From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Feb 26 14:26:00 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i1QJQ0214096; Thu, 26 Feb 2004 14:26:00 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 14:26:00 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200402261926.i1QJQ0214096@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 #91 TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 Feb 2004 14:26:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 91 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: Developing Secure Distributed Systems with CORBA (R Slade) Sony Demonstrates It's 'Like No Other' With New Products (Monty Solomon) Control Your Webcam With Your Cellphone (Eagletron Inc.) Re: Verizon Land Line International Rates (John R. Levine) Re: Verizon Land Line International Rates (Ray Normandeau) Re: Vonage Troubles (Nick Landsberg) Re: Vonage Troubles (John Schmerold) Re: Vonage Troubles (Sammy@nospam.biz) Re: Memories: Old Fashioned Three Slot Coin Phones (Nick Landsberg) Memories: Enterprise -vs- Zenith Numbers (Al Gillis) Nexpath PBX BIOS Password (Brad Wooddell) Re: Spoofing a "Bounced" E-Mail Error Message? (Linc Madison) Walkie-Talkies Get A Makeover (Eric Friedebach) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:32:10 -0800 Subject: Book Review: Developing Secure Distributed Systems With CORBA BKDSDSCO.RVW 20031201 "Developing Secure Distributed Systems with CORBA", Ulrich Lang/Rudolf Schreiner, 2002, 1-58053-295-0, U$69.00/C$106.95 %A Ulrich Lang %A Rudolf Schreiner %C 685 Canton St., Norwood, MA 02062 %D 2002 %G 1-58053-295-0 %I Artech House/Horizon %O U$69.00/C$106.95 617-769-9750 800-225-9977 fax: +1-617-769-6334 %O http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1580532950/robsladesinterne http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1580532950/robsladesinte-21 %O http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1580532950/robsladesin03-20 %P 308 p. %T "Developing Secure Distributed Systems with CORBA" Chapter one is an introduction, but it very quickly gets into CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) jargon, and C++ API calls. The explanations could be written with more clarity for outsiders. Security is first defined, in chapter two, in terms of restricting access, but the authors are not clear about whether they are primarily concerned with integrity or confidentiality. The material then goes on to a good overview of security management basics and a very brief outline of some security concerns in the CORBA environment. The lead- in to the CORBA security architecture, in chapter three, is a lengthy discussion of the benefits of flexibility, abstraction, and simplicity: the authors then note that the CORBA architecture is not simple. MICO, an open source CORBA compliant object request broker, has a security component (MICOsec), and chapter four is dedicated mostly to installation instructions. Chapter five looks at programming CORBA level one security, using MICOsec and C++, while chapter six takes a longer look at the more complex level two requirements. CORBA security does have support for applications that do not contain any security provisions (a rather interesting concept), and these are reviewed in chapter seven. CORBA security is not widely understood, and this work can assist both those needing a conceptual idea of the system and those needing to program with it. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2003 BKDSDSCO.RVW 20031201 ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca rslade@sun.soci.niu.edu Are you sure that [nine nine nine nine nine nine is] random? That's the problem with randomness. You can never be sure. www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20011025.html http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 20:44:40 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sony Demonstrates It's 'Like No Other' With New Products Open House Highlights Include HDTVs Designed to Comply with CableLabs(R) CableCARD(TM) Technology, Plus New Portable Audio and Digital Imaging Products PARK RIDGE, N.J., Feb. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Reinforcing the depth and durability of its "Like No Other(TM)" marketing mantra, Sony Electronics today spotlighted its latest new products and technologies at a press briefing during its annual Open House event for the nation's consumer electronics retailers. Whether it's the industry's most comprehensive line of integrated HDTV televisions designed to comply with CableLabs(R) CableCARD(TM) technology; new high-definition digital cable receiver/hard disc recorders; eye-opening portable audio products in the PSYC(R), S2(R) and Street Style(R) lines; or new intelligent digital imaging products, Sony again displayed its ability to combine its signature design with innovative technologies geared toward providing both simplicity and enhanced entertainment value to consumers. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=40686393 ------------------------------ From: sales@eagletron.com (Eagletron Inc.) Subject: Control Your Webcam With Your Cellphone Date: 25 Feb 2004 18:21:34 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com We have just released TrackerCam 5.1 which adds WML and i-mode support for viewing your webcam from Internet-enabled cell phones. This is again a free download. If your webcam is mounted on a TrackerPod, you can swivel it around with your phone. More info at http://www.trackercam.com ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Verizon Land Line International Rates Date: 25 Feb 2004 22:01:20 -0500 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > To hell with Verizon LD to Europe. USADataNet has connectivity to most > major European nations for .08 a minute and there's no call setup fee. USA Datanet's rates aren't particularly low any more. My Cognidial dialaround service charges 6.7 cpm. If you're really cheap and have a PC with a DSL or better connection and a headset, net2phone's rate to Spain is 3.9 cpm. ------------------------------ From: rayta@msn.com (Ray Normandeau) Subject: Re: Verizon Land Line International Rates Date: 26 Feb 2004 07:40:37 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Tony P. wrote in message news:: > In article , rnadgor@email.com > says: >> To make a long story short: My girlfriend is in Spain for the >> semester, and I have a Verizon landline in my house. I went on their >> website to see how much it would cost to call, and it said $0.10 a >> minute and a $4 fee. Sounded very cheap to me, so I made several hours >> of phone calls. I got my bill yesterday: $630. Called Verizon. They >> told me that I needed to call them and agree to pay the $4 to activate >> the international calling for that price. Since I did not, I was >> charged $3.09 a minute. You musta meant 30.9 CPM! Long Distance as low as 2.0 Cents Per Minute, no other fee. Will work on cell phones! Fantastic international rates! Spain: 4.5 CPM using 800# access or $0.0250 using local dial-up access. https://www.onesuite.com/ Promotion Code 034720367 gives you 20 free minutes. ------------------------------ From: Nick Landsberg Reply-To: hukolau@NOSPAM.att.net Subject: Re: Vonage Troubles Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 20:11:18 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet William Van Hefner wrote: > I've had the same problem myself. I have the sneaking suspicion that > Vonage only has so many ports that can operate at once, and that if > too many people are using the service, others aren't going to get a > dialtone. It's much like during an emergency (earthquake, tornado, > etc.) when everyone tries to pick up the phone and call at once, some > people won't be able to get a dialtone immediately. In Vonage's case, > I think that this is due to them overselling capacity. They probably > just don't have the capacity to handle the number of customers they > have at the moment, since they are expanding so rapidly. Remember a > few years ago when AOL customers ranted because all of their dial-up > lines were constantly busy? This smells like the same type of > situation. If it is a case of "once in a while" we don't get no dial tone, then it may be a case of nont doing proper traffic engineering. Traditionally, there is something called an "Erlang Blocking Factor" which is used to determine the number of resources required based on a percentage of blocked calls. This is based on the probability of call arrivals within a time period and the expected holding time of the calls. For example, if you want to handle a base 100 simultaneous calls on average and provide a level of service where 1% of the calls get no-dial-tone, you would provide maybe 100 + x ports. If you wanted only 0.1% of the calls to get NDT, you would provide 100+y (where y>x) and so forth. If the base is 200, then both x and y are a smaller percentage of the base number based on probability and statistics. Note that the erlang factor is used for "normal" call arrival distribution rates. Once a special event occurs, like an earthquake in San Francisco where everyone starts calling their relatives there, these factors go out the window. Thus, bad/no traffic engineering (or setting the factor to something like 5%, i.e. 1 out of every 20 calls gets NDT) would account for someone getting NDT 2-3 times a week. It would not account for conditions where there was NDT for prolonged periods unless you were particularly unlucky, in which case you should sue Maxwell's Demon :) (Oh, I'm sorry, Maxwell's Demon only applies to thermodynamics, but his cousins probably haunt the phone networks :) > My own Vonage box (Cisco ATA) is plugged into a Linux router, which > flawlessly handles countless thousands of website requests each and > every day, which is plugged into an Adtran CSU/DSU and then a Cisco > router, which plugs into our T-1. We are nowhere near capacity on our > T-1, and have experienced maybe 10 minutes of downtime in the past > year. It definitely is not our equipment, nor the excellent T-1 > service we receive from Sprint. It is definitely a "Vonage problem". > I will say this for Vonage. When it works, it WORKS. Call quality on > our T-1 is not telco quality. It is superior to telco quality. I have > also tried using Vonage on SDSL and a cable modem. I get quality > roughly equivalent to a cellphone using those. Anyone looking at using > SIP phone service right now might want to take a look at some of the > other players, until Vonage can get its act back together. > iConnectHere.com is still catching up to Vonage, when it comes to > adding local phone numbers, but their rates are pretty good. They've > been doing SIP for a lot longer than Vonage has, as well. If the > situation with Vonage gets much worse, I may consider giving them a > spin. > William Van Hefner > Editor - TheDigest.Com > On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:22:03 -0600 John Schmerold > wrote about Vonage Troubles: >> We've been using Vonage and find that 2 - 3 times per week we pick up >> the phone and get dead air. When we call Vonage support during these >> outages, there are no available support personell. >> Internet connectivity is flawless during these outages (we have a >> lightly loaded T1.) >> Anyone else having this problem? >> Any suggestions? >> Has anyone figured out a way to monitor remote Vonage boxes (we were >> provided the Motorola VT1000 boxes) with What's Up Gold? This would >> be somewhat helpful if we could inform the users that there is a >> problem. >> TIA > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: After following the tech advice given > to me by Vonage last night, nothing -- thus far -- has broken down > or gone wrong here; the firewall is not leaking as of yet so I am > going to again suggest the mods the tech told me about Vonage and > Linksys firewalls to eliminate (supposedly all) of that problem of > periodic no-Vonage dial tone and Vonage unable-to-locate user for > incoming call: Implement the 'punctures' in your firewall as was > described in issue 89 on this topic. Let Vonage and me know if it > works for you as well. PAT] "It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" - A. Bloch ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 17:31:42 -0600 From: John Schmerold Subject: Re: Vonage Troubles I really want Vonage to work, however, I suspect William's hypothesis is correct. We have the Motorola boxes outside the firewall, so there no punctures that are needed. In addition, each unit has its own IP address. It would be very helpful, if Vonage was forthcoming with utilization statistics so we could determine where the real problem lies. I have not been able to get this level of assistance from them. In addition, it would be very helpful if we knew how to monitor the boxes so we could perform some more tests & confirm that they are routing the calls to our landline phones when there are outages. I may have some time later this week to play with What's Up Gold to test the connections. > From: William Van Hefner > Subject: Re: Vonage Troubles > Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 23:43:37 -0800 > I've had the same problem myself. I have the sneaking suspicion that > Vonage only has so many ports that can operate at once, and that if > too many people are using the service, others aren't going to get a > dialtone. It's much like during an emergency (earthquake, tornado, > etc.) when everyone tries to pick up the phone and call at once, some > people won't be able to get a dialtone immediately. In Vonage's case, > I think that this is due to them overselling capacity. They probably > just don't have the capacity to handle the number of customers they > have at the moment, since they are expanding so rapidly. Remember a > few years ago when AOL customers ranted because all of their dial-up > lines were constantly busy? This smells like the same type of > situation. > My own Vonage box (Cisco ATA) is plugged into a Linux router, which > flawlessly handles countless thousands of website requests each and > every day, which is plugged into an Adtran CSU/DSU and then a Cisco > router, which plugs into our T-1. We are nowhere near capacity on our > T-1, and have experienced maybe 10 minutes of downtime in the past > year. It definitely is not our equipment, nor the excellent T-1 > service we receive from Sprint. It is definitely a "Vonage problem". > I will say this for Vonage. When it works, it WORKS. Call quality on > our T-1 is not telco quality. It is superior to telco quality. I have > also tried using Vonage on SDSL and a cable modem. I get quality > roughly equivalent to a cellphone using those. Anyone looking at using > SIP phone service right now might want to take a look at some of the > other players, until Vonage can get its act back together. > iConnectHere.com is still catching up to Vonage, when it comes to > adding local phone numbers, but their rates are pretty good. They've > been doing SIP for a lot longer than Vonage has, as well. If the > situation with Vonage gets much worse, I may consider giving them a > spin. > William Van Hefner > Editor - TheDigest.Com > On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:22:03 -0600 John Schmerold > wrote about Vonage Troubles: >> We've been using Vonage and find that 2 - 3 times per week we pick up >> the phone and get dead air. When we call Vonage support during these >> outages, there are no available support personell. >> Internet connectivity is flawless during these outages (we have a >> lightly loaded T1.) >> Anyone else having this problem? >> Any suggestions? >> Has anyone figured out a way to monitor remote Vonage boxes (we were >> provided the Motorola VT1000 boxes) with What's Up Gold? This would >> be somewhat helpful if we could inform the users that there is a >> problem. >> TIA > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: After following the tech advice given > to me by Vonage last night, nothing -- thus far -- has broken down > or gone wrong here; the firewall is not leaking as of yet so I am > going to again suggest the mods the tech told me about Vonage and > Linksys firewalls to eliminate (supposedly all) of that problem of > periodic no-Vonage dial tone and Vonage unable-to-locate user for > incoming call: Implement the 'punctures' in your firewall as was > described in issue 89 on this topic. Let Vonage and me know if it > works for you as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Sammy@nospam.biz Subject: Re: Vonage Troubles Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:41:48 -0800 Organization: Cox Communications I've had Vonage for 11 months now, and have used it at two different locations (Cable modem and DSL). I lose dial tone occasionally and have found, every time, that if I reboot the Cisco and perhaps the cable modem, it comes back just fine. William Van Hefner wrote: > I've had the same problem myself. I have the sneaking suspicion that > Vonage only has so many ports that can operate at once, and that if > too many people are using the service, others aren't going to get a > dialtone. It's much like during an emergency (earthquake, tornado, > etc.) when everyone tries to pick up the phone and call at once, some > people won't be able to get a dialtone immediately. In Vonage's case, > I think that this is due to them overselling capacity. They probably > just don't have the capacity to handle the number of customers they > have at the moment, since they are expanding so rapidly. Remember a > few years ago when AOL customers ranted because all of their dial-up > lines were constantly busy? This smells like the same type of > situation. > My own Vonage box (Cisco ATA) is plugged into a Linux router, which > flawlessly handles countless thousands of website requests each and > every day, which is plugged into an Adtran CSU/DSU and then a Cisco > router, which plugs into our T-1. We are nowhere near capacity on our > T-1, and have experienced maybe 10 minutes of downtime in the past > year. It definitely is not our equipment, nor the excellent T-1 > service we receive from Sprint. It is definitely a "Vonage problem". > I will say this for Vonage. When it works, it WORKS. Call quality on > our T-1 is not telco quality. It is superior to telco quality. I have > also tried using Vonage on SDSL and a cable modem. I get quality > roughly equivalent to a cellphone using those. Anyone looking at using > SIP phone service right now might want to take a look at some of the > other players, until Vonage can get its act back together. > iConnectHere.com is still catching up to Vonage, when it comes to > adding local phone numbers, but their rates are pretty good. They've > been doing SIP for a lot longer than Vonage has, as well. If the > situation with Vonage gets much worse, I may consider giving them a > spin. > William Van Hefner > Editor - TheDigest.Com ------------------------------ From: Nick Landsberg Reply-To: hukolau@NOSPAM.att.net Subject: Re: Memories: Old Fashioned Three Slot Coin Phones Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 20:31:08 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > Sixteen years ago, in January, 1988, John Levine and other > participants here including myself got into a discussion of > 'Enterprise' phone numbers, the pre-1970 forerunner to what > are now toll-free 800 numbers. In the 1960's we never expected > reverse-charge toll free to ever be automated, and we certainly > had no inkling that the assigned numbering space (code 800) would > ever be expanded several times over with 888,877, 866, etc. As that > discussion was concluding, we got into talking about the old > fashioned three slot coin phones and how guys would abuse them to > re-use their money when making calls. Let's join that conversation > in progress as we analyzed coin phone numbers and the methodology > Bell used to process the calls, etc. [SNIP] Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Pat. Just to add a few things: Part of the reasoning for putting lots of 9's and 0's on coin lines was that they would not be called often. Back in the days of rotary dial, dialing a "9" would use up 9 times the time on the equipment as a "1" . Since coin lines were less likely to be dialed, they usually got the high numbers. As I remember it, businesses paid a premium for numbers such as MU(rray Hill) 5-1000 because of all those zeros. Nowadays it doesn't matter. As to the coin slots. Way back when, my frat house had a coin phone in it. We didn't do anything overtly illegal to it, but anyone who used anything OTHER THAN NICKELS was a marked man. You see, nickels use up more space per $$ than either dimes or quarters. Using only nickels insured that the coin box filled up faster. Once the coin box was full, the phone would register the nickles dropping down, but they would slide into the return chute. You got to make your calls for free as soon as the coin box filled up. "It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" - A. Bloch ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis Subject: Memories: Enterprise -vs- Zenith Numbers Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 19:15:23 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Hi All... Thanks to Pat for bringing up an item regarding three-slot coin telephones, coin numbering assignments and other interesting stuff. His article mentioned Enterprise numbers. So now, someone, please enlighten us about the difference between Enterprise and Zenith numbers. I think they did more or less the same thing -- acting like present-day Toll-Free numbers to allow callers from one area to call without charge (usually) a business in another place that is usually toll. But why where there two "flavors"? Was one an interstate service while the other was intrastate? Or did the name of the service depend upon which Bell company was the service provider? And here's a couple of bonus questions ... Who can name all the 22 Operating Companies of the Bell System? What was the name of the metal recovery company the Bell System used to recover copper, lead and other metals resulting from their disconnects? Thanks, Pat! Al [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To answer your first question, Enterprise and Zenith were the same thing basically; Bell used Enterprise and (I think) the GTE and other 'independent' telephone companies used Zenith. In either case they each had four trailing digits. Either they could reverse-charge call other numbers on the same exchange only; or other numbers in the same state; or other numbers only in *other* states; or all numbers from anywhere, just as 800 numbers are handled today. The operator had all the details on her flip chart for the most commonly used Enterprise/Zenith numbers, other less well known Enterprise/Zenith numbers had details on file at Rate & Route which was 815+161 in Morris, Illinois most of the time, a function provided for AT&T under contract with Illinois Bell. AT&T contracted out most of its smaller 'back office' functions such as Rate & Route (to Illinois Bell), 'non-subscriber calling cards' (to Cincinnati Bell); Separations and Settlements (to New York Telephone and Pacific Telephone), etc. I hear your question: how could someone who was NOT a subscriber to a *specific* telephone company (which we know almost always meant X Bell and AT&T) have a calling card (or as they called them in those days, credit cards)? Well there were the military personnel on active duty; traveling salesman who always stayed in various hotels, etc, but had no specific home base of operations, and so forth. They all recieved 'non-sub' style credit cards from the phone company if they ask for one. And there were the 'special billing' style accounts, HUGE corporations and government agencies where the bills were all handled from one or another central location. Special billing style 'non (specific telco)-sub credit cards' were handled on contract for AT&T by Southwestern Bell I think. I think also -- just cannot remember for sure -- that any police or sheriffs who had a large enough coverage area that some of their citizens would be required to call 'long distance' to reach the police or sheriff (and for all offices of the FBI!) were given a Zenith number for their (out of toll free local calling area) citizens to use. I did see a very ancient (1950-ish) phone book for here in Independence where the FBI (located in Wichita) was listed as 'subscribers in Indpce and C'ville, ask Operator for Zenith xxxx' Please note, even though this is a Southwestern Bell (and thus, under the old system, AT&T) region those were cases where they used Zenith instead of Enterprise. I think maybe the federal government required the use of Zenith for their accounts, even though it was ultimatly via Bell/AT&T. Please recall that the independent telcos (of which GTE (an amalga- mation of other independent telcos) was the largest, originally had refused to give in or 'sell out to the Bell' right after the start of the 20th century largely because of Ted Vail's (original AT&T's Chairman) tactics. Every one of them hated Bell with a passion, but dealt with Ma Bell when they had to. They did their own thing, but copied Bell business practices by and large. Thus the Zenith versus Enterprise label. They even formed their own national association (USITA - United States Independent Telephone Association) to act as a 'watchdog' on Bell. Do times change? Well in the last USITA national convention prior to divestiture (1981) the principal speaker at USITA was none other than Charles Brown, AT&T chairman, By then they had all gotten to be bosum buddies! PAT] ------------------------------ From: brady47@bellsouth.net (Brad Wooddell) Subject: Nexpath PBX BIOS Password Date: 25 Feb 2004 10:45:18 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Does anyone here know what it might be? Thanks! ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Spoofing a "Bounced" E-Mail Error Message? Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 23:25:12 -0800 From: Linc Madison Reply-To: lincmad@suespammers.org Organization: California resident; nospam; no unsolicited e-mail allowed I can tell you from extensive personal experience that it is absolutely pointless to send a bounce message to a spam. First of all, as many people have pointed out, if you as an end-user without control of the actual SMTP server are generating a bounce message and sending it back up the pipe, there is very little chance that it will ever go to the spammer. It will probably go either to a non-working address, or, worse, to an innocent third party. I get a lot of bounce messages on spams that I had nothing to do with sending. Secondly, even if you have control of the SMTP server and can generate the bounce in real time at the appropriate stage, it's still pointless. Contrary to what some have suggested, though, spammers DO NOT ignore bounce messages. They don't take you off their list because you bounced a message; instead, they consider the bounce to be a request to re-send the same spam message. A few months ago, I moved my e-mail onto a server where I have complete control of the SMTP connection. I discovered that if I reject spam messages, the spammer simply tries again (and again and again and again) from as many as 15 or 20 of the "zombie" machines that he controls remotely, all within a matter of a minute or two. Several of the recent major "e-mail viruses" have actually been designed to create a network of compromised Microsoft Windows PCs, preferably with DSL or cable modem connections, that will do the spammers' bidding. What I do instead is to have my SMTP server *DISCARD* anything that I'm reasonably certain is a spam message. The *ONLY* things I bounce are messages that have some reasonable possibility of being honest mistakes by legitimate correspondents. I have a list of over 4100 domains whose mail I discard, and several other kinds of filters. If you connect to my server and claim that your machine is , I check to see if you really are. If you aren't, you don't get a bounce message -- in fact, you get a delivery confirmation. However, your message only gets delivered to the electronic black hole. Sending bounce messages to spammers, whether you do it at the "right" time (during the original SMTP connection) or at the "wrong" time (any time after that), is *AT* *BEST* a waste of your time. Even with the spammers who actually <*gasp*> use their own servers and tell the truth about their identities, still don't remove you from their lists just because you bounce one message. That could easily be a transient error, even if the rejection code unambiguously says "no such user." Maybe if the number of bounces from your address reaches a certain threshhold, they might throw you into a separate bin to try again in a few days/weeks/months. Spammers do not care if you don't want their messages. They also don't care how much of other people's resources they waste trying to deliver their spew. If they did care, they wouldn't be sending spam in the first place. I would, though, like to throw in a plug for an end-user spam filtering product that I use. It's called *Spamfire*. It was originally developed for Macintosh (OS 9 and OS X), but is now also available for Windows XP. It uses a list of filters with positive or negative points attached. If the accumulated score for a message exceeds the threshhold value you specify, the message is tagged as spam and dealt with accordingly. The developers, Matterform Software, update the filters frequently, typically a couple of times a week at least. In fact, one of the features of the program is a simple command to report back to the developers any spam that slipped through the filters. There is a certain amount of overhead involved, because your legit messages end up getting downloaded twice, but you should notice a dramatic decrease in the spam that actually reaches your inbox. If you go here: you can download a free trial version, and I get credit for referring you. The other thing that EVERYONE should do to cut down on the spam problem is to make sure that you have working anti-virus software with up-to-date virus definitions files (often referred to as ".DAT" files). It's tricky, because many of the viruses try to disable the most popular anti-virus programs, but connecting a PC -- especially a Microsoft Windows PC -- to the Internet without solid anti-virus protection makes you not only a danger to yourself, but also a menace to the entire worldwide Internet community. Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * lincmad@suespammers.org All U.S. and California anti-spam laws apply, incl. CA BPC 17538.45(c) This text constitutes actual notice as required in BPC 17538.45(f)(3). DO NOT SEND UNSOLICITED E-MAIL TO THIS ADDRESS. You have been warned. ------------------------------ From: friedebach@yahoo.com (Eric Friedebach) Subject: Walkie-Talkies Get A Makeover Date: 26 Feb 2004 09:19:06 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Aude Lagorce, 02.25.04, Forbes.com NEW YORK - Six months ago, an application that allows cell phones to morph into walkie-talkies was heralded as the next big thing in wireless telephony. Suddenly the blue-collar feature was hip and everyone had to have it--never mind that Nextel Communications phones had been equipped with the technology for more than a decade. Within three months of each other, Verizon Wireless, the mobile arm of Verizon Communications, and Sprint PCS trumpeted the launch of their own walkie-talkie features, respectively called "Push to Talk" and "Ready Link." The services were rolled out with great pomp in the fall. But since then, the two operators' chirping has gone almost completely silent. Walkie-talkies are not exactly the latest technology. But as Nextel will attest, the oldest recipes sometimes make the best cakes. The company may not have snazzy picture phones or a third-generation network, but at $69 per month, it still boasts the highest revenue per user in the industry. http://www.forbes.com/personaltech/2004/02/25/cx_al_0225nextel.html Eric Friedebach /Mortgage your Viagra!/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Am I correct (at least in the case of Nextel) as I was told this is not a true 'walkie talkie' function in terms of using radio frequencies but merely a sort of fancy one-button speed dial type thing? That is, you press the button and speak, but the delay in getting a response from the other end is because the phone is silently setting up the call, ringing and getting the other end to answer via the 'walkie talkie' function. I've never seen a small handheld radio that could get that far in its talking without a lot of static and interference (which you don't hear on a Nextel at least.) PAT] ------------------------------ 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! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. If you donate at least fifty dollars per year we will send you our two-CD set of the entire Telecom Archives; this is every word published in this Digest since our beginning in 1981. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V23 #91 *****************************