From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Feb 6 20:24:49 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i171OmV22035; Fri, 6 Feb 2004 20:24:49 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 20:24:49 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200402070124.i171OmV22035@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 #60 TELECOM Digest Fri, 6 Feb 2004 20:25:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 60 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Draft - Recommendation for Electronic Authentication (Monty Solomon) Nextel Testing Wireless Broadband Service; Market Trial (Monty Solomon) Re: New Telemarketer Law, Caller ID, Anonymous Call Reject (J Wineburg) Re: New Telemarketer Law, Caller ID, Anonymous Call Reject (fakeaddress) VoIP Gateway (Andrew Bell) Re: Plain Old Cell Phones Fading Away in U.S. (Bob Goudreau) Re: "No Internet Voting" (Robert Pierce) Question About 802.11g Wireless Router and Signal Booster (O K) Panasonic 616 Toll Restriction (Javier Gonzalez Ferreyra) 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 is definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 16:57:00 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: DRAFT - Recommendation for Electronic Authentication http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts.html DRAFT Special Publication 800-63, Recommendation for Electronic Authentication. NIST has completed the draft NIST Special Publication 800-63, Recommendation for Electronic Authentication. E-authentication is the remote authentication of individual people over a network for the purpose of electronic government and commerce. This recommendation provides technical guidance in the implementation of electronic authentication to allow an individual person to remotely authenticate his or her identity to a Federal IT system. It supplements OMB guidance, E-Authentication Guidance for Federal Agencies that defines four levels of authentication in terms of the likely consequences of an authentication error. Special Publication 800-63 states specific technical requirements for each of the four levels of assurance in the following areas: identity proofing and registration, tokens, remote authentication mechanisms and assertion mechanisms. NIST requests comments on the draft document by March 15, 2004. http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/draft-sp800-63.pdf ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 18:49:32 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Nextel Testing Wireless Broadband Service; Market Trial Nextel Testing Wireless Broadband Service; Market Trial in Raleigh-Durham, N.C. to Evaluate Flarion's FLASH-OFDM Technology, Service Offering and Market Demand - Feb 6, 2004 03:20 PM (BusinessWire) RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 6, 2004-- Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and IBM Employees to Trial Service Cisco Systems and Nortel Networks to Provide Infrastructure Support and Amdocs to Supply Customer Care and Billing Platform Nextel(R) Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NXTL) announced today that it will trial a wireless broadband service in the Raleigh-Durham, N.C. market using Flarion Technologies' FLASH-OFDM(R) technology. The trial will begin later this month and will offer participants highly secure, high-speed, IP-based broadband access with the full mobility of wireless service. Participants in the trial will include employees from select Nextel enterprise customers, including Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), Nortel Networks (NYSE/TSX:NT) and IBM (NYSE:IBM). They will be able to take full advantage of average downlink speeds of up to 1.5 megabits per second (mbps) with burst rates of up to 3.0 mbps, making the service comparable to DSL and cable broadband services. The service will be up to 50 times faster than dial-up connections with the added benefit of being untethered. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=40470931 ------------------------------ From: Wineburgh, Joe Subject: Re: New Telemarketer Law, Caller ID, and Anonymous Call Reject Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 14:05:40 -0500 You don't say if you're signed up for the national do-not-call registry. I recommend signing up if you haven't already. I signed up for the national DNCR last August and in January '04 dropped my LEC's (Sprint) version of the Anon Call Reject service. Since we dropped ACR, we got all of two calls -- and only from existing business relationships at that! (ironically Sprint and I think DirecTV) They were both just trying to sell more crap I don't need, so I asked them to put us on their (local/company's) do not call list and that was that. I believe it's been about a month since we have gotten any sales calls. One further note -- I was actually kinda pissed when Sprint also blocked calls that came in with no name (both our cell phones at the time, but knowing of your experiences I'd say it was probably a 'good thing'! YMMV #JOE ------------------------------ From: Subject: Re: New Telemarketer Law, Caller ID, and Anonymous Call Reject Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2004 15:42:21 -0500 Organization: NETPLEX Internet Services - http://www.ntplx.net/ Two thoughts here: 1. The DNC list works well for me. I usually don't see more than one telemarketer every month or so. See https://www.donotcall.gov/default.aspx 2. If the telco's were interested in enforcing the DNC, they'd add a new CLASS service like malicious call trace that captures the caller ID _and_ ANI. Typing the *xx code could report these numbers to the FTC, with the time and your phone number so your complaint can be more easily traced. That is, if the phone companies really wanted to help enforce the anti-telemarketer regs. On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 11:19:41 -0500, Michael Quinn wrote: > A few weeks back in the long thread on spoofed caller ID, someone > mentioned a recently enacted federal law that requires telemarketers > to deliver a caller ID number (whether accurate or not). > Here in Nothern VA, we have been using Verizon's Anonymous Call > Reject, which does not allow "out of area" numbers to even ring the > phone unless the caller provides some additional information (or > enters a PIN); we pay $7.50 per month or so for this. > I think it was about this time that I started to notice a significant > increase in telemarketing calls which now display the number and the > name, although sometimes the name says "out of area" or "not > available" (or even "ohio"), which of course ACR doesn't look at -- as > long as they deliver a number, however inaccurate, ACR lets the call > through. The net result is that our dinner and evening hours are now > once again filled with ringing phones. Before this, there was a fair > chance that an incoming call was from someone we wanted to hear from, > so we'd pick up after looking at caller ID; now we have to deal with > at least double or triple the number of calls. > Has anyone else noticed this phenomenom? I guess for the small number > of folks with ACR it's a step backward, even though it may be an > improvement for the majority. I'm wondering what will happen if I > cancel ACR -- even more calls I suppose. > Regards, > Mike Quinn > Springfield VA > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That was a very big hassle I had with > SBC (Southwestern Bell Tel) when they had my phone service. They > claimed (the chairman's office, yet, when I appealed) that they had > met all requirements to subscribers of anonymous call blocking and > last call reject 'as long as the calling party supplies some number.' > No matter if it was all zeros, if the name was bogus or missing, etc. > SBC still wanted the couple bucks per month for providing 'anonymous > call rejection'. They claimed 'the call was not anonymous, we did give > you the number and often times the name.' Yet, even though the call > was not 'anonymous' by telco's definition, they still were not able to > block future calls from the same 'number'. > I think what you will find, Michael, is that telco makes too much > money from telemarketers to abuse them too badly. Telco turns a blind > eye to the way they rig their phone systems (with skimpy or non- > existent details of ID) because the telemarketers would suffer from it. > PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There *is* a CLASS service such as you describe. *57 does that job; dial *57 during a conversation (flash the hook, fresh dialtone, *57, then flash again to go back to the conversation) or immediatly following disconnection, and telco records the details regardless of any privacy flags (*67, etc) being set and forwards the details to police. **They will NOT tell you the details. You have to get the details from the police.** Police will generally only give you details if you agree _in writing first_ to prosecute on the results. Telco will not serve as your private detective agency, etc. Communication privacy laws prohibit telco from working with you directly. Getting the police to actually do something about the matter is a different thing. Many police believe it is a civil matter, and they are not permitted to get involved in civil matters. Police also usually have a busy schedule and phone harassment is not a big issue, especially when there is a telemarketer causing you some minor grief. Oh, and *57 is not an inexpensive CLASS service. Typically, telco gets eight to ten dollars for *each instance* of its use. The recorded message they play immediatly following the capture of the details tells you about this charge, and provides an 800 number at the 'call annoyance bureau' to be used to follow up with telco and police. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Andrew Bell Subject: VoIP Gateway Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 13:36:15 -0500 I need to borrow some experience from the VoIP hobbyists out there. I'm currently toying with the idea of creating an OPX (off premise extension) using VoIP. What I want to do is hang a (preferrably Linux based) PC on the office network, and plug it into an analog extension from the PBX. Then I want to go home, VPN into the network, and use some sort of softphone to get PBX dialtone. More importantly, I also want to be able to answer calls at home originating from the PBX. I know there a lots of commercial offerings to do this, but I'm hoping to get away with just the cost of an FXO card for a proof of concept right now. Has anyone here done something like this already? Andrew [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well you can now get softphone software from the Vonage people. That's one of their newer offerings, since they have expanded to have a POP in almost every area code (even here in rural s.e. Kansas!), and 800 numbers. You can also get softphone service if desired. Ask me for an e-coupon for a month of free service whenever you are ready to try it out. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2004 14:21:44 -0500 From: BobGoudreau@withheld at users request Subject: Re: Plain Old Cell Phones Fading Away in U.S. [Please obcure my email address. Thank you.] Rodgers Platt wrote: > Keeping notes in a diary may make them "more difficult" to share, but > the support systems available are much more robust, and my day timer > notebook will never die because the battery went flat. On the other hand, one aspect of the paper diary support system is painfully inadequate: backup. My friend's wife painfully discovered this last year when her purse (including her daytimer) was stolen from her car and never recovered. Tens of thousands of bytes of hand-written data were lost forever. This loss finally persuaded her to emulate her husband's example and get a PDA, which can be easily (and wirelessly) synced with his office computer to provide a backup copy. Even if the device is lost or destroyed, a replacement can quickly be purchased and loaded with all the backed-up data, which will be no more than a day or two out of date. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ From: Robert Pierce Subject: Re: "No Internet Voting" Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 15:36:46 -0500 Pat, remove my e-mail address, please. In "Get Out Those Postage Stamps: No Internet Voting For Military (Burstein)" Danny Burstein wrote: > "The Pentagon has decided to scrap plans for an on-line Internet > voting system for U.S. military personnel and Americans living > abroad. The system had come under fire from experts who said it could > be vulnerable to computer attacks. > "The decision to cancel the computer voting project was made by Deputy > Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. > "Pentagon officials say he ordered the system scrapped because of an > inability to ensure the legitimacy of the votes that would be cast." http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=215A8EF4-FC2E-46DA-8F0B218EA1464 9D9 This is _good_ news. Any regular reader of comp.risks knows that computer-based voting schemes are fraught with problems of accountability and security. Adding an internet connection only compounds the problems. During my stint in Uncle Sam's service I voted with absentee ballots many times. It was not a hardship. I, personally, would have no confidence in an unaccountable system sending voting information via the insecure internet. The military made the right decision. Rob Pierce Pat, remove my e-mail address, please. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But I think we are going to get to the point where electronic voting becomes a necessity before too long, and the military with 'absentee ballots' would provide a smaller and more easily controlled sample as the bugs are worked out of it. And I wonder also if anyone has considered at least one or two parallel votes so results can be compared for accuracy: that is, the traditional paper vote (to be the authoritative vote as needed) and an electronic vote for comparison purposes once or twice. I don't know of any large corporation back in the 1960-70's as computers were taking over every- thing which did not run in parallel for at least a month or two for just that reason. I know telco and Amoco credit card did that. PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: O K From: O K Subject: Question About 802.11g Wireless Router/Signal Booster/Antenna Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 12:39:25 -0800 Organization: Cox Communications I have a question about adding a wireless antenna or signal booster to my home network. My current setup is I have a Linksys WRT54G wireless router which supports B and G infrastructure. I have a 802.11b Wireless PCI card in my PC. In my condo, I can verify that the wireless portion of the network between the wireless router and my PC are functioning. I then take my PC to another floor in my building, and I get little to no signal. I would like to add either a signal booster and/or an antenna to make my network functional. From the reading that I have done, I can't determine where the antenna needs to be installed if I go this route. Is it installed on the PCI portion of the network, or the router portion of the network. As the router TX's and RX's, is the problem with the low transmission power from the router and therefore I need a wireless antenna on the PC, or is the problem the low transmission power from the PCI card to the router upstairs? I can't figure out which hardware I need to make this functional. Please contact me directly at okorkie3@cox.net (remove the *) Thanks, Owen ------------------------------ From: javi@wizardes.com (Javier Gonzalez Ferreyra) Subject: Panasonic 616 Toll Restriction Date: 6 Feb 2004 14:48:35 -0800 Organization: http://groups.goggle.com The manual says that I've to dial * to complete the 3 digit code for toll restriction, but nothing appears on the LCD and I can not store the two digit code. How can I fix it? I can program everything else but not toll restriction which is the most improtant for me ... please help. Thanks. ------------------------------ 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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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #60 *****************************