From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 5 19:00:20 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iA600Je01346; Fri, 5 Nov 2004 19:00:20 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 19:00:20 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411060000.iA600Je01346@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 #532 TELECOM Digest Fri, 5 Nov 2004 19:00:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 532 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FTC Complaint Regarding Norvergence: A Total Fraud! (Danny Burstein) FTC Sues Norvergence Founders (John R. Levine) Re: Any News on the Feds v. Norvergence? (Lisa Hancock) Nations Use Net to Spy, Plot Attacks Ex-Bush Aide (Lisa Minter) Politicians See E-Voting as a Remote Prospect (Lisa Minter) Re: Prepaid Questions [was Re: How to Make Right Call] (NYC) Re: Prepaid Questions [was Re: How to Make Right Call] (Thomas Horsley) Re: Prepaid Questions [was Re: How to Make Right Call] (Joseph) Re: VoIP Plays Big Role in Presidential Election Turnout (Rick Merrill) Re: VoIP Plays Big Role in Presidential Election Turnout (Robert Bonomi) Re: VoIP -- to Regulate or Not to Regulate? (Rick Merrill) How do I Find Useful Sites About Telecom Billing; Processes? (Sam) 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: Danny Burstein Subject: FTC Complaint Regarding Norvergence: A Total Fraud! Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 11:15:37 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC FTC Charges New Jersey Company with Defrauding Consumers Through Sale of its 'Matrix' Telecom Service NorVergence Claimed It Could Provide Dramatic Savings to Small Businesses "The Federal Trade Commission has charged New Jersey-based NorVergence, Inc. with defrauding consumers through misleading claims that it would provide them with years of dramatic savings on their monthly telephone, cellular, and Internet bills. It also falsely promised to provide unlimited long-distance and cellular minutes at no extra cost. [ snip ] "Finally, the Commission's complaint charges NorVergence with providing others with the means to commit deceptive and unfair acts by furnishing third-party finance companies with rental agreements it signed with its customers. By providing the agreements, NorVergence allegedly facilitated the finance companies' ability to file collection suits in areas outside of where the contracts were signed and to demand payment even if the consumers received no services. [ snippety snip, rest at: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/11/norvergence.htm ] _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Date: 5 Nov 2004 16:19:49 -0500 From: John R Levine Subject: FTC Sues Norvergence Founders FTC Charges New Jersey Company with Defrauding Consumers Through Sale of its 'Matrix' Telecom Service http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/11/norvergence.htm The FTC also specifically claims that the leases are fraudulent, which sounds like good news for people still trying to get out of them. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Mayor "I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Any News on the Feds v. Norvergence? Date: 5 Nov 2004 11:41:48 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com dor@writeme.com (Satchel Paige) wrote: > I am just trying to find out any information on what the Federal > government or state governments are doing about Norvergence, the > Salzano brothers and other Norvergence officers. The FTC is involved. See article at: http://www.nj.com/newsflash/jersey/index.ssf?/base/business-1/1099612448215700.xml&storylist=jersey [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not only is the FTC 'involved' as Lisa states it, but the same FTC has declared all the lease arrangements to be part of the fraud. THAT MEANS NO MONEY IS DUE TO ANY BANK OR LEASING COMPANY; FURTHERMORE THE VICTIMS CAN SUE THE BANKS AND FINANCE COMPANIES TO GET BACK MONEY THEY PAID. That is, unless you are still one of the suckers who kept wimpering (here in this Digest and else- where) about how 'people who do not pay on their lease for the next X years will get sued and have their credit ruined.' For all I care, YOU can keep on paying, while everyone else follows the suggestion I made here starting several months ago, advising everyone to **put a freeze on all accounts payable to Norvergence immediatly.** I am certain some finance companies and banks will continue to have the required brass bedsprings to keep on hassling the alleged debtors for payment. No doubt they will continue their story on how they are 'holders in due course' and all that baloney. Anyone who has paid the 'holder in due course' even five cents has paid five cents too much! Explain to the banks, etc that they will have to go back to Norvergence and get the money which was stolen from them, and to consider themselves lucky if you don't sue *them* to get back what they tricked/strong-armed you out of. Let them go see the executives and managers in their own bank/loan company who got the huge bonuses and steak dinners for bringing in that trashy, worthless paper. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Nations Use Net to Spy, Plot Attacks Ex-Bush Aide Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:50:14 EST BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) - The world's most advanced military powers are using the Internet to spy on their enemies and prepare digital attacks against rogue targets, a leading cyber security expert said on Friday. "When there's a major cyber incident it's very difficult to prove most of the time who did it," said Richard Clarke, former White House adviser on national security and cyber threats. "There are incidents, I think, where governments are involved, doing either reconnaissance or testing out concepts, probing for weaknesses." Clarke said he suspects Russia and China are the most pervasive users of Internet for intelligence-gathering on suspected enemy states and plotting ways to use the information for military purposes. "Maybe the United States too," he told Reuters at a security conference here. Clarke worked for the last three U.S. presidents as a White House national security advisor. He resigned after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on America and has been a vocal critic of the Bush Administration's anti-terror and Iraq campaigns. His latest comments come as network security experts report a growing sophistication of attacks on business and government Web sites, either knocking them offline for long periods or cracking their defenses to steal trade secrets. GROWING RISKS With more and more of the world's crucial national infrastructure -- from emergency police hotlines to power grids -- connected, at times, to the public Internet, the risk of cyber attacks is growing. In addition, a new crop of elaborate computer programs has been unleashed on the Internet, capable of snooping on security networks for top secret information. Experts agree there is scant evidence so far of state-sponsored efforts to hack into military computer systems or compromise national security networks. But the growing severity of Internet attacks and the rise of malicious spying programs have led many to conclude this is the handiwork of professionals with advanced computing skills, ample funding and a military mindset. Law enforcement officials believe organized crime is behind much of the new so-called "spyware" that emerges on the Internet daily. The programs have proved adept at conning consumers out of money or stealing their banking details and major companies have been hit as well. "Organized hacking is mainly done for economic purposes," said Ira Winkler, a former network security specialist for America's National Security Agency. He added some governments are also interested in using the medium to steal a march on their economic rivals, as the Internet has proved to be one of the best resources for corporate espionage. For that reason, security experts have begun to warn the world's most visible multi-national conglomerates to shore up their networks defenses against cyber snooping -- with mixed results. Clarke said the most industrialized nations of the world remain at risk to some form of cyber attacks against both the corporate sector and their national infrastructure because investment in shoring up these networks has been weak. "I would hope that one of the lessons we learned from 9/11 is that you don't wait for a disaster to occur before we fix the problems we know exist," he said. *** 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 Reuters News Service. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Politicians See E-Voting as a Remote Prospect Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:54:30 EST BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) - Forget the hi-tech predictions -- it will be years, if ever, before electors can use the Internet to vote, many policymakers believe. The prediction is bad news for technology firms hoping to introduce e-voting to the masses. Worse still, long queues at polling stations, like those seen this week in the United States presidential election, look like being around for a long time. "You will never see absentee voting conducted online -- ever," said Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, a Republican in Virginia's state senate. "As long as there is any question somebody can tamper with the vote it will never happen," she told Reuters at a security conference here. The high turnout in the U.S. election bucked a trend on both sides of the Atlantic toward falling numbers of people bothering to vote over recent years. Voter apathy in Britain, for example, has been especially marked in local contests, prompting the government to launch a number of pilot trials of Internet or text-message voting in minor elections to increase turnout. But despite assurances that this kind of remote voting can be protected against fraud, suspicions persist. The European Union, which has committed vast sums to so-called e-government initiatives to cut through red tape, is not even considering e-voting at the moment. Reinhard Posch, chief information officer for the Austrian government, also thinks old-fashioned paper ballots are here to stay. "It's all about trust and the digital divide," he said. In the United States and throughout Europe, voting procedures are determined by states or local governments. Most often, amending the process requires a change in the law. While more sophisticated touch-screen voting kiosks have come into use lately, they, crucially, need the voter to be present in the booth. So, while millions of TV viewers use the Internet or their mobile phone to evict a member of the "Big Brother" house or a "Pop Idol" hopeful, politicians prefer to stick with the old-fashioned method of queuing at the polls. As Devolites Davis put it: "if the lawmakers don't trust it, it's not going to happen." *** 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, Reuters News Service. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: NOTvalid@surplus4actors.INFO (NYC) Subject: Re: Prepaid Questions [was Re: How to Make Right Call On Cell] Date: 4 Nov 2004 13:28:17 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) wrote in message news:... > Just as a starting point for comparison, can anyone answer this > question: > If I never use the phone at all, what is the minimum per-year charge > to keep it active for each of the prepaid providers "plans"? (I can > start digging up other implications of each plan if I could just order > them first by this criteria :-). Wife and I are Virgins. Each user has to put in a minimum of $20.00 each 90 days. Since the first 10 calls on any given day are 25 cents each, you could use the twenty bux to make 80 one minute calls. Every time you add 20 bux, it gets added to remainder. To send text messages is always ten cents. To receive text messages is always free. So I can send a msgs to my wife as Email while I am on line and she doesn't pay to receive and I don't pay for an outgoing call. Incredibly low long distance phone rates, As low as USA-Canada 1.9CPM! Works as prepaid phone card. PIN not needed for calls from home or cell phone. Compare the rates on the WWW. No monthly fee or minimum. 20 minutes for FREE! using https://www.onesuite.com/034720367/suitetreat ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Prepaid Questions [was Re: How to Make Right Call On Cell] From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 23:46:33 GMT > I'm not really sure what all your confusion is due to. Most tell you > what the terms are i.e. you must pay a minimum amount to get service > and there are usually some requirements for you to keep the service > such as a requirement that you add money at a required interval or > that you place a call by a certain period to keep your account active > or both. They tell you some of the terms up front, but actually finding out the minimum time you have to buy to keep the phone active seems to be a real challenge (at least to me), I've had to dive down multiple levels to finally get to the leagalese fine print "terms of service" documents, and then translate that from lawyer to human :-). One big difference I have noticed is that some of the plans expire your minutes if you don't use them, and others keep accumulating unused minutes as long as you keep the phone active (if I went with one of those, I'd probably eventually wind up with several years worth of un-used minutes - maybe they should come up with a program for donating unused minutes to charities :-). >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Prepaid Questions [was Re: How to Make Right Call On Cell] Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 14:55:22 -0800 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Thu, 04 Nov 2004 08:06:34 -0800, Joseph wrote: > Another prepaid service offered by PhoneShark called "JusTalk" which > you can buy a minimum $10 'card' (40 minutes) and it will last you for > six months before you must add new minutes to keep the account active. > They are an AT&T Wireless TDMA reseller as well. They do not sell > phones though. You must provide your own AT&T Wireless TDMA > compatible handset. This service ends up costing you ~$1.50/month. > Sorry about replying to my own post, but I just got a notice today from Phoneshark about the JusTalk service. They have modified the way plans work and rather than having the accounts expire afteer six months and requiring that you add money by that time the accounts now do not expire at the end of six months, but will go on indefinitely though they require that you make at least *twenty* minutes of calls per month. That's no bargain at all considering that per minute cost is around 25 cents per minute. This was a good economical service to have, but I can't recommend them any longer and would instead recommend Beyond Wireless. ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: VoIP Plays Big Role in Presidential Election Turnout Organization: Comcast Online Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 21:52:30 GMT ranck@vt.edu wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have a question about the election. >> On AP News Wednesday afternoon, Senator Kerry said in order to save the >> country the kind of debacle which occurred in 2000 when Mr. Bush was >> eventually declared the winner, he was going to concede the election >> to Bush, which he did. But later in the day Wednesday officials said >> they were still going to closely audit all the votes from Ohio. Now >> just suppose the Ohio audit showed the Kerry *had* won that state >> (although he and others said it was quite unlikely). But let's say >> it turned out he did win *that state's electoral votes*. In that case >> he might have won the election; but he has already conceded to Bush. >> What would happen in that case? Has a 'winner' of a presidential >> election ever conceded it to someone else? Just curious. PAT] > I don't think it has ever happened, but what Kerry really said, > in effect, is that his campaign will not challenge the vote counts > anywhere. If, as you suggest, Ohio does its own audit and awards > its electors to Kerry, then the Electoral College still does its > thing on the appointed day in December and Kerry could in theory > still become President. This seems highly unlikely, but there is > no mechanism in the Constitution for a candidate to "concede." > I suppose he could refuse the appointment, but then the office > would go to Edwards, not Bush. At least, I think that's how it > would work. > Bill Ranck > Blacksburg, Va. Even cooler :-( is what would happen in the event of a TIE in the Electoral College: the vote goes to the Senate (and Bush wins) But the vice president could be Edwards!! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It was all rendered moot earlier today when AP Radio News (see http://telecom-digest.org/stuff ) reported that the Iowa returns were now finalized and they had gone to Bush also. PAT] ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: VoIP Plays Big Role in Presidential Election Turnout From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 22:25:05 +0000 In article , > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have a question about the election. > On AP News Wednesday afternoon, Senator Kerry said in order to save the > country the kind of debacle which occurred in 2000 when Mr. Bush was > eventually declared the winner, he was going to concede the election > to Bush, which he did. But later in the day Wednesday officials said > they were still going to closely audit all the votes from Ohio. Now > just suppose the Ohio audit showed the Kerry *had* won that state > (although he and others said it was quite unlikely). But let's say > it turned out he did win *that state's electoral votes*. In that case > he might have won the election; but he has already conceded to Bush. > What would happen in that case? Has a 'winner' of a presidential > election ever conceded it to someone else? Just curious. PAT] I don't know of it ever having happened at the Presidential level, but it has happened at lower-level elections. The 'actual' winner was seated ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: VoIP -- to Regulate or Not to Regulate? Organization: Comcast Online Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 21:55:07 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Just like telephones in many ways. In > the the late 19th century 'telephone' was not a word in most people's > vocabulary, but by 1901-1905 nearly everyone had heard of the device > and many folks had even used one. PAT] When the telephone came out, business men accustomed to the telegraph, said "We want someting IN WRITING!" I have heard someone say they want something WITH A CORD! ------------------------------ From: 9mo9vlp02@sneakemail.com (Sam) Subject: How do I Find Useful Sites About Telecom Billing; Processes? Date: 4 Nov 2004 19:31:14 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com With all my google searches so far I have to wade through a lot of resumes and headhunter postings and vendor sales information. I can't seem to find a lot of useful stuff. The useful stuff I'm looking for are sites that give examples of how various people/companies do billing related business processes. I've been asked to do some work with a billing system & would like to get a feel for how some people/companies approach things. Various things along the whole data pipeline, some examples being rules of thumb for how many billing cycles to have. How many dummy accounts should you have to check billing run accuracies? How many dummy calls per account? At what stage of the billing process do you inject dummy calls: at the switch, at the switch-file loading into the DB, as SQL inserts into the DB? Or should you even have dummy accounts, should you test with real accounts set in a "no-real-bill, no-dummy-effect, dummy mode"? What are some good processes for entering rates, taxes (for those companies that can fix rates themselves and don't buy government approved rates in easily loadable electronic format), for example, should the typing be checked 3 times? 4 times? Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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SPONSORED BY TELECOM DIGEST AND EASY411.COM SIGN UP AT http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest ! ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V23 #532 ******************************