---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <004101d3f252$3e2ddef0$ba899cd0$@nc.rr.com> Date: Wed, 23 May 2018 00:55:13 -0400 From: Bob Goudreau <BobGoudreau@nc.rr.com> Subject: Re: Verizon Flirts With DSL Usage Caps in Virginia In <003601d3f08c$1ab60320$50220960$@nc.rr.com>, Bill Horne wrote: >>> Users in our forums recently discovered that Verizon has begun >>> conducting a new "trial" in Virginia. As part of this trial, customers >>> on DSL lines at speeds of 500 kbps to 1.5 Mbps are now informed >>> "usage" is limited to 150 gigabytes. Users on DSL speeds between 1.5 >>> Mbps and 3 Mbps are now told those lines only feature >>> 250 GB of "usage." >> > Bob Goudreau wrote: > I'm presuming that these caps are monthly limits. Even at 8 bits per byte > (ignoring error-checking, overhead, etc.), the maximum that a 1.5 Mbps > connection could download over the course of an 31-day month is slightly > more than 502 GB (and that's using "G" to mean a mere 1,000,000,000 > instead of 2^30; if you use the latter definition, the total is > only 468 GB). > > So is Verizon really worried about customers who are downloading data > at a flat-out rate for almost 8 hours a day? Telecom Digest Moderator Bill Horne added: > 1.5Mbps / 8 = 0.1875 MBps > 0.1875 MBps * 3600 = 675 MB per hour. > 675 MB per hour * 24 * 31 = 502,200 MB per month (which matches > the figure given above) > > However - > > 675 MB per hour * 8 * 31 = 167,400 MB per month > > So, downloading for 8 hours/day gives a much smaller total than doing > it for all 24 hours in a day. Well yeah, that's precisely why I picked the "almost 8 hours a day" scenario to illustrate my point: that's how many hours it would take to hit the 150 GB/month cap, if a customer was downloading at maximum speed. If a customer was maxing out for a full 24 hours a day, they would exceed the cap by 200+ percent. But even the 8-hour scenario doesn't seem very realistic, and it's therefore hard to imagine that there are actually customers who are even approaching that cap, much less exceeding it. Hence our shared suspicion about Verizon's real motives. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ Message-ID: <12630BCA-7CA9-4333-81A8-D734F084277D@roscom.com> Date: Tue, 22 May 2018 23:31:52 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Speculative Store Bypass explained: what it is, how it works Speculative Store Bypass explained: what it is, how it works In January, the world became aware of a new class of security threat that allows attackers to exploit common industry-wide performance optimizations of modern microprocessors (aka chips). Almost every kind of computing device was affected - from servers, workstations, and laptops, to tablets, smartphones, and other gadgets. As such, "Meltdown" and "Spectre" had a significant impact across the industry. https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/speculative-store-bypass-explained-what-it-how-it-works ***** Moderator's Note ***** Redhat is one of the companies which distributes Linux - albeit with a heavy handed tendency to try to make gullible purchasing managers think that "Redhat" is a spearate, proprietary operating system. I prefer Ubuntu, but YMMV. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <195A6ED2-20CF-4C57-BD3D-E1FF36FB7B11@roscom.com> Date: Mon, 21 May 2018 22:09:34 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: How the Math Men Overthrew the Mad Men How the Math Men Overthrew the Mad Men nce, Mad Men ruled advertising. They've now been eclipsed by Math Men - the engineers and data scientists whose province is machines, algorithms, pureed data, and artificial intelligence. Yet Math Men are beleaguered, as Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated when he humbled himself before Congress, in April. Math Men's adoration of data - coupled with their truculence and an arrogant conviction that their "science" is nearly flawless - has aroused government anger, much as Microsoft did two decades ago. https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/how-the-math-men-overthrew-the-mad-men ------------------------------ Message-ID: <C6A7AB44-D77B-4A51-A847-532BB8E51531@roscom.com> Date: Mon, 21 May 2018 22:40:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Teen phone monitoring app leaked thousands of user passwords Teen phone monitoring app leaked thousands of user passwords Exclusive: A server stored teenagers' Apple ID email addresses and plaintext passwords. https://www.zdnet.com/article/teen-phone-monitoring-app-leaks-thousands-of-users-data/ ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Thu, 24 May 2018