34 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981Copyright © 2015 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.The Telecom Digest for Oct 18, 2015
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| It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs. |
| Aristotle |
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| Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 19:13:03 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Compulsive Texting Takes Toll on Teenagers Message-ID: <0BE57FBD-1A3D-4B5A-904A-49B3AAD9763F@roscom.com> By Roni Caryn Rabin Youngsters who check their phones constantly and snap if you interrupt them may have a texting problem, a new study found. Does your teenager have a texting problem? Teenagers use text messaging more than any other mode of communication, so it may be hard to tell. But youngsters who check their phones continually, snap if you interrupt them and are so preoccupied with texting that they skip sleep and don't get their work done may be compulsive texters, a new study says. For girls, compulsive texting is more than just a distraction - it is also associated with lower academic performance. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/compulsive-texting-takes-toll-on-teenagers/ ***** Moderator's Note ***** I used to use a Model 15 TeleType machine to send text messages to other ham operators. The "TeleType" machines have gotten smaller, and the audience larger, but little else has changed. Bill Horne Moderator |
| Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 08:15:23 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: UltraDNS Server Problem Pulls Down Netflix for 90 Minutes Message-ID: <B55F6270-482B-4AB7-864B-8886EFF293B4@roscom.com> By Nicole Perlrothoct UltraDNS Server Problem Pulls Down Websites, Including Netflix, for 90 Minutes SAN FRANCISCO - UltraDNS, a web content delivery service, went down Thursday afternoon, taking with it a number of popular websites, including Netflix and Expedia. The cause of the 90-minute failure was an internal issue in a server on the East Coast and was not the result of an attack by hackers, said Lara Wyss, an UltraDNS spokeswoman. Initially, members of the UltraDNS support team indicated the issue stemmed from a DDoS or Denial of Service attack in which hackers flood a service with traffic until it collapses under the load. But after further investigation, the company's chief information officer said that the issue was not caused by a DDoS assault but by a technical malfunction, Ms. Wyss said in an interview. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/technology/ultradns-server-problem-pulls-down-websites-including-netflix-for-90-minutes.html ***** Moderator's Note ***** I've cut way back on "security" postings, but this one has a roundabout applicability to telecom: UltraDNS, the article notes, was acquired by Neustar, which at one time had the contract to provide the "Local Number Portability" database. I'm also curious if any of the readers can explain how ultraDNS, Akamai, and CloudFlare make the Internet viable as a mass-content-delivery mechanism. We used to say that TCP/IP was B.A.D. for broadcasting use - "Broken As Designed" - but every Netflix subscriber, myself included, is making use of whatever the workaround is. Bill Horne Moderator |
| Date: Sat, 17 Oct 2015 00:52:12 -0400 From: bernieS <bernies@panix.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Third Circuit Broadens Standing for TCPA Suits Message-ID: <20151017045241.44017.qmail@submit.iecc.com> http://www.njlawjournal.com/id=1202740052682/ [NJ Law Journal] Third Circuit Broadens Standing for TCPA Suits In a precedential ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has eased the way for suits filed under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by someone other than the intended recipient of a telemarketing call. Reversing a U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey ruling, the appeals court said the roommate of a woman to whom a prerecorded Bank of America marketing call about credit cards was directed may file suit under the TCPA. .... The appeals court reversed a ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton, which dismissed the case upon finding that plaintiff Mark Leyse lacked standing to sue because the bank intended the call his roommate, Genevieve Dutriaux, the subscriber for the phone line, who is not a party in the case. The appeals court found that Leyse fell under the protection of the act based on comments of the act's sponsor in a legislative hearing, who called automated telemarketing calls "the scourge of modern civilization" for their ability to disrupt dinner, force the sick and elderly out of bed and "hound us until we want to rip the telephone right out of the wall." [...] ***** Moderator's Note ***** One of the benefits of the information age is that "comments of the act's sponsor" are available for judges' clerks to search at a moment's notice, thus sparing them the chore of doing a treasure hunt in the stacks at the law library. This, in turn, leads to better decision-making at all levels, since the judge who is hearing the case doesn't have to guess at the lawmaker's intent. Bill Horne Moderator |
| Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2015 20:48:26 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Apple removes some ad blockers from its app store Message-ID: <3C6899B8-9225-4C30-91B5-C6BF9030ACD5@roscom.com> Apple has dumped the ad blocker that blocked in-app ads from the App Store Apple has removed an ad blocking app from its App Store that block ads in other apps, as well as a number of other non-ad blocking apps that employ similar "deep packet inspection" techniques, citing privacy concerns. Apple's iOS 9 operating system saw the company approve ad blocking apps for the first time. Most just block ads on the Safari web browser, but some developers took the idea further by creating apps that installed root certificates in order to block app-based ads. Apple's problem is that by doing so, these kinds of apps (ad blockers, and some others) had sight of everything a user was doing online, from browsing to making purchases. The Safari team, however, had created a secure way to block content, which doesn't allow for the ad blockers to track user behavior. Popular ad blocking apps that block ads on Safari, including Crystal and Purify, are not affected by Apple's latest move. It only affects apps that installed root certificates on user's phones, which included some ad blockers and other apps. On the face of it, it had seemed bizarre that Apple had approved such ad blockers in the first place, even aside from the clear privacy concerns. http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-removes-been-choice-and-other-ad-blockers-from-its-app-store-2015-10 ***** Moderator's Note ***** IBM's Mainfram operating systems used to generate so many "info" and "caution" messages that the operators couldn't keep up and do their jobs. The solution? IBM sold software which suppressed the messages. Some websites have installed back-channel verification software which prevents their content from being displayed if ads are not. This is another phase of the arms race. Bill Horne Moderator |
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