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Volume 28 : Issue 56 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:
  Re: Time for a muzzle / 
  Re: Time for a muzzle / ...    
  Hisotry: Teletype Model 28, WU microwave  
  Taxes and surcharges over 36% of bill, is this normal? 
  Re: Taxes and surcharges over 36% of bill, is this normal?   
  Re: Taxes and surcharges over 36% of bill, is this normal?   


====== 27 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 Patrick Townson 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 the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. 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 =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 11:48:20 -0500 From: MC <for.address.look@www.ai.uga.edu.slash.mc> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Time for a muzzle / Message-ID: <LtVol.7870$i9.4308@bignews8.bellsouth.net> Dave Garland wrote: > MC wrote: >> I think the essence of the problem is too much anonymity. > > I know. We keep seeing news stories sourced to "a high government > official" or "a police spokesman" or "an industry source" that don't > identify the source by name. Let's start with them. After all, > what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, eh? > > Dave But the journalist who chose to quote the anonymous source *is* identifiable. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 11:55:55 -0500 From: MC <for.address.look@www.ai.uga.edu.slash.mc> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Time for a muzzle / ... Message-ID: <TAVol.7876$i9.4721@bignews8.bellsouth.net> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > On Feb 23, 1:29 am, Monty Solomon <mo...@roscom.com> wrote: > > The first thing we must remember there is no such thing as totally > free speech. We can't yell fire in a crowded theatre. We can't give > away defense secrets. We can't harass, libel, or slander another > person. We can't make accusations with malice and reckless disregard > of the truth. We must respect the privacy of private citizens. This > laws have been around for many years and the Internet did not > eliminate any of them, although some people seem to think those issues > do not exist. > >> Time for a muzzle >> The online world of lies and rumor grows ever more vicious. Is it >> time to rethink free speech? > > The existing laws on free speech, harassment, and libel/slander are > generally adequate. > > The problem is that enforcing such laws in the online world is very > difficult. > > If I were to personally print up and circulate a leaflet falsely > accusing a neighbor of heinous crimes, that neighbor could fairly > easily find me and successfully sue me, and perhaps take other legal > action as well. Precisely. And in the absence of legal action, decent people could ostracize them. When I was doing computer security policy for the University of Georgia, I often heard people whine loudly when I told them that the laws of slander and libel *do* apply on the Internet. They wanted the Internet to be 'free,' by which they meant *they* wanted to be 'free' to harm *others* but not the other way around. As I said, the problem is too much anonymity. I don't think anonymity should be done away with, *but* anonymous communication should not be mixed freely with identified communication. As in society as a whole, anonymous comments should be a little harder to disseminate, and should be filtered through identifiable third parties who feel they are prima facie worth disseminating. That doesn't mean agreeing with them, but it does mean having some ability to filter out purely malicious messages and obvious falsehoods. Another point: Maximum freedom does not result from the total absence of regulation. If you have no regulation, the bullies are free, and nobody else is. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 11:57:35 -0800 (PST) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Hisotry: Teletype Model 28, WU microwave Message-ID: <19fe51a4-554a-4977-af73-5b09dbdd9cf8@m16g2000vbp.googlegroups.com> The WUTR has an article on the Teletype Model 28, a very popular machine recently discussed here. See: http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/technical/western-union-tech-review/09-3/p110.htm Following that is an article on WU power supplies (UPS). On Nov 17, 1964, WU announced the completion of its 7,500 mile transcontinental microwave system. The system intentionally avoided cities by 30 miles by request of the Dept. of Defense for reliability in case of attack on a city. WU intended for the system to be used for AUTODIN (a Dept of Defense message communication system), and private line voice and broadband services. WU touted a "push button" telephone to switch to different circuits. However, these were not Touch Tone phones. Rather, the push buttons activated various electrical characterists; to me, it sounded to the coding arrangement of Panel switch signals to the indicator lamps of a manual switchboard. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:49:57 -0800 (PST) From: muzician21 <muzician21@yahoo.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Taxes and surcharges over 36% of bill, is this normal? Message-ID: <9cb79e52-3425-42ee-aa43-99f1b5143e7e@f24g2000vbf.googlegroups.com> I'm with Embarq since they're the only game in town for DSL in my area. Taxes and surcharges of 16.51 on total charges of 44.80 - the DSL internet which is an additional 19.95 isn't taxed according to the bill. The taxes have names like Telecommunications relay surcharge, Interstate access surcharge, etc. etc. So that works out to almost 37% of the taxed portion of the bill. That's over 5x the tax rate on consumer items in many counties. Is this typical? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:08:49 +1100 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Taxes and surcharges over 36% of bill, is this normal? Message-ID: <pan.2009.02.25.01.08.48.799764@myrealbox.com> On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:19:13 -0500, muzician21 wrote: > I'm with Embarq since they're the only game in town for DSL in my area. > > Taxes and surcharges of 16.51 on total charges of 44.80 - the DSL > internet which is an additional 19.95 isn't taxed according to the bill. > > The taxes have names like Telecommunications relay surcharge, Interstate > access surcharge, etc. etc. > > So that works out to almost 37% of the taxed portion of the bill. That's > over 5x the tax rate on consumer items in many counties. Is this > typical? In Australia there is a 10% GST (on all goods and service), and the telcos have to contribute to a pooled fund to subsidise services in remote areas, but that is built into their charges and is not a separate tax. -- Regards, David. David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:39:48 -0800 (PST) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Taxes and surcharges over 36% of bill, is this normal? Message-ID: <c8f78d8b-b397-46d1-bfd2-6b04d716b03d@j38g2000yqa.googlegroups.com> On Feb 24, 4:19 pm, muzician21 <muzicia...@yahoo.com> wrote: > So that works out to almost 37% of the taxed portion of the bill. > That's over 5x the tax rate on consumer items in many counties. Is > this typical? Yes, it is typical. Some of the taxes are for social purposes, such as deaf people communication, low-income people communications, and public safety. Other fees are actually merely part of the rates you pay for service, falsely disguised as a special fee rather than a part of the service cost. IMHO, this is all an unfortunate, but predicted result of Bell System divesture 25 years ago. Basically, the biggest users of communications got a price break at the expense of small users. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecom- munications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to Usenet, where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. The Telecom Digest is currently being moderated by Bill Horne while Pat Townson recovers from a stroke. Contact information: Bill Horne Telecom Digest 43 Deerfield Road Sharon MA 02067-2301 781-784-7287 bill at horne dot net Subscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=subscribe telecom Unsubscribe: mailto:telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=unsubscribe telecom This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of The Telecom digest (6 messages) ******************************

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