---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <B16A569F-DC31-4CAF-8856-8462D936855D@roscom.com> Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2017 00:59:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Prosecutors think they can extract data from phones seized during Inauguration Day protests Court papers filed today indicate that prosecutors are trying to break into locked smartphones seized during arrests made on Inauguration Day. According to a report from BuzzFeed, there are more than 100 phones involved, some belonging to individuals who have not been indicted. These devices were seized by law enforcement on January 20th when 214 people were arrested on felony rioting charges related to demonstrations held in protest of President Donald Trump. It's unclear how prosecutors intend to break into the phones, and whether they have the means to do so given the fact that some of the devices may be running up-to-date versions of iOS, making them virtually impenetrable, even to Apple itself. Nonetheless, the court papers indicate that officials are attempting to break in. http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/22/15030232/inauguration-day-ios-android-devices-break-in-data ------------------------------ Message-ID: <eb96b0f9-c3ed-48b4-92dc-f096f2129250@googlegroups.com> Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2017 13:33:37 -0700 (PDT) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: T-Mobile 'ghost calls' clog Dallas 911. Families blame backlog for deaths. On Saturday, March 18, 2017 at 12:57:53 AM UTC-4, Monty Solomon wrote: > T-Mobile "ghost calls" clog Dallas 911. Families blame backlog for > deaths. T-Mobile customers in Dallas have been creating backlogs at > the city's 911 call center since October. > https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/16/t-mobile-ghost-calls-clog-dallas-911-families-blame-backlog-for-deaths/ In reading the article, it is clear that it is a disgrace that a critical service was allowed to decay to the extent and as long as it did. Both T-Mobile and the city of Dallas bear responsibility. The article said when a T-Mobile subscriber in Dallas called 911 and was placed on hold, the phone began to redial, overloading the 911 center. The center had to call back each attempt, per policy. However, based on what was reported in the above article, the problem is puzzling. It _appears_ that only T-Mobile and only Dallas were impacted. Why not other cities? Why not other cell phones? There very well may be details not reported. One question is the call-back policy of the 911 center. While a desirable policy, it should've been suspended when the center was overwhelmed; I would guess almost all hangups were not emergencies, and regular incoming calls should've had priority. (Or callbacks could've been handled by auxiliary personnel using regular lines, not tying up the 911 system.) Anyway, in the absence of more information, it would seem that a mission-critical problem such as this should've had both city telecom engineers and T-Mobile engineers working long hours to resolve the issue (maybe they were, I don't know what they did). It certainly seems strange that the problem lasted as long as it did. Note that the principle of putting a telephone line on HOLD was established 80 years, you'd think by now they'd have the circuitry down pat, but maybe they were trying for something fancy. (Comments from telecom engineers on this issue would be welcome and appreciated.) For an historical note, below is a link to a Bell System advertisement of 10/20/1972, "Teach him to dial "0" and he'll always have a friend." https://books.google.com/books?id=yVYEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA89&dq=life%20bell%20telephone%20operator%20emergency&pg=PA89#v=onepage&q=life%20bell%20telephone%20operator%20emergency&f=false ------------------------------ Message-ID: <544469B4-F64F-4418-8FCA-18357C04A9A2@roscom.com> Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2017 18:20:35 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Banks and Tech Firms Battle Over Something Akin to Gold: Your Data Banks and Tech Firms Battle Over Something Akin to Gold: Your Data Big banks are pushing for new agreements on the customer data they share with technology start-ups like Mint and Betterment. http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/business/dealbook/banks-and-tech-firms-battle-over-something-akin-to-gold-your-data.html ------------------------------ Message-ID: <a5b7321f-a0ce-4c1f-8b71-5ee1e477f155@googlegroups.com> Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2017 13:02:20 -0700 (PDT) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: copper wire circuits to central offices was such a quaint notion On Wednesday, March 22, 2017 at 11:48:07 PM UTC-4, danny burstein wrote: > Verizon just filed official doc's to "retire" a whole big bunch of > copper based facilities. [snip] Which in the end means consumers will pay higher prices for lower quality service. FWIW, my friends who have FIOS report frequent outages, long delays for repairs, and no service during a power failure (the supposed backup battery being a joke.) My friends who use cable TV provided phone lines have equal or worse service troubles. At one time public utility regulators were very concerned over the quality of telephone service. If it decayed, they let the telephone company know about it, and the phone company was ordered to provide service improvements, even at great cost. Sadly, those days are gone. The telephone and cable companies were able to get almost all (or all) of their services deregulated, so the public utility regulators have no jurisdiction. It's exactly as if we returned to the robber baron days of 100 years ago. No one seems to care. ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Sun, 26 Mar 2017