From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Oct 4 14:15:27 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i94IFRr10408; Mon, 4 Oct 2004 14:15:27 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 14:15:27 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410041815.i94IFRr10408@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 #466 TELECOM Digest Mon, 4 Oct 2004 14:15:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 466 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson IBM Unveils First Biometric ThinkPad, Offering Security (Monty Solomon) The Technologist Who Has Michael Powell's Ear (Monty Solomon) Glitch Opens Access to Kids' Records (Monty Solomon) Three Million Scans Uncover 83 Million Cases of Spyware (Monty Solomon) Re: Magna Carta For the Knowledge Age (Lisa Hancock) Re: Magna Carta For the Knowledge Age (Michael A. Covington) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (Howard Wharton) Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone Used (R Merrill) Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone Used (C Griswold) Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (Fred Atkinson) Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (Henry) Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (Lisa Hancock) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 08:48:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: IBM Unveils First Biometric ThinkPad, Offering Security IBM Unveils First Biometric ThinkPad, Offering Security at Your Fingertips RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 4, 2004-- IBM Integrates Fingerprint Reader with Embedded Security Subsystem; Tougher ThinkVantage Technology Strengthens IBM Security Architecture IBM is taking computing security and data protection to the next level today with the introduction of the first ThinkPad with an integrated fingerprint reader. ThinkPad, already the industry's most secure notebook PC (1), now features a model that delivers simplified access to password-protected personal and financial information, web sites, documents and e-mail while offering an unmatched level of data protection through its new biometric capability and embedded security subsystem. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44022512 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 00:43:28 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Technologist Who Has Michael Powell's Ear By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com The Federal Communications Commission is, for better or worse, at the heart of some of the most important technology disputes of our era. How strictly the FCC decides to regulate emerging technology promises to have a lasting impact on areas as disparate as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), fiber to the home, instant messaging and even digital video recorders. Robert Pepper is the FCC's chief of policy development, which requires him to be a kind of government futurist, advising Chairman Michael Powell on which regulations are wise and which would be harmful. He's also co-chairman of the FCC's Internet Policy Working Group. Previously, Pepper directed the Annenberg Washington Program in Communications Policy Studies. CNET News.com spoke with Pepper about topics, including VoIP, broadband over power lines, wiretapping Internet phone calls and what would happen if John Kerry is elected. http://news.com.com/2008-1033-5388746.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 00:51:48 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Glitch Opens Access to Kids' Records Officials say the problem has been fixed, but the error made thousands of confidential child-abuse and foster care files available to anyone on the Web. By COLLEEN JENKINS, Times Staff Writer A Miami Herald reporter alerted local child welfare authorities this week to a software glitch that made available thousands of confidential child-abuse and foster care records to anyone with Internet access. Those files contained detailed information about the 3,966 children under the watch of Kids Central, the private consortium that handles foster care and related services for at-risk children in the Department of Children and Families' District 13, which includes Citrus, Hernando, Marion, Lake and Sumter counties. Names of foster children, birth dates, Social Security numbers, photographs, case histories and even directions to children's foster homes were accessible with a password that had been published on Kids Central's Web site, the Herald reported. DCF officials, who monitor the competitively bid contract with Kids Central, immediately ordered that the site be shut down after the reporter informed them of the security breach Wednesday morning. http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/01/Hernando/Glitch_opens_access_t.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 08:50:53 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Three Million Scans Uncover Over 83 Million Instances of Spyware EarthLink and Webroot Release Fourth SpyAudit Report ATLANTA and BOULDER, Colo., Oct. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today EarthLink (Nasdaq: ELNK), one of the nation's leading Internet service providers, and Webroot Software, a producer of award-winning privacy, protection and performance software, released their fourth SpyAudit Report, which has tracked the growth of spyware on consumer PCs since the report's inception on January 1, 2004. For the year to date, more than three million scans have been performed. The scans discovered approximately 83.4 million instances of spyware, for an average of 26 traces per SpyAudit scan. Scans nearly doubled from the first to the second quarter and remained steady through the third quarter. While the instances of adware increased month-over-month through the first half of 2004, the third quarter began to show a slight decrease in the instances of each adware category. The complete report is available at http://www.earthlink.net/spyaudit/press . - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44024131 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Magna Carta For the Knowledge Age Date: 3 Oct 2004 18:50:51 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com This document, like so many "social statements of the new era" contains basic misstatements of fact and misunderstandings of the business and industrial world. > Inexpensive knowledge destroys economies-of-scale. Customized > knowledge permits"just in time" production for an ever rising number > of *goods*. Technological progress creates new means of serving old > markets, turning *one-time monopolies* into *competitive > battlegrounds*. This is wrong. Economies of scale are as important as ever, indeed, cheap information _helps_ scale because it enables manufacturers to serve a larger market more efficiently. Look at Wal-Mart. While some old monopolies are becomming competitive, once competitive markets are becomming concentrated. This in itself is nothing new -- but always part of the business evolution. Actually, the so-called "Information Revolution" is more an _evolution_. These writers look at only the Internet and forget that cheap fast communication and data processing existed long before the Internet. The telegraph, the telephone, and the computer have been changing business for hundreds of years; this is nothing new. > *Government does not own cyberspace, the people do.*... The writer frequently wraps himself around the flag with "the people" clauses. But _by itself_ the clause is meaningless and foolish. "The people" act through their governments -- municipal, county, state, federal, international. "The people" can't act by themselves. > ...At the level of the enterprise, obsolete accounting procedures > cause us to systematically _overvalue_ physical assets (i.e. property) > and _undervalue_ human-resource assets and intellectual assets. Nonsense for several reasons. Properly followed accounting procedures either fairly value or undervalue physical assets. Standard accounting for years has required assets be valued at "lower of cost or market". Secondly, accounting is a measure of _past_ performance, not a prediction of the future. Accounting tells you what money the company spent for its capital and expense needs in the past. If a company bought someone's patent, accouting tells you what the company paid for that patent. But accounting does not tell you what that patent will be worth in the future, anymore than it tells you the value of the lathe or factory building in the future. Human resource and intellectual assets have always been considered by investors for estimating the investment potential of a company; it's nothing new. > So, if you are an inspired young entrepreneur looking to start a > software company, or a service company of some kind, and it is > heavily information-intensive, you will have a harder time raising > capital than the guy next door who wants to put in a set of beat-up > old machines to participate in a topped-out industry. Again, nonsense. Accounting statements are not the issue at all. Investors look at the future earnings capability of a business. If some beat up machine shop has a solid steady source of customers it may attract some investors while some start-up with no customers might not. In hindsight we know of plenty of start-ups that failed. > _Does it centralize control_? Second Wave policies centralize power in > bureaucratic institutions; Third Wave policies work to spread power -- > to empower those closest to the decision... Power has become centralized simply because that's where the money is. The Feds are the ones with the big money to build highways and other major infrastructure. The Feds are the ones big enough to set national standards so there is compatibility. In other ways, power remains quite local, indeed even more so than in the past. Many people today live in community associations where they have extremely local govt and where it is easy for anyone to get elected to those boards. As to the 'industrial society', just because we have fancy computers and communications, we still need hard material goods like automobiles, houses, clothes, and food. These things still must be made, shipped, and sold. Computers have increased the efficiency of this, but has not eliminated them. The guy's "[" comments were quite good. Let's never forget GIGO -- garbage in, garbage out. In other words, no matter how good or sophisticated an information system is, putting garbage in yields only garbage output. ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: Magna Carta For the Knowledge Age Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 21:52:08 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That 'Magna Carta' I printed here over > the weekend largely was put together by Esther Dyson and the folks at > ICANN, and you know how widely esteemed *they* are with most of the > net community. (Note I said the above with a perfectly straight face.) > ICANN has always had its own agenda which only sometimes comes in > line with what many netizens want. Like Haley's Comet, perhaps once > in 79 years, by coincidence the net community agrees with them when > there is some mutual problem to be solved. It is not a 'misconception' > Michael, it is their goal for the net. The rest of us are the ones > who are confused. Ask Esther or Vint Cerf if you don't believe me. PAT] Well, the Net doesn't have to behave the way its planners foresee, does it! :) :) ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 09:27:53 EDT Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? In a message dated 2 Oct 2004 14:45:59 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) writes: > Many years ago the Pennsylvania Railroad installed a wireless > transmission system between locomotives, cabooses, and wayside > towers to expedite the movement of trains. > Would anyone accurately know details about this sytem? > It is my understanding that this system was not "radio" but rather an > internal "inductive"(?) system using the rails as a carrier. Pictures > of PRR rolling stock show long pipes attached to the roof which were > the antenna. By being an internal system they did not need FCC > permission or assigned frequencies, apparently. > One source says RCA developed the system; another says the system > remained in use until as late as 1969. I don't know if true. > I understand the PATCO rapid transit system initally used a similar > closed system for crew communication, but switched over to more > conventional radios. > Any additional information would be appreciated (public posts, > please). > Thanks! The October 2004 issue of "Trains" magazine shows a photo of a caboose equipped with the antenna you describe. The accompanying text basically agrees with what your description. The text says the FCC did not allocate frequencies for such uses in the 1930s and early 1940s, so the Union Switch & Signal Company developed this system (which as you note relied on inductive coupling and was not radio) and it was first put into use by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1944. The FCC did finally allocate radio frequencies in 1945 but the PRR continued its system is use until 1967. The system was also used by the Kansas City Southern; Bessemer & Lake Erie, Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range; Chicago, Burlington and Quincy ("Burlington"); and Atlantic Coast Line railroads. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: Howard S. Wharton Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 13:00:55 -0400 Organization: The University at Buffalo The system used by the Pennsy was called the trainphone. It only worked on RR property and crew could talk head end to rear end of train, train to train, train to tower or tower to train. It operated on low band VHF and operated by air core transformer coupling rather then radiation. That is why aon the engines the antenna looked like a handrail and a drum style on the caboose (called a cabin car by the PRR). Wayside transceivers were located in the towers and rather then a antenna, the signal was coupled to and from the wayside wires that ran along side of the right of way. These wires also carried signal circuits plus the railroad phone systems as well as the dispatchers line allowing the towers to speak to the dispatcher as well as other towers. Since the signal did not propagte much off the right of way, the signal was somewhat private. The system lasted between 1963-65 when it converted over to radios. There was even a "walkie talkie" for the brakeman with an antenna that looked like a "hula hoop". It was FM. Howard S. Wharton Fire Safety Technician Occupational and Environmental Safety Services State University of New York at Buffalo [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: FYI, anyone interested, for many years, the Chicago Transit Authority handled their train to control tower commuications using 'telephones' which transmitted using the third rail of electrical power (I think third rail is 440 volts DC). I don't know if they still do, or not. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used Organization: Comcast Online Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 01:19:08 GMT Rick Merrill wrote: > Chris Eilersen wrote: >> I have a Linksys wireless-G router which is connected to one main >> computer. I have 3 other computers in remote locations throughout my >> house which with NIC cards and I share my internet bandwidth with >> these machines through the Linksys router. >> I recently got Voicepulse phone service and it works fine except I >> just noticed that my network connection on the remote machines only is >> lost when I use the phone. > You should have modem <==> VoicePulse <==> router <==> PCs > this way QoS (quality of service) can be maintained by the voicepulse so > that when it requires bandwidth to maintain voice quality it can slow > down the computer connections. > -- RM > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I tried the above set up with my Vonage > phone since I had Quality of Service issues with my Vonage phone and > the rest of my network. After I made that change, the Vonage phone > mostly worked fine. But ... a big problem (at least, I thought it > was). The Vonage TA (a Motorola box and firewall) sat there looking at > the router (and its firewall). The two firewalls staring at each other > were *always* causing me hassles. I never could get them to 'play > nicely' with each other. Yes, they would work, a little, but I had to > spend more time rebooting the firewalls than working on line it > seemed. The NetGear router did *not* appreciate having its connection > to the WAN or wide area network being another firewall (Motorola). And > forget about the idea of getting any file transfers in from people > over networks such as AOL, or Yahoo, or Microsoft Instant Messenger. > Time and again the whole system would freeze up and have to be rebooted. > I went back to my old way of doing things, which was having the Vonage > telephone adapter just being a port on the router, and living with the > occassional drop outs in voice quality when one of the computers > wanted to do something. I am not in a position to buy a wide enough > pipe to the net to fix it so it does not matter. PAT] I have Dlink DVG1120M and IT has both NAT and DHCP so it assigns an IP to the router (using 192.168.15.xxx) and router (having NAT and DHCP) assigns an IP to the PC(s) (using 192.168.0/1.xxx) - so everybody is happy as a clam. The SECRET is the 2 minute drill: power all off, power modem, wait 2 min; power TA, wait 2 min; power router; wait 2 min; power PC and you're in like flint. - RM [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, that's what NetGear and Motorola both told me about my setup. It does not sound like 'two minutes' to me, it sounds more like 8-10 minutes out of service by the time you give every device on the line its own two minutes. And what happens when I wake up tomorrow morning and find it all crashed overnight? Anther 2 plus 2 plus 2 plus 2 plus hope I got it right? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Clark W. Griswold, Jr. Subject: Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 20:29:49 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Rick Merrill wrote: > You should have modem <==> VoicePulse <==> router <==> PCs > this way QoS (quality of service) can be maintained by the voicepulse so > that when it requires bandwidth to maintain voice quality it can slow > down the computer connections. Voicepulse uses the Sipura 2000 VOIP adapter, which does not do ethernet passthrough or provide any router functions. That said, I have not noticed any problems just hanging it off a spare port on my Linksys WRTG54G. They do provide a means of configuring the Sipura box to control the amount of bandwidth it uses, but since the max is 64Kbps, I never saw the need. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know how to patch two routers together if four holes is not enough? Or is that even possible? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 22:40:11 -0400 I lived in DC for almost tweny-five years, though not consecutively. While I was working for SkyTel, one of our transmitters in Florida took a lightning strike and the antenna was wiped out. I was asked to get a [rather long] antenna to Reagan National Airport ASAP and air freight it to our field technician so he could get service restored as quickly as possible. So, I took the Washington Metrorail. I got on at McPherson Square and transfered to the Yellow line at L'Enfant Plaza. After exiting the one train and en route to get on the other one, I was stopped by a female Metro police officer. She was very polite and asked me what was in the very long box I was carrying. I informed her that it was an antenna and explained the nature of the emergency. She told me she was surprised that they didn't stop me where I got on (because the box was longer than they normally allowed passengers to carry on the Metrorail). A second officer came running up. He seemed to be in a minor panic about my box. She immediately told him that it was just a radio antenna and he was satisfied with that. She told me to continue to Reagan National Airport since I'd already come that far. But she also told me that if they saw me on the system with something that large again they'd have to ask me to immediately exit the system. So, I was allowed to proceed to Reagan National Airport without further incident. I took it to the counter and air freighted it to the technician in Florida, went to the nearest pay phone, and used my company calling card to notify the technician what flight I would be coming in on. I then returned to the office via the Metrorail. I saw the officer again when I did the reverse transfer at L'Enfant Plaza. She was dealing with someone else and again was very polite and professional with them. I would have spoken to her, but she was a little bit busy. My experience is that the Metro police are a fairly cordial bunch. All the years I lived in DC [and I rode the Metro a lot] I never had any problems with those folks. They did a good job and had good manners when they did speak to you for any reason (from giving directions to asking you to stand a little further back from the edge of the platform). One New Year's Eve, I was riding the Metrorail home. There was a drunk in the car. He had a beer in his hand (eating and drinking on the Metro is strictly forbidden) and was loud as a public address system at maximum gain. Suddenly, an undercover Metro police officer jumped up, showed his badge, and ordered the man to quiet down, sit down, and put the beer in his pocket. He did not arrest the man (though he could have) because they were trying to encourage those who were drinking to take the public transportation home rather than drive. But the rest of the ride was a lot more pleasant because of the Metro officer's action. And I am not always so generous in my opinion of police officers. I had a run in with a DC City officer who ticketed me in a company vehicle for expired tags (not a SkyTel vehicle, I was working for another company when this happened). He was rude and very obnoxious almost to the point of abusiveness. I wasn't going to say anything about it until one of my co-workers showed up at work and showed me a traffic ticket (issued within fifteen minutes of my ticket with the same signature and badge number on it as my ticket because my co-worker had allegedly run a red light). One of the supervisors was carpooling with him when he was stopped. The officer was black and both of the men in this sports car were white. The officer said that if he wasn't a white man in a sports car that he probably wouldn't have bothered with writing him the ticket. The supervisor who was with him said that it was such a close call as to whether or not my co-worker had run the red light that it could go either way in court. Until then, I wasn't going to make any trouble. But when I heard that, I contacted his Seargent and told him what happened when he stopped *me*. His Seargent agreed with me that the officer was out of line and he assured me he would speak to him about it. I gave my co-worker the Seargent's name and phone number. My co-worker declined to call him. I pointed out that the officer could be dealt with before the problem escalated further and someone was hurt. But my co-worker was too much of a pacifist to call and complain. I went to court on the ticket and the judge dismissed it, by the way. As the renewal notice had been sent to a wrong address, she decided it wasn't my fault. She was quite pregnant when she tried my case, by the way (nothing adverse meant by that, it's just something I still remember). She was very nice and very professional. Just to show you I was being objective with the Metro police. Fred ------------------------------ From: henry999@eircom.net (Henry) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 06:33:53 +0300 Organization: Elisa Internet customer Lisa Hancock wrote: > Unfortunately, too many cell phone users are rude and speak loudly and > are a nuisance to other people. I was on the train recently trying to > relax after a long tiring day and some guy was talking in a very loud > voice making call after call in his cell phone. How is this different, really, from (a) the lovers who quarrel all the way; (b) the out-of-control child that whines, screams and kicks all the way; (c) the bore who holds forth with his self-proclaimed great stories all the way; etc., etc.? It is different in that the cell phone user is alone, while in the other situations there are (at least) two human beings physically present -- but as far as annoyance caused to other members of the public goes, I'd say the cell phone user is no worse. Cheers, Henry (who does not own or use a mobile phone) ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Date: 4 Oct 2004 08:26:56 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com (Some telco related issues are discussed further down in my response). > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe so, Lisa. I will suggest however, > that 'disorderly conduct' and other such open-ended, define them as > you go along laws are a police officer's best friend, because there is > not a person in the world who cannot be guilty of 'disorderly conduct' > if an officer decides to make them so. Having had some negative experiences of my own in that regard, I can't disagree. Cops have some discretion and so do local judges (who sometimes throw out such charges, sometimes impose the maximum fine). Generally, I've seen too much and it's the hothead/jerk who insists on making trouble and keeps on making trouble who gets cited. It is important to point out that cops are employees and do what their bosses tell them. Most people do not attend their town council meetings, if they even know what specific municipality they live in. At such meetings often citizens stand up and demand strict, even zealous quality of life enforcement of laws. The business community doesn't want their customers turned away by ruffians or troublemakers causing disturbances and they support such efforts too. Obviously this attitude varies significantly by town. Some towns will not tolerate a fistfight, others look at it as part of life and not of concern. (Some towns tolerate a junked car on blocks on the lawn, others do not). Those people who find 'quality of life' law enforcement too strict need to understand the town they're living in. It should be pointed out that both BART and DC-METRO opened in the 1970s when there was a lot of trouble on older urban subway systems, and BART/METRO pledged to their riders a clean safe environment. Strict enforcement of rules from day one is a long tradition of both systems, and generally respected and appreciated by riders. > I say thank god for 'social activists' (as you called them) who look > out for the rights of the rest of us. PAT] I've spoken to lots of activists and read their writings. The fact is that a great many are uninformed malcontents interested in disrupting for the sake of disruption, not to honestly make things better for people; the social justice is just an excuse, cover, and rallying point. Others are closet socialists/Marxists who have no respect for, indeed even a hatred of private property and business, and could care less the harm their activities are doing or would do to the rights of others people. When the telephone company raises its rates--is it always some evil capitalist exploiting the people or is it legitimate business requirements? For the activists, the facts don't matter, it is always evil. One damaging thing they've done is make it very difficult for the telephone company -- as a basic utility -- to collect its money from deadbeats. They got the PUC to force the phone companies to offer phone service and maintain service even when the company loses money and never collects. The rest of the customers have to make it up. One major city owned utility was forced by the social activists to virtually never shut off service for lack of payment. The word got out and the deadbeat rate skyrocketed. Obviously the money had to come from somewhere so rates for those who actually paid their bills went up steeply. Needless to say this caused a major scandal, but the social activists had their grips in and insisted on protecting the deadbeats. The end result -- it made the city look bad and people who could afford to move out (those who paid taxes and the bills) moved out, making the city worse off. I don't want to go back to the days where the cops ruled their beat by their nightstick. Way, way back, cops had little backup (walked, no car, no radio) so if there was a problem they handled it themselves. Sometimes cops offered basic common sense and help that saved a lot of kids from serious trouble. Sometimes cops whacked them. But, in my time I've seen activists do an awful lot of harm in their zealous and weird interpretation of laws and equality. Disruptive and disgusting behavior by homeless people in the subways was championed by them as "free speech" and they pushed for it to be constitutionally protected. In the end the homeless and the poor had it worse than ever, thanks to the social activists. Fortunately society has recognized much of this and realizes that everyday people have a right to not to have some homeless person throw up on them while commuting work on the subway. ------------------------------ 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. 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