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The Telecom Digest for December 21, 2010
Volume 29 : Issue 344 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:

Airport Apps Put You First in Line(Monty Solomon)
Re: History--Eight Digit US telephone numbers?(Sam Spade)
Re: Detecting cell phone dead spots via post office(John Levine)
Re: History--Eight Digit US telephone numbers?(Wes Leatherock)
Re: Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear Into Retailers(T)
Re: History--Eight Digit US telephone numbers?(Lisa or Jeff)
Re: History--Eight Digit US telephone numbers?(Harold Hallikainen)
Re: Question about an old scrambler phone(Robert Bonomi)
Re: Question about an old scrambler phone(SVU)
Re: Telstra loses directory copyright appeal(Neal McLain)


====== 28 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest.

Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 13:55:50 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Airport Apps Put You First in Line Message-ID: <p0624084bc934008b3941@[192.168.180.133]> Airport Apps Put You First in Line By MICHELLE HIGGINS December 14, 2010 IT goes without saying: Holiday travel is brutal. Security lines are longer. Planes are more crowded. The battle for storage space heats up as travelers vie to stuff all those gift-laden bags in overhead bins. And if bad weather hits, your delayed or canceled flight may make you tardy for Christmas or New Year's dinner - that is, if you even make it out of the airport. This year, the experience may be even more intense. Over the holidays, 43.6 million passengers are expected to travel on United States carriers, up about 3 percent from last year, according to the Air Transport Association of America, the industry trade group. Still, holiday travel doesn't have to be totally miserable. While the usual groundwork - showing up early with boarding passes in hand and packing as lightly as possible - still applies, an array of travel applications for smartphones can help you tackle just about any problem that might arise at or on your way to the airport. So before you leave home this year, take a moment to download a few of these to help you navigate the holiday crush. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/travel/19prac-travelapps.html
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 18:07:39 -0800 From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: History--Eight Digit US telephone numbers? Message-ID: <cZWdnUywP6jxJ5PQnZ2dnUVZ_r6dnZ2d@giganews.com> jsw wrote: > > Our own Pat has eluded to the Wabash office in Chicago being > step, but I kind of question this, since I know a lot of > Chicago was panel and #1 crossbar from the 30s through the > 70s. > Alas, there used to be a web site with recordings of all those switch sounds, including panel.
Date: 19 Dec 2010 20:20:35 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Detecting cell phone dead spots via post office Message-ID: <20101219202035.14995.qmail@joyce.lan> >While we're at it, lets add water & power meter reading, Google Earth >photos, and cameras to search for missing children. Actually, reading meters is not a bad idea. The water meters we're planning to install are not online, but are remotely readable from the curb. If the mailman is going to be driving by anyway, why send out a separate truck? R's, John
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:22:12 -0800 (PST) From: Wes Leatherock <wleathus@yahoo.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: History--Eight Digit US telephone numbers? Message-ID: <714602.99406.qm@web111708.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> --- On Sat, 12/18/10, Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote: > A resident of a such a small town told me the phone company told > people to use 7 digits and stopped referring to 5 digits. But 5 > digits continued to work until the exchange was cutover to ESS. Many were converted to 5XB much sooner than ESS became viable. That also prevented five-digit dialing. Wes Leatherock wleathus@yahoo.com wesrock@aol.com
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 16:09:51 -0500 From: T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear Into Retailers Message-ID: <MPG.27783eaddba3042e989d0b@news.eternal-september.org> In article <pan.2010.12.19.03.46.42.541726@myrealbox.com>, dcstar@myrealbox.com says... > > On Sat, 18 Dec 2010 15:27:19 -0500, Monty Solomon wrote: > > > TECHNOLOGY > > > > Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear Into Retailers > > > > By MIGUEL BUSTILLO And ANN ZIMMERMAN > > DECEMBER 15, 2010 > ......... > > Until recently, retailers could reasonably assume that if they just lured > > shoppers to stores with enticing specials, the customers could be coaxed > > into buying more profitable stuff, too. > > > > Now, marketers must contend with shoppers who can use their smartphones > > inside stores to check whether the specials are really so special, and if > > the rest of the merchandise is reasonably priced. > > > > ... > And we now await retailers to start lobbying law makers to be allowed to > use mobile jamming devices in-store to protect their sales..... Until such time as someone throws a coronary and nobody can call for help.
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 16:05:49 -0800 (PST) From: Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: History--Eight Digit US telephone numbers? Message-ID: <cc4e62f5-e3e2-4b5a-b9cd-d6ef1c18c0a1@o14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com> On Dec 19, 12:36 pm, jsw <j...@ivgate.omahug.org> wrote: > A true panel office was very noisy in that the sounds of the > office could be heard during and immediately after dialing. I > really think that a lot of people who are otherwise very CO > savvy are forgetting this. Panel offices were also notoriously > noisy during the connection. Contacts were often microphonic. > One sound was kind of a cross between a 'clang' and the sounds > of chains rattling. At ACTA and TCI phone shows, sometimes collectors bring in working switches to demonstrate, including panel. Visitors can make calls on them. Sometimes different exhibitors link their switches together. (Sometimes they use electronic black boxes to accomoplish the interface). When I watched the panel frame work, the motor and rods were quiet, certainly quieter than the ratchet of the step-by-step switch or the relaxy clacking in a cross bar. Of course that was but a single frame, maybe a room full of them and associated might be different. Check ACTA and TCI websites for shows--they are held all over the country and Canada. Worth a visit if not too far away. > I don't know about any of these except Los Angeles, and it's > been my understanding that quite a bit of the El-Lay area was > indie using AE step, and Ma Bell simply went along. ;-) I do > know that there was quite a bit of #5 crossbar in Orange > County in the early 1970s, as well as some 1E making inroads > into the area as well.  I vaguely recall much of Santa Ana > being step as well. I think LA was step because it had many independents that Bell took over and in that particular case it was easier to leave it as is. But I suspect given the size and growth of LA it would've been panel or #1 crossbar to facilitate inter-office networking and trunk utilization. They attempted some SxS front end common control in LA to improve efficiency. SxS also had something called the "graded multiple" which improved trunk utilization. > Our own Pat has eluded to the Wabash office in Chicago being > step, but I kind of question this, since I know a lot of > Chicago was panel and #1 crossbar from the 30s through the > 70s. Downtown Phila had some SxS units serving certain Centrex users. Oddly, SxS but not panel could service Centrex. On a small organization that had centrex via SxS, on interoffice calls the first digit was absorbed and users need only dial the last three digits (this was not well known). The organization's switchboard was a traditional cord unit, too; most Centrex's had consoles for the operators.
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2010 05:46:41 -0800 (PST) From: Harold Hallikainen <harold@hallikainen.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: History--Eight Digit US telephone numbers? Message-ID: <2855de5d-dd73-4147-bbdf-113ad27e30ad@r40g2000prh.googlegroups.com> > A resident of a such a small town told me the phone company told > people to use 7 digits and stopped referring to 5 digits.  But 5 > digits continued to work until the exchange was cutover to ESS.  (He > hoped to get a switch unit after the cutover but the old gear was kept > quite secure.  I would think its value would only be scrap by that > point in time.) In the early 1970s, Santa Maria CA had a step switch (General Telephone at the time). They had 5 digit dialing. I worked in radio stations in both Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo (Pacific Telephone). SLO had 7 digit dialing. Santa Maria is right on the county line. The radio stations in Santa Maria I worked for would give business telephone numbers as 5 digits. Listeners across the county line could not dial the numbers that way. Santa Maria's switch would accept 7 digit numbers. I always thought they should broadcast 7 digit numbers to be useful to the largest number of listeners. Of course, when 7 digit numbers were broadcast, the prefix was WAlnut 5. Also at that time, you had to go through an operator to call from SLO to Guadalupe, a town west of Santa Maria. I don't know if Santa Maria could dial Guadalupe direct or if, perhaps, Guadalupe still had a manual switch at that time. Harold
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 21:46:05 -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: <GeydneZSD9XgTJPQnZ2dnUVZ_h6dnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications> In article <tuSdnZjSRc_OrZPQnZ2dnUVZ_tGdnZ2d@posted.internetamerica>, Gordon Burditt <gordonb.qdaly@burditt.org> wrote: >>>Whoa.... all GSM air traffic is highly encrypted - you cannot get >>>much more "scrambled" than that! >> >> You call it "highly encrypted". I call it "probably better than >>no encryption at all". >> >> GSM has been cracked a while back. Your security under GSM is >>usually that nobody cares to hear your calls. If they do care, it's >>certainly doable. > >How difficult would it be to get real quality end-to-end encryption >on a cell phone (possibly with no hardware changes)? Does anyone >offer this? It seems like it would be a popular app, although most >people wouldn't be able to tell if it was really working. Are there >any legal problems (suppose, for the moment, the call is USA to USA), >other than perhaps the phone needs to be "jailbroken" to make this >work? READILY available as a _hardware-based_ attachment. Circa $1k per phone. "compatible" with similar units for landlines.
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2010 07:08:09 -0800 (PST) From: SVU <brad.houser@gmail.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Question about an old scrambler phone Message-ID: <9173d8b8-537f-49e0-9fb9-f7c761ea7ffd@o23g2000prh.googlegroups.com> On Dec 19, 8:18 am, gordonb.qd...@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) wrote: > How difficult would it be to get real quality end-to-end encryption > on a cell phone (possibly with no hardware changes)?  Does anyone > offer this?  It seems like it would be a popular app, although most > people wouldn't be able to tell if it was really working.  Are there > any legal problems (suppose, for the moment, the call is USA to > USA), other than perhaps the phone needs to be "jailbroken" to make > this work? > <snippage> > The apps on both ends sync up, then start encrypting the (digital) > voice channel, perhaps with AES-256 or something stronger.  TLA > agencies get annoyed that their CO-based wiretaps are seeing encrypted > data. > Skype uses AES-256 encryption, and it is available on some smartphones, but I am not sure if the smartphones support the encryption or not. There are some flaws with it too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_security Brad Houser
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 21:51:34 -0600 From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Telstra loses directory copyright appeal Message-ID: <4D0ED2C6.7080102@annsgarden.com> > Telstra has lost an appeal to keep telephone directories published > by its subsidiary Sensis copyrighted. On a related note, is the Australian postal code directory copyrighted? I've noted that the Canadian postal code directory is protected by a "crown copyright"; i.e., copyrighted by Elizabeth II herself, so I assume the Australian director is protected by a similar copyright. I have a mental image of HRH sitting at her laptop on her Jacobean desk, corgis at her feet, busily editing postal code directories. Neal McLain
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