From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Dec 8 17:21:41 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iB8MLe414383; Wed, 8 Dec 2004 17:21:41 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 17:21:41 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200412082221.iB8MLe414383@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 #586 TELECOM Digest Wed, 8 Dec 2004 17:22:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 586 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Law enforcement, Tech Firms Join to Halt "Phishing" Scams (Lisa Minter) NASA Van Crash in California Leaves 3 Dead (Lisa Minter) Sprint to Upgrade Network (Telecom dailyLead from USTA) Re: Treo 600 Internet Access (John Bartley) Re: Treo650 v Blackberry (John Bartley) Re: Treo650 v Blackberry (Jim Hatfield) Re: How to Call from A to B to C? (NOTvalid@surplus4actors.INFO) Re: Western Electric and Al Capone (Arthur Kamlet) Re: Lycos Pulls Anti-Spam 'Vigilante' Campaign (Steve Sobol) Re: Radar Detectors (Bitu) Re: Will Radar Detectors be Regulated Out of Existence? (Jim Hatfield) Re: Lingo Voip Isn't Really Cheap (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: Telecom Taxes: Is A Breakthrough Near? (Angela Epstein) VoicePulse Receives DesignTechnica Editor's Choice Award (Lisa Minter) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. 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: Law Enforcement, Tech Firms Join to Halt Online "Phishing" Scams Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 16:01:49 EST WASHINGTON (AFP) - A coalition of Internet and finance firms along with law enforcement agencies was launched in a bid to halt the growing number of online scams that lure consumers to fake websites to obtain personal and financial data. The group called Digital PhishNet is a collaborative operation of technology, banking, financial services and online auction firms with law enforcement to tackle "phishing," a scheme based on use of faked or "spoofed" websites. "Phishing," one of the fastest growing types of fraud, uses e-mails appearing to come from a legitimate company and directs recipients to fake websites where they are asked for personal or financial information. The perpetrators often use the scam to steal money, credit card numbers, passwords or identity information. Founders of Digital PhishNet include technology firms America Online, Digital River, EarthLink, Lycos, Microsoft Corp, Network Solutions, VeriSign, along with the FBI , Secret Service, US Federal Trade Commission, and the US Postal Inspection Service. "The key to stopping phishers and bringing them to justice is to identify and target them quickly," said Dan Larkin, unit chief at the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center. "Phishers create and dismantle these phony sites very, very fast, stockpiling credit card numbers, passcodes and other personal financial information over the course of just a couple of days, in order to avoid detection. Digital PhishNet is a powerful response to this type of online fraud because it facilitates critical data collection between a large number of the targets of these crimes ... and establishes a pipeline directly to law enforcement, in real time, before the phisher has had time to disappear back into the anonymity of cyberspace." Larkin said a number of law enforcement agencies in Europe and Asia cooperate with US authorities in these matters, but that there was no formal affiliation with the new alliance. Digital PhishNet includes nine of the top 10 US banks and financial services providers, four of the top five Internet service providers and five digital commerce and technology companies, according to a statement. "Phishers are the street muggers of the digital age, using computers instead of weapons to steal financial information and identities from innocent people," said Tatiana Platt, senior vice president for integrity assurance for America Online. "Just like their street criminal brethren, phishers should be tracked down, arrested and locked away, and AOL is pleased to work with law enforcement agencies through Digital PhishNet to help bring them to justice." NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . New articles daily.] *** 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: NASA Van Crash in California Leaves 3 Dead Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 16:03:09 EST By ROBERT JABLON, Associated Press Writer LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE, Calif. - A commuter van from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory tumbled 200 feet off a twisting mountain road Wednesday, killing three people and injuring seven, at least four of them seriously, authorities said. The van was carrying 10 people to the laboratory when it plunged off the Angeles Crest Highway in the Angeles National Forest at about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday morning and rolled down a mountainside about 15 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Fire Department inspector Ron Haralson said. "One person was able to get out of the van and make his way up to the road" to get help, Haralson said. The van was carrying six employees of the lab in Pasadena, two contractors and two NASA employees, said Blaine Baggett, a spokesman at JPL, which is the control center for several NASA projects, including the Mars rovers. The victims' names were not immediately released. "It's a very, very sad day for all of us at JPL," Baggett said, adding that employees will be offered grief counseling. Three people were pronounced dead at the scene. One person was flung from the van. Others lay trapped in the battered white van in the middle of a dense forest until firefighters arrived and tore off the doors to reach victims, who were then taken by helicopter to hospitals. Of the survivors, one person was in critical condition, three were in serious condition, two had minor injuries and one person was still being evaluated, Haralson said. The cause of the accident was not immediately known. Clouds and fog shrouded the site, at an altitude of about 1,500 feet. Snow dotted flanks of the mountain, but the road itself was clear. Hundreds of cars a day travel the highway, a twisting, two-lane blacktop with steep drops. Commuters living in the Antelope Valley area northeast of Los Angeles use it as a shortcut to reach a freeway in Pasadena. About 450 of the 5,500 people who work at JPL participate in its vanpool program, which involves about 30 vans, Baggett said. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . New articles daily. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance Associated Press. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 13:17:54 EST From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Sprint to upgrade network Telecom dailyLead from USTA December 8, 2004 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17982&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Sprint to upgrade network BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Japan's a VoIP-over-DSL hotbed * Comcast leases 19,000 miles of fiber for VoIP, TV, data network * Time Warner, Cablevision report rise in VoIP subscribers * Liberty Media in talks to sell News Corp. shares; eyes Sprint towers * AT&T lands $1 billion U.S. Treasury deal USTA SPOTLIGHT * USTA Webinar: LNP Porting Requirements -- Thursday, Dec. 9, 1:00 p.m. EDT EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Online gaming challenges broadband capacity REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Nextel kicks off new emergency service Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17982&l=2017006 Legal and Privacy information at http://www.dailylead.com/about/privacy_legal.jsp SmartBrief, Inc. 1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005 ------------------------------ From: John Bartley Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 14:58:18 -0500 Subject: Re: Treo 600 Internet Access On 6 Dec 2004, in comp.dcom.telecom wrote: > I have a TREO 600 cell phone with Bell Mobility ... I also have a > Rogers high speed internet account ... Neither Bell nor Rogers can > explain the server pop 3 settings that I can use to access my a-mail > account through the phone ... pop.broadband.rogers.com doesn't work > ... pop-rog.mail.yahoo.com doesn't work (suggestion from Bell tech > support) ... I suspect that suggestion, as Yahoo charges most folks for POP3 access. If you need POP3 access for free, gmail.com and hotpop.com offer free POP3 access. The former requires SSL in your mail app, but I think your Treo 600 has that in your version of VersaMail. Either can keep a copy of all e-mails and also forward them to your Rogers account, so you can pick up messages at home as well as read them on the road. I actually prefer the dual-mailbox system, so I can delete something from my dub-ya and know it's still sitting in my mailbox at home. http://www.rogershelp.com/yahoo/mail/settings.html shows your POP3 and SMTP server settings.... but does Rogers allow access to e-mail via POP3 and SMTP form outside their network? Ask them before you go further. If you hit a witless choom who doesn't know what POP3 is, then go up a level. You might also pose this question to other USENET newsgroups where folks wh o have solved your problem hang out: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot and alt.cellular.rogersatt >> Is there any one to sync the cell so it gets me Rogers e-mail??? Anyone >> can help me??? Syncing is not involved; it's an issue of POP3 access and configuring for it, IF Rogers allows you to access it from the Treo. John Bartley K7AAY kiloseven.blogspot.com ------------------------------ From: John Bartley Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 13:21:44 -0500 Subject: Re: Treo650 v Blackberry On 7 Dec 2004, in comp.dcom.telecom Mark wrote: > Has anyone done an investigation as to the specific features and > benefits of each of these devices. Ultimately they seem similar in > almost every way. One thing that I really don't understand is the > email. How does the treo work v the blackberry. There are fundamental differences between the Blackberry and a Treo 600/650, and then some important differences within the same device model: 1. RESALE VALUE As an educational experience, go off to eBay and see what the resale value of a Blackberry is, as compared to the resale value of a Treo 600 or 650. 2. OPERATING SYSTEM The Blackberry runs an obscure proprietary operating s ystem, with very few third-party applications. The Treo runs a third-party well-documented operating system from PalmSource.com, PalmOS 5, with over 2 0,000 applications available. Visit http://freewarepalm.com for an idea of how much is out there for Palms. 3. BUNDLED SOFTWARE The Treo 650 is bundled with Documents To Go from Data Viz, reviewed as being better at editing and viewing Word and Excel files t han even Pocket Word and Pocket Excel on a Pocket PC. You can read/write/e dit M$ Word and Excel documents, loaded through the sync process, insert via an SD card or receive by e-mail attachment. Here's a list of what else you get: Phone, Contacts, Calendar, VersaMail, Messaging (SMS), Media, Camera, Camcorder, Web browser, RealPlayer, Tasks, Memos, Calculator, World Clock, HotSync AE Manager (program for your desktop for syncing data in and out), link to Microsoft Outlook (Windows only), AudiblePlayer (MP3s), Palm=99 eReader (e-books), and games (Zap! 2016 & Solitaire). You can check and see what software comes with the Blackberry model you're interested in at http://www.blackberry.com 4. CELLULAR CARRIER The original Blackberries worked on a two-way paging network which was elegant and very robust, but now is in serious decline. Now, Blackberries work over SMR (mobile radio) networks like NEXTEL, SOUTHERN LINC and MIKE (they're not really cellular companies, although they act like it), as well as on cellular and PCS-cellular carriers like SprintPCS, Telus Mobility, Bell Mobility, Rogers, T-Mobile and Cingular. I am wary of NEXTEL because the data feed is _very_ slow (9.6kbps), even when compared t o poky ol' GPRS (38kbps download with Cingular, Rogers, T-Mobile)), not to mention SPCS speed with their 1xRTT/CDMA system (50-70 kbps in real life). > I heard rumors that for the treo to work your computer must be on, and > it must be forwarding your messages to versamail. Is this true. How > does the blackberry work instead? Any information will be greatly > appreciated. Both the Blackberry and the Treo can work with or without your PC on. If your company has bought an e-mail server running special software from Blackb erry or Good Technology, that can autoforward e-mail to your handheld without requiring your PC be turned on for forwarding. Has your company bought that special server and software and installed it? If not, than your PC can be set up to forward mail, or there's another approach. My Palm machine (a Tungsten W, but the same trick works with Treos) gets an SMS sent to it by T-Mobile (my cellular carrier) whenever an e-mail comes into to any one of several e-mail addresses which meets criteria I specify (from wife, from other family, from Red Cross or has any of a series of special phrases in the Subject line of the message). The e-mail address has to be served by a POP3 or IMAP server, but almost every mail server has the c apability. (Yahoo makes you pay for POP3 access, BTW.) This is a poor man's forwarding server, as I don't get the entire message in the SMS; but, I do get notified, I do see who sent it and the subject line. If it is really worthy, I can pick it up with VersaMail very quickly. The USENET news groups comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (for PalmOS) and comp.sys.ha ndhelds (for Blackberries) are other good places to answer these and more PDA e-mail questions. John Bartley K7AAY Author, Wireless Palm FAQ, Handheld's Cellular Data FAQ & PalmSource Expert Guide to Amateur Radio kiloseven.blogspot.com ------------------------------ From: Jim Hatfield Subject: Re: Treo650 v Blackberry Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 18:45:04 +0000 Organization: Insignia Solutions Reply-To: jim.hatfield@insignia.com On 7 Dec 2004 17:45:17 -0800, Mark wrote: > I heard rumors that for the treo to work your computer must be on, and > it must be forwarding your messages to versamail. Is this true. How > does the Blackberry work instead? Any information will be greatly > appreciated. I just set up a Blackberry 7100v on vodafone in the UK for a colleague. The Blackberry is not a mail client at all. The mail client is RIM's server, on which you create an account, tied to the IMEI of the phone, and which you give details of your email settings. The RIM server then pulls email from your mail server and reflects it onto the phone. In order to create the account on the RIM server you have to agree to a massive legal document. I would like to meet one person outside RIM who has read it, let alone agreed with it. The RIM server only holds 10Mb of your mail, and since it pulls mails with attachments this is easy to fill so you have to be careful. The person who is using it is very pleased so I guess this limitation is not so bad. I assume that with the Enterprise version, the "RIM server" is on your own network. Jim Hatfield ------------------------------ From: NOTvalid@surplus4actors.INFO Subject: Re: How to Call from A to B to C? Please Help Date: 8 Dec 2004 12:06:30 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Carl Navarro wrote: > In the days of 5 cents per minute or less for long distance and > VOIP, have you tried www.packet8.net to see if the major city is > listed for service? $20/month with unlimited calling to the major > city is a lot less than any remote call forwarding solution ... if > you have broadband access. After one pays for two legs of a call [either individually or for call forwarding in the junction city] it may be cheaper to use one of the low cost long distance companies. With some VOIP of course you can have a local number in the distant city. I use OneSuite for most of my local NYC calls as well as all long distance. 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 at https://www.onesuite.com/ No monthly fee or minimum. Use promotion code "034720367" for some FREE time. ------------------------------ From: kamlet@panix.com (Arthur Kamlet) Subject: Re: Western Electric and Al Capone Date: 8 Dec 2004 15:29:05 -0500 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: ArtKamlet@aol.REMOVE.com In article , Ernie B. wrote: > Having lived in the shadow of the Hawthorne works in Cicero, IL in my > youth, this book intrigues me. I have been in search of photographs of > the interior and exterior of this fabled manufacturing facility. Can > you tell me if this book contains any pictures? The web has produced > only one vintage photograph of the plant as viewed from 22nd st. I > recall that at one time I read that the huge neon sign on the Cermak > Road (22nd st.) facade was once the largest neon sign in the world. I > could see it's glow from my bedroom at night. I also remember that > every Christmas, the tower of the building, located at the corner of > Cicero Ave. and Cermak Road was festooned with colored lights from top > to bottom. > Anyone who knows of a source of photographs of this behemoth plant > please contact me at: beeaybay "at" yahoo "dot" com. These pictures > would only be used for non-commercial personal purposes. In the early 1970s I contracted with Dr. Henry MacIlvane Parsons, a former president of the Human Factors [and Ergonomics] Society, to teach a weekly class for engineers working at the Whippany NJ Bell Telephone Laboratories location. He would often arrive early, and poke around the Lab's Whippany Library, and one day came to me very excited. He had found a typewritten research report by the team of researchers who conducted the studies collectively known as the Hawthorne Study and resulted in their concluding the Hawthrorne Effect. This effect says the more attention you provide to workers, the more productive they become. On the margins of this report were pencil notes, including the names of the (female) workers: Mary, Alice, etc, and a few notes about what occurred during the study. Mac Parsons and I re-read major portions of this report, and he contacted Roethelsberger (I have no idea if he is related to Pittsburgh's current freshman quarterback) who was the only author still around, and was a Harvard professor emeritus, and had several long phone conversations with him. The study involved several female relay winders working at the WE Hawthorne plant. The authors gathered them and said they were going to improve their working conditions, and the workers suggested several things that could be done, including higher lighting levels. Sure enough, when higher lighting was in place productivity increased. Later they gathered the workers and said they had heard some complaints that the lighting was too high and people had complained about the glare and so as a favor to everyone they would lower the levels, but not lower than originally. In fact they returned the ligting exactly where it was at the start, and productivity went up even more. Their conclusion: Pay attention to the workers, show them you are concerned, and productivity goes up. Mac Parsons, after his conversations with the author and a careful reading of the typewritten manuscript, came up with an entirely different conclusion. It turned out, and this is not stressed in the paper, or in the analysis of the Hawthorne effect, that in order to be able to measure productivity they installed, for the first time, mechanical counters to count the number of relays wound at each position, and for each team. Each team recognized they could now have sort of a rivalry to see which team could wind the most relays, regardless of lighting. Mac Parson's conclusion: The increase in productivity was due to each team having feedback on their performance and not on the level of lighting. The more they got into the "contest" the more productive they became because they now knew how many relays each wound. To a limit, of course, No one worked their fingers to the bone. And the returning of the lighting to its original level came in the middle of the contest so the women continued to improve to beat the other teams. "Feedback" led to performance improvement, not "paying attention" to them. Installing the counters was thought by the researchers to be a minor procedural item, not worth much attention, while Parsons though it was the central, most crucial part of the study. He published this paper in the mid 1970s in Science, [I ended up with a footnote credit, oh well ] but from what I can tell, everyone trained that the Hawthorne Effect was due to being nice to workers still train others in their belief. That's life. -- Art Kamlet ArtKamlet @ AOL.com Columbus OH K2PZH ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Lycos Pulls Anti-Spam 'Vigilante' Campaign Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 12:55:00 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Rick Merrill wrote: >> "I find the anti-spam downloadable DDoS tool to be without a doubt >> irresponsible, possibly illegal, > Illegal? Right, and enforced by the international "internet police"? It's a violation of several countries' laws. >> the wrong impression to users, and possibly the dumbest thing I have >> heard of this week," said Adrien de Beaupre, an incident handler with >> the SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC). > As if that frenchie has a better idea?! SANS is an internationally known and respected computer security organization. Your idiotic implication that the person who was quoted is clueless because he's French makes you look ignorant. >> Dan Goldberg, a senior security analyst with MADJiC Consulting Inc., >> described the Lycos Europe move as "vigilantism" and said the use of >> questionable tactics to deal with a security risk created more >> problems that it solved. > Looks like Lycos just got ethics! I've seen this discussed in many forums where it has been said that this whole bit of idiocy on the part of Lycos was just a publicity stunt, and *as a publicity stunt*, it worked pretty well. It was a stupid, criminal publicity stunt, but people paid attention to the company. Of course, aside from the collateral damage they caused, aside from the fact that they caused sites to go down when they insisted that their little ploy wouldn't DDoS anything, now the spammers have responded by releasing a piece of software that looks like Lycos's screen saver but is a trojan designed to launch a DDoS on Lycos. Quite predictable. JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. ------------------------------ From: Bitu Subject: Re: Radar Detectors Date: 8 Dec 2004 10:39:11 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com > RADAR DETECTORS WILL BE BANNED SOONER THAN WE WOULD LIKE. Anyways it > does not matter. Radar detectors do not protect you against speed > cameras, red light cameras or automated traffic enforcement equipment. > Police officer operated speed traps are being replaced by cameras at an > alarming rate. But thank God there is another solution for this. It is > called PhotoBlocker Spray. I have been using it for two years. Two years ago I was getting photo-radar tickets every three months. Then I saw a FOX News report that showed how well this PHOTOBLOCKER spray worked. It showed Denver police Department testing it and cops actually called it surprisingly effective. I have tested the spray myself. I triggered one of these nasty cameras intentionally one early morning when there was nobody around. I saw the flash go off but I have yet to receive any tickets. It is a nice feeling to know that I am not driving naked. These cameras are not for safety they are all about revenue. I have donated enough money to the local police department. They are not going to get me again for driving 5 miles over the speed limit. See for yourself. They have the police test results on their web site www.phantomplate.com Cliff Sharp wrote: > I earlier wrote about radar detectors and offered a defense. TELECOM > Moderator noted in reply: >> [Moderator's Note: First, try that explanation around here and a lot >> of Chicago police would be upside your head in a minute. Second, for > True, but they'd do the same in any other matter where they tried > to assert jurisdiction while having none. >> all your knowledge of FCC regs, how come you failed to mention the one >> which specifically says you are forbidden to act upon or profit from >> transmissions you happen to overhear which are not intended for you? > Well, first, you're not forbidden to act upon overhearing a > transmission, you're forbidden to act upon its content. Similarly, > you can't profit from the content, but there's no prohibition against > profiting from knowing that someone's on the air (although I can't > imagine too many other uses for that tidbit of information). >> What you hear on WGN-Channel 9 is intended for you to act upon and >> benefit from, i.e. the sponsor's messages. Radio transmissions in the >> frequency range where RADAR (it is an acronym for something, I forget > RAdio Detection And Ranging. >> what right now) are *not* broadcasts. They are transmissions by >> (presumably) licensed radio operators and/or their employees (the >> police). They are not for your ears. > There's a Supreme Court decision on that; I lost the papers during > my last move, but the folks at Escort (formerly Cincinnati Microwave) > are happy to send out their radar packet to anyone who asks, and it's > cited in there chapter and verse. Paraphrased, the Supreme Court > Justice who wrote the decision said something to the effect that if > the police can use sneaky, surreptitious means to spy on your > activities (and in most cases without probable cause), the citizen has > every right to avail himself of any and all means to detect such spying. > But radar transmissions are broadcasts anyway. They are rarely > specifically aimed, but sent to bounce off many cars (whether or not > the operator can see many cars in the beam path) and detect the > greatest frequency deviation caused by the Doppler effect. I believe > 47 CFR 90 defines them that way, but don't have a copy to refer to and > can't confirm. This is because the police aren't transmitting to > themselves or other officers, but transmitting to the vehicle(s) and > monitoring the echo. >> How do you act upon or benefit from what you overhear on RADAR? You >> slow your car down don't you? You act in your own best interest to >> avoid a ticket, don't you? That amounts to acknowledging that you >> overheard something on the radio, which is illegal to do. You can't > See the Supreme Court mention above; the Supremes don't agree. > In any event, the primary reason I bought a radar detector wasn't > to speed. First, my very first speeding ticket was a fraud, and only > luck got me out of it; the officer who wrote it had been thrown off > the force before I got to court, and the unofficial scuttlebutt was > that some judge had noticed that all his tickets for any given day > showed exactly the same speed. He was apparently getting one good > reading and using the same reading all day without resetting his gun. > Had I had a detector at that time, I could have asked the officer to > repeat his performance of getting a reading on me without setting off > my detector, and could have testified in court that he wasn't > transmitting when I was within his range, had he not been caught at > it. > The second reason is that everyone (now, admit it) can get a bit > heavy on the foot without realizing it from time to time. If I toss a > gum wrapper on the sidewalk, seldom do I get more of a reaction than > "Pick it up", i.e. I get a second chance to correct my "error". With > radar I don't get that chance. The detector serves to remind me to > check my speed and make sure I'm doing what I wanted to do, that is to > stay within the limits (or at least with the speed of traffic). > Finally, there are occasional reasons where I use the detector to > speed with impunity. Most of them involve those clowns who do 75 to > pass me and then slow down to 40 until I pass them again. Once I had > a bleeding passenger who had to get to the hospital fast, and didn't > need the aggravation of bleeding at 25 MPH or that of bleeding at 0 > MPH while some officer wasted five precious minutes stopping me. >> two-way radio transmissions then benefit from them is illegal. You >> also seem somehow to think that a local police officer cannot detain >> or arrest you for violations of federal law. They certainly can; they >> can take cases to the US Attorney just as easily as they can take > They can most certainly detain you in their capacity as duly > authorized agents of the law, but they cannot confiscate property that > does not cause an immediate danger to anyone or anything, and once the > Feds are in on it their only recourse is to act as witnesses to the > act. That takes the whole thing out of the purview of state law, > which is the only place that radar detectors are banned. >> cases to the local prosecutor. Most cops would tell you that you have >> a smart mouth. PAT] > With good reason, I might add. :-) But again, they'd do the same > in any situation where they tried to assert jurisdiction or authority > they didn't have. > And there's always the alternative of building a 100 watt transmit- > ter at 10.495 GHz and calling a Morse code CQ whenever I see a squad > ... :-) > I don't have the 800 number handy, but I believe Escort Corp. still > sends out those "radar packets" free for those who'd like to see the > court citations and quotes from the justice. ------------------------------ From: Jim Hatfield Subject: Re: Will Radar Detectors be Regulated Out of Existence? Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 18:52:49 +0000 Organization: Insignia Solutions Reply-To: jim.hatfield@insignia.com On 7 Dec 2004 16:18:52 -0800, Bitu wrote: > If is as advertised this product called PHOTO BLOCKER SPRAY is our > salvation. They claim that it was tested by the media on their website > www.phantomplate.com On the videos it shows the police saying that it > really works by making your license plate invisible to traffic > cameras. Can anybody tell me if this is true? www.photoblocker.com > please let me know what you think. Please refer to http://www.ukspeedtraps.co.uk/platespray.htm Jim Hatfield ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 12:11:10 -0600 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelex.com Organization: Crash Electronics Subject: Re: Lingo Voip Isn't Really Cheap John Levine wrote: > I have a Vonage phone and like it OK, but I'm under no illusion that > Vonage+broadband is cheaper than POTS. I closed my business a couple of years ago but am keeping the phone numbers in case I start up again. One of these numbers (630-832) is in my local CO and the other (630-691) is not. So I have two lines in my home: The local business number and my personal number. Through the magic of Remote Call Forwarding I get the foreign number's calls on the business line. My bill (a separate account from my personal line) for the two business lines runs about $50/mo. So I'm thinking I can set up a Vonage account, port the two business numbers to it and probably come out cheaper than paying SBC. The thing is, I _have_ the broadband connection. I'm going to have it regardless of whether I use SBC or Vonage for my phone service. So the cost of broadband doesn't figure into the calculation. Here's a tangentially related question: The Vonage/Linksys hardware has two phone jacks on the back. Are these separate jacks? Can I register two numbers on a single adapter and have one ring to the "Phone1" jack and the other to the "Phone2" jack? I realize two numbers require twice the bandwidth for simultaneous use (Duh, but many people seem to be surprised by this). Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com "If we imagined he could _find_ the car, we could pretend it might be fixed." - Calvin ------------------------------ From: Angela Epstein Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 12:44:11 -0500 Subject: Telecom Taxes: Is A Breakthrough Near? Bad news for the industry - the consumers and a terrible message to the innovators - Jack Decker notes: Note who is apparently being left out of these talks -- phone customers! Wonder if there is any hope they might finally repeal the Spanish-American War tax (now known as the Federal Excise Tax) on phone bills? I suppose it would be too much to hope that they would get rid of the "corporate welfare" charges on the bills (USF and similar charges that really don't need to be there). http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_50/c3912064_mz013.htm DECEMBER 13, 2004 * Editions: Edition Preference Washington Outlook Edited by Mike McNamee Telecom Taxes: Is A Breakthrough Near? In the battle over whether states can tax new technologies, the nation's governors won a skirmish in November. While Congress agreed to temporarily restore a ban on state taxes on monthly Internet access charges, anti-tax lawmakers failed to bar state levies on Internet phone calls -- known as Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP). The issue is critical because VoIP promises to dominate the phone business within the next decade. Now the states are going on the offensive. BusinessWeek has learned that two new initiatives may set the stage for dramatic changes in the way all telecom services are taxed. For consumers, that may mean an end to the stew of mind-numbing charges levied by state and local governments. But it may also mean that VoIP, now tax-free in most locales, will be hit by the same taxes as traditional phone services. At stake: $20 billion a year in taxes. To protect that revenue, the National Governors Assn. has asked officials representing states, cities, and counties to meet with top telecom officials in Washington on Dec. 15 to begin talks aimed at resolving the tax issue. The goal: Simplify levies while taxing all phone services equally -- no matter what technology delivers them. "It's important that we work through this in a cooperative fashion," says Virginia's Democratic governor, Mark Warner, president of the NGA. Full story at: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_50/c3912064_mz013.htm ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 12:48:09 -0500 Subject: VoicePulse Receives DesignTechnica Editor's Choice Award Jack Decker notes: VoicePulse is the VoIP company that has the best coverage of Michigan (number of ratecenters served) of all the companies that put that information on their web sites. http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/12-07-2004/0002588066&STORY&EDATE= VoicePulse Receives DesignTechnica Editor's Choice Award High-tech review website touts exclusive VoIP features JAMESBURG, N.J., Dec. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- VoicePulse Inc. announced it has received the esteemed Editor's Choice Award by DesignTechnica, honoring it as one of the premier Voice-over-IP phone service providers. DesignTechnica presented VoicePulse with the award after extensively testing their service for several months. According to Jeff Fila, senior editor of DesignTechnica, "Setup of the VoicePulse system was insanely easy. VoicePulse offers more advanced features than its biggest competitor and a faster response time on its website." "DesignTechnica has a track record for selecting successful products", said Ravi Sakaria, President & CEO of VoicePulse, "so we're very pleased to receive this award from them." VoicePulse recognizes the potential of VoIP and is committed to providing an unparalleled form of telephone communication that can be customized to meet the individual needs of each consumer. The advanced technology that drives VoIP allows for the development of new and innovative features. For example, VoicePulse offers Telemarketer Block, which identifies calls from telemarketers and hangs up on them automatically. "In addition to our features, we believe VoicePulse's success in the VoIP industry will be determined by the customer's experience in all aspects of the service -- features, call quality, account management and especially customer service," says Sakaria. "For us, the customer truly is our number one priority." In addition to DesignTechnica's Editor's Choice Award, VoicePulse also earned the PC World Best Buy award this past May. In September, they were the highest rated VoIP provider in PC Magazine's roundup that compared them to Vonage's DigitalVoice and AT&T's CallVantage. ABOUT VOICEPULSE VoicePulse is a New Jersey based communications company that uses its VoIP network to deliver advanced features and high-quality phone service to residential and small-business consumers. The company leads the industry in delivering innovative features and excellent customer service. ABOUT DESIGNTECHNICA DesignTechnica reveals the future of tomorrow's life enhancing technology through product first looks, reviews, and editorials. An indispensable resource for hi-tech lifestyle enthusiasts, DesignTechnica showcases a rich mix of the technology insight and analysis from both fresh new voices and seasoned hi-tech veterans. From tech gadgetry to home theater to office furniture, DesignTechnica is your gateway to the cutting edge. Contact: Rima Vaghasiya 732-339-5100 rima@voicepulse.com SOURCE VoicePulse Inc. Web Site: http://www.voicepulse.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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