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The Telecom Digest for March 5, 2013
Volume 32 : Issue 56 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months After Sandy (T)
Re: Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months After Sandy (Garrett Wollman)
Re: Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months After Sandy (David Scheidt)
Re: Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months After Sandy (Mark Smith)
Re: Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months After Sandy (Doug McIntyre)
Re: Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months After Sandy (Wes Leatherock)
Life Inside the Aaron Swartz Investigation (Monty Solomon)

====== 31 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======

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Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 19:23:53 -0500
From: T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months  After Sandy
Message-ID: <MPG.2b9db3a451f84f76989db9@news.eternal-september.org>

In article <kgu1p3$5q2$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>, 
wollman@bimajority.org says...
> 
> In article <20130302223659.GA23784@telecom.csail.mit.edu>,
> Bill Horne  <bill@horneQRM.net> wrote:
> 
> >Potential customers don't need to ask whether The Wayland, a chic bar
> >in Manhattan's East Village, accepts credit cards. They can just read
> >the sign -- and sense the frustration -- taped to the door.
> >
> >"STILL Cash Only. Sorry for the inconvenience," it says. "Thanks For
> >Nothing Verizon (And Hurricane Sandy)."
> 
> What, exactly, does Verizon have to do with accepting credit cards?
> It's not like Verizon is the only way to get an Internet connection in
> lower Manhattan, particularly for something as low-bandwidth as
> credit-card transaction processing.  (Hell, Verizon's own wireless
> joint venture can probably provide sufficient network for that.)

Simple - credit card terminals process everything over a telephone
line.  Now in my case I have Square on my cell phone so an outage like
that wouldn't impact me.

But a lot of businesses run either stand alone terminals or integrated
POS solutions that depend on wireline communication, be it POTS or
over the net. Without both you're up the creek without a paddle.




Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 21:21:31 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months  After Sandy
Message-ID: <kh338r$1lvi$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>

In article <MPG.2b9db3a451f84f76989db9@news.eternal-september.org>,
T  <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net> wrote:

>Simple - credit card terminals process everything over a telephone
>line.  Now in my case I have Square on my cell phone so an outage like
>that wouldn't impact me.

I haven't seen one of those in a really long time.  All the ones I've
seen lately are IP, not POTS.  I assume (hope!) they have some sort of
integrated VPN that connects directly to their processor's network.

-GAWollman

-- 
Garrett A. Wollman    | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers.         | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993




Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 22:03:25 +0000 (UTC)
From: David Scheidt <dscheidt@panix.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months  After Sandy
Message-ID: <kh35nd$o61$2@reader1.panix.com>

Garrett Wollman <wollman@bimajority.org> wrote:
:In article <MPG.2b9db3a451f84f76989db9@news.eternal-september.org>,
:T  <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net> wrote:

:>Simple - credit card terminals process everything over a telephone
:>line.  Now in my case I have Square on my cell phone so an outage like
:>that wouldn't impact me.

:I haven't seen one of those in a really long time.  All the ones I've
:seen lately are IP, not POTS.  I assume (hope!) they have some sort of
:integrated VPN that connects directly to their processor's network.

Lots of pots terminals around.  Plenty of places with no IP
connectivity need to accept credit cards.  

I do wonder, though, how much of the non-rush to fix the ability to
accept cards is because they don't really want to take them.  For a
lot of businesses, the cost of credit cards is much higher than the
cost of cash.  Taking cards is worthwhile for them in goodwill, or
because they're likely to lose sales.  Sandy gives them an excuse to
blame...

-- 
sig 44




Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 13:50:00 -0800 (PST)
From: Mark Smith <marklsmith@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months   After Sandy
Message-ID: <1362433800.94402.YahooMailNeo@web122301.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>

Garrett Wollman wrote:
> In article <MPG.2b9db3a451f84f76989db9@news.eternal-september.org>,
> T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net> wrote:

>> Simple - credit card terminals process everything over a telephone
>> line. Now in my case I have Square on my cell phone so an outage
>> like that wouldn't impact me.

> I haven't seen one of those in a really long time.  All the ones
> I've seen lately are IP, not POTS.  I assume (hope!) they have some
> sort of integrated VPN that connects directly to their processor's
> network.

In the boonies of Southern Maryland, one restaurant still has the credit card
machine attached to the voice (POTS) line. If anyone is gabbing one the phone
the machine won't work.
 
Mark L. Smith 
marklsmith@yahoo.com

http://smith.freehosting.net

Http://marksfolkmusicphotos.shutterfly.com




Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2013 18:20:18 -0600
From: Doug McIntyre <merlyn@dork.geeks.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months  After Sandy
Message-ID: <oemdnSXkaJPfp6jMnZ2dnUVZ_vednZ2d@giganews.com>

wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) writes:
>I haven't seen one of those in a really long time.  All the ones I've
>seen lately are IP, not POTS.  I assume (hope!) they have some sort of
>integrated VPN that connects directly to their processor's network.

PCI/DSS requires the PAN data to be transmitted over encrypted
networking when over any sort of WAN or wifi what-so-ever. So, it
almost certainly is. Although SSL encryption is good enough to comply
with this requirement for a gateway processor to get the OK on a
charge.

Its the large retailers that do bonehead things that worry me (ie. TJ
Max storing all credit card swipes in their database in the clear for
years and years with zero reason for this at all).

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/17871485/




Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 08:38:23 -0800 (PST)
From: Wes Leatherock <wleathus@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon Outages Strand Lower Manhattan Businesses 4 Months  After Sandy
Message-ID: <1362328703.42825.YahooMailClassic@web125201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>

--- On Sat, 3/2/13, Garrett Wollman <wollman@bimajority.org> wrote:

> In article <20130302223659.GA23784@telecom.csail.mit.edu>, 
> Bill Horne  <bill@horneQRM.net> wrote:
>> Potential customers don't need to ask whether The Wayland, a chic
>> bar in Manhattan's East Village, accepts credit cards. They can
>> just read the sign -- and sense the frustration -- taped to the
>> door.
>>
>> "STILL Cash Only. Sorry for the inconvenience," it says.  "Thanks
>> For Nothing Verizon (And Hurricane Sandy)."
>
> What, exactly, does Verizon have to do with accepting credit cards?
> It's not like Verizon is the only way to get an Internet connection
> in lower Manhattan, particularly for something as low-bandwidth as
> credit-card transaction processing. (Hell, Verizon's own wireless
> joint venture can probably provide sufficient network for that.)

Many places do not know how to take credit cards when the power is
off, or when they can not get them authorized because their machine
won't access the service center when the power is off somewhere else.
The same thing would seem to apply when communications service was
interrupted.

We were once in a restaurant in Dallas when the power went off: the
cause later shown on TV was that a car hit a pole a couple of blocks
south of the restaurant, which was visible from the restaurant parking
lot.

We were trying to check out, and the server said they "couldn't" take
credit cards with the power off.  I offered to write a check, but the
manager said it was against company policy, and finally decided to
comp the charge.

Seemed to us it would make more sense to take the check and maybe get
some money vs. making sure you would get no money.

Another time we were in a restaurant in Oklahoma City where the staff
was pretty tired - they had spent all morning inputting the charges
they had from the night before when the power was off.

Wes Leatherock
wleathus@yahoo.com
wesrock@aol.com




Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 08:52:14 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Life Inside the Aaron Swartz Investigation
Message-ID: <p06240850cd5a564face1@[10.0.1.6]>

Life Inside the Aaron Swartz Investigation

By Quinn Norton
The Atlantic
Mar 3 2013

A reluctant witness's account of a Federal prosecution. If you
haven't been following the case, start with the editor's note for
context.

...

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/13/03/life-inside-the-aaron-swartz-investigation/273654/

-or-

http://goo.gl/fBaBV

Editor's Note to Quinn Norton's Account of the Aaron Swartz Investigation
Alexis Madrigal
The Atlantic
Mar 3 2013

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/13/03/editors-note-to-quinn-nortons-account-of-the-aaron-swartz-investigation/273666/

-or-

http://goo.gl/N1IWh

The full slate of court documents, totaling 650 pages 

https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/555334/1-11-cr-10260-nmg.pdf

Aaron Swartz arrest report, dated January 6, 2011

http://lawreport.org/pdf/AaronSwartz-CambridgePoliceArrestReportJan132011_text.pdf

Quinn Norton subpoena, dated March 3, 2011. 

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1C_pAJFqGnHOFhTeEZCMGN6Y2M/edit?usp=sharing

Aaron Swartz original indictment, dated July 14, 2011. 

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/07/swartz_indictment.pdf

Aaron Swartz revised or 'superceding' indictment, dated August 12, 2012.

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2012/09/swartzsuperseding.pdf






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