31 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
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The Telecom Digest for January 2, 2013
Volume 32 : Issue 2 : "text" Format
====== 31 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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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
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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.
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Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2012 17:53:54 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: How AT&T and Verizon Manipulate Your Smartphone
Message-ID: <p062408a9cd06760b06f4@[10.0.1.4]>
How AT&T and Verizon Manipulate Your Smartphone
By Susan Crawford
Dec 26, 2012
Bloomberg
The two kinds of Internet-access carriers, wired and wireless, have
found they can operate without competing with each other. The cable
industry and AT&T- Verizon have divided up the world much as Comcast
and Time Warner did; only instead of, "You take Philadelphia, I'll
take Minneapolis," it's, "You take wired, I'll take wireless."
At the end of 2011, the two industries even agreed to market each
other's services. Comcast and Time Warner Cable will bundle Verizon
Wireless services with their own, and by 2015 the cable companies
will have the option of selling mobile services under their own
brands.
The deal came about because a cable industry joint venture primarily
owned by Comcast, with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks
(another cable distributor) participating, controlled a substantial
portion of public airwaves that the companies had licensed during a
Federal Communications Commission auction in 2006; Verizon Wireless
gets that spectrum for $3.6 billion in exchange for intertwining its
business with that of Comcast and Time Warner.
This made eminent sense. In most of the areas served by Comcast and
Time Warner, Verizon's FiOS -- the only real competition for wired
Internet access -- isn't present. (Comcast and FiOS overlap in only
15 percent of Comcast's physical market; Time Warner and FiOS overlap
in just 11 percent of Time Warner's.) By cooperating, Verizon
Wireless implicitly promises not to spread FiOS service any farther,
and Comcast and Time Warner promise to stay out of the wireless
business. Meanwhile, much-smaller Cablevision will have to keep
competing: It overlaps with Verizon FiOS installations in 40 percent
of its market.
...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-26/how-at-t-and-verizon-manipulate-your-smartphone.html
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2012 23:24:14 -0500
From: Julian Thomas <jt@jt-mj.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Happy New Year
Message-ID: <8EFAF74A-12F6-422B-BFDE-AB90BD90B4AD@jt-mj.net>
On 31Dec 2012, at 7:00 PM, Telecom Digest Moderator <redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu> wrote:
> Well, enough of that: I hope you and yours have all the best of 2013.
And the same to you!
--
Sent from my new iMac
Julian Thomas
jt@jt-mj.net
http://jt-mj.net
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2012 22:47:44 -0500
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon Announces End of 900 Number Billing
Message-ID: <icei76nf0a6h$.1ff63zsea46e6.dlg@40tude.net>
On 31 Dec 2012 03:28:01 -0000, John Levine wrote:
> It's more than that, Verizon owns what's left of MCI ...
Does what's left of MCI still include any MCI Mail, aka mcimail.com?
Just curious, is all, as a former MCI Mail customer :-) . Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2013 12:02:01 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Outmaneuvered at Their Own Game, Antivirus Makers Struggle to Adapt
Message-ID: <p062408f3cd08c63bd319@[10.0.1.4]>
Outmaneuvered at Their Own Game, Antivirus Makers Struggle to Adapt
By NICOLE PERLROTH
December 31, 2012
SAN FRANCISCO - The antivirus industry has a dirty little secret: its
products are often not very good at stopping viruses.
Consumers and businesses spend billions of dollars every year on
antivirus software. But these programs rarely, if ever, block freshly
minted computer viruses, experts say, because the virus creators move
too quickly. That is prompting start-ups and other companies to get
creative about new approaches to computer security.
"The bad guys are always trying to be a step ahead," said Matthew D.
Howard, a venture capitalist at Norwest Venture Partners who
previously set up the security strategy at Cisco Systems. "And it
doesn't take a lot to be a step ahead."
Computer viruses used to be the domain of digital mischief makers.
But in the mid-2000s, when criminals discovered that malicious
software could be profitable, the number of new viruses began to grow
exponentially.
In 2000, there were fewer than a million new strains of malware, most
of them the work of amateurs. By 2010, there were 49 million new
strains, according to AV-Test, a German research institute that tests
antivirus products.
The antivirus industry has grown as well, but experts say it is
falling behind. By the time its products are able to block new
viruses, it is often too late. The bad guys have already had their
fun, siphoning out a company's trade secrets, erasing data or
emptying a consumer's bank account.
A new study by Imperva, a data security firm in Redwood City, Calif.,
and students from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology is the
latest confirmation of this. Amichai Shulman, Imperva's chief
technology officer, and a group of researchers collected and analyzed
82 new computer viruses and put them up against more than 40
antivirus products, made by top companies like Microsoft, Symantec,
McAfee and Kaspersky Lab. They found that the initial detection rate
was less than 5 percent.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/technology/antivirus-makers-work-on-software-to-catch-malware-more-effectively.html
***** Moderator's Note *****
Imperva? Not only is that silly, it's short-sighted: stupid
lead-them-by-the-nose trade names make customers think that the
company is all hat and no cattle.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2012 19:31:29 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Disruptions: The Real Hazards of E-Devices on Planes
Message-ID: <p062408b6cd068d166d74@[10.0.1.4]>
Disruptions: The Real Hazards of E-Devices on Planes
By NICK BILTON
DECEMBER 30, 2012
Over the last year, flying with phones and other devices has become
increasingly dangerous.
In September, a passenger was arrested in El Paso after refusing to
turn off his cellphone as the plane was landing. In October, a man in
Chicago was arrested because he used his iPad during takeoff. In
November, half a dozen police cars raced across the tarmac at La
Guardia Airport in New York, surrounding a plane as if there were a
terrorist on board. They arrested a 30-year-old man who had also
refused to turn off his phone while on the runway.
Who is to blame in these episodes? You can't solely pin it on the
passengers. Some of the responsibility falls on the Federal Aviation
Administration, for continuing to uphold a rule that is based on the
unproven idea that a phone or tablet can interfere with the operation
of a plane.
These conflicts have been going on for several years. In 2010, a
68-year-old man punched a teenager because he didn't turn off his
phone. Lt. Kent Lipple of the Boise Police Department in Idaho, who
arrested the puncher, said the man "felt he was protecting the entire
plane and its occupants." And let's not forget Alec Baldwin, who was
kicked off an American Airlines plane in 2011 for playing Words With
Friends online while parked at the gate.
Dealing with the F.A.A. on this topic is like arguing with a stubborn
teenager. The agency has no proof that electronic devices can harm a
plane's avionics, but it still perpetuates such claims, spreading
irrational fear among millions of fliers.
...
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/f-a-a-rules-make-electronic-devices-on-planes-dangerous/
Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2013 13:01:01 -0500
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Disruptions: The Real Hazards of E-Devices on Planes
Message-ID: <20130101180101.GA839@telecom.csail.mit.edu>
On Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 07:31:29PM -0500, Monty Solomon wrote:
> In September, a passenger was arrested in El Paso after refusing to
> turn off his cellphone as the plane was landing. In October, a man in
> Chicago was arrested because he used his iPad during takeoff. In
> November, half a dozen police cars raced across the tarmac at La
> Guardia Airport in New York, surrounding a plane as if there were a
> terrorist on board. They arrested a 30-year-old man who had also
> refused to turn off his phone while on the runway.
My feeling toward airline passengers who want to pretend that they are
radio-frequency engineers is probably shared by most other
travellers. I think these spoiled brats deserve to be punched in the
face.
I don't CARE if there's only a 0.001% chance of a dumbphone or a
laptop or a notepad or a pda interfering with an aircraft's
radios. All I know for a fact is that the aircraft navigation systems
which are in use right /now/ to guide airplanes into landings during
inclement weather were designed over fifty years ago, and that it is
IMPOSSIBLE to to overcome the limits of the technology available
back then with integrated circuits or Chebyshev filters or any other
device available now.
This is one of those things that has to be decided by the worst
possible outcome, not the best. We must, in conscience, subject some
airline passengers to a minor inconvenience because our society is
built on the idea that it should be run for the benefit of the
majority, not for the hubris of a few arrogant fools: the worst
outcome is dead, burnt bodies lying on the ground amid the wreckage of
the houses and the lives that could be ruined by one person's
selfishness.
Bill
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2012 18:41:23 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: This Is Your Life, as Recalled by an App
Message-ID: <p062408b0cd06816cb189@[10.0.1.4]>
This Is Your Life, as Recalled by an App
By JENNA WORTHAM
December 15, 2012
THE holiday season of 2011 was a hive of activity for me. One week in
early December, I managed to attend a party at the Bowery Ballroom, a
movie premiere and a Justin Bieber-themed dinner event. A few days
later, in a single afternoon, I saw the movie "Young Adult," bought
animal-shaped glassware as Christmas gifts and shared dishes of
handmade pasta with a few friends from college. And three nights
after that, I attended a concert at a local music venue with a friend
from Australia, then woke up the next morning and hopped on an Amtrak
train to Virginia for Christmas.
I know all of this not because my memory is superhuman, or because I
keep a detailed journal. My gift of meticulous recollection comes
courtesy of several apps I've signed up for, including Timehop and
Rewind.me. They tap into my social media history and send daily
reminders of my past postings, from pictures uploaded to Instagram,
the photo-sharing application, to messages on Facebook and Twitter.
At a basic level, these services serve as a cognitive crutch,
excavating details about the past that I might not otherwise
remember. They offer historical insight into a digital world that is
in many ways ephemeral - full of constantly refreshing newsfeeds.
While social networks tell their users what is happening right now,
these newer services document life of a year or more ago. They rely
on a proliferation of personal data scattered around the Web and
easily retrieved with the help of clever engineering and software
algorithms. And they offer a rare backward glance, an anthropological
perspective on our own online behavior. For example, I've noticed
that last year, I was posting many photographs and disclosing
personal details of my life on social networks, but that these days,
I've shifted into a cooler, less intimate mode.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/technology/new-apps-recall-the-details-of-your-online-past.html
Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2013 16:50:44 -0500
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Happy New Year
Message-ID: <1bblnvw60rdpv$.1ed2h01ftf61x$.dlg@40tude.net>
On Tue, 1 Jan 2013 00:00:19 -0000, Telecom Digest Moderator wrote:
> 3. If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we make a cellular
> battery that lasts for the whole day?
FWIW, the original battery in my vzw-issued Samsung SCH-a930 (vintage
2006?) still lasts a week on a charge, if I get or make few calls or SMSes.
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2012 19:41:17 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Are Unlocked Devices The Future Of American Mobile?
Message-ID: <p062408b7cd068f880056@[10.0.1.4]>
Are Unlocked Devices The Future Of American Mobile?
Joe Levin
December 26, 2012
Buying a smartphone in this country these days is a risky
proposition. The majority of Americans go into their local Verizon or
AT&T store and end up signing a two-year contract in order to get an
expensive phone at a subsidized rate. It doesn't matter how much
research you do or how much a device is hyped, it's still possible to
end up with a dud. On the other hand you could get a phone that does
everything you want, but then gets lost in the upgrade shuffle
because your carrier decided they needed more time to "test" it
before the new version of Android was ready for the masses. But I've
got some good news for you?Things are changing. Changing slowly, but
changing nonetheless.
If the launch of Google's Nexus 4 has taught us anything it's that
there is a bigger market for unlocked unsubsidized smartphones than
originally thought. Sure, you could point to the ridiculous specs and
a bargain basement price tag. Or maybe the fact that Nexus devices
get their updates directly from Google, on time and without carrier
approval. But I think there is more to it than that. Freedom!
...
http://androidheadlines.com/2012/12/are-unlocked-devices-the-future-of-american-mobile.html
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