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Message Digest 
Volume 28 : Issue 12 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:
  The Geeks Behind Obama's Web Strategy
  Re: The Geeks Behind Obama's Web Strategy 
  Re: The Geeks Behind Obama's Web Strategy 
  Mysterious credit card charge may have hit millions of users
  Re: How to find out mobile carrier's web-to-sms gateway     address?

====== 27 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 01:16:48 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: The Geeks Behind Obama's Web Strategy
Message-ID: <p06240808c59090975a8a@[10.0.1.6]>


The Geeks Behind Obama's Web Strategy
A group of Boston geeks helped Barack Obama turn the Web into the 
ultimate political machine. Will he use it now to reinvent government?

By David Talbot  |  January 8, 2009

On a February night nearly two years ago, a Boston computer 
programmer named Jascha Franklin-Hodge was entertaining a first date 
over dinner at Shanti, in Dorchester, when his cellphone rang, 
displaying a Chicago number. Bolting from his plate of korma and 
dashing outside, he heard good news from the fledgling Barack Obama 
campaign. Franklin-Hodge and his squad of Web designers and 
programmers at Blue State Digital -- a small start-up in a 
creaky-floored loft office on Congress Street in the Seaport District 
-- had been hired to build much of Obama for America's digital 
backbone: the interactive and social-networking features of 
my.barackobama.com, or MyBO.

MyBO would become the hub of the campaign's online efforts to 
organize supporters, channel their energies effectively, enable them 
to call millions of voters, and, of course, collect donations. Today 
President-elect Obama has a new soapbox, change.gov, the official 
transition website (also built by Blue State Digital). It features 
such novelties as Cabinet nominees giving YouTube replies to comments 
posted by average Americans. The extent to which Obama goes on to use 
the Web -- as a portal to release more government data for public 
consumption, as an instrument for rallying Americans to advance his 
agenda, and to bypass traditional media -- is yet to be seen. But his 
campaign platform promised Obama would use technology to create "a 
new level of transparency, accountability, and participation." When 
Obama takes the oath of office nine days from now, his hallmark is 
likely to be a massive use of the Web.

He certainly took online campaigning to a new level. His e-campaign 
included not only MyBO, of course, but also the powerful leveraging 
of everything from text-messaging to YouTube video propagation to 
supporter networks on platforms like Facebook -- and on a scale that 
dwarfed what was achieved by Hillary Clinton or John McCain (for 
example, Obama had more than 3.4 million Facebook supporters, six 
times McCain's number). Of course, that night at Shanti, all that was 
clear to Franklin-Hodge was that a polished but long-shot junior 
senator would step to a Springfield, Illinois, lectern nine days 
later, on February 10, 2007, to announce his candidacy. 
Franklin-Hodge -- a baritone-voiced MIT dropout, now 29 years old -- 
had been around this block once before; he was part of a core group 
of geeks who built the then-novel online apparatus for the Howard 
Dean campaign. But 2003 was still the Dark Ages for online social 
networking. The Dean tools for setting up meetings and donating were 
a little rough. More important, fewer Americans were comfortable 
using the Internet to form communities and to organize. (In 2003, 
Facebook didn't exist in its present form but today has more than 40 
million American accounts; it seems every other Joe Sixpack has a 
Facebook profile.)

...

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2009/01/11/the_geeks_behind_obamas_web_strategy/


------------------------------

Date: 12 Jan 2009 15:59:43 -0500
From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: The Geeks Behind Obama's Web Strategy 
Message-ID: <gkgavv$4ur$1@panix2.panix.com>

Monty Solomon  <monty@roscom.com> wrote:
>
>On a February night nearly two years ago, a Boston computer 
>programmer named Jascha Franklin-Hodge was entertaining a first date 
>over dinner at Shanti, in Dorchester, when his cellphone rang, 
>displaying a Chicago number. Bolting from his plate of korma and 
>dashing outside, he heard good news from the fledgling Barack Obama 
>campaign. Franklin-Hodge and his squad of Web designers and 
>programmers at Blue State Digital -- a small start-up in a 
>creaky-floored loft office on Congress Street in the Seaport District 
>-- had been hired to build much of Obama for America's digital 
>backbone: the interactive and social-networking features of 
>my.barackobama.com, or MyBO.

My only experience with Blue State Digital is that they seem remarkably
clue resistant.  Throughout the campaign they were running an open mailing
list server... anybody could join anyone else up on their mailing list, and
lots of people did.  Telephone calls to the folks at Blue State resulted in
total disbelief that this was a problem.

Mailing list confirmation became standard a decade or so ago, when Internet
use ballooned and sites were no longer really able to keep track of their
users or keep reasonable control over them.  To run a mailing list without
confirmation today is like walking into a bar with a KICK ME sign on your
back.

I certainly hope that these people are not going to be giving any advice
to Mr. Obama about the future growth of the internet or about networking
policies.  If they are, we can all just go home now.
--scott
-- 
"C'est un Nagra.  C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

***** Moderator's Note *****

Scott, I think they will be giving President Obama a lot of advice:
after all, they are, by definition, the experts now. They helped him
get elected, so everything that they do or say is now assumed to come
from the oracle at Delphi. 

Let's remember that most of our "leaders" don't know that supermarkets
have scanners, let alone that there is a medium of mass communication
outside of TV and Radio and newsprint. Those who run America, and who
will be telling Barack Obama what is best for us all, will fall over
themselves trying to sign up Blue State Digital to deliver their
message to the unwashed masses, and whatever those guys want, they
get.

This is the great American success story: a kid drops out of college,
spends all his time trying to find a niche market for his particular
talent, and succeeds beyond his wildest dreams. It worked for Bill
Gates.

Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:47:58 -0800
From: Steven Lichter <diespammers@ikillspammers.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: The Geeks Behind Obama's Web Strategy 
Message-ID: <_HPal.10881$D32.643@flpi146.ffdc.sbc.com>

Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Monty Solomon  <monty@roscom.com> wrote:
>> On a February night nearly two years ago, a Boston computer 
>> programmer named Jascha Franklin-Hodge was entertaining a first date 
>> over dinner at Shanti, in Dorchester, when his cellphone rang, 
>> displaying a Chicago number. Bolting from his plate of korma and 
>> dashing outside, he heard good news from the fledgling Barack Obama 
>> campaign. Franklin-Hodge and his squad of Web designers and 
>> programmers at Blue State Digital -- a small start-up in a 
>> creaky-floored loft office on Congress Street in the Seaport District 
>> -- had been hired to build much of Obama for America's digital 
>> backbone: the interactive and social-networking features of 
>> my.barackobama.com, or MyBO.
> 
> My only experience with Blue State Digital is that they seem remarkably
> clue resistant.  Throughout the campaign they were running an open mailing
> list server... anybody could join anyone else up on their mailing list, and
> lots of people did.  Telephone calls to the folks at Blue State resulted in
> total disbelief that this was a problem.
> 
> Mailing list confirmation became standard a decade or so ago, when Internet
> use ballooned and sites were no longer really able to keep track of their
> users or keep reasonable control over them.  To run a mailing list without
> confirmation today is like walking into a bar with a KICK ME sign on your
> back.
> 
> I certainly hope that these people are not going to be giving any advice
> to Mr. Obama about the future growth of the internet or about networking
> policies.  If they are, we can all just go home now.
> --scott

I would guess that the IT people who work at the Whitehouse as well as 
the IT people in charge of communications would clue them. Years ago 
when I worked for the phone company, the president would fly to the west 
coast and Looking Glass would follow and sit at March AFB, we tied the 
plane into the public network through secure systems, and those people 
were aware of everything.

-- 
The Only Good Spammer is a Dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? 
(c) 2009  I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Co.


------------------------------

Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 02:00:29 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Mysterious credit card charge may have hit millions of users
Message-ID: <p0624080dc5909a99b315@[10.0.1.6]>


http://www.boston.com/business/personalfinance/articles/2009/01/11/mysterious_credit_card_charge_may_have_hit_millions_of_users/

CONSUMER ALERT
Mysterious credit card charge may have hit millions of users

By Mitch Lipka, Globe Correspondent  |  January 11, 2009
The Boston Globe

Several Internet complaint boards are filled with comments from
credit card customers from coast to coast who have noticed a
mysterious charge for about 25 cents on their statements.

The charge shows up on statements as coming from "Adele Services" in
Melville, N.Y. There is no business by that name listed in Melville,
or registered to any business anywhere in New York, for that matter.

Two theories of what is going on have advanced on message boards and
among consumer advocates: Someone is trying to find out whether an
illegally obtained credit card number will work before making a
bigger charge, or they're trying to rip off tiny amounts from tons of
people.

The latter theory has more credibility at the moment. The Better
Business Bureau in Louisville reports that, at least so far, those
who have been hit with the small charge have yet to get slammed with
a bigger charge. The bureau speculates that the number of possible
victims could be in the millions.

It's not clear how the numbers got in the hands of the people making
the charge, but consumer advocates say it is most likely through
either a data theft or someone using a computer to generate numbers.

Former Massachusetts assistant attorney general Edgar Dworsky, who
runs ConsumerWorld.org, said the scam reminded him of an old adage:
"It's easier to steal $1 from a million people than $1 million from
one person," he said.

Most people, Dworsky said, are likely to overlook or ignore the small
charge. "Isn't that the perfect scam, when the victim doesn't even
know something has been taken?" he said.

Take a look at your credit card statements, and if the charge is
there, don't let it slide. It's what the thieves want you to do.
Instead, file a dispute with your credit card company, and lodge
complaints with the Federal Trade Commission (www.ftc.gov) and the
Internet Crime Complaint Center (www.ic3.gov) - which is run by the
FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center, and the Bureau of
Justice Assistance. Federal law enforcement officials tend to react
when the complaints reach a certain volume.

HAVE A CONSUMER QUESTION? E-mail your questions to consumer@globe.com.
© Copyright The New York Times Company


***** Moderator's Note *****

The first wave has started: after this, the deluge. The banking system
we all depend on is, as I have said before, totally incapable of
verifying customer or merchant identities without face-to-face
meetings.

Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator
P.S. I have yet to see an adage that _wasn't_ old.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 18:06:46 -0800 (PST)
From: John <linwh348@hotmail.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: How to find out mobile carrier's web-to-sms gateway     address?
Message-ID: <9aa6551d-ffc1-4de4-908f-4ddc02a5e480@l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com>

On 1/7/09 tlvp <PmUiRsGcE.TtHlEv...@att.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:38:31 -0500, steven acer <dudest...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Is there anyway to find the e-mail-to-SMS gatewaya mobile carrier
> > uses to route email as SMS messages? I am talking about any carrier: I
> > found some lists on the internet, but they don't cover all the countries.
> > (http://www.mutube.com/projects/open-email-to-sms/gateway-list/)
>
> > If I can sendsmsmessages from a web interface my carrier provides
> > this means that this carrier has agatewayof the ones I am talking
> > about.  I need a way to find these addresses regardless of the carrier
> > and the country.
>
> And I'd particularly welcome such data for the Polish providers Idea,
> Plus, Era, and Orange. Even better would be the added information, which
> 3-digit cellular prefixes are proprietary to which of these various
> providers.
>
> Thanks, and cheers, -- tlvp

Let me try and answer your questions.

Do you need to receive SMS? If you need to receive SMS, you will need
to host your own GSM device or modem so that people can send you SMS.

If not, you can just use internet SMS gateways like clickatell to do
the work, and post to them by HTTP, XML or email. The cost is about
6-8 cents per SMS. There are cheaper services, but not always
reliable. If you need to host your own GSM device, you can use
software like http://www.kannel.org (GPL Open Source) or
http://visualtron.com/enterprise/sms-gateway.

Regards.


------------------------------




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