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The Telecom Digest for December 25, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 329 : "text" Format
====== 30 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
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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: Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:09:41 -0500
From: "Geoffrey Welsh" <gwelsh@spamcop.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: FTC warns that expanding DNS could lead to increased fraud
Message-ID: <495a6$4ef4ed5a$adce11c8$7343@PRIMUS.CA>
I have a client whose domain name is two letters followed by ".com".
Recently the contact addresses for the domain received an email
claiming to be a DMCA takedown notice related to a site whose domain
name ENDED in those two letters (i.e, those two letters are a valid
country code.) There was no further correspondence after I replied
pointing out that my client was not affiliated with the domain and in
no way responsible for domains handed out by a registrar in a country
half way around the world but it bothers me that someone, whether law
clerk or scammer, who could be bothered to look up the domain contacts
and yet make the cybernetic equivalent of assuming that John Goodman
is the same person as Elton John.
(If anything, people should be aware that 'similarity' is an unnatural
concept to a computer, and that even the subtlest difference between
two input values is likely to cause a computer to treat them as
unrelated.)
Anyway, I'm not sure if I'm agreeing that introducing new domains
poses significantly increased risk or whether I'm writing off some
people as so inattentive to detail that trying to limit the risk is
pointless.
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2011 18:45:27 +0000 (UTC)
From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: FTC warns that expanding DNS could lead to increased fraud
Message-ID: <jd56k7$c16$3@news.albasani.net>
Geoffrey Welsh <gwelsh@spamcop.net> wrote:
>I have a client whose domain name is two letters followed by ".com".
>Recently the contact addresses for the domain received an email
>claiming to be a DMCA takedown notice related to a site whose domain
>name ENDED in those two letters (i.e, those two letters are a valid
>country code.) ... [and] it bothers me that someone, whether law
>clerk or scammer, who could be bothered to look up the domain contacts
>and yet make the cybernetic equivalent of assuming that John Goodman
>is the same person as Elton John.
[Moderator snip]
>Anyway, I'm not sure if I'm agreeing that introducing new domains
>poses significantly increased risk or whether I'm writing off some
>people as so inattentive to detail that trying to limit the risk is
>pointless.
You sure that the takedown notice was prepared by a person?
***** Moderator's Note *****
If the "DMCA" notice was machine-generated, then that's a lot worse:
if we assume, for the sake of argument, that the SOPA bill becomes
law, then the entertainment industry will obviously be motivated to
automate the DMCA notice and domain-removal processes. After all,
they'll figure that false-positives waste the time of "those nerds",
and assume that anything they do will have a chilling effect on every
website owner, ISP, and (most importantly) on the whole apparatus of
electronic entertainment distribution and sales, all to the betterment
of their stranglehold on the production of plastic media.
I have said before, and now repeat, my belief that "copyright
protection" is a red herring: copying has always been, and always will
be, a marginal cost to the entertainment industry. What the industry's
executives are really afraid of is that performers will realize that
they can get more money from "shareware" entertainment than they'll be
paid by the cokebrained thugs at the record labels: once a single
major artist demonstrates this for all to see, Hollywood's Golden
Goose will be applying for work in the insurance industry, and a lot
of coke dealers will be out of their very easy jobs.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Moderator's Note Copyright (C) 2011 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2011 17:32:19 +0000 (UTC)
From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: AT&Ts failed bid for T-Mobile will be quite expensive
Message-ID: <jd2dv3$1pe$1@reader1.panix.com>
In <jd28td$qna$1@dont-email.me> Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> writes:
>By Sean Ludwig - The Washington Post
[snip]
>Because its proposed $39 billion merger fell through, AT&T now has to
>give up piles of cash and benefits to T-Mobile. AT&T will enter into a
>7-year 3G roaming agreement that will boost T-Mobile coverage....
>
>http://tinyurl.com/cqde4nc
>
As a T-Mobile subscriber (from back in the Omnipoint days!) and
a former shareholder, I've been following this particular part
of the story with a great deal of interest.
Unspoken by most reporters (maybe all...) is that TM had
roaming agreements in many of these areas with the various
(formerly) small and local, third party, carriers.
When AT&T gobbled them up, the roaming agreements were
often not renewed [a]. Hence in many areas, TM customers
suddenly woke up one morning and found they no longer
had workable service.
I have friends in California (hi, Steve) and in Michigan
who, if not for TM's "hotspot at home" WIFI based alternative,
would be carrying around useless bricks.
Hopefully AT&T will now allow TM voice callers back on
their network.
[a] I don't know if AT&T "just said no" to TM continuing
to roam, or if they made the finances and other conditions
absurdely painful.
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2011 14:41:40 -0500
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: FTC warns that expanding DNS could lead to increased fraud
Message-ID: <1weklgcwqgujr$.wliiiaoadrny$.dlg@40tude.net>
On Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:09:41 -0500, Geoffrey Welsh wrote:
> I have a client whose domain name is two letters followed by ".com".
> Recently the contact addresses for the domain received an email
> claiming to be a DMCA takedown notice related to a site whose domain
> name ENDED in those two letters (i.e, those two letters are a valid
> country code.)
Let me try to understand. Your client's domain name might have been, say,
ru.net or tv.com, and the takedown notice emanated from, say, net.ru or
com.tv? That'd be amusing :-) .
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:02:32 -0500
From: Telecom Digest Moderator <redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Merry Christmas
Message-ID: <20111225020232.GA12322@telecom.csail.mit.edu>
For those who observe the December 25th holiday, I wish you a Merry
Christmas. For those with other beliefs, please accept my assurance
that my spirit of goodwill is towards all men, no matter their
faiths.
Bill
--
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: 25 Dec 2011 04:05:19 GMT
From: Doug McIntyre <merlyn@geeks.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: FTC warns that expanding DNS could lead to increased fraud
Message-ID: <4ef6a0ff$0$79796$8046368a@newsreader.iphouse.net>
tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> writes:
>On Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:09:41 -0500, Geoffrey Welsh wrote:
>> I have a client whose domain name is two letters followed by ".com".
>> Recently the contact addresses for the domain received an email
>> claiming to be a DMCA takedown notice related to a site whose domain
>> name ENDED in those two letters (i.e, those two letters are a valid
>> country code.)
>Let me try to understand. Your client's domain name might have been, say,
>ru.net or tv.com, and the takedown notice emanated from, say, net.ru or
>com.tv? That'd be amusing :-) .
As a service provider with several IP blocks, we tend to get a few DMCA
notices. I'd estimate at any given time, at least 10~20% of them are bogus.
Yes, I get mixups in domain names all the time, somebody looked up
the .com version when whatever was wrong was in somebody else's .net
or whatever IP space. My customer has the .com, somebody else has the .net.
People just assume the .com.
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