From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Feb 12 15:22:01 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i1CKM1E16333; Thu, 12 Feb 2004 15:22:01 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 15:22:01 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200402122022.i1CKM1E16333@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 #70 TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 Feb 2004 15:22:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 70 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Officials Say Mob Stole $200 Million Using Phone Bills (Monty Solomon) KODAK Mobile Service Coming to Verizon Wireless Get It Now (M. Solomon) EchoStar, SIRIUS Join Forces With RadioShack To Form Satellite (Solomon) Re: Can't Get First Two Digits of Inband String (Justin Time) Re: New Telemarketer Law, Caller ID, and Anonymous Call Reject (jmayson) Partner Mail VS Release 3; Messages Cut Off (Chuck Herndon) Rack Mount Cellular Phone (Ken Neely) Re: The Virus Underground (Geoffrey Welsh) Re: NetZero Commercials on Television (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: NetZero Commercials on Television (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: NetZero Commercials on Television (Danny Burstein) Re: NetZero Commercials on Television (Steven J Sobol) 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: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 03:11:31 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Officials Say Mob Stole $200 Million Using Phone Bills By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM Forget gambling, loan-sharking and labor racketeering. New York organized crime figures bilked millions of unsuspecting consumers out of more than $200 million over five years by piggybacking bogus charges on their telephone bills, federal authorities said yesterday. The scheme, involving a network of companies stretching from Midtown Manhattan to Overland Park, Kan., marked what federal authorities believe was the first time organized crime figures have been charged with using the billing fraud known as "cramming" to fill mob coffers. The nationwide scheme was sophisticated, officials said, but the idea was simple: Callers responding to advertisements for free samples of services like psychic phone lines, telephone dating services and adult chat lines were unknowingly charged up to $40 a month on their phone bills for services they never requested and never used. It worked because many telephone-related services are now paid through local phone companies' monthly bills, with the companies passing on the payments to the service providers. The organized crime figures used a company that consolidated billings for service providers, allowing them to bill through local phone companies and collect their fees, fees with innocent-sounding titles like "voice mail services" hidden deep within the phone bills, unnoticed by all but the most dogged consumer. Frauds involving cramming -- the common term for larding a telephone bill with unauthorized charges -- have been around for years, but the mob's scheme was particularly audacious, the authorities said. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/11/nyregion/11MOB.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 08:34:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: KODAK Mobile Service Coming to Verizon Wireless Get It Now Verizon Wireless and Kodak Forge Strategic Relationship; KODAK Mobile Service Coming to Verizon Wireless Get It Now Customers - Feb 12, 2004 08:01 AM (BusinessWire) ROCHESTER, N.Y. & BEDMINSTER, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 12, 2004--Eastman Kodak Company and Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest wireless service provider, today announced that KODAK Mobile Service will be available to Verizon Wireless' Get It Now(R) customers. With KODAK Mobile Service -- offered through Kodak's Ofoto subsidiary - Verizon Wireless customers will be able to view, share, organize, and store their digital photos in one trusted place. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=40552557 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 08:38:40 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EchoStar, SIRIUS Join Forces With RadioShack To Form Satellite EchoStar, SIRIUS Join Forces With RadioShack To Form Satellite Entertainment Alliance - Feb 12, 2004 08:03 AM (PR Newswire) - RadioShack to Offer SIRIUS Satellite Radio in 7,000 Neighborhood Stores - DISH Network Announced as RadioShack's Exclusive Satellite TV Brand - Multi-Year Agreements Include Comprehensive Marketing, Advertising And Promotional Activities - SIRIUS' Commercial-Free Music to be Added to DISH Network Satellite TV Service NEW YORK, ENGLEWOOD, Colo., and FORT WORTH, Texas, Feb. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- RadioShack Corporation (NYSE:RSH), EchoStar Communications Corporation (Nasdaq: DISH) and SIRIUS Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) today announced the formation of a satellite entertainment alliance that positions EchoStar's DISH Network and SIRIUS as the only satellite entertainment brands offered at RadioShack. DISH Network also announced it will make SIRIUS music programming available to the majority of its 9-million customers. The three-way alliance allows RadioShack to offer DISH Network -- a service offering already available at RadioShack -- and SIRIUS Satellite Radio, providing customers with one-stop shopping for their satellite entertainment needs. This satellite entertainment alliance will substantially increase both DISH Network's and SIRIUS' sales presence throughout the country and is expected to open up new markets for both satellite broadcasters as they tap into RadioShack's ubiquitous distribution network and knowledgeable sales associates. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=40552683 ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Can't Get First Two Digits of Inband String Date: 12 Feb 2004 05:56:15 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com mdarnell@servpac.com (Matt Darnell) wrote in message news:: > Aloha, > We are having touble receiving the first 2 digits of a string of > digits being sent by our PBX. The digits are sent immediatly after we > go offhook. > I.E. The PBX sends "###333" (we verified with a digit grabber) we will > only see "#333". This is 100% consistant. > I have included our C test program, I think the DTMF receivers are not > being activated soon enough after on hook. > After reading the docs, the dx_getdig simply gets the digits out of > the buffer, it doesn't turn the DTMF receivers on or off. > Aloha, > Matt Darnell > ******* > while(1) > { > printf("Opening " DEVICE "\n"); > if ((chdev = dx_open(DEVICE, 0)) == -1) { > printf("Failed to open device!! : %d\n", errno); > switch(errno) > { > case EINVAL : printf("\tInvalid device " DEVICE "\n"); > break; > case EBADF : printf("\tInvalid file descriptor\n"); > break; > case EINTR : printf("\tEAn interrupt was caught\n"); > break; > case EIO : printf("\tLinux Streams error\n"); > break; > default : printf("\tUnknown error\n"); > } exit(-1); > } > dx_sethook(chdev, DX_ONHOOK, EV_SYNC); > dx_clrtpt(tpt,3); > tpt[0].tp_type = IO_CONT; > tpt[0].tp_termno = DX_MAXDTMF; /* Maximum number of digits */ > tpt[0].tp_length = 4; /* terminate on 4 digits */ > tpt[0].tp_flags = TF_MAXDTMF; /* terminate if already in buf. */ > tpt[1].tp_type = IO_CONT; > tpt[1].tp_termno = DX_LCOFF; /* LC off termination */ > tpt[1].tp_length = 3; /* Use 30 ms (10 ms resolution */ > tpt[1].tp_flags = TF_LCOFF|TF_10MS; /* level triggered, clear history, > 10 ms resolution */ > tpt[2].tp_type = IO_EOT; > tpt[2].tp_termno = DX_MAXTIME; /* Function Time */ > tpt[2].tp_length = 100; /* 10 seconds (100 ms resolution */ > tpt[2].tp_flags = TF_MAXTIME; /* Edge-triggered */ > tpt[2].tp_flags = TF_MAXTIME; /* Edge-triggered */ > /* clear previously entered digits */ > if (dx_clrdigbuf(chdev) == -1) { > printf("Unable to clear digit buffer\n"); > exit(-1); > } > printf("Gonna wait for ring!!\n"); > if (-1 == (dx_wtring(chdev, 1, DX_OFFHOOK, -1))) > { > printf("dx_wtring returned error\n"); > ATDV_ERRMSGP(errno); > exit(-1); > } > printf("Gonna get digs\n"); > if ((numdigs = dx_getdig(chdev, tpt, &digp, EV_SYNC)) == -1) { > printf("dx_getdig returned error\n"); > exit(-1); > } > printf("dx_getdig got %d digits", numdigs); > for (cnt=0; cnt < numdigs; cnt++) { > printf("\n\tDigit received = %c digit type = %d", > digp.dg_value[cnt], digp.dg_type[cnt]); > } > printf("\nClosing " DEVICE "\n"); > dx_close(chdev); > } > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For a short term solution, can't you > force feed two more digits in the front of the string which do not > matter to the PBX as filler so that when it starts 'seeing' the digits > it is where you want things to be? Or, do you have any way to get the > PBX to stall long enough to get the equipment opened? Maybe in your > script above a couple of NOPS (non-operations) will stall sufficiently. > PAT] I don't see any delay in here to allow the switch to set up and assign the DTMF receivers to the digit string. Most PBX systems I have worked on do things in milliseconds, while programs operate at 10 to 100 times that speed. The reason you don't see the first digits is because the processor in the PBX, operating at a slow speed just can't set up to handle the digits as quickly as the programmer expects them. Try putting a delay statement into your program that will delay 2-5 ms, it will probably then pass all the digits with no errors. Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ From: jmayson@nyx.net Subject: Re: New Telemarketer Law, Caller ID, and Anonymous Call Reject Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 13:52:47 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com > 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. We have a similar service through SBC and I'm reporting 1 to 2 telemarketers a day without exaggeration. I guess I'll find out if the state and national DNC lists have teeth. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ From: chuck@monarchcomputer.com (Chuck Herndon) Subject: Partner Mail VS Release 3; messages cut off Date: 12 Feb 2004 08:10:44 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have been having this problem for a few years and it seems that the problem is getting worse. Messages that people are leaving on this system will be cut off during playback. If you try repeatedly to retrieve the message you might be able to get the whole message. I have deleted all of the unused mailboxes on the system and checked the ones in use to make sure that they are not full. This system is only used by a small number of people now, about 6 of which 5 have voicemail. Has anyone else had this experience? Perhaps our voicemail card needs to be replaced with a new one? Any feedback would be appreciated. ------------------------------ From: kenneth.neely@sce.com (Ken Neely) Subject: Rack Mount Cellular Phone Date: 12 Feb 2004 09:03:20 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com My client needs to acquire a number of rack mount cellular (1xrtt - Verizon) phones for emergency ops use. Are any quality devices of this type available ? kenneth.neely@sce.com ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: The Virus Underground Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 12:28:18 -0500 Organization: Bell Sympatico > If I were to e-mail it to a victim, and if he clicked on it -- and > didn't have up-to-date antivirus software, which many people don't > -- It wouldn't matter if he did have up-to-date antivirus software because, unless the virus you've just created (or, in this case, generated) looks almost exactly like a previously discovered virus, no virus update has yet been made which will recognize it. This is exactly what's wrong with antivirus software. My favorite analogy: what if security guards could only recognize criminals whose faces matched those in a book (updated regularly) of known felons? How effective would they be if (a) they had to stop every person entering a bank or store in order to compare them to the faces in the book, and (b) they would still let through people carrying rifles because they had not yet been identified as a known felon? Yet that's exactly how antivirus software works and, as long as the antivirus companies make money charging you a subscription fee to update that book of known felons, I see no financial incentive for these companies to try develop technologies that would recognize files that have code in them to format drives or send themselves out via e-mail. It's far too easy to declare that such technology would be too difficult to develop or wouldn't work well. But the current technology doesn't work very well, either ... so what are we paying for? Geoffrey Welsh Always looking for a good condition original 'chicklet keyboard' Commodore PET [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Some anti-virus software -- I am thinking specifically of Grisoft -- have a totally free version for individual users, and their updates -- about every ten days to two weeks are totally free also. You can give them donations via PayPal if you wish. It scans all incoming email and attachments on a continuing basis, and it inspects your entire hard drive once every 24 hours. I was turned on to Grisoft by my Canadian friend, and it is a very useful utility, at no charge. Companies, or people who otherwise make money using their computer are asked to pay for the program. I have it installed on all three of my computers, to run at 5 AM daily. I wouldn't be without it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 23:58:24 -0600 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelectronics.com Organization: Crash Electronics Subject: Re: NetZero Commercials on Television TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > Lately I have seen commercials on television for an ISP known as > 'NetZero'which invite me to take the 'Netzero Challenge'. According > to those people, you can 'surf the net at up to five times faster > than regular dialup', and they sell it for $14.95 per month. Does > anyone know what they are doing? Netzero sets up a proxy that has a big fat pipe to the internet. Your dialup connection goes through their proxy. The proxy makes web pages load faster by doing some on-the-fly HTML optimization, but mainly by recompressing graphics so the image files are smaller. Doing a side-by-side comparison between two identical PCs loading the same web page, one through NetZero and one through a "normal" ISP you will immediately notice two things: First, the NetZero page loads a LOT faster. Second, the slower page looks a LOT better. If you aren't particularly concerned with the graphics quality, NetZero's acceleration will be helpful for browsing. But if appearance is important (porn) or you do a lot of file transfers (p2p) you won't like it. Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com "If we imagined he could _find_ the car, we could pretend it might be fixed." - Calvin ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: NetZero Commercials on Television Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 06:28:51 GMT In article , ptownson@telecom- digest.org says: > Lately I have seen commercials on television for an ISP known as > 'NetZero'which invite me to take the 'Netzero Challenge'. According > to those people, you can 'surf the net at up to five times faster > than regular dialup', and they sell it for $14.95 per month. Does > anyone know what they are doing? The various 56-K dialups around > town are all brokering through TerraWorld under various names, but > I wonder what NetZero does that makes them 'up to five times faster > than regular dialup'. Any ideas? > PAT Most likely they provide some combination of a download accelerator, which prefetches pages linked from the page you're reading, and caching of degraded graphics, for faster browsing speed. In other words, they can indeed make it possible to surf the net faster than using a normal browser and ISP, at the cost of poorer quality graphics. (One could also speed the web browsing experience by turning off graphics or using a text-only browser, but this would also result in a pretty boring looking page.) The one thing they can't do is make your actual downloads faster. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA Delete nospam from my address and it won't work. ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: Re: NetZero Commercials on Television Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 06:46:23 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In TELECOM Digest Editor writes: > Lately I have seen commercials on television for an ISP known as > 'NetZero'which invite me to take the 'Netzero Challenge'. According > to those people, you can 'surf the net at up to five times faster > than regular dialup', and they sell it for $14.95 per month. Does > anyone know what they are doing? The various 56-K dialups around > town are all brokering through TerraWorld under various names, but > I wonder what NetZero does that makes them 'up to five times faster > than regular dialup'. Any ideas? First, they do NOT add any additional capacity to the phone/modem connection. The actual data transfer rate isn't any faster. So there will NOT be any speed improvement (and their fine print admits it) when moving files (term used loosely -- they can be anything from video clips to mp3s to programs, etc.) across. What their system does is, broadly, two things: a) it'll downgrade images on a web page, making them much smaller (bytewise) and moving them across faster. So that 250k jpg you're downloading from NASA's Mars collection will be replaced by a, perhaps, 50k one. Faster d/l, but lossy. b) It also pre-caches all the secondary (and more ...) pieces of a web page. For example, when you pull up a story from your local newspaper's home page, there may be five, ten, or more ... other places it sends your browser so as to fill out the various advertising spots. The wait time for all of these requests is annoyingly long, and even more so if they have to get done sequentially. The "speed up" involves the intermediate server grabbing all of these bits and pieces (or even replacing them, but let's not get into that ...) so as to feed them as one quick stream to you. So yes, you will see some improvement with many web pages. Obviously the tv promos are giving you the best possible spin on it, but there is a bit of truth behind it. On the other hand, you're getting the tradeoff of lower quality images. (You can often, but not always, re-click onto the degraded one so as to order up the full quality version) And, again, this will do (almost) nothing for file transfers. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: Steven J Sobol Subject: Re: NetZero Commercials on Television Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 01:00:34 -0600 TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > Lately I have seen commercials on television for an ISP known as > 'NetZero'which invite me to take the 'Netzero Challenge'. According > to those people, you can 'surf the net at up to five times faster > than regular dialup', and they sell it for $14.95 per month. Does > anyone know what they are doing? The various 56-K dialups around > town are all brokering through TerraWorld under various names, but > I wonder what NetZero does that makes them 'up to five times faster > than regular dialup'. Any ideas? Probably some caching/proxy setup, that's all. Earthlink is offering something similar these days. JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, Apple Valley, CA Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP: C57E 8B25 F994 D6D0 5F6B B961 EA08 9410 E3AE 35ED ------------------------------ 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'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-330-6774 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #70 *****************************