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The Telecom Digest for May 19, 2013
Volume 32 : Issue 108 : "text" Format
====== 31 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
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Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 10:05:57 -0400
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon Direct Marketing
Message-ID: <51978AC5.3030309@horne.net>
On 5/17/2013 7:11 AM, David LaRue wrote:
> I received an email from Verizon about my FIOS account. It stated that
> they are now direct marketing with non-personal data, including my home
> address.
If your home address isn't personal, I wonder what Verizon thinks is?
> There was an opt out link that didn't work. Presumably this affects
> web ads though it was not spsecifically stated.
This affects every ad that Ma Bell delivers on behalf of those who pay
the old whore to bypass your bypassing software. The marketeers are
reaching for your lizard brain, seeking the perfect combination of shame
and guilt and superstition that will get your wallet open and transform
it into a pipe from your employer to all the companies that want to sell
you back your fear.
I know this, because when I tried to find "my" webpage on the
verizon.net site to confirm that "my" webpage is still only available
via a hard-to-find, hard-to-use, complicated series of conflicting
instructions, I wound up at the verizon.net splash page.
The screen lit up with a picture of a child reaching toward the
camera, containing text that said "*Your* Internet ... (something)",
and then it flashed (pun intended) to another picture of a
large-breasted woman with text that said "Don't wait until you get
home ... ", and then to another picture that showed a male adult
pointing to an electronic tablet while holding a pigtailed child
dressed in a pink garment, with text that said "*Master* your services
...". (Emphasis added)
Verizon doesn't want you to have a web page. They want you to have an
electronic orgasm while buying more and more useless shite from
everyone who pays them. Face the Telescreen, Comrade!
YMMV. HAND. HTH.
Bill
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 09:50:32 -0400
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Chips in credit cards
Message-ID: <51978728.1010308@horne.net>
On 5/17/2013 12:10 AM, John Levine wrote:
> In article<1368718244.35293.YahooMailClassic@web125206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> you write:
>> I received a routine renewal of a credit card carlier this week
>> that included a funny symbol on the front and an enclosure with it
>> that said it included a chip so it could be used in other places
>> that reuire it such as Canada, Mexico and the U.K.
> The chip is easy enough to see, a fingernail sized thing with
> obvious contact pads.
That's what my TWIC card looks like. They told me that my biometric
data is encoded in it: will credit cards have similar info?
Bill
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
Date: Fri, 17 May 2013 19:33:02 -0700 (PDT)
From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Tell Verizon to bring back FTP
Message-ID: <ab394a3b-f5fb-46a0-a678-5c3ee405f9af@a6g2000vbf.googlegroups.com>
On May 17, 9:44 am, "John Levine" <jo...@iecc.com> wrote:
> I agree that the chances of traffic being sniffed on the way from your
> home broadband to VZ are pretty low, but people update their web sites
> from coffee shop wifi which is notoriously sniffable.
Seems to me the problem is doing mission critical work (like updating
a web site or conducting commerce) from seriously "sniffable"
locations, like coffee shops and the like.
As to FTP in general, I agree with Mr. Horne's comments, and do not
agree with Mr. Scheidt about obsolescence. As Mr. Horne pointed out,
frequent upgrading to stay "modern" is a cost in time, software, and
hardware that not everybody has.
Historically, in the mainframe world, great efforts were made to
maintain backward compatibility for decades in order to protect the
software investments of the customers and end users. That also
applied in the telecom world and broadcast world.
Many companies are discovering that rewriting their legacy "green-on-
glass" mainframe systems into something modern is extremely costly and
disruptive to the organization.
Date: Fri, 17 May 2013 20:32:35 -0400
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Tell Verizon to bring back FTP
Message-ID: <17g0hy84gqm6s$.6ha5l2ut38ob$.dlg@40tude.net>
On Thu, 16 May 2013 21:36:23 -0400, Bill Horne wrote:
> ... The problem is that most web-design programs made before 2000 are only
> coded for ftp, ...
That's why many web designers use FileZilla (a SourceForge project attuned
to many operating systems) to transfer their files securely -- FileZilla
supports natively three different variations on a secure FTP(*) -- it
suffices to point the local panel in the FileZilla UI to the local
directory holding what your web-design programs produced, and the remote
panel to the remote directory you want to transfer those files to, and then
to drag'n'drop the files needing FTP-age.
HTH. Cheers, -- tlvp
(*) SFTP -- SSH File Transfer Protocol; FTPS -- FTP over implicit TLS/SSL;
and FTPES -- FTP over explicit TLS/SSL (using FileZilla's descriptions)
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
Date: Fri, 17 May 2013 20:17:40 -0400
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Chips in credit cards
Message-ID: <e76bwykc7ykr$.ip93e20ljnmi.dlg@40tude.net>
On Thu, 16 May 2013 08:30:44 -0700 (PDT), Wes Leatherock wrote of a ... :
> ... credit card ... that included a funny symbol on the front ...
Something like four concentric wave-front ripples propagating out to the
right? code-named "blink"? If so, that's a contactless rf chip, as John
Levine described, enabling both you to pay by "waving" you card before a
payment terminal (as opposed to swiping the card through it), and astute
malefactors to simulate your having "waved" your card before their
(illicit) payment terminals, thereby gaining your (unwilling) custom :-) .
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
Date: Fri, 17 May 2013 20:38:27 -0400
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Tell Verizon to bring back FTP
Message-ID: <80nbise94pvt$.j2oi9k4x6zpp.dlg@40tude.net>
On Fri, 17 May 2013 03:46:14 +0000 (UTC), David Scheidt wrote:
> ... or they want to kill the service entirely.
That was certainly the motive of at&t WorldNet -- first they discouraged
FTP except on the part of folks dialed in to their own dial-up-modem pools,
though they had earlier allowed FTPES through DSL; later they dropped their
Personal Web Page offering entirely (with about 6 weeks' notice, at that).
Remember: forewarned is fore-armed. Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
Date: Fri, 17 May 2013 20:53:59 -0400
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Tell Verizon to bring back FTP
Message-ID: <1dcb81zuhdroh$.jv4tadu94dsr$.dlg@40tude.net>
On Fri, 17 May 2013 08:20:38 -0400, Bill Horne wrote:
> "Security" is relative: given that the material is, by its nature,
> intended for public distribution, I don't see why keeping it "secure"
> would be important. If you're referring to the ftp software itself
> being insecure, I disagree: some extensions have been problematic,
> but the basic functions are no more "insecure" than http. Any
> software needs maintenance: security and bug fixes are the bread and
> butter of the sysadmin's day, and ftp daemons are no exception.
I hate arguing with an overwhelmingly friendly and knowledgable
sysadmin/moderator, but let me nonetheless point out that:
1) precisely because the web matter to be FTPed is intended for public
distribution, it's vital that no malicious malefactor be in a position to
tamper with the files -- not before they're in place, as might occur with
an insecure http-based transfer process; nor after they're in place, as
might happen with an insecure FTP ritual if an interloper could sniff your
web-host AUTH data from your FTP session, thereafter to log in as you and
replace stuff willy-nilly;
2) just as http is insecure (as compared with https), and there are
insecure and secure variations of the POP3 and IMAP and SMTP mail protocols
(and the NNTP net news transfer protocol), so one wants to be using a
secure version of FTP as urgently as one wants https for inline banking;
and 3) FileZilla itself keeps itself maintained with fresh security patches
and bug fixes, as must all working software.
Apologies if my best intentions came off as carping or trolling -- not what
I had in mind at all. Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 10:55:03 -0700
From: SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Chips in credit cards
Message-ID: <5197c077$0$52751$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>
On 5/16/2013 8:30 AM, Wes Leatherock wrote:
>
> I received a routine renewal of a credit card carlier this week that
> included a funny symbol on the front and an enclosure with it that
> said it included a chip so it could be used in other places that
> reuire it such as Canada, Mexico and the U.K.
And most of Europe. My friends just were in Europe with a chipless
credit card and was a huge hassle to not be able to use it at so many
places.
Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 17:47:30 -0400
From: unknown <arnie.goetchius@undisclosed.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon phasing out copper
Message-ID: <kn8sls$glo$1@dont-email.me>
[Moderator snip]
> tlvp wrote:
> Verizon says they won't re-build the copper plant in Mantoloking NJ
> after most of it was destroyed by Sandy. Instead they are providing
> telephone service through their new service called Verizon Voice Link.
Looks like Comcast is stepping up to the [plate] in Mantoloking
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013305170097
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