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The Telecom Digest for December 13, 2010
Volume 29 : Issue 336 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:

The lurking danger of driving while texting(Monty Solomon)
Re: Question about an old scrambler phone(Robert Bonomi)
Re: Question about an old scrambler phone(John David Galt)
Re: Question about an old scrambler phone(Wes Leatherock)
Re: Angry Birds, Flocking to Cellphones Everywhere(David Clayton)


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Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2010 08:51:06 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: The lurking danger of driving while texting Message-ID: <p0624083ac92a83693ee8@[10.0.1.5]> The lurking danger of driving while texting Posted: Wednesday, December 8, 2010 10:08 am BY SCOTT MCDONALD, Examiner publisher Alex Brown was a young, pretty, West Texas teenage girl with a rich life ahead of her. A quick sequence of events led to her lying in a field - dying. The 17-year-old's death just over a year ago led to a crusade by her parents to encourage students to buckle up and stop texting. Jeanne and Johnny Mac Brown travel to high schools around Texas to spread the message, and Tuesday they stopped for an assembly at Navasota High School. Alex Brown was a senior at Seagraves High School, which is about an hour and a half southwest of Lubbock. Brown was ranked second in her class, but her college credits would have moved her to valedictorian by the end of the year and she would have had enough credits to be a sophomore in college the day she graduated high school. "She was a good kid," Jeanne told the students at Navasota. "She loved people, no matter who they were or what they were. Everybody loved her." On Nov. 10, 2009, Alex was running late for one of her college classes because she spent too much time on Facebook that morning, Jeanne said. That led to Alex scrambling so she wouldn't be TOO late for class. She took the more dangerous route to school - the route her parents always discouraged her to take. Alex didn't buckle her seat belt. And then, while simultaneously carrying on text message conversations with four different friends, her pick-up truck spun out of control and crashed. Alex was thrown from her vehicle into a field. She just laid there, fading into consciousness and back out again, quickly leaving this world. The state trooper who investigated that accident said that Alex was driving 70 miles per hour before she spun. ... http://www.navasotaexaminer.com/news/article_3a9d3eb6-02e5-11e0-a93f-001cc4c002e0.html ***** Moderator's Note ***** Like most parents, I harped on this and similar subjects until my face was blue. I told my son, again and again and again ad nauseam, "Never get your pride into a fight with the laws of physics. Physics 'gonna win every time!" In my copious free time, I cursed the studpidity of children in general and mine in particular, and managed (more by good luck than by good parenting) to get him past his teenage years without any auto accidents. In other words, I became my father. C'est la vie. Bill Horne Moderator
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2010 23:45:42 -0600 From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Question about an old scrambler phone Message-ID: <qfedna3AjPAb_JnQnZ2dnUVZ_hqdnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications> In article <941b0574-3b4d-4c24-928d-3c79a8f978cb@k21g2000vbd.googlegroups.com>, Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote: >On Dec 11, 4:10 am, Chris Hoaglin / Primary Rate ><ch...@primaryratedata.com> wrote: > >> More recently, speech inversion has been used in some analog cordless >> phones, various radio systems, and in central office remote line testing >> equipment to allow line monitoring while maintaining some level of >> privacy. The Harris DATU from the 90's is one example, and I'm sure >> there are others. > >A long time standard feature in telephone service is the ability of >the operator to break into ongoing calls to announce an emergency >call. (Now they charge a steep fee to do that). Before doing so, >they listen in to ensure the line is actually 'busy talking' and not >merely off hook or our of order. (Verifying a busy line is a fee now, >too.) > >Some time ago Bell Labs Record reported on a device that would allow >operators to confirm the line was in use with a conversation without >the operator being able to listen to the conversation. The device >would scramble the conversation so the operator would hear >something. Faugh! talk about overkill! A simple voltmeter across the pair will give a 'good' indicator of conversation on the line. And, with an ESS you could do it purely in software -- the 'mean' level of the signal, the extreme values, and a variance-type number (e.g. std deviation), should provide an extremely reliable indicator. Most of the 'development cost' would lie in developing the 'norms' against which data from a specific test was compared. It would be trivial to hook this to an IVR system that could report, w/o -any- human intervention: 1) line is 'on hook' 2) line is 'off hook', and appears to be actively in use 3) line is 'off hook', but appears to be not in active use with a little hardware support -- instrumentation to measure things on the analog tail loop itself, rather than just looking at data in the switch, one can add: 4) trouble on the line, apparent short 5) possible trouble on the line, line break or no instruments connected. Getting result 5 does require some fairly sophisticated test gear, but 4 is trivial. I'd guesstimate the total development cost of the analyzer for results 1-3 at 'low 5 figures' with the preponderance of that going for gathering the data for the 'norms' used in setting the reference check-points. since it's a pure software function, the 'cost of deployment', once developed, is essentially zero for each location.
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2010 12:43:10 -0800 From: John David Galt <jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Question about an old scrambler phone Message-ID: <ie3c4v$8kg$1@blue.rahul.net> Robert Bonomi wrote: > Faugh! talk about overkill! A simple voltmeter across the pair will > give a 'good' indicator of conversation on the line. And, with an ESS > you could do it purely in software -- the 'mean' level of the signal, > the extreme values, and a variance-type number (e.g. std deviation), > should provide an extremely reliable indicator. Most of the 'development > cost' would lie in developing the 'norms' against which data from a specific > test was compared. It would be trivial to hook this to an IVR system > that could report, w/o -any- human intervention: > 1) line is 'on hook' > 2) line is 'off hook', and appears to be actively in use > 3) line is 'off hook', but appears to be not in active use There are "anti-eavesdropping devices" you can get which tell you whether another phone on your line is off hook; I believe they're nothing more than a zener diode bridged across the pair. Detecting activity is harder, because some lines are "noisy" enough that, with a phone off hook but left idle, a sound meter would show a higher volume than two people talking quietly on a better line. I've seen causes for this ranging from old wiring in an old house to squirrels eating the insulation off the drop wires (and wondered why the phone company wouldn't let us cure that by substituting an armored cable).
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2010 16:49:03 -0800 (PST) From: Wes Leatherock <wleathus@yahoo.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Question about an old scrambler phone Message-ID: <765574.95660.qm@web111715.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> --- On Sun, 12/12/10, John David Galt <jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us> wrote: From: John David Galt <jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us> >Robert Bonomi wrote: >> Faugh! talk about overkill! A simple voltmeter across the pair will >> give a 'good' indicator of conversation on the line. And, with an ESS >> you could do it purely in software -- the 'mean' level of the signal, >> the extreme values, and a variance-type number (e.g. std deviation), >> should provide an extremely reliable indicator. Most of the 'development >> cost' would lie in developing the 'norms' against which data from a >specific >> test was compared. It would be trivial to hook this to an IVR system >> that could report, w/o -any- human intervention: >> 1) line is 'on hook' >> 2) line is 'off hook', and appears to be actively in use >> 3) line is 'off hook', but appears to be not in active use > There are "anti-eavesdropping devices" you can get which tell you whether > another phone on your line is off hook; I believe they're nothing more than > a zener diode bridged across the pair. > > Detecting activity is harder, because some lines are "noisy" enough that, > with a phone off hook but left idle, a sound meter would show a higher > volume than two people talking quietly on a better line. I've seen causes > for this ranging from old wiring in an old house to squirrels eating the > insulation off the drop wires (and wondered why the phone company wouldn't > let us cure that by substituting an armored cable). Squirel guards are common on aerial cables in much of Oklahoma and surrounding states. I don't think there was much problem on drops. I had squirrels eat the insulation off the TV cable in my attic until it failed and Cox had to rewire the eintire house. It certainly got very noisy before it failed completely. Not the only things wrong with squirrels in your attic. Wes Leatherock wleathus@yahoo.com wesrock@aol.com
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2010 18:46:47 +1100 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Angry Birds, Flocking to Cellphones Everywhere Message-ID: <pan.2010.12.12.07.46.44.208095@myrealbox.com> On Sat, 11 Dec 2010 20:46:09 -0600, John Mayson wrote: > I am 41 years old. I have not been a video game fan since I was about 14 > or so. I have no games on my laptop. I have only a couple of games on my > phone and iPod Touch. My son suggested I install Angry Birds on my phone. > I absolutely cannot put it down. I cannot explain the appeal. I am > probably the least likely of anyone to get hooked on it, but I have. > Ahh yes, the secret Al-Qaeda plot to destroy western society by destroying productivity via useless distractions seems to be working well(?) Or is it purely self-inflicted? -- 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. ***** Moderator's Note ***** Oh, we did this to ourselves: Osama bin Laden didn't lift a finger. Every new toy demands a change of habit, and eventually worms it's way into the public consciousness as "the way it's 'spozed to be". In a previous moderator's note, I quoted Brad Paisley's song "Welcome to the Future": he used to have to get a ride down to the arcade, but now he has Pacman on his phone. This is often a mixed blessing: after all, how do you think the U.S. derailed the Japanese economic juggernaut of the late 20th century? It's simple: we invented computers! Before PC's, Japanese managers had to write (on paper, with a pen, by hand) memos themselves, thus tending to make their writen communications short, concise, and easy to understand. Now, they have PCs, and they are burying their society under a mountain of bombastic and pointless email - just like us. Bill Horne Moderator
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