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The Telecom Digest for September 18, 2013
Volume 32 : Issue 196 : "text" Format
====== 32 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
|
Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Bill Horne and
the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other
journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are
included in the fair use quote. By using any name or email address
included herein for any reason other than responding to an article
herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to that person, or email address
owner.
Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be
sold or given away without the explicit written consent of the owner of
that address. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk
are definitely unwelcome.
We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we
are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because
we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands
against crime. - Geoffrey Welsh
See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details
and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest.
|
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 20:14:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Here we go again: another retrans-consent battle!
Message-ID: <7b610641-2c15-49f0-80a4-d45b32cd472c@googlegroups.com>
| Dish Network nears Media General blackout in 16 markets
| By Steve Donohue, FierceCable, September 16, 2013
|
| Media General is beginning to warn Dish Network subscribers
| that they will lose its 17 TV stations in 16 markets unless
| the company agrees to pay increased retransmission-consent
| fees by Sept. 30.
|
| Dish's contract was set to expire on June 30, but the
| satellite TV provider and Media General agreed to a 90-day
| extension. Media General owns ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC affiliates
| in several states, including Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Georgia
| and Alabama.
|
| "Our highly-rated television station is an important asset to
| our local community and it is unfortunate that Dish does not
| recognize our fair market value," Brad Moses, general manager
| of Media General WFLA-TV in Florida, said in a prepared
| statement.
http://tinyurl.com/m3kvbdk
Neal McLain
aka texascableguy
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 18:40:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: sampsal@gmail.com
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: X.25 links still available?
Message-ID: <042f776b-f58c-4fc2-a80d-7d78faefcef9@googlegroups.com>
Does anybody know if it is possible to get an X.25 hook up nowadays?
Ideally over the D channel of a basic ISDN connection.
sampsa
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 01:45:16 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: E-ZPasses Get Read All Over New York (Not Just At Toll Booths)
Message-ID: <p06240809ce5af9934718@[10.0.1.7]>
E-ZPasses Get Read All Over New York (Not Just At Toll Booths)
Kashmir Hill, Forbes Staff
9/12/2013
After spotting a police car with two huge boxes on its trunk - that
turned out to be license-plate-reading cameras - a man in New Jersey
became obsessed with the loss of privacy for vehicles on American
roads. (He's not the only one.) The man, who goes by the Internet
handle "Puking Monkey," did an analysis of the many ways his car
could be tracked and stumbled upon something rather interesting: his
E-ZPass, which he obtained for the purpose of paying tolls, was being
used to track his car in unexpected places, far away from any toll
booths.
...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/09/12/e-zpasses-get-read-all-over-new-york-not-just-at-toll-booths/
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 01:48:48 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Behind Microsoft Deal, the Specter of a Nokia Android Phone
Message-ID: <p0624080ace5afaa28686@[10.0.1.7]>
Behind Microsoft Deal, the Specter of a Nokia Android Phone
By NICK WINGFIELD
SEPTEMBER 13, 2013
SEATTLE - Before Microsoft reached a deal to buy Nokia's phone
business, there was a possibility that Nokia could have switched its
smartphones to Google's Android operating system sometime after late
2014.
And now, it is clear that a Nokia Android phone was more than a
possibility. It was real.
A team within Nokia had Android up and running on the company's Lumia
handsets well before Microsoft and Nokia began negotiating
Microsoft's $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone and
services business, according to two people briefed on the effort who
declined to be identified because the project was confidential.
Microsoft executives were aware of the existence of the project,
these people said.
Another person said the idea of Nokia using Android wasn't a part of
Microsoft's discussions with the company about an acquisition, even
though that was widely recognized as a possibility.
On one level, Nokia's Android effort is not shocking. Companies often
have "plan Bs" in the works in case they need to change course on
strategy or want to help negotiate better terms with partners.
Getting Android to run on Nokia's hardware was not a Herculean
engineering effort, according to the people familiar with the project.
Still, a functioning Nokia Android phone could have served as a
powerful prop in Nokia's dealings with Microsoft, a tangible reminder
that Nokia could move away from Microsoft's Windows Phone software
and use the Android operating system, which powers more than three
out of every four smartphones sold globally.
...
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/behind-microsoft-deal-the-specter-of-a-nokia-android-phone/
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 02:01:38 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: With 30 tuners and 30 TB of storage, SnapStream makes TiVos look like toys
Message-ID: <p0624080fce5afd7b3170@[10.0.1.7]>
With 30 tuners and 30 TB of storage, SnapStream makes TiVos look like toys
Houston company's monster DVRs power Colbert, The Daily Show, and
other big TV names.
by Lee Hutchinson
Sept 14 2013
Ars Technica
When you're picking out a DVR for your home, there's a pretty short
list of candidates-TiVo has its new 6-tuner DVRs, or you can get
something from your cable provider, or you can roll your own. But
consumer-grade DVRs don't really scale all that well for media
companies that need to record and process lots of TV. When you've got
30 or more channels that you need to be recording simultaneously,
your cable company's DVR isn't really up to snuff anymore and it's
time to call in the big guns.
Houston-based SnapStream makes a line of DVRs that scale to truly
silly sizes-its products are the monster trucks of the DVR world. If
you watch TV at all, you've almost certainly already seen what
SnapStream can do-popular shows like The Colbert Report, The Daily
Show, The Soup, and tons of others are customers, using 30+ channel
DVRs to record dozens and dozens of TV shows simultaneously in order
to integrate clips from those recorded shows into their own.
But SnapStream's boxes do a lot more than simply record TV-they're
actually a home theater PC geek's dream. Because Snapstream works so
closely with media production companies, its DVRs sport functionality
that no consumer set could possibly get away with having. For
example, a SnapStream cluster is just as good at repackaging,
transcoding, and distributing content for re-use as it is for
recording it in the first place-functionality you won't find on a
consumer-grade DVR. The system also gives users the most amazing TV
guide access we've ever laid eyes on, wrapped in a simple and almost
ludicrously fast GUI.
...
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/with-30-tuners-and-30-tb-of-storage-snapstream-make-tivos-look-like-toys/
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 01:57:35 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Gov't standards agency "strongly" discourages use of NSA-influenced algorithm
Message-ID: <p0624080dce5afc71f321@[10.0.1.7]>
Gov't standards agency "strongly" discourages use of NSA-influenced algorithm
NIST: "we are not deliberately... working to undermine or weaken encryption."
by Jeff Larson and Justin Elliott, ProPublica.org
Sept 13 2013
Ars Technica
Following revelations about the National Security Agency's (NSA)
covert influence on computer security standards, the National
Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, announced earlier
this week it is revisiting some of its encryption standards. But in a
little-noticed footnote, NIST went a step further, saying it is
"strongly" recommending against even using one of the standards.
The institute sets standards for everything from the time to weights
to computer security that are used by the government and widely
adopted by industry.
As ProPublica, The New York Times, and The Guardian reported last
week, documents provided by Edward Snowden suggest that the NSA has
heavily influenced the standard, which has been used around the
world. In its statement Tuesday, the NIST acknowledged that the NSA
participates in creating cryptography standards "because of its
recognized expertise" and because the NIST is required by law to
consult with the spy agency. "We are not deliberately, knowingly,
working to undermine or weaken encryption," NIST chief Patrick
Gallagher said at a public conference Tuesday.
Various versions of Microsoft Windows, including those used in
tablets and smartphones, contain implementations of the standard,
though the NSA-influenced portion isn't enabled by default.
Developers creating applications for the platform must choose to
enable it.
...
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/09/government-standards-agency-strongly-suggests-dropping-its-own-encryption-standard/
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 02:05:05 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans' data with Israel
Message-ID: <p06240810ce5afe1655b0@[10.0.1.7]>
NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans' data with Israel
Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill
The Guardian
11 September 2013
The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data
with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US
citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by
whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.
Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a
memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli
counterpart that shows the US government handed over intercepted
communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American
citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use
of the data by the Israelis.
The disclosure that the NSA agreed to provide raw intelligence data
to a foreign country contrasts with assurances from the Obama
administration that there are rigorous safeguards to protect the
privacy of US citizens caught in the dragnet. The intelligence
community calls this process "minimization", but the memorandum makes
clear that the information shared with the Israelis would be in its
pre-minimized state.
The deal was reached in principle in March 2009, according to the
undated memorandum, which lays out the ground rules for the
intelligence sharing.
...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-personal-data-israel-documents
http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/sep/11/nsa-israel-intelligence-memorandum-understanding-document
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 02:08:15 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Verizon, facing protest, won't kill wireline phone in hurricane-damaged area
Message-ID: <p06240811ce5afefa8b11@[10.0.1.7]>
Verizon, facing protest, won't kill wireline phone in hurricane-damaged area
Instead of wireless-only voice service, Verizon will bring FiOS to Fire Island.
by Jon Brodkin
Sept 11 2013
Ars Technica
After the communications infrastructure of Fire Island was wiped out
by Hurricane Sandy, Verizon decided it didn't want to rebuild
severely damaged wireline phone networks. Instead, residents would
have to settle for a new wireless product called Voice Link.
The plan faced massive outcry from residents, advocacy groups and
government officials. There wasn't anything wrong with providing
Voice Link as an option, but Verizon's plan to make wireless the only
choice on the western part of the island, where the damage was worst,
was a shock.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman accused Verizon of trying
to "depart from a century of telephone service regulation" by going
wireless-only. Residents called the wireless service substandard, and
Schneiderman said it would deprive customers of the ability to use
wireline-dependent services such as fax machines, alarm systems,
medical alert devices, and DSL. Battery life was also a concern,
especially during blackouts.
Verizon has now backtracked. Rather than continue seeking permission
from the New York Public Service Commission to discontinue wireline
phone service in western Fire Island, the company will bring fiber to
the 2,700 customers living there.
...
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/09/verizon-facing-protest-wont-kill-wireline-phone-in-hurricane-damaged-area/
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 01:54:43 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: FBI Admits It Controlled Tor Servers Behind Mass Malware Attack
Message-ID: <p0624080cce5afbfbd76f@[10.0.1.7]>
FBI Admits It Controlled Tor Servers Behind Mass Malware Attack
BY KEVIN POULSEN
09.13.13
It wasn't ever seriously in doubt, but the FBI yesterday acknowledged
that it secretly took control of Freedom Hosting last July, days
before the servers of the largest provider of ultra-anonymous hosting
were found to be serving custom malware designed to identify visitors.
Freedom Hosting's operator, Eric Eoin Marques, had rented the servers
from an unnamed commercial hosting provider in France, and paid for
them from a bank account in Las Vegas. It's not clear how the FBI
took over the servers in late July, but the bureau was temporarily
thwarted when Marques somehow regained access and changed the
passwords, briefly locking out the FBI until it gained back control.
The new details emerged in local press reports from a Thursday bail
hearing in Dublin, Ireland, where Marques, 28, is fighting
extradition to America on charges that Freedom Hosting facilitated
child pornography on a massive scale. He was denied bail today for
the second time since his arrest in July.
Freedom Hosting was a provider of turnkey "Tor hidden service" sites
- special sites, with addresses ending in .onion, that hide their
geographic location behind layers of routing, and can be reached only
over the Tor anonymity network. Tor hidden services are used by sites
that need to evade surveillance or protect users' privacy to an
extraordinary degree - including human rights groups and journalists.
But they also appeal to serious criminal elements, child-pornography
traders among them.
On August 4, all the sites hosted by Freedom Hosting - some with no
connection to child porn - began serving an error message with hidden
code embedded in the page. Security researchers dissected the code
and found it exploited a security hole in Firefox to identify users
of the Tor Browser Bundle, reporting back to a mysterious server in
Northern Virginia. The FBI was the obvious suspect, but declined to
comment on the incident. The FBI also didn't respond to inquiries
from WIRED today.
...
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/09/freedom-hosting-fbi/
Date: 15 Sep 2013 14:54:08 -0000
From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: On Campus, a Faculty Uprising Over Personal Data
Message-ID: <20130915145408.2652.qmail@joyce.lan>
>biometric tests and submit to an extensive online health risk
>questionnaire that asks, among other questions, whether they have
>recently had problems with a co-worker, a supervisor or a divorce. If
>they don't fill out the form, $100 a month will be deducted from
>their pay for noncompliance.
I wonder if it occurred to them that people will just lie. At least
the sensible ones will.
>I don't know if our health insurance costs as much as an F-15, but the
>trend seems clear.
Way, way, more.
TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecom-
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