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  The Telecom Digest for February 22, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 45 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:

Re: Verizon screwed me, again(Steven)
Re: New Hacking Tools Pose Bigger Threats to Wi-Fi Users(Sam Spade)
Re: New Hacking Tools Pose Bigger Threats to Wi-Fi Users (David Clayton)
Re: Apple Is Weighing a Cheaper iPhone(David Clayton)


====== 29 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======

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Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 22:05:26 -0800
From: Steven <diespammers@killspammers.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon screwed me, again 
Message-ID: <ijsvb8$tit$1@news.eternal-september.org>

On 2/20/11 8:11 AM, Telecom Digest Moderator wrote:
> This is getting obscene. Verizon did it to me again.
>
> As I wrote before, MegaPath abandoned service to my town while I was
> on vacation. I got home to find that my DSL service had been
> disconnected.
>
> There is another part of the story: I have been using Google Voice for
> my phone calls for a long time, because my son was running up
> hundred-dollar-plus phone bills calling everyone he knows every
> day. He assumed that I would pay the bill and do nothing - proof that
> youth is wasted on the young - but I placed "no toll" restrictions
> on the line and relied on Google to make LD phone calls.
>
> Of course, no Internet means no Google Voice, and my wife asked me to
> resolve the situation so that she could use the phone. I called the
> Verizon "Service" representative - I'll call her Anne - and asked to
> have the restrictions removed. She told me it would happen within the
> hour.
>
> After that, Anne told me that there was a pending order to remove
> Speakeasy DSL, and she sold me the second tier of Verizon's DSL
> service, with a scheduled start date of 2/23.
>
> Two hours later, at 4:30 PM on a Friday before a long weekend, the
> toll restrictions were still there. I called Verizon's number
> again. The man I spoke to said, again and again and again, that he
> wouldn't "yes me to death" at the same time he was trying to "maybe"
> me to death. He said the order to remove the toll restictions had been
> created after the DSl order, and that meant it had been due-dated
> 2/21, but that he would talk to the order bureau to try to get it
> changed back to the date I had been guaranteed. The order bureau, he
> told me, closes at Six PM: I suspect that was also the time when his
> shift ended. The toll restrictions are still in place.
>
> I know what happened: Anne was eager to lock in her commission for a
> DSL sale before she left for whatever cave she calls home, so she
> broke her promise, lied to me, and left the first thing I had asked
> for as "last" on her to-do list. This is what passes for "service" from
> Verizon now, and I urge all my readers to switch to other companies.
>
> Feel free to mention my name.
>

Sounds like you are dealing with HellAtlantic.  Some years ago I was
working a trouble ticket and had to call back east, I called a minute
too early for their normal call time and was hung up on.  This was a
military circuit, so I passed it on to AT&T and that got it resolved,
but all those years it has left a sour test in my mouth.

Now that it is Verizon and I was GTE, at least most of the time old
GTE areas on the west coast you can get help, I'm not saying that
there are not problems, but I have never been treated badly.

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

I don't know where the call-taker was located, but I know she's a liar
and a discredit to her peers. I'm a "New England Telephone" customer,
since I live just South of Boston, Massachusetts.

BTW, does anyone know if the "Customer Service Representatives"
are/were unionized? Orders to use such shoddy and arrogant tactics
wouldn't be tolerated by any union employee I ever knew, so I suspect
the "Let them eat cake" attitude which I experienced is from a
non-union organization where the managers don't have any personal
pride or conscience, and where they can squeeze their subordinates into
deceiving customers, falsifying records, and giving lip-service to the
customer care standards that I grew up with.

Bill Horne
Moderator


Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 04:01:07 -0800 From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: New Hacking Tools Pose Bigger Threats to Wi-Fi Users Message-ID: <1eadnRx_Ka6Zyf_QnZ2dnUVZ_jmdnZ2d@giganews.com> > ***** Moderator's Note ***** > > The solution is both easy and obvious: SSL. And as for security, any > Internet cafe worthy of the name has its SSL fingerprint posted on > every wall - and offers wired connections as well. When I find any public spot with wired connections I'll let you know. :-) Also, I doubt anyone involved in these public places these days can even spell SSL. ***** Moderator's Note ***** Anyone who uses a public hotspot without bothering to train themselves about the risks and necessary precautions deserves what they get: someone who puts sensitive information on an open hotspot is just proof that a fool and her money were lucky to get together in the first place. Bill Horne Moderator
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:38:30 +1100 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: New Hacking Tools Pose Bigger Threats to Wi-Fi Users Message-ID: <pan.2011.02.21.06.38.29.832445@myrealbox.com> On Sun, 20 Feb 2011 15:52:15 -0700, Fred Atkinson wrote: > On Sat, 19 Feb 2011 01:26:05 -0500, Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> > wrote: > >> Until recently, only determined and knowledgeable hackers with >> fancy tools and lots of time on their hands could spy while you >> used your laptop or smartphone at Wi-Fi hot spots. But a free >> program called Firesheep, released in October, has made it simple >> to see what other users of an unsecured Wi-Fi network are doing and >> then log on as them at the sites they visited. > > Only invades unsecured wireless networks? Anyone who is > running an unsecured network without WPA2 is advertising their > vulnerability. > > Has anyone here made themselves familar with a program called > 'Netstumbler'? Have you heard of 'War Driving'? > > If Firesheep can only invade unsecure networks then what good > is it? You can invade an unsecure network without it. Big difference in just connecting to a network and then being able to "see what other users of an unsecured Wi-Fi network are doing and then log on as them at the sites they visited". -- 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: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:36:34 +1100 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Apple Is Weighing a Cheaper iPhone Message-ID: <pan.2011.02.21.06.36.28.234328@myrealbox.com> > ***** Moderator's Note ***** .......... > ... Or, Apple can continue to produce TinyType[tm] devices that are > designed to be readable only by empty-brained twenty-somethings who think > paying $100 per month for a friggin phone is normal. Nice business if you can get (away with) it! Just accept that these toys are for the not-yet myopic and not us way on the wrong side of 40. We'll just wait for the direct optic-nerve interface model to come to market. -- 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.
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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