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The Telecom Digest for April 2, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 83 : "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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Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2012 00:43:13 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Police Are Using Phone Tracking as a Routine Tool
Message-ID: <p0624084ccb9d8c61e3ad@[10.0.1.4]>
Police Are Using Phone Tracking as a Routine Tool
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
March 31, 2012
WASHINGTON - Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the
province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely
used surveillance tool for local police officials, with hundreds of
departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little
or no court oversight, documents show.
The practice has become big business for cellphone companies, too,
with a handful of carriers marketing a catalog of "surveillance fees"
to police departments to determine a suspect's location, trace phone
calls and texts or provide other services. Some departments log
dozens of traces a month for both emergencies and routine
investigations.
With cellphones ubiquitous, the police [say that] phone tracing [is] a
valuable weapon in emergencies like child abductions, suicide calls,
and investigations in drug cases and murders. One police training
manual describes cellphones as "the virtual biographer of our daily
activities," providing a hunting ground for learning contacts and
travels.
But civil liberties advocates say the wider use of cell tracking
raises legal and constitutional questions, particularly when the
police act without judicial orders. While many departments require
warrants to use phone tracking in nonemergencies, others claim broad
discretion to get the records on their own, according to 5,500 pages
of internal records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union
from 205 police departments nationwide.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/us/police-tracking-of-cellphones-raises-privacy-fears.html
-or-
http://goo.gl/M27XD
Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2012 15:23:24 -0400
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Q.: Credo mobile: who are they?
Message-ID: <1b9h7u5gjv1mb.1b4rnpn5srv6i.dlg@40tude.net>
Postal flier reached me yesterday, from "Credo mobile", seemingly a MVNO
reselling Sprint wireless service, and portraying itself as anti-tea-party
in keeping with its activist-oriented sales hook.
Who -- or what -- are they, really? In league with Working Assets? Other?
TIA; and cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2012 10:55:23 -0500
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon, at&t agree to stop 'cramming' on customers' bills
Message-ID: <ZdSdnWHx5oH25-XSnZ2dnUVZ_jWdnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>
In article <HYmdnfn4T7pkrevSnZ2dnUVZ_hednZ2d@earthlink.com>,
r.e.d. <red-nospam-99@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Regarding this posting and linked article, I have always wondered about
>this:
>
>From: "HAncock4" <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org>
>>
>> MSNBC reported:
>> "Verizon and AT&T have agreed to stop "cramming" consumers' telephone
>> bills with unauthorized third-party charges, Sen. Jay Rockefeller
>> announced Wednesday.
>
>[Moderator snip]
>
>
>Is there expertise in the newsgroup readership as to how cramming
>works, technically? I gather it's not like billing for carrier
>interconnection (not that I understand that, either).
The 'simplest' how-it-works explanation is that a 3rd-party service
provider sends the telephone company a list of phone numbers, and the
amounts to be billed against those accounts. The telco gives the
provider that money (less a 'service fee', for doing the billing/collection)
and bills the telco subscriber 'as directed'. If the subscriber disputes
the charge, there is a 'chargeback' mechanism, but things get really messy.
Historically, there is a LONG_STANDING industry practice of letting
'select' third parties bill through your telephone bill for the services
of that third party. I'm not sure when 'Ma Bell' and Western Union
came to the 'special agreement' whereby you could phone the local Western
Union office, dictate a telegram, and have it billed to your telephone
account. WU was one of a very small number -- possibly the only one -- of
'outside' providers with this special billing arrangement.
Ma Bell also offered some 'specialty' on-demand services that could be
billed on the phone bill -- conference-call bridges, translation,
transcription services, and the like.
Comes the 'divestiture' boondoggle, and it was ruled that (a) 'Ma Bell',
in it's "regulated" operations, could NO offer such 'enhanced' services,
and (b) the 'regulated' side had to provide 'equal access' to competitors
of the telco's 'unregulated' service offerings.
Since the telco 'unregulated' division could bill on the phone bill, it
was held that 3rd-party providers also had to be given that capability.
In the early days, the mechanics of the process were that the 3rd-party
services provider wrote a computer tape with the billing info, and sent it
to the telco's processing center.
Also in those early days, the situation was rife with fraud and large-
scale scams, with the telco caught in the middle. They had already paid
the scammer, and couldn't recover the money paid out, so (oddly enough)
were very reluctant to 'refund' those bogus charges to their subscriber.
Telcos could, and did, disconnect your service if you failed to pay
those 3rd-party charges.
It took several rounds of revisions to the relevant regulations to get the
situation 'mostly' under control.
Today, 3rd-paty billers don't get any money until the subscriber pays the
'phone bill', in full. In addition, telcos cannot disconnect, or pursue
'collection', over disputed 3rd-party charges; they are just bounced back
to the originator, who has to do all the collection/enforcement themselves.
And, I believe, significant restrictions were imposed on 'who' can now do
such billing. It may involve posting 'substantial' surety bonds, and/or
have an 'established' business record (which would eliminate the newly-
established 'fly by night' operators). I think the 3rd-party biller
must also, now, have explicit written consent from the telco subscriber,
a -signed- document specifying the nature and amount of the charges that
are 'authorized'.
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