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The Telecom Digest for June 11, 2013
Volume 32 : Issue 126 : "text" Format
====== 31 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
|
Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
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See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details
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Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2013 14:50:03 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: White House Plays Down Data Program
Message-ID: <p06240813cdda7eaafa19@[10.0.1.13]>
White House Plays Down Data Program
By JONATHAN WEISMAN and DAVID E. SANGER
June 8, 2013
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration tried Saturday to marshal new
evidence in defense of its collection of private Internet and
telephone data, arguing that a secret program called Prism is simply
an "internal government computer system" designed to sort through
court-supervised collection of data, and that Congress has been
briefed 13 times on the programs since 2009.
After rushing to declassify some carefully selected descriptions of
the programs, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national
intelligence, conceded for the first time that the Prism program
existed. But in a statement, after denouncing the leak of the data to
The Guardian and The Washington Post, Mr. Clapper insisted it was
"not an undisclosed collection or data mining program." Instead, he
said it was a computer system to "facilitate" the collection of
foreign intelligence that had been authorized by Congress.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/us/politics/officials-say-congress-was-fully-briefed-on-surveillance.html?pagewanted=all
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 00:40:12 -0400
From: T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Cellco cheating with Prepaid?
Message-ID: <MPG.2c1f22b9efe9fb0e989e08@news.eternal-september.org>
In article <kot90m$56o$1@reader1.panix.com>, dannyb@panix.com says...
>
> In <1370529355.30421.YahooMailClassic@web121905.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > This is in contrast to the way some operators work. In Canada (on
> > Fido) for postpaid service you are charged exact billing and only are
> > charged for actual off-hook time. This is also the norm for many
> > foreign GSM operators. I'm guessing that send-to-end billing is a
> > remnant of analog mobile calling since (I'm guessing) there was no
> > "supervision" available for analog systems.
>
> > The domestic operators saw no reason to change the system since it
> > helped them make more revenue even though with today's sophisticated
> > systems exact billing is easily possible. i
>
> Omnipoint used to charge from answer to "end". They switched
> to "send to end" (rounded up to the minute [a]) very roughly
> five years ago. (Which is probably ten by now...).
>
> [a] With the notable exception of Nextel, which used to
> round up to the tenth of a minute (six seconds), all major
> US carriers have always done full minute segments. Then again,
> so did AT&T in the wired phone days.
>
>
> ---
> _____________________________________________________
> Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
> dannyb@panix.com
> [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> ISTR that the one-minute billing increments were a result of the
> mechanical time-recording and reporting systems of the
> manual-cord-board days.
>
> Bill Horne
> Moderator
Interesting about OmniPoint - they switch to VoiceStream and then got
sold off to T-Mobil. Now T-Mobil bought MetroPCS so I'm once again going
to be with Ominpoint/VS/T-Mobil.
Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2013 14:52:00 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Credibility Crunch for Tech Companies Over Prism
Message-ID: <p06240814cdda7f16136e@[10.0.1.13]>
Credibility Crunch for Tech Companies Over Prism
By AMIR EFRATI, SHIRA OVIDE and EVELYN M. RUSLI
June 8, 2013
With Silicon Valley's credibility in protecting consumer privacy on
the line, many of the largest Web companies on Friday emphasized they
aren't giving the U.S. government a direct pipe into their networks
as part of a secret program to monitor foreign nationals.
But the denials of involvement by Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and
others, which come at the same time the Obama administration
confirmed the existence of such a program, raised questions about how
data is ending up in the hands of the government.
The issues are especially acute for companies who make their business
by collecting and processing customers' most personal data and
secrets.
Google CEO Larry Page and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said in
a blog post that the company doesn't give U.S. government
investigators "open-ended access" to its network and hadn't "joined"
a program known as Prism and run by the National Security Agency.
The executives said Google only hands over data based on
legally-authorized requests that it reviews individually.
U.S. officials briefed on the matter said Friday that the NSA
receives copies of data through a system they set up with a court
order. They don't have direct access to the company computers, those
people said.
...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324798904578531672407107306.html
***** Moderator's Note *****
"Most personal data and secrets"? The Wall Street Journal used to have
a higher standard for its reportage: now, it seems, it has sunk to the
fear-based marketing and hype used by television news to sell soap.
Is the Wall Street Journal now advertising soap?
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:16:26 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Credibility Crunch for Tech Companies Over Prism
Message-ID: <kp51la$2o2o$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
In article <p06240814cdda7f16136e@[10.0.1.13]>,
Bill Horne added:
>"Most personal data and secrets"? The Wall Street Journal used to have
>a higher standard for its reportage: now, it seems, it has sunk to the
>fear-based marketing and hype used by television news to sell soap.
Seems pretty accurate to me. I think you're a bit out of touch with
how people (especially those younger than you or I) use online
services. Most people are pretty oblivious to the privacy
implications of handing all their data over to an unaccountable third
party (or if not oblivious, value convenience more than individual
liberty).
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:34:17 -0400
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Credibility Crunch for Tech Companies Over Prism
Message-ID: <20130610213416.GA2162@telecom.csail.mit.edu>
On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 05:16:26PM +0000, Garrett Wollman wrote:
> In article <p06240814cdda7f16136e@[10.0.1.13]>,
> Bill Horne added:
>
> >"Most personal data and secrets"? The Wall Street Journal used to have
> >a higher standard for its reportage: now, it seems, it has sunk to the
> >fear-based marketing and hype used by television news to sell soap.
>
> Seems pretty accurate to me. I think you're a bit out of touch with
> how people (especially those younger than you or I) use online
> services. Most people are pretty oblivious to the privacy
> implications of handing all their data over to an unaccountable third
> party (or if not oblivious, value convenience more than individual
> liberty).
I don't count the gossip, celebrity worship, petty vendettas, or other
material I've seen on email queues and facepage sites as being in any
sense a "secret" or "personal"; AFAICT, it's just banal keyboarding
done by self-absorbed children.
The WSJ reporter hyped his story by pretending that anyone over the
age of Thirty would care which child "hooked up" with which: it's the
classic "Film at Eleven!" puffery that characterizes your local "If it
bleeds, it leads" Eyewitless News.
Bill
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
Date: Sun, 09 Jun 2013 20:55:01 -0400
From: Ron <ron@see.below>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Cellco cheating with Prepaid?
Message-ID: <4m8ar811r4tnkt9vboh9p8rbs22h2avto4@4ax.com>
Frank Stearns <franks.pacifier.com@pacifier.net> wrote:
>wrote to Tracfone CS today, requesting an itemized call log. Wow! What
>an amazing set of requirements they demand to obtain such a list, even
>though my old cell carriers and LD carriers provided that as a matter
>of course. These extra hoops (and no online way to view the logs) adds
>to the smell factor a bit.
I'm really not surprised at the extra hoops you have to jump
through. Your other lines were tied to you and your billing
address. Your Tracfone is essentially anonymous. Anybody could be
asking for that log. Not handing over your information to any
random person who asks seems like a feature, not a bug. Proving
you're entitled to the information is not so simple a task.
--
Ron
user rrcnom.de.plume
in domain antichef.com
Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2013 15:12:52 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Everyday risks: when statistics can't predict the future
Message-ID: <p0624081ecdda83e132ed@[10.0.1.13]>
Everyday risks: when statistics can't predict the future
Statistics, it seems, can reveal our chances of being affected by
anything from crime to serious illness. But number-crunching itself
is a hazardous business
Michael Blastland and David Spiegelhalter
The Observer, Saturday 8 June 2013
We love data. For the past two years we have crunched numbers about
dangers of every kind. And there are plenty of dangers about.
But - a big but - we're certainly not calculating machines. In fact,
if there were such a thing as a risk-calculating machine that claimed
to give you objective odds on danger, we'd be the first to warn of
malfunctions. That's partly because although we think the numbers
matter, they can never be the final word: the stories people tell are
big influences on their sense of where danger lies - and why
shouldn't they be? - since neither source of evidence, neither
numbers nor stories is perfect. Each has strengths and weaknesses.
This is a perhaps surprising conclusion from writers at times almost
geeky enough to have two hoods on our anoraks; that we think risk is
seldom objective, nor solely a property of the world out there, but
intimately bound up with our own perspectives, and so personal
perspectives on danger are, usually, perfectly reasonable. More than
that, we think they're essential. In fact, we think that one of the
hazards with hazards is the way that some people use risk numbers
almost as if they can foretell your fate. We prefer to think of risk
as typically more like an uncertain bet on a horse using scraps of
imperfect information mixed with your own judgment: the horse might
come in. Or it might not?
So there are plenty of ways in which our sense of risk can be
distorted, plenty of ways in which people can get the dangers wrong,
and plenty more in which the numbers can be deceptive, too.
In the end, if we had to offer advice to the wary about risk, it
would be to try to get to know the data that matter to you, get to
know your own mind and the stories that influence you, and so learn
how both stories and numbers can help? and deceive. Then do what you
feel like.
Here are just five more of the hazards about hazards.
...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jun/09/risk-statistics-data-blastland-spiegelhalter
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:25:34 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Everyday risks: when statistics can't predict the future
Message-ID: <kp526e$2o2o$3@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
In article <p0624081ecdda83e132ed@[10.0.1.13]>,
Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> quotes an Observer piece entitled:
>Everyday risks: when statistics can't predict the future
Of course, statistics can't predict the future. This is well-known
to statisticians and philosophers (to whom it's known as "the problem
of induction"), but apparently not to the fine sub-editors at the
Observer.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2013 15:10:03 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Web tool assesses crime risk in an instant
Message-ID: <p0624081dcdda835812f4@[10.0.1.13]>
Web tool assesses crime risk in an instant
By Mark Sullivan, CORRESPONDENT
Sunday, June 9, 2013
WORCESTER - With the click of a mouse, there appears on the computer
screen what looks like a weather map. Swirls of green and yellow and
red resemble storm systems.
This isn't a meteorologist's chart, but a map of relative crime risks
across a swath of Worcester.
Andrew Schiller, founder and chief executive officer of Location
Inc., a big data analysis company, is demonstrating a new product
that instantly can assess the security risks at any address in the
country.
The tool, called SecurityGauge, uses crime, geographic and
demographic data from 17,000 local law enforcement agencies and other
sources to produce a "holistic picture" of the risks at a given
location within 10 meters in any direction.
...
http://www.telegram.com/article/20130609/NEWS/306099983/1237
***** Moderator's Note *****
Tools such as this one depend on accurate information for their
success, and if a community chooses not to report crimes, then it will
show an artificially low crime rate, and also a lowered "danger"
rating.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2013 14:53:45 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Price-gouging cable companies are our latter-day robber barons
Message-ID: <p06240815cdda7f6926e4@[10.0.1.13]>
Price-gouging cable companies are our latter-day robber barons
Monopolistic cable providers make internet access an unaffordable
luxury for tens of millions of Americans
Heidi Moore
guardian.co.uk
4 June 2013
Last year, about 1% of American households cut off their internet
service. That's not as surprising as experts may suggest.
The internet - which promised to connect all Americans with
everything from educational opportunities to Facebook status updates
- has become, unfortunately, a luxury even for the middle class.
Cable companies that have functioned as oligopolies have made it that
way.
Naturally, more Americans would cut off internet service considering
how absurdly expensive it has become to pay to stay connected. The
median income for a household in the United States is just over
$50,000, which has to support a family with basics like food,
mortgage or rent, a car and gas. Inflation has steadily driven up the
price of food and gas, which has meant that American wages have
actually dropped since the recession. School costs, healthcare and
other costs mean many families depend on credit cards on occasion.
That doesn't leave a lot of room for splashy purchases.
Yet, strangely, internet access - which is a necessity in homes where
children get their homework online and parents may telecommute - has
become the splashiest purchase of all. In many big cities, internet
access can easily become a budgetary sinkhole for families. Think of
$100 a month for cable and internet, another $50 a month for a
smartphone, $40 a month for an iPad or a similar device; if you
travel, add $70 a month for some kind of wireless hotspot like
Verizon's Mi-Fi.
...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/04/price-gouging-cable-companies
***** Moderator's Note *****
Wow: I thought I was the only one who noticed. It's nice to see that
the Guardian is still allowed to point out the obvious: this reminds
me of when I was a teenager, and how I used to listen to the BBC
shortwave broadcast to get the news.
Of course, this begs the question of just how obvious the
U.S. economic debacle is to the rest of the world.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:22:41 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Price-gouging cable companies are our latter-day robber barons
Message-ID: <kp5211$2o2o$2@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
In article <p06240815cdda7f6926e4@[10.0.1.13]>,
Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> quoted Guardian journalist Heidi
Moore, who wrote:
>Yet, strangely, internet access - which is a necessity in homes where
>children get their homework online and parents may telecommute - has
>become the splashiest purchase of all. In many big cities, internet
>access can easily become a budgetary sinkhole for families. Think of
>$100 a month for cable and internet, another $50 a month for a
>smartphone, $40 a month for an iPad or a similar device; if you
>travel, add $70 a month for some kind of wireless hotspot like
>Verizon's Mi-Fi.
Most of these are not even remotely necessary. You can do totally do
without "an iPad or a similar device" (I do), and while I don't travel
as much as expense-account journos do, I have never had the need for a
portable wireless hotspot. (If I did, I would turn on that function
in my smartphone, which costs closer to $80 a month for a relatively
minimal but unlimited-data postpaid plan.) I have cable, but
television is not by any means a necessity of life.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
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'.
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