---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <0f2cab75-3c4b-42f2-9dcf-e964e9c5a3f0@googlegroups.com> Date: 16 Sep 2019 13:49:09 -0700 From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: WA: CenturyLink customers in Elk area unable to call 911 from landline On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 6:12:52 PM UTC-4, Bill Horne wrote: > Spokane Regional Emergency Communications said Thursday they were > advised of a CenturyLink phone outage. > > By Kaitlin Riordan > > SPOKANE, Wash. - CenturyLink customers in the Elk area may not be able > to call 911 on a landline in the event of an emergency. > > Spokane Regional Emergency Communications said Thursday they were > advised of a CenturyLink phone outage. > > https://www.krem.com/article/news/local/centurylink-customers-in-elk-area-unable-to-call-911-from-landline/293-a49ec499-9f57-4492-bc59-d1a761ccabfc Historical notes: Back in 1966, the Bell System and Western Electric used to advertise how reliable their network was for emergency calls: https://books.google.com/books?id=WFYEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA81&dq=life%20western%20electric%20police&pg=PA81#v=onepage&q&f=false Also, before 911 call centers, Bell System operators would directly assist in emergency situations, such as described in the following 1954 ad. https://books.google.com/books?id=I1QEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA5&dq=life%20bell%20telephone%20police&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q&f=false (Just aired on TCM was the film, The Slender Thread, about a volunteer at a crisis center assisting in a suicide prevention. The film includes telco efforts to trace the call so an ambulance could be sent to rescue the caller. Neat shots of manual switchboards, crossbar, and step-by-step exchanges.) http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/90491/The-Slender-Thread/ ------------------------------ Message-ID: <b944be1c-34e9-4f44-bac2-d42a4d63530d@googlegroups.com> Date: 17 Sep 2019 17:12:58 -0700 From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: Stay out of AT&T's - and CNN's - business, Mr. President On Tuesday, September 17, 2019 at 7:38:57 PM UTC-4, Bill Horne wrote: > ONE OF Wall Street's biggest hedge funds, Elliott Management Corp., > led by the billionaire investor Paul Singer, has the conglomerate AT&T > in its crosshairs. The hedge fund, with $38 billion under management, > disclosed it has acquired $3.2 billion of AT&T and is launching a > campaign to shake up the company. This is a tactic used by activist > investors who seek to change *underperforming* companies by slicing > costs, divesting non-core assets and streamlining bureaucracy, among > other things. > > A letter from Elliott calls on AT&T to make significant > changes. Notably, the letter questions the logic of AT&T's $106 > billion acquisition of Time Warner in 2016, a merger the Trump > administration tried in vain to stop. Elliot Management says, "AT&T > has yet to articulate a clear strategic rationale for why AT&T needs > to own Time Warner," and "we remain cautious on the benefits of this > combination." The hedge fund calls on AT&T to review assets for > possible divestiture. > https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/stay-out-of-atandts--and-cnns--business-mr-president/2019/09/13/3f42efc8-d4bf-11e9-86ac-0f250cc91758_story.html?noredirect=on Who gets to decide if a company is "underperforming"? I can't help but suspect that is just an excuse to wring pay and benefit cuts from employees, screw retirees out of their pensions, and cheat local governments out of taxes. I suspect some of our readers were impacted by private equity funds acquiring their employer and then draining assets. (Maybe a few folks benefited by it). Anyway, someone wrote a book about the town of Lancaster, Ohio, and the troubles of the Anchor Hocking glass factory which suffered at the hands of various equity funds bleeding it dry. In my opinion, there should be SEC rules against some of these bleedouts and saddling an acquired company with unsustainable debt. http://www.glasshousebook.com/ Note: In the old days, the Bell System was owned by nearly a million shareholders. Bell was proud of that and advertised it. I think we were better off in those days as opposed to now with ownership--and economic power--concentrated in the hands of a few, such as the 'private equity' funds. https://books.google.com/books?id=_1IEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA1&dq=life%20bell%20telephone%20stockholders&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false ------------------------------ Message-ID: <A8803F32-51BC-44EF-9FF9-9EA980A7F7D0@roscom.com> Date: 20 Sep 2019 14:19:05 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Two Widely Used Ad Blocker Extensions for Chrome Caught in Ad Fraud Scheme Two widely used Adblocker Google Chrome extensions, posing as the original - AdBlock and uBlock Origin - extensions on Chrome Web Store, have been caught stuffing cookies in the web browser of millions of users to generate affiliate income from referral schemes fraudulently. There's no doubt web extensions add a lot of useful features to web browsers, making your online experience great and aiding productivity, but at the same time, they also pose huge threats to both your privacy and security. https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/browser-chrome-extension-adblock.html ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Sat, 21 Sep 2019