29 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981

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The Telecom Digest for July 23, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 182 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Google Search problems(AES)
Re: Google Search problems(Peter R Cook)
Re: Tracing Calls w/Spoofed Numbers?(Wes Leatherock)
Re: Automatic License Plate Readers track your every move(Adam H. Kerman)
Re: area code named beer(Adam H. Kerman)
Re: Most cellphone voice mail is vulnerable to hackers(Adam H. Kerman)
Re: Most cellphone voice mail is vulnerable to hackers(Adam H. Kerman)
Re: Most cellphone voice mail is vulnerable to hackers(Telecom Digest Moderator)
Re: Tracing Calls w/Spoofed Numbers?(Pete Cresswell)

====== 29 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 Bill Horne 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.
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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: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 08:53:49 -0700
From: AES <siegman@stanford.edu>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Google Search problems
Message-ID: <siegman-10DC5B.08534922072011@sciid-srv02.med.tufts.edu>

Are there any newsgroups or responsible forums where one can learn 
about/discuss/complain about Google search problems?

[Which are certainly becoming much more annoying/frustrating/infuriating 
in recent days!!!]




Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 22:37:56 +0100
From: Peter R Cook <PCook@wisty.plus.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Google Search problems
Message-ID: <YIBkR7H02eKOFwxj@wisty.plus.com>

In message <siegman-10DC5B.08534922072011@sciid-srv02.med.tufts.edu>, 
AES <siegman@stanford.edu> writes
>Are there any newsgroups or responsible forums where one can learn
>about/discuss/complain about Google search problems?
>
>[Which are certainly becoming much more annoying/frustrating/infuriating
>in recent days!!!]

There is an interesting book called " The Filter Bubble" by Eli Pariser 
you might want to read

-- 
Peter R Cook




Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 07:29:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: Wes Leatherock <wleathus@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Tracing Calls w/Spoofed Numbers? 
Message-ID: <1311344973.40672.YahooMailClassic@web111722.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

--- On Thu, 7/21/11, Pete Cresswell <x@y.Invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote:

> From: Pete Cresswell <x@y.Invalid.telecom-digest.org>
> Subject: Re: Tracing Calls w/Spoofed Numbers?
> To: redacted@invalid.telecom-digest.org.
> Date: Thursday, July 21, 2011, 8:17 PM
> Per David Clayton:
> >And of course we ALL know that best practice IVR
> prompts go:
> >
> >"For Dave please press 1."
> >
> >Not "Try and remember this number until I finally give
> you the reason to
> >use it"    ;-)
>
> That one went right over my head.
>
> How about a dumbed-down explanation for the
> humor-impaired?

If [they] announce "Press 1 for Dave." you have to remember the "1" before
you know [who] it's for.  If you [hear] "For Dave, press 1" you know that
what follows is the number you want or don't want.  The first way, you
may not remember where you are in a fairly long list, most of which
you have no interest in.

Wes Leatherock
wleathus@yahoo.com
wesrock@aol.com




Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:45:18 +0000 (UTC)
From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Automatic License Plate Readers track your every move   
Message-ID: <j0c9eu$s22$1@news.albasani.net>

John Mayson <john@mayson.us> wrote:

> My question is do we have an expectation of privacy in a public
> space?  Having shades in our windows at home is different than
> operating a motor vehicle on a public road.  Police can already read
> license plates with their eyeballs and have been able to for
> decades.  But if a machine does it, that's bad?

> Just playing Devil's Advocate here, I really have no strong opinions
> either way.

I'll agree that the ACLU representative's analogy was a little
specious and that there is no expectation of privacy in public.

But then the questions to ask: If the right to privacy doesn't exist,
should we at least expect anonymity when seen by police, without
police making attempts to positively identify one and all and trying
to track movements?  When the police are not investigating crimes,
should they still treat every encounter with someone as a potential
criminal or potential witness?  If police resources are investigating
"citizens above suspicion", are they ignoring investigate crimes and
criminals the public does need protection from?




Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:00:27 +0000 (UTC)
From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: area code named beer  
Message-ID: <j0cabb$s22$2@news.albasani.net>

Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

>It seems that Budweiser will market beer named for the primary area
>code of a city.  For instance, Philadelphia will soon have "215 beer"
>and there's a 312 for Chicago.

312 Urban Wheat Ale is a product of Goose Island Beer Company, Chicago.
Anheuser-Busch bought Goose Island for $38.8 million back in March. This
was no surprise as Goose Island has long been distributed by them.

Anheuser-Busch has been buying out small brewers around the country. There
may not be microbrewing of these beers any longer, but the mass marketer
is replacing it with micro branding.

A-B considers craft brewing to be a threat to its mass brands.




Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:13:06 +0000 (UTC)
From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Most cellphone voice mail is vulnerable to hackers   
Message-ID: <j0cb31$s22$3@news.albasani.net>

Thor Lancelot Simon <tls@panix.com> wrote:
>David Clayton <dcstarbox-usenet@yahoo.com.au> wrote:

>>I seem to remember that Voice Mail services from network providers used
>>the secure ID data (used for 1-800 etc.), not the stuff that can be
>>spoofed and appears on your phone.

>No. There is no "secure ID data".  The number used for 800 number
>billing is delivered by a service called ANI, which delivers the BTN,
>the *Billing Telephone Number* for a given account.  This is much harder
>to spoof, but will also be identical for many different phones billed to
>the same company -- so is not useful for purposes like identifying a
>voicemail customer. . . . 

I don't agree. BTN the telephone number associated with the master account
record. ANI is the line number. An account comprises a single line or
hundreds or thousands of lines, depending on the nature of the telephone
subscriber.

In the case of outgoing trunks, you're right, ANI won't identify what
extension the was dialed from. However, ANI received probably won't be BTN.




Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:22:21 +0000 (UTC)
From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Most cellphone voice mail is vulnerable to hackers         
Message-ID: <j0cbkd$s22$4@news.albasani.net>

Robert Bonomi <bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com> wrote:
>Pete Cresswell <x@y.Invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote:
>>Per David Lesher:

>>>A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
>>>& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
>>>Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
>>>is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

>>Is the verse to defeat 'bots?

>>If so, is that a real email addr... and does the verse work?

>It will defeat only the dumbest of harvesters.

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

>Not necessarily: I've been working on regular expressions to help me
>process the daily digest, so this subject has been on my mind, and
>there's a big 'gotcha' in David's .sig file: his email address is next
>to a character (a period) that is valid in emails.

>From what little I've seen of spammers and their software, that would

You've quoting "From ". Only the dumbest of mail clients used that
expression to identify the Berkeley Mail-style delimiter and they
should not be indulged. Can you please turn the feature off as it
messes up quoting levels?

>defeat the majority of harvesters. The "dumbest" harvesters confine
>themselves to "From:" lines, since that is low-hanging fruit, but
>picking emails out of the body of Usenet posts isn't that easy. I
>could write a regular expression that finds any at-sign, and then
>includes everything on either side that is valid in an email address:
>the trick, however, is knowing when to stop.

That picks out Message-IDs as possible email addresses, so don't do that.

In any event, email addresses are harvested from the From header because
the article itself is not being parsed. There is a NEWSOVERVIEW database
on the News server which includes selected headers from a Usenet article,
including the From header, and not the article itself, so processing this
is much less resource intensive.

>This isn't a forum for regexp design, so I'll just say that I don't
>think there's a whole lot of sophistication in harvest bots. 

>Bill Horne
>Moderator

>P.S. BTW, anyone who knows how to inlcude newlines in emacs
>replace-regexp commands, please contact me offline via 
>bill at horne dit net.

Don't learn emacs. That way lies madness.




Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:53:16 -0400
From: Telecom Digest Moderator <telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.remove-this.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Most cellphone voice mail is vulnerable to hackers 
Message-ID: <20110722215316.GA16458@telecom.csail.mit.edu>

On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 05:22:21PM +0000, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>Telecom Digest Moderator wrote:
> >From what little I've seen of spammers and their software, that would
> 
> You've quoting "From ". Only the dumbest of mail clients used that
> expression to identify the Berkeley Mail-style delimiter and they
> should not be indulged. Can you please turn the feature off as it
> messes up quoting levels?

******************************************************************************************************

     Quick note: my email software puts a ">" in front of the word
     "From" if it is at the start of a line, because my emails are
     stored in a file that uses "From" lines to separate each email
     from the others.

     So, this email will appear at your electronic doorstep with the
     following "header" info:

     From telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.remove-this.telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 22 17:53:17 2011
     Return-path: <telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.remove-this.telecom-digest.org>
     Envelope-to: (... etc. There is a LOT of header info in EVERY email)

     ... which can cause confusion between the "From" line at the
     start of each message, and the word "From" at the start of a line
     inside the message.

******************************************************************************************************

I'll certainly check it out: I thought it was a "standard" practice,
required to allow mailbox files to properly separate messages, but if
it's arcane I'll be glad to turn it off - assuming I can find out how. ;-)

> >P.S. BTW, anyone who knows how to inlcude newlines in emacs
> >replace-regexp commands, please contact me offline via 
> >bill at horne dit net.
> 
> Don't learn emacs. That way lies madness.

Extend-meta-alt-control-spacebar! Extend-meta-alt-control-spacebar!!
Extend-meta ... 

-- 
Bill Horne
Moderator




Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 14:16:47 -0400
From: Pete Cresswell <nobody@invalid.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Tracing Calls w/Spoofed Numbers? 
Message-ID: <qgfj27pqmodnlqgmcjjocp0goi5kcbguvp@4ax.com>

Per David Scheidt:
>He means good prompts are "for Foo, press 1." Not "Press 1 for foo".
>I know I want foo, or am at least likely to decide that's what I want
>when I hear it as an option, so all I have to do is listen for press 1.
>If you tell my which button to push, I have to remember that and listen
>to the explanation at the same time.
>
>That's annoying.  It's worse if there's more instruction than that.

Thanks.

Now that it's been said, I can see that it really would be
annoying.

OTOH, for telephone solicitors.......   -)

"H E L L O....... Y O U......... H A V E...... R E A C H E D....
THE...............SLOW.............. TALKERS.........OF.....
AMERICA........   PLEASE......... PRESS...... 1..... FOR........
-- 
PeteCresswell





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