higher standard of living for all. > ... Today, we believe in the authority of our science, no matter > what. I don't agree. First off, "we" is too inclusive, people have very varied levels of acceptance and belief. Second, people will question things. > There is almost no fact -- whether actual or imagined -- that will > surprise us for very long, since we have no comprehensive and > consistent picture of the world which would make the fact appear as > an unacceptable contradiction. Again I don't agree. That is not how people think. If I tell you something new or strange, your belief in what I say isn't based on a reference point, but rather on what else is going on in your life. If my little factoid is irrelevent to your life, you won't care one way or another -- you're busy thinking about your kids, the squeak in the car, etc. If it is relevant, you won't accept it on fate, but rather think about and discuss it further. Sure there are some gullibles who will buy into anything, but not everyone is like that. While this guy's talk is interesting, the reality is that most people could care less about it. They're busy having a life. > And something else, which once was our friend, turned against us, as > well. I refer to information. There was a time when information was a > resource that helped human beings to solve specific and urgent > problems of their environment. It is true enough that in the Middle > Ages, there was a scarcity of information but its very scarcity made > it both important and usable. There was plenty information in the Middle Ages. Is gossip anything new? Is artwork anything new? Is superstition anything new? People heard all sorts of things and evaluated them as best they could. More significantly, their _actions_ on that information was based on their circumstances. I dare say for a heck of a lot of people, the lack or excess of information isn't the issue, but the lack of options to _act_ on that information is the limiting factor. Some starving peasant in the 1800s may have known full well conditions were better in America, but if they had no money to make the trip or was otherwise bound, it didn't help them. I think in the ten years since this was written, the lustre has won off of computers. But they also have become a standard utility box for the home and office and they've evolved from curiosity to commodity. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A 'peasant in the 1800s' did not live in the middle ages, which I believe is the period from about the year 800 through 1500. And people living around the year 1000 *were* very superstitious. Have you ever studied reports of how people who were alive at the end of the year 999 dealt with the fact that a new century -- in fact a new millenium -- was starting? Many folks in that time in the dark ages were absolutely convinced the world was going to come to an end. The panic which was so prevalent would have shamed the corresponding situation in the 1999 <-> 2000 rollover (or if you prefer, the 2000 <-> 2001 rollover.) About the only people in those days who could write were priests and monks (the scholars of the time.) Printing had not been invented, so there was nothing to read. Old and Middle English were *nothing* like we speak or write these days. The 'old English' we see around today dates back at most to the 1500-1600's, and much of it is difficult to understand. At least we (in the 21st century) are leaving much writing for the folks in the year 3000 to deal with, to know more about *our* heritage; that is, assuming by 3000 they are still using our style of speech, writing, etc. And yes, the luster of computers has worn off quite a lot in the 14 years since the speech was first given, and even the 'average' (meaning non-computer literate) person has matured in his thinking a lot. Just as when television sets first came into common usage (1950's) and many well meaning people thought they were an evil influence on children, so people felt the same way about computers in the 1980's. Most people now recognize the absurdity in forbidding their children to use the internet When the public library offers the same thing, but at a slower pace. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 18:09:57 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: On Why the Mac's Small Population is Not a Defense John Welch For a long time, the Mac community has believed that because the relative size of the Mac population is small, that this lack of size is a defense against an attack. The logic goes something like this: Since the overall Mac population is so small compared to the Windows population, Macs are not that interesting to virus writers. Well, as the Witty worm showed, a small population is no defense against a devastating attack. On March 8th, 2004, eEye Digital Security discovered a vulnerability in ISS's BlackICE/RealSecure products. On March 9th, ISS released a patch for the vulnerability. On March 18th, eEye published a high-level description of the vulnerability. 36 hours later, Witty was released into the wild. Within 45 minutes, every vulnerable machine was infected, about 12,000 machines in total. Witty is a scary story for a number of reason. http://www.bynkii.com/generic_mac_stuff/archives/2004_09.html#000120 ------------------------------ 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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