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The Telecom Digest 
Volume 29 : Issue 96 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:
 Re: California's upcoming 1-2-punch against distracted driving            (David Clayton)
 Re: California's upcoming 1-2-punch against distracted driving           (Adam H. Kerman)
 Re: Most people can't talk on a cellphone and drive safely, study finds   (Robert Bonomi)
 Re: Data security law sparks concerns                                     (Robert Bonomi)


====== 28 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, 06 Apr 2010 15:02:44 +1000 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: California's upcoming 1-2-punch against distracted driving Message-ID: <pan.2010.04.06.05.02.41.951432@myrealbox.com> On Mon, 05 Apr 2010 12:20:22 -0700, Thad Floryan wrote: ........ > It's been > awhile so my memory is fuzzy on this, but when I drove in Europe (mostly > Germany and France) there was only one chance: get caught DUI and never, > ever be able to drive again. We need that level of enforcement and > sentencing everywhere. I like the place that has traffic fines as a proportion of annual income. IIRC a Nokia big-wig got caught a few years ago and was find hundreds of thousands of dollars for a traffic offence under this method. -- 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, 6 Apr 2010 07:03:01 +0000 (UTC) From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: California's upcoming 1-2-punch against distracted driving Message-ID: <hpemb5$lb2$1@news.albasani.net> Steven <diespammers@killspammers.com> wrote: >Sam Spade wrote: >>Steven wrote: >>>The only way to stop usage of cell phones by drivers while holding them >>>is to increase the fines to a few thousand dollars, anything under that >>>will have no effect. I see hundreds of people each day using phones as >>>I drive around. I stay as far as I can from them. >>Why not take their car away from them, revoke their license, and give >>them 10 years in prison? >Give the police more reasons to take cars and you will have some >agencies setting up road blocks and taking every car that comes through >with a cell phone on board even if it not in use. And I spend 2o plus >years as a Reserve Sheriff. Revoking the drivers license is fine with >me, 10 years in Prison would have to make it a Felony. A few hours in lockup would scare an otherwise law-abiding citizen into not doing it again.
Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2010 18:52:21 -0500 From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Most people can't talk on a cellphone and drive safely, study finds Message-ID: <L_idncj_2vuoVCbWnZ2dnUVZ_smdnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications> In article <9ovtn.31425$iu2.25592@newsfe15.iad>, > >***** Moderator's Note ***** > >I'm feeling foolish: I always believed what the airlines said about >how cellphones might interfere with the navigational equipment. Was >that a lie? There was, and may still be, an FAA rule of long standing that banned the operation of devices that 'might' generate either magnetic or RF fields during certain 'critical' parts (notably take-off and landing) of flights, UNLESS that particular device had been tested in that particular aircraft and found not to interfere with any of the navigation, communication, or flight control systems (I believe there's another 'system' component, too, but the name escapes me.) No provision for 'type acceptance' of either the aircraft, or the 'electronic' device. There was no hard evidence to say any such devices were a risk to flight operations, but there was nothing that =guaranteed= that it was safe to operate such devices. With lives on the line (literally), prudence demands that one take the course of 'risk avoidance'. For 'less-critical' portions of the flight, airlines did have some discretion in the matter -- (paraphrasing) If they had "hard evidence" that certain devices (or classes of devices) would not, under anything approximating 'normal' circumstances, affect flight operations, etc. they had the _discretion_ to allow the use of such devices, *IF*THEY*CHOSE*TO*. "Absolute proof" was not a requirement (_that_ is impossible, in context), but there did have to be 'compelling evidence' of innocuousness before they had the freedom to make a choice. Needless to say, a lot of airlines found it simpler/easier to 'just say no', than to put in the research to establish, 'conclusively', what devices were, in fact, innocuous.
Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:33:41 -0500 From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Data security law sparks concerns Message-ID: <0e-dndNL6phofSbWnZ2dnUVZ_jidnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications> In article <p0624082ac7dec3365af2@[10.0.1.4]>, > >***** Moderaotor's Note ***** > >My new employer has given me a new laptop, which has a built in >provision to encrypt the entire hard disk. The encryption is done by >the laptop's hardware, not the Operating System, and I've been assured >that the hard drive is unreadable in any other machine. Don't believe everything you've been told. <grin> Consider: If the machine (*not* the disk) breaks, is all the data on that drive then "irretrievably" lost? or can it be recovered? If not, then either (1) there is 'nothing important' on the machine, (2) it can all be readily re-constituted from other records (raising the question of how secure are those records), or (3) the data is duplicated 'somewhere else'. Consider: all the "box specific" information needed to encrypt/decrypt is in the hardware on that box. And, on another identical machine, it has the corresponding information for -that- boxes encryption/decryption stored in the same places. Once you identify where that information is stored, how difficult would it be to copy the 'secrets' from the first machine to the second one, assuming you got access to the hardware? >The point is that I don't think protecting data is that hard to do. That is an utterly *MEANINGLESS* statement -- unfortunately. Before one can classify the effort required for protection, one must decide "how much" protection, is required. This requires analyzing the type of 'threat' one is protecting against, and how_much they have by way of resources to 'attack' you. For 'securing' _anything_, data or anything else, there are precisely three basic methodologies, known colloquially as: 1) "something you have" -- e.g., a physical key. 2) "something you know" -- e.g., a password. 3) "something your are" -- e.g., a fingerprint, retinal scan, etc. Protection against 'more determined' threats may employ _more_than_one_ of the above methodologies. And, it is worth noting that 'whatever it is' that is protected by the security system is ONLY as secure as the security on the thing you 'have/know/are'. If the bad guy is willing to go to the effort of cutting off your finger, then protection by a fingerprint scanner is NOT adequate, nor effective. If the extent of the 'threat' is "accidential disclosure", then providing 'adequate' protection is fairly simple/straightforward. If you're talking about a 'directed threat' -- where the bad guy has expressly targeted you and/or your secrets -- the landscape is VERY different. WHAT is the value of those secrets to someone else (not just "anybody", but to someone who is optimally positioned to 'take advantage' of those secrets, and has the resources to do so)? HOW MUCH money or other resources can they devote to getting the secret and still 'come out ahead' (in whatever measuring system they are using)? And, lastly, HOW MUCH can -you- afford to devote to 'making it difficult' for them to do so? Say you know where you can sell stolen credit-card numbers, with the related ID info, for $10 each. Say you know somebody who has a million such records. That's a potential $10,000,000 'sale'. Is it 'worth it', if it takes you 6 months, and you have to spend $3,000,000 to 'make it happen'? You don't have the $3 mill? is it worth it if you find somebody who will 'front' the $3 mill, but wants triple their money back if you succeed? Is $1 million 'adequate' compensation for the 6 months you'll have to put in? "Merely encrypting the disk is -not- going to be adequate. in this kind of a situation. Controlling physical access to the machine is also part of the game. Next, where is the access key ('what you have/know/are') kept and how is that protected against forcible seizure? physical or other- wise.
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 Bill Horne. 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 moderated by Bill Horne. 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: 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! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Copyright (C) 2009 TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. 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 (4 messages)

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