32 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
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The Telecom Digest for November 4, 2013
Volume 32 : Issue 225 : "text" Format
====== 32 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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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, 3 Nov 2013 17:13:19 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement
Message-ID: <p06240814ce9c6c635e21@[10.0.1.11]>
U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement
By RON NIXON
July 3, 2013
WASHINGTON - Leslie James Pickering noticed something odd in his mail
last September: a handwritten card, apparently delivered by mistake,
with instructions for postal workers to pay special attention to the
letters and packages sent to his home.
"Show all mail to supv" - supervisor - "for copying prior to going
out on the street," read the card. It included Mr. Pickering's name,
address and the type of mail that needed to be monitored. The word
"confidential" was highlighted in green.
"It was a bit of a shock to see it," said Mr. Pickering, who with his
wife owns a small bookstore in Buffalo. More than a decade ago, he
was a spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front, a radical
environmental group labeled eco-terrorists by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. Postal officials subsequently confirmed they were
indeed tracking Mr. Pickering's mail but told him nothing else.
As the world focuses on the high-tech spying of the National Security
Agency, the misplaced card offers a rare glimpse inside the seemingly
low-tech but prevalent snooping of the United States Postal Service.
Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called
mail covers, a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail
Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service
computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that
is processed in the United States - about 160 billion pieces last
year. It is not known how long the government saves the images.
Together, the two programs show that postal mail is subject to the
same kind of scrutiny that the National Security Agency has given to
telephone calls and e-mail.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 14:04:10 -0400
From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: looking for a good home: Radio Shack CPA-1000 phone number logger
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1310291402460.29315@panix5.panix.com>
- if you're ok with posting this, I'd rather it find
a good home than a garbage pile. Thanks.
This is that nifty unit that plugs into your phone line, and
prints out the numbers that are "touch toned" (dialed) from
your house.
In other words, you get a list of all calls made from your line.
Some more info courtesy of another person's ebay listing:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200946669646
Ten dollars gets it out to you.
- it worked when I last played with it umptity years ago,
but I can't test it here these days.
***** Moderator's Note *****
I'm granting a once-in-a-while exception to the rules and allowing this post.
Mr. Burstein is a long-time contributor, and the device is no longer
made, and there's only a small community of people who would want one,
and the $10 won't break anyone's back.
Please don't make a habit of it, OK?
Bill Horne
Moderator
P.S. The Ebay listing is NOT for this item. It's just an illustration
of the unit.
Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 17:20:11 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Cracking the Apple Trap
Message-ID: <p06240820ce9c6e76dac1@[10.0.1.11]>
Cracking the Apple Trap
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
October 29, 2013
At first, I thought it was my imagination. Around the time the iPhone
5S and 5C were released, in September, I noticed that my sad old
iPhone 4 was becoming a lot more sluggish. The battery was starting
to run down much faster, too. But the same thing seemed to be
happening to a lot of people who, like me, swear by their Apple
products. When I called tech analysts, they said that the new
operating system (iOS 7) being pushed out to existing users was
making older models unbearably slow. Apple phone batteries, which
have a finite number of charges in them to begin with, were drained
by the new software. So I could pay Apple $79 to replace the battery,
or perhaps spend 20 bucks more for an iPhone 5C. It seemed like Apple
was sending me a not-so-subtle message to upgrade.
Of course, there are more benign explanations. The new software and
recent app updates offer fancy new features that existing users want;
maybe the battery is sealed with tiny five-point screws for aesthetic
considerations. Perhaps, but this isn't the first time that tech
analysts and random crazies on the Internet have noted that
breakdowns in older Apple products can often coincide with when
upgrades come onto the market. Many have taken this as evidence of
"planned obsolescence," a term that dates to the Great Depression,
when a real estate broker suggested that the government should
stimulate the economy by placing artificial expiration dates on
consumer products so people would buy more.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/magazine/why-apple-wants-to-bust-your-iphone.html
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