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The Telecom Digest for June 6, 2014
Volume 33 : Issue 99 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Google Offers New Encryption Tool (Monty Solomon)
How Florida cops went door to door with fake cell device to find one man (Monty Solomon)
T-Mobile and Sprint Zeroing In on a $32 Billion Merger (Monty Solomon)
How Not to Pay the Price for Free Wi-Fi (Monty Solomon)

====== 32 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======

Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Bill Horne and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using any name or email address included herein for any reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to that person, or email address owner.
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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

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Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 01:59:55 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Google Offers New Encryption Tool
Message-ID: <p06240826cfb5b76c751f@[10.0.1.3]>

Google Offers New Encryption Tool

By NICOLE PERLROTH
JUNE 3, 2014

The National Security Agency's snooping is about to get more difficult.

Google on Tuesday released the source code for a new extension to its 
Chrome browser that will make it a lot easier for users to encrypt 
their email.

The tool, called End-to-End, uses an open-source encryption standard, 
OpenPGP, that will allow users to encrypt their email from the time 
it leaves their web browser until it is decrypted by the intended 
recipient. It will also allow users to easily read encrypted messages 
sent to their web mail service. The tool will require that users and 
their recipients use End-to-End or another encryption tool to send 
and read the contents.

This could be a major blow to the N.S.A. Despite numerous 
cryptographic advances over the past 20 years, end-to-end email 
encryption like PGP and GnuPG is still remarkably labor-intensive and 
require a great deal of technical expertise. User mistakes - not 
errors in the actual cryptography - often benefited the N.S.A. in its 
decade-long effort to foil encryption.

...

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/google-offers-new-encryption-tool/

http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2014/06/making-end-to-end-encryption-easier-to.html

https://code.google.com/p/end-to-end/




Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 02:57:20 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: How Florida cops went door to door with fake cell device to find  one man
Message-ID: <p0624083ccfb5c504a4d8@[10.0.1.3]>

How Florida cops went door to door with fake cell device to find one man
Best picture yet of how police use "stingrays."

by Cyrus Farivar
June 4 2014
Ars Technica

In the early morning hours of September 13, 2008, a woman notified 
the Tallahassee Police Department (TPD) that she had been raped and 
that her purse, containing her mobile phone, had been stolen. Within 
24 hours, the Florida capital's police had contacted Verizon and 
obtained real-time ping information, which gave the police a "general 
area" where they might find the phone and thus, hopefully, the 
perpetrator of the crime. But that general area still covered plenty 
of ground-where exactly was the phone?

To answer that question, the cops deployed a secretive device called 
a stingray, which operates as a fake cell phone tower used to track 
targeted phones. Though law enforcement typically fights attempts to 
learn how stingrays work or how often they are used, a court victory 
by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has just unsealed 
Tallahassee police testimony of exactly how the 2008 cell phone hunt 
happened.

This newly released transcript (PDF) provides what is likely the 
first-ever verbatim account of how stingrays are used in actual 
police operations. And it shows that stingrays are so accurate, they 
can pinpoint the very room in which a phone is located.

...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/how-florida-cops-went-door-to-door-with-fake-cell-device-to-find-one-man/

https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/100823_transcription_of_suppression_hearing_complete_0.pdf




Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 01:55:47 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: T-Mobile and Sprint Zeroing In on a $32 Billion Merger
Message-ID: <p06240824cfb5b6b64a68@[10.0.1.3]>

T-Mobile and Sprint Zeroing In on a $32 Billion Merger

By DAVID GELLES and MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED
JUNE 4, 2014

Responding to a wave of consolidation in the telecommunications 
industry, the nation's third- and fourth-largest wireless phone 
operators have agreed on the terms of a deal to join forces.

Sprint and T-Mobile have talked about a combination for years but 
continued to put it off, each preoccupied with other deals, and 
concerned about scrutiny from antitrust regulators.

But in recent days, the two sides have settled on the terms of a $32 
billion deal that is likely to be announced this summer, people 
briefed on the matter said on Wednesday.

...

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/sprint-and-t-mobile-agree-on-terms-of-32-billion-deal/




Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 01:54:16 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: How Not to Pay the Price for Free Wi-Fi
Message-ID: <p06240822cfb5b63d2e26@[10.0.1.3]>

How Not to Pay the Price for Free Wi-Fi

JUNE 4, 2014
Stephanie Rosenbloom

Part of globe-trotting nowadays is flitting from one free Wi-Fi 
network to the next. From hotel lobby to coffee shop to subway 
platform to park, each time we join a public network we put our 
personal information and privacy at risk. Yet few travelers are 
concerned enough to turn down free Wi-Fi. Rather, many of us hastily 
give away an email address in exchange for 15 minutes of free airport 
Internet access.

So how to feed your addiction while also safeguarding your passwords 
and privacy? If you're not going to abstain (and who is these days?), 
here are four rules for staying connected and (reasonably) safe while 
traveling.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/08/travel/how-not-to-pay-the-price-for-free-wi-fi.html






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