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Message Digest Volume 28 : Issue 13 : "text" Format Messages in this Issue: CallerID-compatible distinctive ring decoder firmware Teen sends 14,528 text messages in one month Re: Restoring a 302-type telephone Re: Mysterious credit card charge may have hit millions of users Re: Mysterious credit card charge may have hit millions of users Re: Restoring a 302-type telephone ====== 27 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== 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, and other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 01:14:15 -0500 (EST) From: Dan Lanciani <ddl@danlan.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: CallerID-compatible distinctive ring decoder firmware Message-ID: <200901120614.BAA15008@ss10.danlan.com> Distinctive ring service (also called multiring, ringmate, ringmaster, etc.) allows you to have one or two additional telephone numbers associated with a line. Calling a number results in a unique ring pattern. For purposes of other than just listening to the rings you typically use a small box that tries to figure out which number is ringing and routes it to a specific RJ11 port. The SR3 by Multi-Link is such a box; there are several others. For some years I've used various work-arounds to combine CallerID and distinctive ring services. Distinctive ring call routers normally do not connect quickly enough to pass the original caller ID signal (though some do for some ports some of the time). Recently I wanted a front-end for some Voip FXO ports that would route on distinctive ring and pass CallerID all of the time. I tried Command Communications' latest product which buffers and resends the CallerID information after the second ring. It works, but the extra ring delay is noticeable and it also does a double- click of the relay when the port answers. This requires additional delay to avoid cutting off the beginning of the voice-mail greeting and the click is heard by the caller. Looking at the ring patterns used here (typical for a 5ESS I think) it seemed to me that it should be possible to make the routing decision during the first ring cycle and connect the line such that it sees at least half of that ring and the CallerID information. To test this theory I wrote replacement PIC firmware for the Multi-Link SR3. I used this device because I had one handy, the PIC was in a socket, and it was relatively simple to understand the device's operation. (My SR3--actually a modified SR2--is pretty old. I've ordered a new one to be sure they are compatible.) The result of my effort is replacement firmware that supports most of the normal features of the device (I do not generate the busy tones yet) and routes calls as described above. I've just put this into service and it appears to work so far. If anyone else is interested the firmware source is available on my home automation page: http://www.danlan.com/homeauto.html I used a PIC16F628 because that's what I stock, but the program is trivial and could run in a much simpler device. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:22:34 +1100 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Teen sends 14,528 text messages in one month Message-ID: <pan.2009.01.13.06.22.32.876757@myrealbox.com> Wouldn't your thumb fall off? From: http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/teen-sends-14528-text-messages-in-a-month/2009/01/13/1231608669445.html Teen sends 14,528 text messages in one month January 13, 2009 - 8:41AM An American teenager sent almost 500 text messages a day last month, leaving her father with a phone bill of 440 pages. Reina Hardesty, 13, sent 14,528 text messages in December - about 470 text messages a day, at an average of a message every two minutes if she was awake for 15 hours each day, the New York Post said. Her father, Greg, said he was shocked to receive a 440 page phone bill last month. "First, I laughed. I thought: 'That's insane, that's impossible'," Mr Hardesty told the Post. "And I immediately whipped out the calculator to see if it was humanly possible. "Then I thought maybe AT&T made some mistake on the bill." He asked his daughter: "Who are you texting, anyway? Your entire school?" Reina said she messaged a core group of "four obsessive texters" - all girls between the ages of 12 and 13. "Well, a lot of my friends have unlimited texting. I just text them pretty much all the time," she said. At a karaoke birthday party, Reina texted her best friend, who was sitting right next to her while others were singing, the Post said. She also texted her friends to brag about the high number of text messages she had racked up when her parents got the bill. Fortunately for her parents, Reina's phone plan allows unlimited texting for $US30 a month. Otherwise the phone bill would have been about $2900, the Post said. Reina's parents have since placed restrictions on her phone use, forbidding her from texting after dinner. The average number of monthly texts for a 13- to 17-year-old is 1742, the Post said. smh.com.au ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:25:00 -0800 (PST) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Restoring a 302-type telephone Message-ID: <ba6da1bd-b641-4eeb-8517-a3c82af42d03@n10g2000yqm.googlegroups.com> On Jan 9, 5:17 pm, hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > >       That was near the twilight days of 302 telephones. > I suspect the Bell System > continued installing 302 sets well into the 1950s.   I remember being in or seeing pictures of school buildings built new in the mid-1950s and the school office was equipped with 302 sets. So, they were still installing them in new installations even after the 500 set came out. Perhaps a more prestigious new office or residence got newer sets. In the early 1950s some areas with rapid development had shortages and had to wait for telephone service. I suspect those people were happy to get any set at all just to have service. I don't think the Bell System had the luxury of throwing out a massive inventory of 302 sets in those days, but rather reconditioned them back to service. Heck, I'm told that in the early 1950s plenty of people still had candle stick phones. At one time they were cheaper than handset phones. Certainly plenty had 202 set (the "French" handset phone). Many payphones of the 1950s had two piece transmitter/receiver. One upgrade the Bell System did make was to put on "F" units (the 302 transmitter and receiver) on candle stick and 202 sets since the quality was far superior. Many 202 sets had an E base but an F handset. Privately owned/operated internal telephone networks seemed to stick with AE 40 gear for many years, never getting upgraded to say an AE 80. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:40:55 -0500 (EST) From: Dan Lanciani <ddl@danlan.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Mysterious credit card charge may have hit millions of users Message-ID: <200901130540.AAA23391@ss10.danlan.com> |CONSUMER ALERT |Mysterious credit card charge may have hit millions of users | |By Mitch Lipka, Globe Correspondent | January 11, 2009 |The Boston Globe | |Several Internet complaint boards are filled with comments from |credit card customers from coast to coast who have noticed a |mysterious charge for about 25 cents on their statements. | |The charge shows up on statements as coming from "Adele Services" in |Melville, N.Y. There is no business by that name listed in Melville, |or registered to any business anywhere in New York, for that matter. This is silly. The banks know where the money is going. Why make it seem like a mystery? |Two theories of what is going on have advanced on message boards and |among consumer advocates: Someone is trying to find out whether an |illegally obtained credit card number will work before making a |bigger charge, or they're trying to rip off tiny amounts from tons of |people. If the latter then the perpetrators would need to get the money out of whatever account is associated with their merchant service. Why aren't the banks scrutinizing that account and its owner? |The latter theory has more credibility at the moment. The Better |Business Bureau in Louisville reports that, at least so far, those |who have been hit with the small charge have yet to get slammed with |a bigger charge. The bureau speculates that the number of possible |victims could be in the millions. Speculates? Can't they get someone to actually investigate? [...] |***** Moderator's Note ***** | |The first wave has started: after this, the deluge. The banking system |we all depend on is, as I have said before, totally incapable of |verifying customer or merchant identities without face-to-face |meetings. Banks have little financial incentive to verify business customers. In a successful scam the bank gets its cut. If a charge is disputed (and the consumer prevails) the bank gets a dispute fee. As many people like to summarize the Uniform Commercial Code: the bank wins. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:57:06 +0000 (UTC) From: ranck@vt.edu To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Mysterious credit card charge may have hit millions of users Message-ID: <gkj2ni$44c$1@solaris.cc.vt.edu> Dan Lanciani <ddl@danlan.com> wrote: > |CONSUMER ALERT > |Mysterious credit card charge may have hit millions of users > | > |By Mitch Lipka, Globe Correspondent | January 11, 2009 > |The Boston Globe > | > |Several Internet complaint boards are filled with comments from > |credit card customers from coast to coast who have noticed a > |mysterious charge for about 25 cents on their statements. You know, the transaction fees and whatnot generally add up to about 25 to 30 cents per transaction. Seems to me like Adele Services would be losing money on every transaction, unless they got some sweetheart deal from their card processor, and even then it would be only a couple of cents per. Now, if someone has figured a way to inject small charges into the system and not get charged the processing fees I'll bet the credit card companies will be all over them in a big hurry. The return of the salami slice . . . Bill Ranck Blacksburg, Va. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:33:11 GMT From: "Tony Toews \[MVP\]" <ttoews@telusplanet.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Restoring a 302-type telephone Message-ID: <fe5qm4dv84gehsq38ui95dgka8vo63m6rd@4ax.com> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: >In the 1950s, even into the 1960s, many smaller towns had five digit >numbers. They got a seven digit ANC number to be addressable by DDD, >but for local use continued with five digits (into the 1980s until ESS >came along). Those places obviously never had a named exchange. Thompson, Manitoba had a 677 exchange when the town was first built in the very early 1960's but the locals only dialed a four digit number. Some time in the mid to late 60s a 778 prefix was added. You only needed to dial the 8 for the 778 phone numbers and continued to dial four digits for the 677 numbers. The government owned Manitoba Telephone Systems (MTS) is the telco. Tony -- Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can read the entire thread of messages. Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/ ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition 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. 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