29 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
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The Telecom Digest for July 25, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 184 : "text" Format
====== 29 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== |
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Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2011 23:41:27 -0500 (CDT)
From: John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Thai telcos warned on towers in Cambodia
Message-ID: <alpine.OSX.2.00.1107232340400.1840@john-maysons-macbook.local>
THE Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications has ordered Thai telecom
companies to halt unauthorised operations inside the Cambodian border,
according to an announcement.
Several unnamed Thai mobile service providers have constructed towers
inside the Cambodian border without authorisation, said Ministry Secretary
of State Sarak Khan.
More here:
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011071850451/Business/thai-telcos-warned-on-towers-in-cambodia.html
or
http://goo.gl/3qLwM
--
John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
Austin, Texas, USA
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2011 14:27:24 -0500
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Automatic License Plate Readers track your every move
Message-ID: <n5GdnROyU5ABvbbTnZ2dnUVZ_qydnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>
In article <20110723151658.GF9895@telecom.csail.mit.edu>,
Bill Horne <bill@QRM.horne.net> wrote:
>On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 10:12:06AM +0000, Koos van den Hout wrote:
>> Kade Crockford <kcrockford@remove-this.aclum.org> wrote in
>> <CA4C597D.2D23%kcrockford@remove-this.aclum.org>:
>>
>> > ***** Moderator's Note *****
>>
>> > The recent story about Automatic License Plate Reader technology
>> > piqued my curiosity, so I sent an email to the author of the blog,
>> > Kade Crockford of the ACLU of Massachusetts, and asked her to answer
>> > some questions for the Digest. My questions to Ms. Crockford are the
>> > ones shown as quoted text in her email reply.
>>
>> >> 2. Does the ALPR technology have the capability to make certain
>> >> license plates "invisible", so that they don't show up in traffic
>> >> scans or other information gathering? If so, who controls which
>> >> license plates are immune from being tracked?
>>
>> > To my knowledge, no, but Iım not sure I fully understand your question.
>>
>> Were you trying to get to the point of certain government officials wanting
>> to be completely exempt from any vehicle tracking? I can imagine certain
>> types of USA government officials (FBI, Secret service, NSA) really not
>> wanting to be tracked because otherwise they would have to trust every
>> single person with access to this system to not leak that information.
>>
>> But public knowledge of such an exemption would immediately completely
>> undermine the 'trust us, we will not abuse this' needed to get the public
>> to accept this. If highranking government officials do not trust it, why
>> should the public.
>>
>> Personally I think the only way data like this is safe from abuse is not
>> to collect it.
>
>Koos,
>
>Knowing about abuses of a system might undermine public trust in other
>countries, and I wish it were so here, but (at least in the U.S.), the
>public chooses to be fearfully ignorant about the way the government
>really works.
>
>In the U.S., license plates used by undercover policemen are not kept
>in the regular databases: they are issued and tracked by hand(1). That
>means that they are immune from citations, because there is no place
>to send the citations to, no name to lookup, etc.
snort <SNICKER>
Just what do you think happens when a uniformed officer runs a plate
and it comes back "not found" in the registration database?
To my certain knowledge, *forty*years*ago*, plates for unmarked/undercover
vehicles were in the database(s), registered to entities with at least
a superficial existence. "Deep undercover" officers usually had a fully-
established 'cover identity', and their vehicles were shown in their 'cover'
name.
Usually the only people who knew the record was 'fictitious' was the
person creating the fictional identity. Pretty much everything entered
the 'system' as a 'normal' transaction. e.g. a 'private individual'
purchases the vehicle, and registers it in the 'cover' name.
***** Moderator's Note *****
To my certain knowledge, Forty-plus years ago, it was done by hand in
Massachusetts. One assumes that computers have changed the procedure
somewhat, but the point remains: as a practical matter, it's
impossible to enforce parking citations issued for "secret" plates
unless the police department chooses to allow it.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2011 03:41:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: area code named beer
Message-ID: <d004cb5b-0868-4ad9-af74-171e312a1968@x12g2000yql.googlegroups.com>
On Jul 23, 1:04 pm, Lisa or Jeff <hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> On Jul 23, 10:39 am, Wes Leatherock <wleat...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > The Bell System had a list of approved names for each dial pull
> > arranged by the corresponding digits. When Anadarko, Okla. (Indian
> > City USA) was converted to dial the local leaders wanted "CHieftain,"
> > which was not on the approved list. So SWBT got, and received, an
> > exemption.
>
> > I assume names assigned before the list was issued were grandfathered.
>
> What's puzzling is that some names were grandfathered in, but others
> were still changed with the dial pull left the same.
>
> In Philadelphia, they had BAring 2, which was pronounced "bearing",
> and obviously not a good name for an exchange. But BAring 2 stayed
> until the end (and 222 remains to this day).
>
> When the second digit of an exchange was 9, some places used Y, as in
> HYacinth, HYatt, CYpress, LYric. While OYster probably wouldn't be
> mispelled, they did have troubles with HY dialed as HI.
>
> (One community in NJ had SWinburne, named for an old poet.)
>
> I'd like to know the last new name that was assigned to an
> exchange. Probably done in the 1960s. In some places, the transition
> was done slowly, for example, there was a TUrner 4 (884), but when 885
> was opened, it was given 885 instead of TU 5); lots of examples like
> that (ORchard 3, 6, 7 were joined by 671).
Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com in Message-ID: <bcc40aff-ddfe-42d1-
a4c7-d8296adabd66@d32g2000yqa.googlegroups.com> wrote:
> When the second digit of an exchange was 9, some places
> used Y, as in HYacinth, HYatt, CYpress, LYric....
> (One community in NJ had SWinburne, named for an old
> poet.)
Back when it was part of 713, Brazoria Telephone Company (Brazoria,
Texas) used SWift for its one and only NNX code, 798.
> lots of examples like that (ORchard 3, 6, 7 were joined
> by 671).
In Skokie, Illinois, ORchard even included Orchard 0. According to a
second-hand story, Director Assistance operators recited it as "oh are
oh."
Neal McLain
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2011 18:57:00 +0000 (UTC)
From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Most cellphone voice mail is vulnerable to hackers
Message-ID: <j0hpts$dh3$1@news.albasani.net>
Thor Lancelot Simon <tls@panix.com> wrote:
>Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>>Thor Lancelot Simon <tls@panix.com> wrote:
>>>David Clayton <dcstarbox-usenet@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>>>>I seem to remember that Voice Mail services from network providers used
>>>>the secure ID data (used for 1-800 etc.), not the stuff that can be
>>>>spoofed and appears on your phone.
>>>No. There is no "secure ID data". The number used for 800 number
>>>billing is delivered by a service called ANI, which delivers the BTN,
>>>the *Billing Telephone Number* for a given account. This is much harder
>>>to spoof, but will also be identical for many different phones billed to
>>>the same company -- so is not useful for purposes like identifying a
>>>voicemail customer. . . .
>>I don't agree. BTN the telephone number associated with the master account
>>record. ANI is the line number. An account comprises a single line or
>>hundreds or thousands of lines, depending on the nature of the telephone
>>subscriber.
>The ANI service delivers *either*:
> A) The "calling party number" from the SS7 IAM message, if that
> number is marked as network-provided, or
> B) Otherwise, the BTN for the originating line, again from the SS7
> IAM message.
>Look at the message formats -- where in there are you going to jam some
>third number for it to deliver?
>Remember, the BTN emitted in the AMA record from the originating switch
>may not end up being the BTN actually used to bill the account. But that
>all happens "magically" from the point of view of the SS7 network.
Pardon my error. I didn't understand that BTN was used for two different,
but related, concepts.
For my information, please define what you are referring to in A,
the calling party number and IAM. I take it A and B are unrelated to
whether the line the call originates on is an outbound-only trunk?
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