From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 30 15:26:10 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8UJQAj26794; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:26:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:26:10 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409301926.i8UJQAj26794@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 #457 TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:26:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 457 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson U.S. Secret Search Ruling Appeal Likely (Lisa Minter) Federal Judge Strikes Down Part of PATRIOT Act (Monty Solomon) CDT Urges FCC to Stand By Approval of TiVo (Monty Solomon) RadioSHARK - AM/FM Radio with Time Shift Recording (Monty Solomon) Fireman Claims Radio Failure Nearly Killed Him (Lisa Hancock) Can Anyone Recommend a "Pay As You Go" Economy Cell Phone? (Ava Cohen) Need Help With External Port (Leander Vanhulle) Lucent DSL MAX 20 Packet Loss (Daniel Eyholzer) Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (Michael Quinn) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Lisa Hancock) Re: Paper Tape Technology Was: What is the Name of #? (John Levine) Re: Calls to 711 (Deaf Message Service) Are Being Blocked (Steve Sobol) Re: Calls to 711 (Deaf Message Service) Are Being Blocked (Al Gillis) Is CDT Now Open to All Sales Pitches? (Joseph) 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: Lisa Minter Subject: U.S. Secret Search Ruling Appeal Likely Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 11:07:33 EDT By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer NEW YORK - In a blow to the Justice Department's post-Sept. 11 powers, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero on Wednesday struck down the provision that let the FBI gather phone and Web customer records but barred service providers from ever disclosing the search took place. Ashcroft, in the Netherlands to meet with European Union officials, said he would study the decision upon returning to Washington, but "it's almost a certainty it will be appealed." "We believe the act to be completely consistent with the United States Constitution," he told reporters. While Marrero called national security of "paramount value" and said the government "must be empowered to respond promptly and effectively" to threats, he also called personal security equal in importance and "especially prized in our system of justice." The decision is the second time a judge has ruled unconstitutional part of the Patriot Act, a package of prosecution and surveillance tools passed shortly after the terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001. In January, a federal judge in Los Angeles struck down a section of the act that made it a crime to give "expert advice or assistance" to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations. The judge said the language was too vague, threatening First and Fifth Amendment rights. American Civil Liberties Union attorney Jameel Jaffer called the latest ruling a "landmark victory, and "a wholesale refutation of excessive government secrecy and unchecked executive power." Marrero said his ruling blocks the government from issuing new requests for phone and Internet records "in this or any other case," but delayed the injunction by 90 days to allow time for an appeal. The judge said the law violates the Fourth Amendment because it bars or deters any judicial challenge to the government searches, and violates the First Amendment because its permanent ban on disclosure is a prior restraint on speech. He noted that the Supreme Court recently said that a "state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens." "Sometimes a right, once extinguished, may be gone for good," Marrero wrote. Marrero issued his decision in favor of an Internet access firm identified in his 120-page ruling simply as "John Doe." He had agreed to keep the firm's identity secret to protect the FBI probe that led to the search request. President Bush has been pushing Congress to renew all of the Patriot Act before it expires next year, arguing that it is one of law enforcement's best tools in preventing another catastrophic terrorist attack. The law has become a symbol to civil libertarians who say the Bush administration has gone too far in expanding security powers at the expense of privacy rights and individual freedom. In a footnote to his ruling, Marrero cited words he had written two years ago in another case to warn that courts must apply "particular vigilance to safeguard against excess committed in the name of expediency." "The Sept. 11 cases will challenge the judiciary to do Sept. 11 justice, to rise to the moment with wisdom equal to the task, its judgments worthy of the large dimensions that define the best Sept. 11 brought out of the rest of American society." Doe v. Ashcroft ruling at: http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/RulingsOfInterest.htm Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov *** 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, Associated Press and Yahoo News. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 00:36:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Federal Judge Strikes Down Part of PATRIOT Act From: info@cdt.org List-Archive: Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:42:47 -0400 (EDT) A federal judge today found unconstitutional a part of the USA PATRIOT Act that allows federal law enforcement officials to obtain confidential financial records without a court order or other safeguards. The lawsuit, brought by the ACLU, challenged the use of so-called "National Security Letters," a type of administrative subpoena power that was expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act. September 29, 2004 For more on the USA PATRIOT Act: http://www.cdt.org/security/010911response.shtml For more information on the ACLU lawsuit [offsite]: http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=15543&c=262 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 12:42:23 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CDT Urges FCC to Stand By Approval of TiVo http://www.cdt.org/headlines/headline.php?hid=189 In a test of the flexibility of new copy protections for digital television, CDT has filed in support of the FCC's decision to approve TiVo and other Internet-based technologies under its "broadcast flag" rules. Those rules require DTV receivers sold after July 2005 to include FCC-approved technologies to protect broadcasts from broad redistribution online. The TiVo decision, now being challenged, is a test of the FCC's commitment to allow secure uses of DTV over the Internet under the new rules. September 29, 2004 * CDT Opposition to Petition for Reconsideration on TiVo, SmartRight [PDF] , September 28, 2004 http://www.cdt.org/copyright/20040928tivo-reply.pdf ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 13:33:01 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: RadioSHARK - AM/FM Radio With Time Shift Recording radioSHARK AM/FM Radio with Time Shift Recording http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/radioshark/ ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Fireman Claims Radio Failure Nearly Killed Him Date: 30 Sep 2004 09:16:41 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com The Phila Inqr (www.philly.com) reported 9/30/04 that a city fireman with 23 years of service says his new digital radio failed leaving him trapped in a burning building and severely injured. The city spent $54 million on a new public safety radio system that has more channels and allows all agencies to talk on the same frequency during emergencies. Firefighters have filed steady complaints about the system, which operates on 800 Mhz band. The city is investigating with Motorola. One concern being checked is if cellphones interfere. Motorola did say one emergency feature (that the fireman used) might not always work. They also said they may have been confusion between the encrypted and clear modes. Other news reports said the batteries in police hand held units don't hold a charge and fail during service. Other cities had a similar problem. Suburban public safety departments have also upgraded to digital radios at tremendous cost since all radios, both on vehicles and hand held, must be replaced. Suburban officials have found numerous dead spots. One can't help but wonder if the digital technology being used in new public safety radios is not mature enough for the demanding applications. From news reports, it seems the digital systems are much more likely to have deadspots (just like digital cell phones) than the prior analog systems. Has anyone heard reports from other municipalities about problems with digital radios? ------------------------------ From: avacohen100@yahoo.com (ava cohen) Subject: Can Anyone Recommend a "Pay as You Go" Economy Cell Phone? Date: 29 Sep 2004 21:32:48 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I am thinking of getting my 12 year old daughter a pay as you go cell phone in California. Can anyone recommend a "pay as you go" economy cell phone? (like prepaid cards?) I do not want to subscribe to any plans. Which company? How much does the phone and the calls cost? Where is the best place to buy it from? Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks. Ava ------------------------------ From: LeanderVanhulle@hotmail.com (Leander Vanhulle) Subject: Need Help With External Port Date: 30 Sep 2004 06:24:39 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com My serial port of my laptop is broken and I bought an external serial port on USB. I would like to use this in DOS but all the software only lets you select COM1 to COM4. It works fine under WinXP but not under Dos. Pleas help me ... ------------------------------ From: Daniel Eyholzer Subject: Lucent DSL MAX 20 packet loss Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 16:31:39 +0200 Hi there, We have three Lucent DSL MAX 20 connected to a Cisco switch. There are also some other network devices and a linux box connected to the same switch. If I am pinging to or from one of the three Lucent devices I have packet loss. Pinging from and to the other devices connected to the switch works without any packet loss. The switch and cables have already been replaced. On the switch I see that on the fastethernet interfaces on which these three Lucents are connected, the number of CRCs is constantly increasing. I also noticed, that if there are more active DSL connections on the Lucent DSL device there is more packet loss and more CRCs. There are two SDSL-16 cards in each of the three DSL MAX 20 which allow 32 SDSL connections per device. On one device we have 28 active connections and there is about 4% packet loss. On the second Lucent there are 20 connections and there is about 1% packet loss. On the third Lucent there is no active connection but still 1% packet loss. I have looked at all config options on the Lucents but did not find anything that could solve this packet loss problem. Is there any known hardware problem with this Lucent DSL MAX 20 devices? Could it be a wrong setting on the device configuration? Or what else could cause this problem? Thanks, Daniel ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 09:12:07 -0400 From: Michael Quinn Subject: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Apropos of the discussion about the BART officer who reportedly ordered a radio turned off, this report has a somewhat different twist: Between Metro and Cell User, a Disconnect By Lyndsey Layton Washington Post Staff Writer Sakinah Aaron was walking into the bus area at the Wheaton Metro station several weeks ago, talking loudly on her Motorola cell phone. A little too loudly for Officer George Saoutis of the Metro Transit Police. The police officer told Aaron, who is five months pregnant, to lower her voice. She told the officer he had no right to tell her how to speak into her cell phone. Their verbal dispute quickly escalated, and Saoutis grabbed Aaron by the arm and pushed her to the ground. He handcuffed the 23-year-old woman, called for backup and took her to a cell where she was held for three hours before being released to her aunt. She was charged with two misdemeanors: "disorderly manner that disturbed the public peace" and resisting arrest. Those are the facts on which both sides agree. They interpret the events of Sept. 9 very differently. Transit Police and some Metro officials say Saoutis was protecting the peace by removing a woman who had overstepped the boundaries of civil behavior because she was loudly cursing into her phone. They say that cell phones have become just another instrument of loutish behavior in the public space and that they are fighting a dramatic deterioration of manners in the transit system. "We need better enforcement to allow people to know we are serious and want to maintain the high-quality level of the system," said Robert J. Smith, chairman of the Metro board, adding that "ranting youth" have become a plague on the subway. "This isn't Montana. We live in a very dense region, and people are on top of each other all the time." Smith, who refuses to carry a cell phone, said he thinks Metro riders need to use the devices with care. "We wouldn't allow someone to come into the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and shout obscenities into a cell phone," he said. But Aaron and some defenders of free speech say the Transit Police are the ones who overstepped boundaries by making a crime out of conversation and pushing a pregnant woman to her knees. The incident took place out of doors and not in the confines of a rail car or bus, they note. And they point to a string of other incidents, including the July arrest of a 45-year-old woman for chewing a PayDay candy bar and the 2000 arrest of a 12-year-old girl for eating a french fry, that are earning the Transit Police a national reputation as an agency itching to lock up riders. "Technically, the police officer is right, but the result is wrong," said D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who represents the city on the Metro board. "How do we prevent minor transgressions escalating into major problems? It's not what any of us want. We don't want pregnant women booked for loud cell phone conversations. We don't want 12-year-old girls in handcuffs for eating a single french fry. Whether it's training or guidance to our officers, we have to do something." Johnny Barnes, executive director of the Washington area chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, called Aaron's arrest "troubling." "There seems to be an unusual attention paid to activities of patrons," Barnes said. "One should be able to ride the Metro and exercise a range of rights without fear of intervention from Metro police." Aaron, who lives in Silver Spring and works as a clerk at the Food and Drug Administration, said she was talking to her fiance on her cell phone as she walked toward the bus bay about 4:45 p.m. Sept. 9 to catch the Route C4 Metrobus. "Our phone conversation had ended," she said. "I'm walking down the stairs and the transit cop said, 'You have to lower your voice, ma'am.' I said, 'You can't tell me how loud I can talk.' He said, 'I can arrest you,' and he grabbed my arm. I said, 'What are you doing? I'm pregnant! Oh, so you want to flex some muscle today?' He grabbed my hand, and we struggled." Aaron acknowledged that she was loud on the phone but said she wasn't cursing and lobbed a profanity only after Saoutis grabbed her. After her release that night, Aaron went to Holy Cross Hospital and was treated in the emergency room for a bruise she said was a result of Saoutis's pushing her to the ground and placing his knee on her upper back. Saoutis, who is about to complete his first year on the job with the Transit Police, was not available for an interview yesterday, according to Deputy Chief Tim Gronau. Gronau said his officer properly enforced the law and arrested Aaron because it was clear she wasn't taking his warning seriously. "We're not either pro or negative cell phones," he said. "The issue is [that] the volume of her conversation, coupled with the language, is not conducive to socially accepted standards of behavior." *** 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 Washington Post. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: 30 Sep 2004 08:35:14 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com George Mitchell wrote > Lisa Hancock wrote: >> As to the claim BART radios were "special" years ago, there is >> definitely truth to that. BART's original train control system >> had many problems, including a train that ignored a stop signal >> and flew off at a terminal into the parking lot. Let me clarify the above paragraph. By 'radios' I meant the train control system, not the audio communication system. BART uses automated train operation and protection. The speed and stopping of trains is controlled by signals sent to the train from wayside transmitters. A second and critical component of this system is train protection so that one train does not collide with another. BART was an early modern automated train system. The rest of my paragraph is correct. The original BART system had pushed the state of the art and had many problems in practice. [GW continues] > This had nothing to do with radios. The lead car of the train was > receiving a 27-mph signal from the track. The system for trans- > mitting the speed command from the lead car to the rest of the train > was to transmit one of a specified set of audio frequency signals over > a wire bus. However, the crystal in the 27-mph oscillator was cracked > and oscillated at the 72-mph frequency, causing the train to speed up > instead of slow down. The operator was not able to apply the brakes > in time to stop before reaching the end of the track. http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byteserv.prl/~ota/disk3/1976/7614/761406.PD My point is that BART depends on wireless communications to transmit speed commands from wayside onto the train AND that BART had many problems with this system. The above example is just one of many problems they had to deal with. Concerning the above problem, I'm surprised that a broken crystal (do crystals even break that easily?) would just so happen to send out a different valid signal. In Bell System signalling, they were very careful to avoid harmonic frequencies or any frequencies as well as pulse coding that could be misinterpreted as something else. Note that Touch Tone signals use two-tones, not just one. This kind of safety design goes back to the 1940s. Likewise, in more traditional railroad signalling, the pulse codes were carefully designed and implemented with very rugged gear to avoid misinterpretation. If a failure occurs, it is interpreted as a stop signal. (BART chose to not use traditional railroad technology.) Anyway, a stray or errant signal could and did cause a BART train wreck. Naturally BART mgmt would be interested in preventing such problems. On other automated rail systems, a positive read of a specific signal is required to proceed, the failure to receive that signal stops the train. As someone else explained, superhet radio receivers retransmit a signal, and this signal happens to interfere with navigation. Well, a radio that is actually transmitting could send out similar signal interference. As to the current issue, walkie-talkies are transmitters, and as such, send out signals obviously stronger than within a receiver's superhet circuits. It is possible that such signals either directly or through distortion/harmonics could interfere with normal train control. While a wreck is unlikely, it could force a train into an emergency stop between stations, which is obviously undesirable. Until such time that modern walkie-talkies would be tested to ensure their signals do not and cannot interfere with train control and train protection, they should not be permitted to be used on BART. The other question about whether this was a single cop's own interpretation or mgmt policy is significant as well. If it is just one cop, that one cop needs to be disciplined and retrained, but mgmt policy need not be changed. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 2004 02:13:33 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Paper Tape Technology Was: What is the Name of #? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > As an undergrad at Harvard, Bill Gates wrote software to read and > count these punched holes (a task complicated slightly by the fact > that they are randomly spaced along the paper tape) and set up a > company ("Traf-O-Data", I believe) located in his dorm room which > received these tapes, read them using bootlegged time on Aiken's early > Harvard University computer facility, and sent back printed reports to > traffic engineers all over the company. Gates and Allen did run Traf-O-Data, but the rest is wrong. Since Bill is 48 years old, when would he have been at Harvard? When was Aiken doing the Mark I through Mark IV? Sheesh. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Calls to 711 (Deaf Message Service) Are Being Blocked Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 20:06:33 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Jim Willis wrote: > I have read the digest off and on over the years and I have searched the > archives and don't see this question right off. > A deaf person moved into a care facility and they asked me to see what > was up when they could not get the relay service. They pay $20.00 > monthly for phone service that goes through a PBX/CENTREX -- (Dial 9 > before number you are calling) Long distance is ok -- you will be > billed for it as an incidental on your bill. > If you dial 9-711 the call does not complete. All other long distance > and local calls and toll free calls complete. Try 711. If that doesn't work, the managed-care staff needs to get it working. If not ... well, you could possibly file a complaint with the government regarding ADA violations. Maybe. (Just pulling that idea out of my butt; not sure whether or not it'd work.) > Is this a common programming bug on PBX/CENTREX ? Has anyone run into > this kind of thing before in the USA or CANADA ? You can generally program a PBX any way you want to (which is why, for example, on one system you dial 9 to get an outside line and on another you might dial 8, etc). If it's Centrex through a phone company, there is no reason they shouldn't allow 711 and if they don't, they need to be reported to your state's regulatory board/PUC. I'm pretty sure 711 is a requirement these days (though I could definitely be wrong). 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: Al Gillis Subject: Re: Calls to 711 (Deaf Message Service) Are Being Blocked Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 21:07:31 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Hi Jim, Failure to complete calls to the 711 Relay service in that area is more than likely a routing problem in the PBX serving the care facility. I find it a little odd, however, that such a place would allow access to 711 services to go for long before they complained bitterly to their maintenance provider (or maybe they don't have one?). The PBX systems I manage all allow access to the 711 and 511 (road conditions in Oregon) services. It's a simple matter of programming! Make 'em fix it! Another (unlikely) possibility is that the care facility may be located where no hard of hearing relay service is available. Al ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Is CDT Now Open to All Sales Pitches? Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 19:12:23 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com Is comp.dcom.telecom now open to anyone who wants to hawk any wares they want? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No indeed, it is not. There are commercial-oriented telecom groups which allow that, such as Yahoo News Groups (some of them) and various alt newsgroups. The only casual commercial messages allowed in comp.dcom.telecom are those which have a direct relevance to a recent question posed here (for example, how can I find cheap calling cards, or [like the one in this issue] on prepaid cellular service), and my preference on publishing what little I do of those is given to regular participants in c.d.t. who happen to own that type of business or shop, and not just 'anyone' coming along with that type of advertisement. PAT] ------------------------------ 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. 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