From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Dec 28 15:11:21 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iBSKBLh06869; Tue, 28 Dec 2004 15:11:21 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 15:11:21 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200412282011.iBSKBLh06869@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 #621 TELECOM Digest Tue, 28 Dec 2004 15:11:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 621 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Will 2005 Bring a Safer Internet? (Lisa Minter) Hacker Hits McDonald's China Web Site Over Taiwan (Lisa Minter) T-Online Launches No-Frills Internet Brand (Lisa Minter) Dueling Satellite Radio Rivals see Subscriber Jump (Telecom dailyLead) Speaking of VoIP (Tony P.) Re: My High Hopes About Google Ads (John Levine) Re: Drill Bit Size (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: Drill Bit Size (Justin Time) Re: USTA Sends Strange Letter to Wal-Mart (John Levine) 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: Will 2005 Bring a Safer Internet? Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 12:23:13 EST by Larry Seltzer - eWEEK Sometimes writing about security is just too easy. Making predictions about next year is like this in some ways. Let's pick some of the low-hanging fruit early. Even though most spam-tracking companies show that spam already comprises 75 percent or more of all e-mail, that proportion will go up in 2005. We are approaching the situation in which, I have always assumed, users will begin to withdraw from e-mail because it is so unpleasant. It seems to me that the consensus number at the end of last year was at or just above 50 percent, so I'll assume it will go up another 50 percent of legit percentage, up to 87.5 percent. Of course, with an overall number like that, there will be many days where 95 percent or more of all e-mail is spam. No matter how good filters are, more and more is going to get through. Will authentication, the last great hope to save e-mail, make a difference? We can hope that by the end of 2005 it will have taken deep roots, but will we be in a position where domains can really begin blocking and rejecting mail that isn't authenticated? That's the ultimate goal, and I think it will take longer. Perhaps this is some more low-hanging fruit. You might have noticed that December has so far been a gangbusters month for vulnerability reports. Microsoft is well-represented, not just on its own controversial patch day, but with a separate report about the Windows Firewall and an independent report about Internet Explorer. But it's not just Microsoft. We've also had reports this month of vulnerabilities in products from Cisco and Veritas, along with the Samba file-sharing system. There were separate reports about the PHP Web programming system and Mozilla-based Web browsers. And let's not forget the serious holes Apple reported early this month. December must have been the most bug-ridden month of 2004, but researchers tell me that inventories of unpublished vulnerabilities are running high. I think that months like December will become more the norm than the exception in 2005. We'll need some new metric to quantify this, but I think the average number of vulnerabilities reported per month in 2005 will increase substantially over 2004. Firefox Flaws, Phishing: On a related point, we and others have been reporting that usage of the Firefox browser has been increasing rapidly. I'm actually skeptical of the numbers, but let's take them for granted for the sake of argument. If they're true, then Firefox and Mozilla are on track to reach the point of penetration where malware programmers will begin targeting them specifically. I don't want to overstate things; Firefox has a long way to go before its problem list rivals that of Internet Explorer, but it does have problems, some of them serious. I pointed to a new one recently and there are other fairly recent ones reported. It's not hard to imagine attacks on Mozilla and Firefox originating with spam messages aimed at them. "Subj: Attention Firefox Users -- Sign Up for Update Notification" or something along those lines. What, you think only IE users are stupid enough to click through? Speaking of user error, most of us pundits a year ago predicted an increase in phishing, but boy, was there an increase in phishing! Most of it is rather unimaginative stuff, simply trolling for Paypal account information. I've seen an increase recently in the cleverness of these attacks and I think the attackers have barely scratched the surface of what is possible. So, look for another large increase in the volume of phishing attack e-mails, but look especially for an increase in the quality of the attack. Spyware got annoying enough in 2004 for the mainstream security industry to start ramping up to attack it, either through their own products or through buying established anti-spyware/-adware companies (as Computer Associates did with PestPatrol). Look for the security industry to try to push new anti-spyware products, especially in the corporate market. In fact, this has already begun. I hope, but won't predict, that buyers reject getting shafted on this anti-spyware scam. This is a function that the anti-virus companies should have taken on all along as part of what their products do. I'll dig further into this subject soon. To quote Peter Coffee quoting Bill Gates, "There is a tendency to overestimate how much technology will change in the next two years, and a similar tendency to underestimate how much things will change in the next 10 years." Ten years ago, most of us barely had our feet wet in the Internet. Who would have thought it would be such a hostile place and that so much of our attention would be spend trying to protect ourselves from criminals running rampant? I can't predict that it will be a safer place a year from now, but it will have to be in 10 years; there's a limit to how much of this security stuff we can all tolerate. Larry Seltzer has worked in and written about the computer industry since 1983. 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, Ziff-Davis. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml [TELECOM Diges Editor's Note: I agree with Mr. Seltzer; the net is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, if it ever does. I can only speak for my little entry on the net, this Digest and its web pages; but the spam to letigimate email ratio here almost always runs in excess of 90 percent spam. Thus far today, for example, I have dumped 356 items of spam from telecom mail alone. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Hacker Hits McDonald's China Web Site Over Taiwan Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 12:25:55 EST BEIJING (Reuters) - The Chinese-language Web site of fast food giant McDonald's Corp. was broken into twice on Christmas by a hacker protesting against its listing of Taiwan as a separate country, the Beijing Youth Daily said on Monday. The world's largest restaurant chain is expanding fast in China and currently has 600 stores in what has become its eighth-largest market. McDonald's English-language home page features a sign saying "I'm going to McDonald's" pointing at a drop-down menu listing China and Taiwan as separate "country/market" identities. China has considered the self-ruled island of Taiwan part of its territory since it split away from the mainland after the defeated Nationalists fled there at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. On Christmas night, the McDonald's Chinese home page (www.mcdonalds.com.cn) was turned into a black-and-white picture of a skull bearing the words "protest McDonald's official Web site listing Taiwan as a country," the newspaper said. On top of the skull were the English words "Chinese hacker." The site could not be opened at all early on Monday but was back to normal later in the day. An official with McDonald's in Beijing said the company had no immediate comment. 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: T-Online Launches No-Frills Internet Brand Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 12:28:28 EST FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany's dominant Internet service provider, Deutsche Telekom unit T-Online International, has launched its no-frills brand Congster in a fight back against German low-cost rivals. T-Online launched the Web site www.congster.de where clients can sign up for Congster's low-cost Internet access, targeting users of cheaper competitors such as freenet.de or United Internet with a stripped-down Internet access. Unlike T-Online and the rivals, Congster does not offer subsidies for hardware needed for high-speed, or DSL, or for the sign-up fees first-time users have to pay, targeting tech-savvy clients which already have a DSL service but seek change. "Congster is clearly aiming for customers who already have DSL, who already have e-mail, have the hardware, and know how to set up their PC to use it," said a spokesman for Congster, a fully-owned T-Online subsidiary, on Tuesday. On its Web site, Congster offers an online form with which prospective customers can easily set up a letter cancelling their existing DSL account with 15 of its rivals if they sign up with Congster. T-Online's namesake brand, which connects 11.3 million users in Germany to the Internet, is significantly more expensive than those rivals as it offers additional services such as premium content, e-mail and anti-virus software. Congster, without these additional services, is offering its cheapest rate at 3.99 euros per month including 2,000 megabytes of data. Freenet charges 5.90 euros for the same data volume, and T-Online's fee is 9.95 euros for just 1,500 megabytes. T-Online, which its parent Telekom wants to reintegrate by buying back all stock it does not own in a 3-billion euro $4.06 billion) bid, has lost market share over the past 12 months amid a fierce price war for DSL Internet access in Germany. The Congster spokesman declined to say how many clients the new service hoped to gain, or how many had already signed up. He said customer numbers could be reported next month. Telekom is due to report customer numbers for the quarter to December on January 27. T-Online stock, for which Telekom is offering 8.99 euros per share in a tender offer that expires in February, traded unchanged at 9.74 euros by 3:57 a.m. EST. Freenet stock was up 1.2 percent at 19.28 euros and United Internet was unchanged at 19.75 euros. All three shares are constituents of Germany's high-tech index TecDAX which was 0.1 percent lighter. ($1=.7386 Euro) 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 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 12:09:45 EST From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Dueling Satellite Radio Rivals See Jump in Subscribers Telecom dailyLead from USTA http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=18376&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Dueling satellite radio rivals see jump in subscribers BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Broadband takes U.K. by storm * Telefonica privatization offers interesting lessons * Blackstone eyes IPO for New Skies Satellite USTA SPOTLIGHT * In USTA's Telecom Bookstore: "Softswitch Architecture for VoIP" EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * What does the future hold for 3G? REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Bill signed exempting E-Rate from federal accounting rules Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=18376&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: Tony P. Subject: Speaking of VoIP Organization: ATCC Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 16:53:36 -0500 I got a call from Cox today. Apparently they'll be rolling out VoIP service to compete with Vonage, Voicewing, etc in about two months. The price will be $18.99 a month. But then I realized, Cox is an FCC regulated voice carrier so all the fees and crap will kick in and the price will be > $24.99 I pay now. The guy trying to sell me this service was explaining my VoIP line isn't secure. I told him anyone with a half brain and a butt set could render pretty much any wire line communication insecure. As I explained, my line goes down to the NID where I disconnected and tagged the Verizon line. So it's an analog signal at that point. I love the scare tactics they try. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Cox is the cable company serving Coffeyville. Cable One does Independence and south of town going out Tenth Street to around Dearing, Kansas, then Cox takes over from there south to Coffeyville, Tyro, Caney and the Oklahoma state line. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 2004 05:41:56 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: My High Hopes About Google Ads Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It seems like that Adams Company has > a lot of domains they give away for free, just for asking, and taking. No, Bob is right. Somone in Germany paid to register net.tc, org.tc, etc. and is for reasons of his own giving away subdomains. That's fine, it's legal and honest, but if you use one of these subdomains you're completely at the mercy of Mr. net.tc if he decides to change his rules. Personally, I'd rather pay the $10 and have a domain that's harder to take away on a whim. R's, John [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The givers-away of free, remote registered domains in the '.ms', '.tc' and '.tf' domains are all using precisely the same templates and software, and all offer the same webmaster's tool-kits, if, as you suggest, they are different people/organizations. But instead of paying $10 for a domain you could pay $5 for (any unlimited number of) domain names in the 'dhs.org' and 'n3.net' group, which, although they have USA-like nomenclatures for their names, are based in Australia ( http://dhs.org ) All the above redirectors are good for guys who wish to run websites using their own computers but keep their true identity secret. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 23:43:57 -0600 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelex.com Organization: Crash Electronics Subject: Re: Drill Bit Size Fred Atkinson wrote: > Can anyone on here tell me what the standard bit size that is used by > telephone installers to drill the holes for running standard, four > pair telephone wire through (like drilling a hole through the > baseboard into the floor to pull the wire in to wire a jack mounted on > the baseboard)? I have a 5/8" spade bit, 6 feet long with a 6 foot extension. Spade bits are easier to aim, IMO, than twist bits. Standard caveats apply wrt knowing what's ahead of your bit :-) I also have a "shorty" that's only 18" long, for special occasions. Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com Tragically, as many as 9625 out of every 10,000 individuals may be neurotypical ------------------------------ From: Justin Time Subject: Re: Drill Bit Size Date: 28 Dec 2004 05:08:39 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Try one about a 1/16 in. larger than the diameter of the cable you are feeding through the hole. The size of the bit will vary slightly between brands, but a 5/16 should handle the bulk of them. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 2004 20:55:46 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: USTA Sends Strange Letter to Wal-Mart Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> Completely agreed. If VoIP is so great, it should be able to support >> the same obligations as real telephony such as 911 and USF. > Should email have similar "obligations"? Of course not. It doesn't purport to be telphony, and it doesn't interoperate with the other billion phones on the face of the planet. > So long as I know what I'm getting, I am perfectly happy paying > for my "fake telephony". > And, VoIP or no, the USF should be elimated. Now. Immediately. > Yesterday, if possible. I think you might enjoy Free World Dialup. It's got no USF and no pesky high cost users. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies, Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor "I shook hands with Senators Dole and Inouye," said Tom, disarmingly. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not only is Free World Dialup *totally* free, but you can interface with the public telephone network some of the time, partly, also for free. For example, you can get no charge incoming-only telephone numbers in the 360-227 group of numbers in Washington state. A person dialing that 360-227 number gets translated into your Free World Dialup line. I think whoever offers that service gives free voicemail with it as well, and email notification of any voicemail message received. Now for outgoing calls, there is more of a problem. Right now, during December and part of January, FWD is giving free outgoing calls as well, dialing * plus the country code and the full ten digit number. Other than this holiday period, FWD only gives free outgoing calls on the calls they don't have to pay for either, i.e. toll free 800 numbers. What you do in that case is *1 plus the ten digit toll free number. Free World Dialup is not a bad deal at all for many folks. I have an FWD number on one of my Think Pad laptops (the one with the wireless 802.11 card in it) so I can walk around in my back yard and get phone calls via the 360-227-xxxx number from anyone. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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