From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 17 21:47:32 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iAI2lV803060; Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:47:32 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:47:32 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200411180247.iAI2lV803060@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 #553 TELECOM Digest Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:47:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 553 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Texas Officials Wary of Plan to Hunt by Internet (Lisa Minter) Movie Studios Start Suing Web File Swappers (Lisa Minter) Congress May Act on Internet Piracy Bill (Lisa Minter) Telecom Shows Sparkles Of Life (Marcus Didius Falco) Verizon and Sprint to Cut Fee For Cell Phone (Marcus Didius Falco) Smart ID Cards Track Students (Lisa Hancock) Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate (Dan Lanciani) Re: SBC to Announce VoIP Tests (Tony P.) Re: Vonage Tech Support Dead? (Tony P.) Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits (Mark Reichert) Re: Last Laugh! Purely Spam! MY PRESENTATION TO YOU (Dan Lanciani) 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: Texas Officials Wary of Plan to Hunt by Internet Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:39:18 EST HOUSTON (Reuters) - Hunters soon may be able to sit at their computers and blast away at animals on a Texas ranch via the Internet, a prospect that has state wildlife officials up in arms. A controversial Web site, http://www.live-shot.com, already offers target practice with a .22 caliber rifle and could soon let hunters shoot at deer, antelope and wild pigs, site creator John Underwood said on Tuesday. Texas officials are not quite sure what to make of Underwood's Web site, but may tweak existing laws to make sure Internet hunting does not get out of hand. "This is the first one I've seen," said Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wildlife director Mike Berger. "The current state statutes don't cover this sort of thing." Underwood, an estimator for a San Antonio, Texas auto body shop, has invested $10,000 to build a platform for a rifle and camera that can be remotely aimed on his 330-acre southwest Texas ranch by anyone on the Internet anywhere in the world. The idea came last year while viewing another Web site on which cameras posted in the wild are used to snap photos of animals. "We were looking at a beautiful white-tail buck and my friend said 'If you just had a gun for that.' A little light bulb went off in my head," he said. Internet hunting could be popular with disabled hunters unable to get out in the woods or distant hunters who cannot afford a trip to Texas, Underwood said. Berger said state law only covers "regulated animals" such as native deer and birds and cannot prevent Underwood from offering Internet hunts of "unregulated" animals such as non-native deer that many ranchers have imported and wild pigs. He has proposed a rule that will come up for public discussion in January that anyone hunting animals covered by state law must be physically on site when they shoot. Berger expressed reservations about remote control hunting, but noted that humans have always adopted new technologies to hunt. "First it was rocks and clubs, then we sharpened it and put it on a stick. Then there was the bow and arrow, black powder, smokeless power and optics," Berger said. "Maybe this is the next technological step out there." Underwood, 39, said he will offer animal hunting as soon as he gets a fast Internet connection to his remote ranch that will enable hunters to aim the rifle quickly at passing animals. He said an attendant would retrieve shot animals for the shooters, who could have the heads preserved by a taxidermist. They could also have the meat processed and shipped home, or donated to animal orphanages. *** 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 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What is an 'animal orphanage' as referred to in the last paragraph of the story? I also wonder what will happen (when the man gets his high speed internet connection) if someone logs in, then manipulates the gun in such a way as to cause injury or death to another hunter. What if he did that in a wilfull way and used a bogus login to cover his tracks? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Movie Studios Start Suing Web File Swappers Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:40:03 EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood film studios filed suit against online video file swappers in federal courts across the United States on Tuesday, making good on a promise to punish computer users they claim are violating copyright laws. The move against people who copy and trade illegal copies of movies and TV shows is part of broad effort by the industry's chief lobbying group to stem copyright piracy it says costs studios billions of dollars annually. A Motion Picture Association of America spokesman said suits were filed across a broad spectrum of the United States, but declined to say how many. Earlier this month, when the MPAA announced it would begin filing individual "John Doe" lawsuits, the number of expected suits was widely reported to be in the hundreds. The film industry is using the "John Doe" method, identifying swappers by numerical Internet addresses, because an earlier court ruling said Internet service providers did not have to provide names of their customers. The MPAA said illegal file swapping could cost a person found guilty up to $30,000 in fines for each film. The music industry has sued more than 5,000 people in their efforts to stem illegal downloading, copying and sharing of digital music files online via peer-to-peer, or P2P, networks. The movie industry has been slower to use the courts than the music industry. Films and TV shows require huge digital files that take a long time to download, and few consumer homes have the necessary high-speed hardware. However, as more broadband cable and telephone lines are installed to households, the threat increases. Already, the MPAA claims that illegal copying of videotapes and DVDs for sale in black markets worldwide costs it more than $3.5 billion annually. *** 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: Congress May Act on Internet Piracy Bill Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:40:59 EST By David McGuire, Staff Writer The entertainment industry is pushing Congress to approve a bill that could send thousands of Internet music and movie downloaders to jail, but the legislation faces opposition from groups that say it would unfairly punish consumers. The package combines eight bills that the entertainment industry supports as part of a large-scale effort to crack down on the rampant spread of piracy on the Internet. The bill also would criminalize using a video recorder to copy films while they are still in the theater, and allow the Justice Department to file civil lawsuits against song-swappers. The bill is one of many that Congress could consider as it convenes today for a post-election lame-duck session, but sources familiar with the legislation said that it is impossible to predict whether lawmakers will act. Opponents of the bill fear that its supporters will slip it into one of the massive legislative packages that Congress often passes at the end of the year. "We take nothing for granted," said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based civil liberties group. "There's not a lot of time, but if you look away for a second, this bill can just shoot through." Public Knowledge has joined the Consumer Electronics Association, Verizon, the American Conservative Union and other groups in opposing the package, which so far has steamrolled toward passage with little opposition. Music and movie industry officials said that Congress already has shown its support for the measures in the bill. "It's not like these bills came out of nowhere. All of these bills had been passed by one house or another," said David Green, vice president for technology and new media at the Motion Picture Association of America. One of the most contentious measures in the package, the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act, won approval in the House of Representatives earlier this year. The PIRATE Act sailed through the Senate. The first bill would allow prosecutors to seek jail terms of up to five years for people who make 1,000 or more songs available for download on peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa and eDonkey. The PIRATE Act would allow the Justice Department to seek civil damages against illegal file sharers. Under current law, the Justice Department only can prosecute criminal copyright violations. If the package became law, prosecutors no longer would have to prove that a suspect willfully distributed illegally copied files. This is a problem, opponents said, because most Internet file-sharing software is designed to automatically share the contents of people's music libraries with other members on the network. This means that people with more than a thousand songs on their computers could face jail time even if they never intended to share their music, they said. "It's really unprecedented in our copyright law to send somebody to jail unless they've done something willfully," said Sarah Deutsch, vice president and associate general counsel at Verizon Communications. "Since so many digital devices today hold thousands and thousands of songs, hundreds of thousands if not millions of people will face liability." Green said that prosecutors would still have to prove that defendants knew they were illegally sharing the files. The copyright package is almost a consolation prize for the entertainment industry, which spent much of this year urging Congress to pass the Induce Act, an attempt to drive song-swapping networks out of business by exposing them to monetary damages for inducing people to illegally share files. The Induce Act failed after a broad group of free-speech advocates, technology companies and Internet service providers complained that the measure could inadvertently target popular, legal devices like the iPod. The recording industry has seen its sales and profits plummet as the popularity of peer-to-peer file swapping has risen. Compact disc sales fell from a high of $13.2 billion in 2000 to $11.2 billion in 2003, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, which put much of the blame on an exponential increase in file sharing. CD sales bounced back in early 2004, but have not reached their previous high levels, the RIAA said. In addition to stumping for stiffer copyright laws, the recording industry has sued more than 6,000 suspected song-swappers since September 2003. The major Hollywood studios so far have avoided a similar fate, in part because it is more time-consuming to download feature-length films. Still, they are working to prevent a similar siphoning off of their profits. Earlier this month, MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman announced that the association will sue people suspected of Internet movie piracy. *** 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 Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:51:28 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Telecom Shows Sparkles Of Life http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49775-2004Nov14.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49775-2004Nov14?language=3Dprinter Wireless, Security Firms Lead Rebound By Yuki Noguchi Washington Post Staff Writer Five years ago, Cable & Wireless USA Inc. promised to link businesses through ribbons of fiber-optic cable connecting every major point on the globe. E.spire Communications Inc. vowed to build its own network from scratch to bypass the local phone giants. Corvis Corp. pledged its equipment would widen the Internet into a massive data superhighway. All were launched in the Washington area in the 1990s. All are gone today. Now, a new generation of companies -- smaller, with more modest goals -- is surfacing to take their place. Frederick's Qovia Inc. is helping business clients install and manage voice-over-Internet phone systems. Bluefire Security Technologies of Baltimore designs software to protect wireless devices from hackers. Software from Fairfax-based Nexus Innovative Systems Co. audits companies' telecommunications bills. After four years of painful decline, the area's telecommunications business is starting to come back. The newer telecom companies are largely focused on such growth areas as wireless communications and security software. Many are small. And most get by without the dollars that used to flow from venture capital funds or from going public. Washington will continue to be a major center for telecommunications, analysts and investors say. The area is rich in technologists, lawyers, venture capitalists, skilled workers and the federal regulators of the telecommunications industry. But the telecommunications industry won't be the local economic driver it was during the 1990s, analysts say. Local employment in the industry hit 50,200 in March 2001, and venture investments in local telecommunications topped $1 billion in 2000. At last report, 33,700 people were working in the local telecommunications sector as of September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The area's venture investment in telecommunications dropped to $81.7 million last year, according to data from the MoneyTree survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers/Venture Economics/National Venture Capital Association. "I see promising players, but if you're looking for the next Google, I don't know that we know what that is yet for this area," said Charlie Thomas, former chief executive of Net2000 Communications and founder of investment firm Claris Capital. But, he added, some companies clearly will be driving the next generation of work because they have developed strong expertise in niches that will be important in the communications industry. Thomas singled out Reston's Nextel Communications Inc., and the District's XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. -- the latter not a communications company, but one with expertise in the use of satellites. It was satellite technology that launched Washington's telecommunications sector back in the 1960s, when Comsat Corp. and Intelsat Ltd. were created. Comsat was chartered in 1962 as the government's representative on Intelsat, an international satellite partnership. For decades Intelsat was the only U.S. satellite link to the rest of the world, and the effort spawned a rich pool of telecommunications experts in Washington, who went off to start or staff other companies. In 1972, William G. McGowan relocated his company, MCI Inc., to 17th Street NW in Washington, realizing a key part of MCI's success would be lobbying Congress and regulators to open long-distance calling to competition. In 1984, a court-ordered breakup of AT&T Corp.'s phone monopoly took effect, allowing MCI and others to compete head-on. The area continued to draw scrappy competitors in the 1990s. Nextel set up shop in Reston. Ciena Corp. started its business in Linthicum. But the region's true telecom boom came after the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed new companies to compete against the regional Bell phone companies in the local phone market. The rich talent pool and proximity to the FCC attracted companies at the same time investors were willing to pour money into telecom and technology companies. "A couple of years ago, Washington D.C. was the major location nationwide, and just about every one of the competitive players were here," said Tom Koutsky, a Washington-based lawyer who has worked in the industry since 1994. In the spring of 2000, the stock market collapsed under the weight of massive overbuilding and overspending. When the market reversed course, Washington's telecom sector fared badly. One by one, familiar local names like Net2000 , Teligent Inc., PSINet Inc. and Winstar LLC, and smaller companies such as CityNet Telecommunications Inc. and Velocita Corp. shut down. The losers even included such former stalwarts as MCI and XO Communications Inc. Both weathered a trip through bankruptcy court to emerge diminished. The bankruptcies, sales and restructurings have left Washington's telecommunications industry much smaller. And if the Federal Communications Commission maintains its more hands-off approach to oversight and=20 regulation, it may reduce the incentive of telecom companies to be based in the Washington area, said Jeff Kagan, an independent industry analyst based in Atlanta. The local telecom companies that survived and those that have recently rebounded are focused -- like companies nationwide -- on the areas expected to be big sectors of growth in the coming years, including wireless technologies and phone service over the Internet. The Washington region boasts few industry-leading players in these fields but rather has numerous smaller companies trying to develop business in niches that big companies have ignored. In the wireless field, Nextel is the biggest local player, with more than 15 million customers. It is the smallest of the five national wireless carriers, but it is popular because of its "push-to-talk" walkie-talkie service. The company, with a network that was cobbled together from walkie-talkie licenses bought from taxi-cab dispatch operators, continues to develop new technologies and grow. In addition, Nextel and other telecommunications companies, like MCI, have become a breeding ground for a new generation of local entrepreneurs. "I think you've got multiple telecommunications companies in addition to Nextel, all of whom have spun off or graduated people who are able to address the shortcomings that big companies aren't nimble enough to address," said Michael Riemer, a former Nextel executive who left two years ago to work at Trust Digital in Tysons Corner. Trust Digital, which recently received $3.1 million in funding from Core Capital Partners LP, a Washington investment company, makes software to protect wireless phones from hackers and viruses. Bluefire Security is developing similar technology in Baltimore. It recently received an undisclosed amount of funding from Motorola Inc., Nextel's biggest supplier of phones. Columbia's Sourcefire Inc. sells customized software that detects potential intruders trying to break into private corporate databases. LCC International Inc. of McLean builds and maintains wireless networks. And TeleCommunication Systems Inc. of Annapolis provides instant messaging service for wireless telephones. Inphonic Inc., a Washington company, is an online reseller of wireless phones. In addition, a small cluster of WiFi companies, which offer wireless Internet connections, has appeared in the Washington area. District-based DC Access, Baltimore-based Oneder LLC, and Germantown-based RapidDSL & Wireless all offer some flavor of the service, which is aimed at giving small business or residential customers access to a high-speed wireless Internet connection without going through a traditional cable or phone company. Others cater to a narrower audience. Reston-based LinkSpot Networks Inc. offers wireless connections in RV parks around the country. Most of those are small companies that have yet to generate a profit but they say their subscriber base is growing. Another area expected to experience rapid growth is phone service over the Internet. That field is now dominated by Vonage Holdings Corp., a New Jersey company. Many of the big phone companies, including MCI, Verizon Communications Inc., and AT&T, are also moving into the Internet phone business, as are cable giants like Cox Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp. But some local companies are also making an aggressive play for this business. McLean-based Primus Telecommunications Group Inc. offers Internet phone service. Qovia sells products that monitor Internet phone systems. And Vienna's SunRocket Inc., started by former MCI executives, was recently launched to offer consumers Internet phone service. Many other companies have been carving out smaller niches. For instance, Nexus Innovative Systems, Rivermine Software and Vibrant Solutions Inc., all based in Fairfax, sell software to help businesses audit and manage their telecommunications bills. Others, like Reston-based XO Communications and Talk America Holdings Inc., sell local and long-distance service in competition with the large phone companies. MCI, even in its diminished state, continues to be a major player. One of the biggest drivers of the local telecommunications industry today is the surge in federal dollars to telecommunications firms for writing communications software and designing networks. This money has gone, not only to giant defense contractors like Northrop Grumman Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp., but also to hundreds of smaller companies, like Apogen Technologies in McLean. "Around the [Capital] Beltway there are at least 500 companies that are doing some work with the government, doing telecom," said Thomas, of Claris Capital. That has helped cushion the blow caused by the telecom bust. As some companies, such as MCI, continue to struggle with massive losses, others like LCCI, have started to make a comeback. "If you asked me what happened to telecommunications in the area, I'd say that it's regrouping," said John Siegel, a partner at Alexandria-based Columbia Capital. "You have a lot of extremely talented people in this market. That's why I think there's an opportunity here." Copyright 2004 The Washington Post Company *** 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 Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:25:47 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Verizon and Sprint to Cut Fee For Cell Phone Service Note that this is effectively another cut in the price of cellular service. Sometimes they cut the price by adding minutes or adding features. This time they're cutting fees. Right now, for most carriers, the fees are $4 to $5 per month, which can be a very substantial percentage (10 to 15 per cent or even a bit more) of an average bill (under $50). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52986-2004Nov15.html Verizon and Sprint to Cut Fee For Transferring Cell Numbers By Yuki Noguchi Washington Post Staff Writer Verizon and Sprint wireless customers will get a small break on their bills soon. The companies have decided to eliminate or reduce a 40-cent-per-line monthly charge imposed to allow customers to transfer their phone numbers to new carriers. The small surcharge has provided the companies with tens of millions of dollars in extra monthly revenue, and Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS Group said they don't need as much to continue offering the number transfer service. Starting with bills scheduled to go out next week, Verizon Wireless will eliminate the number transfer fee for its 42 million customers. Sprint PCS, the nation's third-largest national cellular carrier, will cut its fee to 25 cents effective this month. Sprint PCS had initially charged $1.10 for the service before a reduction to 40 cents in June. Cell phone companies charge regulatory fees to comply with various government rules requiring them to offer services such as emergency 911 calling from a wireless phone. Allowing customers to transfer their number between carriers is one of those government requirements. "In this heavily taxed industry, we do not advocate adding anything unnecessary or extraneous to our customers' monthly bill," Dennis F. Strigl, chief executive of Verizon Wireless, said in a statement. Verizon Wireless is also looking to hone its appeal to customers. "I think without a doubt it makes us more competitive, when you look at some of the fees that some of these other companies charge," said John Johnson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless. Sprint PCS spokeswoman Lisa Ihde said the company is always evaluating its fees but not with the intention of using its fee structure as a marketing tool. The Federal Communications Commission does not set a limit on how much cell phone carriers can charge customers to cover the cost of complying with rules. Cingular Wireless, which recently acquired AT&T Wireless Services Inc., charges between 56 cents and $1.25 a month, depending on the state, to cover number transfers and 911 calling. AT&T Wireless customers will continue to pay a $1.75 monthly fee until Cingular unifies the two networks. T-Mobile USA Inc. charges its customers 86 cents for number transfer and 911 calling. Nextel Communications Inc. charges $1.55 a month to cover all of its regulatory fees. "We call on all wireless providers to reduce or eliminate these fees as well," said Janee Briesemeister, director of a cell phone consumers rights project at the Consumers Union. "We've always questioned whether the fees being charged for number portability were covering the actual costs of switching phone numbers or were simply being charged to pad profits." Copyright 2004 The Washington Post Company *** 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 Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Smart ID Cards Track Students Date: 17 Nov 2004 12:45:08 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com The New York Times reported that a school district is using sophisticated monitoring systems to track students throughout the day. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/technology/17tag.html?oref=login&8hpib When I was a kid there was a little concern about abduction; we were often warned never to talk to strangers. But our parents' biggest worry seemed to be us getting hit by a car if we jumped into the street without looking. It seemed pedestrian safety lectures were the biggest item. During my first two years of high school, we had a strict student corridor patrol. You were not allowed in the halls, and those kids were brutal. During the last two years, they abolished that patrol and discovered there wasn't any problem with an honor system. If someone had to visit their locker or other business during lunch or study hall, we could do so; we were just expected to be quiet and not create any noise. It worked out very well. Most kids didn't create problems. Indeed, many past disturbances were from the corridor patrol themselves. I realize in handling large groups of people, especially in crowded space-short conditions, that rules and procedures are necessary to keep things orderly and prevent trouble. But I also think reasonable training and faith in people works well too as long as people don't try to take advtg of the system. Too many stupid petty rules aren't good. I am not too thrilled with this dawn-to-dusk ID card checking. Will a kid get detention if he happens to be in corridor "B" instead of corridor "A"? Will the cards turn into timeclocks to track lateness and absence? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 03:12:34 EST From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate jdj@now.here (jdj) wrote: > There is a stressed out twisted-knickers type on slashdot "suggesting" > that spam be responded to, including spam sent to bad addresses, to cost > spammers money. > It's been suggested before and was instantly squelched without > comment, except to accuse the poster of being a troll. Interesting. I didn't realize that this was considered a bad thing. My filters respond to every (seemingly) spam message with a note indicating how to bypass the filter if in fact the mail is not spam. (Actually they do this only once per sender per some months, but you get the idea.) I really can't just dump (seeming) spam in the bucket since there are a few false positives. But I get 1500+ spams per day and I can't look at them all. > Seems that spam service providers charge fees for everything, from > using their address database to send spam to charging for each hit on > the website they provide to their spamming clientele as well as > getting a cut of each sale. > It seems to follow that at least some spammers can be bankrupted if > every single item from them were to get several responses in return. > It's almost like sending back empty business-reply envelopes that come > with annoying snailmail ads. > There is an added benefit if spam to bad addresses were responded to: > the bad addresses are confirmed valid and permanently taint the > databases, which get sold around and the fun starts all over again. Because of the way my filters are integrated into sendmail they generate responses for spam sent to bad addresses. I always considered this a bug (though at least I fixed it to send only one response to envelopes with multiple bad to: addresses :) but I'm glad to hear it may do some good. I've noticed lately that spammers will make many simultaneous connections to my mail server and run through huge lists of bogus recipients. This was overwhelming my system until I added a semaphore for spamassassin use and queued most of the responses. Do they think I'm an ISP or such? > Should not be too difficult to set up a procmail script for servers to > send a few http requests to a spammer's website instead of bouncing > mail with bad addresses. Hmm. Maybe just send a SYN to each http:// address that can be extracted from the mail. Though I guess that might not count against the correct spammer if they are sharing IP addresses. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: SBC to Announce VoIP Tests Organization: ATCC Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 17:21:38 -0500 In article , usta@dailylead.com says: > http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17535&l=2017006 > TODAY'S HEADLINES > NEWS OF THE DAY > * SBC to announce VoIP tests > BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH > * Adelphia Communications sets $17.5 billion minimum bid > * Report: Comcast's VoIP plans picking up steam > * Yahoo!, EarthLink beef up their anti-spam barrier > USTA SPOTLIGHT > * Order Phone Facts 2005 and Broadband Facts together and save! > EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES > * Electric companies see multiple advantages to BPL > REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE > * Lucent faces bribery allegations > Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. > http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17535&l=2017006 > http://www.dailylead.com/usta/usta_passiton.jsp This is so fun watching the incumbents trip over themselves to roll out services that other upstarts already have a head start on. Circuit switched is going the way of the dodo. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Vonage Tech Support Dead? Organization: ATCC Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 18:22:28 -0500 In article , devilspgd@crazyhat.net says: > In message > no_email_address@hotmail.com (Sara Garland) wrote: >> I got an automated ticket # by email immediately, but no human yet. > Let me know if you get a human ... > I know what "Cheese" is, and I know what "Whiz" is... I've had no problems getting a human the two times I've had to call Vonage. But the hold times are on the high side. On my last call to them I waited for 45 minutes before getting a human being. That was my second call. The first call resulted in me cursing them and posting about it here. On the second call I spoke to someone who'd been a switch tech, granted a tandem guy but still he understood that ring voltage below 90VAC sometimes won't trigger the bells on Western Electric gear. So all is fixed -- unless my LNP request gets FUBAR I doubt I'll be calling them anytime soon. ------------------------------ From: Mark_Reichert@hotmail.com (Mark Reichert) Subject: Re: What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits Date: 17 Nov 2004 15:50:19 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com DevilsPGD wrote in message news:: > Walmart is consistently the cheapest on those products, for example. What will you do when, no longer able to squeeze its employees or suppliers, it starts squeezing you by lowering the quality? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 22:27:11 EST From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Purely Spam! MY PRESENTATION TO YOU Tim@Backhome.org wrote: >> The other is that if they can get your bank account and bank routing >> numbers, they will monitor your account a while and at a peak, they >> will drain it with an ACH transfer through a Nigerian bank that works >> with them (for a cut of the action). > Under federal law pertaining to electronic transactions, your bank has > no choice but to charge the electronic debit back to the originating > bank so long as you notify them on a timely basis that you did not > authorize the transfer. As a practical matter they seem to have at least one other choice: they can simply claim that the debit was in fact authorized. That's certainly the response I've received when I've inquired about ACH debits. Now in my case some of those debits were the result of check conversions that were made without prior notice. (Yes, I'm sure. Yes, I read and keep the fine print.) But my banks claim that prior notice is no longer required because of Check 21. (Yes, I know that doesn't make any sense. They also claim that Check 21 precludes their blocking ACH debits in the first place. This seems to be a fairly well-coordinated lie since I've heard it from five banks now and others have posted about similar experiences.) One debit actually showed up on a passbook savings account (I thought that was prohibited) and that (different) bank tried to argue that it must somehow have been my doing. The only thing that saved me in this case was the fact that the account was being used as an escrow with the city and required a signature from someone in the city treasurer's office (in addition to mine) for any withdrawal. When I told the bank that I hoped they would be able to come up with a signature slip with two signatures so I could show the city, they suddenly realized that there had been a "coding error". IMHO, Regulation E makes it awfully easy for an ACH debit to have been authorized and awfully hard for a consumer to prove that it was not in fact authorized. States like Massachusetts make things worse by explicitly defining an EFT transfer to be unauthorized only if the payer receives no benefit (not even qualifying "benefit" with "material"). > If the Nigerian bank won't accept the charge-back they are supposed to > be removed from the ACH. If they don't accept the charge-back your > bank has to ultimately eat the charge. Assuming that the victim does not lie to their bank (i.e., assuming they disclose that they were engaged in a plan to move money in and out of the country and that they had given their account and routing numbers to their Nigerian contact) would the bank really not be able to argue that the ACH debit was authorized? What if the Nigerian contact has a convenient tape of the phone conversation where the victim provided the numbers? (I'm sure the exact details of what was to be transferred could be edited ...) > Dan Lanciani wrote: >> I wonder who actually ends up paying in cases like these? Are there >> any posted accounts that tell whether the bank absorbed the loss? Or >> whether they were able to pull the money back? These might provide >> some ammunition to argue with banks that universally refuse to block >> ACH debits on consumer accounts (as that would be inconvenient for >> businesses) and claim that they can clean up any fraudulent withdrawals >> after the fact. > The banks love to act like innocent conduits when it comes to any issue > about ACH debits. They'd be a lot more convincing in their innocence if they allowed consumers to block ACH debits in the first place (just like businesses can) rather than making up stories about Check 21's preventing them from doing so. Or if they at least disclosed on your statement the bank & account number where your money actually went. (Two of my banks don't even provide a reference number for the transaction!) And it's not just banks. After months of "research" Fidelity finally confirmed that they allow ACH debits from any account even if it does not have a check writing feature. (Initially they had told a familiar story about Check 21's requiring them to allow ACH debits because you might have written a check on the account, but I kept reminding them that I hadn't said anything about checks.) I don't know if this is a unique situation for Fidelity, but because of the way they handle checking with their affiliated bank, the construction of a "checking account" number from a brokerage account number is fairly simple. (Prepend some digits, change some letters to numbers.) They said that it would be too expensive to maintain a flag on each account to control ACH debit access (seriously, that's what they said) and industry standards do not require them to do so in any case. Naturally they will not put any of this policy in writing. They claim that it is my responsibility to inform everyone that I do not want to debit my account to not do so. Yeah, right. > Nonetheless, with any given transaction, if the account > holder affirms on a timely basis that it's either fraud or simply not > authorized, the bank has no choice but to charge it back. > Banks hate the concept of consumers knowing that. I'll bet they do. But just to be clear: are you saying that the consumer has the unilateral right to determine that any ACH debit is unauthorized, regardless of the other circumstances? (Without asserting that he has never heard of the payee or that the payee has no claim under some legal theory, but simply that the transfer itself was unauthorized.) And that by doing so the consumer can cause his bank to permanently (not just temporarily during the investigation) return the money? I don't mean to sound overly skeptical, but if this is true than (a) a lot of people are making up stories about not being able to recover money (or at least having a great deal of trouble doing so) from, e.g., long-canceled ISP services and (b) the variation of the Nigerian scam under consideration just wouldn't work. I can buy that the Nigeran "ACH scam" is just an urban legend, but the other problems seem too frequently discussed to be total fantasy. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ 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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