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Message Digest Volume 29 : Issue 61 : "text" Format Messages in this Issue: NYS "bill" in works to outlaw phone ID spoofing Re: NYS "bill" in works to outlaw phone ID spoofing Re: NYS "bill" in works to outlaw phone ID spoofing Re: NYS "bill" in works to outlaw phone ID spoofing Re: NYS "bill" in works to outlaw phone ID spoofing Re: NYS "bill" in works to outlaw phone ID spoofing Re: Speaking of microwave... Re: Speaking of microwave... Re: Catalina Island to the SoCal mainland Re: Catalina Island to the SoCal mainland Catalina Island to the SoCal mainland ====== 28 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: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:17:48 -0500 From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: NYS "bill" in works to outlaw phone ID spoofing Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1002282314100.13187@panix5.panix.com> [Queens Chronicle] Penalties for phone spoofers a possibility Callers who attempt to defraud others may start to think twice before dialing. Legislation that would prohibit callers from hiding or falsifying their caller ID to harass or defraud recipients is making its way through the state Assembly and Senate. In a practice known as "spoofing", telemarketers and other callers who seek to hide their identity can mask or alter the number that appears on caller ID readers in order to trick residents into answering the phone. The reasoning is that unsuspecting recipients may be more willing to answer a call with a local area code or a familiar name and phone number. .... If the bill is signed into law, phone spoofers could be fined up to $2,000 per call, subject to an aggregate amount of $100,000 for all illegal calls placed within a 72-hour period. -------- rest: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20412517&BRD=2731&PAG=461&dept_id=574905&rfi=6 - no copies of the bill visible yet on the various official websites. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:58:52 -0800 From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: NYS "bill" in works to outlaw phone ID spoofing Message-ID: <4B8C005C.1070602@thadlabs.com> On 2/28/2010 8:17 PM, danny burstein wrote: > [Queens Chronicle] > > Penalties for phone spoofers a possibility > > Callers who attempt to defraud others may start to think twice before > dialing. Legislation that would prohibit callers from hiding or > falsifying their caller ID to harass or defraud recipients is making its > way through the state Assembly and Senate. > > In a practice known as "spoofing", telemarketers and other callers who > seek to hide their identity can mask or alter the number that appears on > caller ID readers in order to trick residents into answering the phone. > The reasoning is that unsuspecting recipients may be more willing to > answer a call with a local area code or a familiar name and phone number. > .... > If the bill is signed into law, phone spoofers could be fined up to > $2,000 per call, subject to an aggregate amount of $100,000 for all > illegal calls placed within a 72-hour period. > -------- > rest: > http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20412517&BRD=2731&PAG=461&dept_id=574905&rfi=6 Missing from that article (and every other similar one I've seen over the years) is: HOW is the phone spoofer actually identified and caught? If the displayed number is spoofed, how can the real caller be ID'd? Is such identification (of a spoofer) even possible? I have the impression it's not [possible] since there are so many violators of the "Do Not Call" list(s). Frankly, I wish there was a button on one's phone that one could push upon receiving a spoofed call that would send 100kV down the line along with a plague of locusts, a tornado, a hurricane, an earthquake, and GPS coords for a Predator mission missile strike. :-) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 20:32:50 EST From: Wesrock@aol.com To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: NYS "bill" in works to outlaw phone ID spoofing Message-ID: <3acfd.63ab4c4e.38bdc4c2@aol.com> In a message dated 3/1/2010 2:31:29 PM Central Standard Time, thad@thadlabs.com writes: >> In a practice known as "spoofing", telemarketers and other callers >> who seek to hide their identity can mask or alter the number that >> appears on caller ID readers in order to trick residents into >> answering the phone. The reasoning is that unsuspecting recipients >> may be more willing to answer a call with a local area code or a >> familiar name and phone number. >> .... >> If the bill is signed into law, phone spoofers could be fined up >> to $2,000 per call, subject to an aggregate amount of $100,000 for >> all illegal calls placed within a 72-hour period. >> -------- >> rest: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20412517&BRD=2731&PAG=461&dept_id=574905&rfi=6 > Missing from that article (and every other similar one I've seen > over the years) is: HOW is the phone spoofer actually identified and > caught? > > If the displayed number is spoofed, how can the real caller be ID'd? > Is such identification (of a spoofer) even possible? I have the > impression it's not [possible] since there are so many violators of > the "Do Not Call" list(s). > > Frankly, I wish there was a button on one's phone that one could > push upon receiving a spoofed call that would send 100kV down the > line along with a plague of locusts, a tornado, a hurricane, an > earthquake, and GPS coords for a Predator mission missile > strike. :-) The NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City has an antique appraisal segment on the news each Wednesday that the party calls in to seek to show their stuff reaches a recording and the anchor warns that when they call you back the caller ID will show 111-111-1111 so you'll know it's not an unwanted call. I don't know how that will identify it as not spam because spam calls also have come in with the same spoofed caller ID Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 19:40:53 +0000 (UTC) From: Koos van den Hout <koos+newsposting@kzdoos.xs4all.nl> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: NYS "bill" in works to outlaw phone ID spoofing Message-ID: <hmh585$vvv$8@kzdoos.xs4all.nl> danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> wrote in <Pine.NEB.4.64.1002282314100.13187@panix5.panix.com>: > [Queens Chronicle] > Penalties for phone spoofers a possibility > Callers who attempt to defraud others may start to think twice before > dialing. Legislation that would prohibit callers from hiding or falsifying > their caller ID to harass or defraud recipients is making its way through > the state Assembly and Senate. > In a practice known as "spoofing", telemarketers and other callers who > seek to hide their identity can mask or alter the number that appears on > caller ID readers in order to trick residents into answering the phone. So this will stop most of those commercial "spoofing" services and maybe stop a few telemarketeers from doing the wrong thing. But with the technical issue (the phone network trusts caller-id and there are points in which an end-user can inject a fake caller-id) still there, this will (in my opinion) not stop the real fraudsters who like to use fake caller-id because it makes them harder to trace. But all I have to go on is the article, so I might be wrong about the technical issue not being adressed. Koos van den Hout -- Koos van den Hout Homepage: http://idefix.net/~koos/ PGP keyid DSS/1024 0xF0D7C263 Webprojects: Camp Wireless http://www.camp-wireless.org/ The Virtual Bookcase http://www.virtualbookcase.com/ Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 12:24:05 -0800 (PST) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: NYS "bill" in works to outlaw phone ID spoofing Message-ID: <f46ae43e-19c1-4f00-b22d-f689779cdc69@q23g2000yqd.googlegroups.com> On Feb 28, 11:17 pm, danny burstein <dan...@panix.com> wrote: > If the bill is signed into law, phone spoofers could be fined up to $2,000 > per call, subject to an aggregate amount of $100,000 for all illegal calls > placed within a 72-hour period. This is a good idea and a start, but unfortunately I don't have much hope for it. --Telecom lobbyists will fight it either defeating it entirely or watering it down to make it worthless. --Spoofers will go ahead and spoof anyway knowing the odds of them being identified, caught, and actually prosecuted are very low. Today, it's illegal for telemarketers to call nursing homes, cell phones and people on the 'do not call' lists but they do so anyway for those reasons. The baby bells have Call Trace (*57) but for some reason they strongly discourage its use. They don't publicize it. They charge a steep fee for each use. They do nothing unless there are a long series of calls; and even then they dump it over to the local police. They don't want it used for sales abusiveness. I wonder if the competing local phone companies and VOIP carriers even support *57 or would know what to do if a complaint came in. Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 14:32:16 -0600 From: John Mayson <john@mayson.us> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: NYS "bill" in works to outlaw phone ID spoofing Message-ID: <6645152a1003011232t695c435bl2f01cd2f0dec8b37@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 10:17 PM, danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> wrote: > > Callers who attempt to defraud others may start to think twice > before dialing. Legislation that would prohibit callers from hiding > or falsifying their caller ID to harass or defraud recipients is > making its way through the state Assembly and Senate. Any guesses how they plan to enforce this? Let's suppose this passes and I get a spoofed phone call. What's the next step? Dial 9-1-1 and get a crack team of phone spoofing detectives on the case? Something tells me it'll involve the recipient of the spoofed call to go to great lengths and expense to track down the source and because the state government in New York (and other states) is so broke they won't even think about pursuing it unless it involved fraud costing a large sum of money. And I'm sure shortly before an election the attorney general will brag about busting a phone spoofing ring and then we won't hear anything about the law again. John -- John Mayson <john@mayson.us> http://www.linkedin.com/in/jmayson Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 14:15:39 +0100 From: "earle robinson" <earler.remove@remove.gmail.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Speaking of microwave... Message-ID: <021801cab941$4a943480$dfbc9d80$@com> Please mask my return address. LaGuardia, while mayor until 1945, changed the name of 6th Avenue [to] Avenue of the Americas. [It was a] mistake because it was a cumbersome name, and everyone still said 6th Avenue. Even LaGuardia admitted the error, alas never corrected. Thus, other than for postal addresses, no one speaks of Avenue of the Americas. -er ***** Moderator's Note ***** If you want your email address masked, please put "[obfuscate]" in the subject line of your post. Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:23:50 -0500 From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Speaking of microwave... Message-ID: <op.u8wlh02go63xbg@acer250.gateway.2wire.net> On Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:15:39 -0500, earle robinson <earler.remove@remove.gmail.com> wrote: > LaGuardia, while mayor until 1945, changed the name of 6th Avenue [to] > Avenue of the Americas. [It was a] mistake because it was a cumbersome > name, and everyone still said 6th Avenue. Even LaGuardia admitted the > error, alas never corrected. Thus, other than for postal addresses, no > one speaks of Avenue of the Americas. And a later mayor made the same mistake for a stretch of 7th Avenue, hoping to dub it Fashion Avenue. Only the street signs themselves now say it that way, not the locals ... nor even the tourists :-) . Cheers, -- tlvp -- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 09:55:13 -0800 From: <dreamsofowls@sbcglobal.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Catalina Island to the SoCal mainland Message-ID: <5CCD284EE11A410EBAB0C70B07CBF2B6@binkley> > There is a system running up in the mountains north east of Sacramento, > I know nothing about it, but I wonder how it can work with all the trees. I'm north and east of Sacramento in Georgetown, CA. A tiny hamlet of 1,000 souls. Served by a remote 5ESS from Auburn Main. This provides DSL and ISDN service with generator backup. This has copper to a hill on the edge of town with the radio that points to Auburn. No, the tower isn't very tall. On the other side of the road is another hill. That hill has the a tower that runs the local emergency and water company radio. Then Verizon came to town and put their tower on the same spot. AT&T cable TV also get's a feed over a radio link as well. The fiber link from Cool to Georgetown stops about 5-8 miles away. The radio is pretty stable except under heavy heavy rain. No, it wasn't that easy, I've not added all the shenanigans from Verizon and the local company. As Verizon tech support told me, you're too close to the tower to get a signal, you'll have to replace your telephone. But it works fine in Roseville CA, right under the tower there.. Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:00:23 -0800 From: Steven <diespammers@killspammers.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Catalina Island to the SoCal mainland Message-ID: <hmhgub$pkf$1@news.eternal-september.org> dreamsofowls@sbcglobal.net wrote: >> There is a system running up in the mountains north east of Sacramento, >> I know nothing about it, but I wonder how it can work with all the trees. > > I'm north and east of Sacramento in Georgetown, CA. A tiny hamlet > of 1,000 souls. Served by a remote 5ESS from Auburn Main. This > provides DSL and ISDN service with generator backup. This has > copper to a hill on the edge of town with the radio that points to > Auburn. No, the tower isn't very tall. On the other side of the > road is another hill. That hill has the a tower that runs the local > emergency and water company radio. Then Verizon came to town and > put their tower on the same spot. AT&T cable TV also get's a feed > over a radio link as well. > > The fiber link from Cool to Georgetown stops about 5-8 miles away. > > The radio is pretty stable except under heavy heavy rain. > > No, it wasn't that easy, I've not added all the shenanigans from > Verizon and the local company. As Verizon tech support told me, > you're too close to the tower to get a signal, you'll have to > replace your telephone. But it works fine in Roseville CA, right > under the tower there.. Years ago (before I retired from GTE/Verizon), I was working in Idyllwild and right across from the CO there was a cell site, We were unable to make cell calls from the CO, we had to go across the street, we were told it was because we were below the tower. The area I'm talking about is Challenge/Brownsville, I believe there is a remote 5E in Challenge, they have no DSL and no plans for now, maybe U-verse later, right now it is dial-up or some really expensive services. Even Cells do not work there. -- The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2010 I Kill Spammers, Inc., A Rot in Hell. Co. Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 16:13:50 -0500 From: "Cryderman, Charles" <Charles.Cryderman@globalcrossing.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Catalina Island to the SoCal mainland Message-ID: <2A3BCEC6F05B404FA87F92729385837D01CB2E82DD@EVS22.ams.gblxint.com> Me: > Back in the eighties when I was station with the US Army on Okinawa, > Japan we had a microwave link to the Naha harbor where are biggest > issue was tides. A ship would be loading/unloading and when the tide > came in would block the path. So if you were on duty you'd want to > check both the tide chart as well as the harbor schedule. Stephen <stephen_h...@xyzworld.com> said: > The other little gem is reflections off the sea. > Get the beam path wrong and you get destructive interference at some > point in the tide... GlowingBlueMist: > And I thought we had fun at Ramstein AFB in Germany with a microwave > link shooting across the runway. Everything worked perfectly until > those pesky C5 planes parked in the wrong place. The tail fin stuck > up higher than the microwave beam. We had to call the tower to have > them "move the &#^%~* plane" a couple of times a month. Me: > The joy of Military service. In Frankfurt, Germany we had a 10 mile > shot to a Air Force site on Feldberg Mountain. Low power; only 1k > watts but we would keep getting these intermittent issues. Just a > short walk from our site there was a helicopter landing point for > the 3 star in charge of US Army's Fifth Corp. Anyway, for our > softball team this field was also our practice diamond. One day we > are out there and in comes the helicopter (General coming or going, > we never know) and we watch it. It comes curving in and then the > whole craft starts to shake. One of our radio techs looks over to > the site and notices that it flew right though the path of our shot > to the Air Force on the mountain. Seeing as we can't continue > playing SB until they take off our guy that was paying attention > runs to the site to see if the normal hits we'd get on that shot > occurred when the copter flew by. He comes running back out to let > us know he figured out why we have had these issues with such a low > power and short shot. We all head over to see if we could chat with > the pilot and proceed to tell him about what went down. It was like > a light bulb going off over this Captain's head. He tells us that > for years when coming in to this landing pad they have all the > electronics go nuts in the aircraft. Needless to say; they change > their landing pattern. We suggested maybe have some test done at the > hospital would be a good idea too. Now same subject; different story: David Clayton told us: > I recall a story an ex-workmate once told me (years ago now) when he > was in the Australian Army in the late 1960's and part of a squad > that set up mobile microwave point-to-point links. > They (apparently) once were told to set up a link from Point "A" to > Point "B", but unfortunately there was a hill in the way blocking > the line of sight, so (apparently) their new officer - when informed > of the problem and how microwave links only work when the dishes can > "see" each other came up with a solution - and ordered them to take > two dishes to the hill and just connect them > back-to-back...... directly..... with no repeater equipment..... > It is always a lot easier in the military to follow orders than try to > argue with your "superiors", so they did what they were > told.... with predictable results..... :-)" And our Moderator's Note: > Well, that sounds like it might have worked with a big enough dish. We > used to put reflectors in the "Near field" of microwave stations, so > that the actual antenna could be at ground level, with just a > "billboard" on the tower. The FCC finally outlawed them; I don't > know why. Anyway, is what David describes possible in theory? Me again: Again back in the days I spent in Frankfurt we had one radio shot that was 100kw (yes, one hundred thousand watts) that bounced off a mountain on its way out of town heading to Heidelberg. These were known as "diffraction" radio shots. Yes, the good old days when one pair of wire meant one voice line. Chip Cryderman TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecom- munications 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 Bill Horne. 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. The Telecom Digest is moderated by Bill Horne. Contact information: Bill Horne Telecom Digest 43 Deerfield Road Sharon MA 02067-2301 781-784-7287 bill at horne dot net Subscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=subscribe telecom Unsubscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=unsubscribe telecom 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 oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Copyright (C) 2009 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. 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 The Telecom digest (11 messages)