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The Telecom Digest for October 5, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 251 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: iPhone users have to wait a few microseconds (Doug McIntyre)
Re: iPhone users have to wait a few microseconds (Bill Horne)
Security Vulnerability In HTC Android Devices (Monty Solomon)
Apple Launches iPhone 4S, iOS 5 & iCloud (Monty Solomon)
Re: Cell phone privacy cases slated for U.S. Supreme Court's new term (Geoffrey Welsh)
Re: Cell phone privacy cases slated for U.S. Supreme Court's new term (Bill Horne)
Re: Cell phone privacy cases slated for U.S. Supreme Court's new term (Dave Platt)
Re: Nine facts about SIP (Geoffrey Welsh)
Re: Nine facts about SIP (Garrett Wollman)
news report on cell phone spam - 'tough' (HAncock4)
DOJ Document Shows How Long Telcos Hold Onto Your Data (Bill Horne)
Apple Special Event October 2011 (Monty Solomon)

====== 30 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 that person, or email address owner.
Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without the explicit written consent of the owner of that address. 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: 04 Oct 2011 04:45:08 GMT From: Doug McIntyre <merlyn@geeks.org> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: iPhone users have to wait a few microseconds Message-ID: <4e8a8f54$0$79795$8046368a@newsreader.iphouse.net> Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> writes: >This is from CNET: > ... lost and who possessed it--has been unintentionally erased. .. >Now, as much as I love to be a free advertising vehicle for Apple, I've got >to ask: am I the only one who thinks this is a little /too/ brazen? Having worked directly with security vendors and a variety building surveillance types, as well as the people who maintain such things, I don't find it too far fatched at all. More times than not, I come in to a situation where the video surveillance is ancient analog cameras going to a motion sensor tape VCR recording system. The tapes almost always never get rotated properly, and if they do, they are probably warn out to the point of viewability or are completely unusable. Even if they do have a working system, having anything going back more than a couple weeks is speculative at best. Being "erased" isn't much different than already written over as the tape was recycled. Of if it is a digital system, the video has already rolled off the back and the space recycled. Its not very common at all to put multi-terabyte RAID disk systems into video surveillance (although I do). More likely a single 500GB drive for "current" systems. The building owner put in the video system as a checklist item for their insurance and never typically cared about it again.
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 10:09:44 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: iPhone users have to wait a few microseconds Message-ID: <20111004140944.GB15980@telecom.csail.mit.edu> On Tue, Oct 04, 2011 at 04:45:08AM +0000, Doug McIntyre wrote: > Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> writes: > >This is from CNET: > > ... lost and who possessed it--has been unintentionally erased. .. > > >Now, as much as I love to be a free advertising vehicle for Apple, I've got > >to ask: am I the only one who thinks this is a little /too/ brazen? > > Having worked directly with security vendors and a variety building > surveillance types, as well as the people who maintain such things, I > don't find it too far fatched at all. I'm sorry, I wasn't clear: I think the whole "lost iPhone" story is a brazen publicity stunt, and I'm surprised that the mainstream media haven't labelled it as such. This is the SECOND time that Apple has fired this cannon. Bill -- Bill Horne (Filter QRM for direct replies)
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 00:53:35 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Security Vulnerability In HTC Android Devices Message-ID: <p0624080dcab040157638@[10.0.1.9]> Massive Security Vulnerability In HTC Android Devices (EVO 3D, 4G, Thunderbolt, Others) Exposes Phone Numbers, GPS, SMS, Emails Addresses, Much More Posted by Artem Russakovskii October 3, 2011 I am quite speechless right now. Justin Case and I have spent all day together with Trevor Eckhart (you may remember him as TrevE of DamageControl and Virus ROMs) looking into Trev's findings deep inside HTC's latest software installed on such phones as EVO 3D, EVO 4G, Thunderbolt, and others. These results are not pretty. In fact, they expose such ridiculously frivolous doings, which HTC has no one else to blame but itself, that the data-leaking Skype vulnerability Justin found earlier this year pales in comparison. Without further ado, let me break things down. The Vulnerability In recent updates to some of its devices, HTC introduces a suite of logging tools that collected information. Lots of information. LOTS. Whatever the reason was, whether for better understanding problems on users' devices, easier remote analysis, corporate evilness - it doesn't matter. If you, as a company, plant these information collectors on a device, you better be DAMN sure the information they collect is secured and only available to privileged services or the user, after opting in. That is not the case. What Trevor found is only the tip of the iceberg - we are all still digging deeper - but currently any app on affected devices that requests a single android.permission.INTERNET (which is normal for any app that connects to the web or shows ads) can get its hands on: ... http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/10/01/massive-security-vulnerability-in-htc-android-devices-evo-3d-4g-thunderbolt-others-exposes-phone-numbers-gps-sms-emails-addresses-much-more/
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 15:28:41 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Apple Launches iPhone 4S, iOS 5 & iCloud Message-ID: <p0624081bcab10d0bb082@[10.0.1.9]> Apple Launches iPhone 4S, iOS 5 & iCloud iPhone 4S Features Dual-Core A5 Chip, All New Camera, Full 1080p HD Video Recording & Introduces Siri CUPERTINO, California-October 4, 2011-Apple today announced iPhone 4S, the most amazing iPhone yet, packed with incredible new features including Apple's dual-core A5 chip for blazing fast performance and stunning graphics; an all new camera with advanced optics; full 1080p HD resolution video recording; and Siri, an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. With the launch of iPhone 4S also comes the launch of iOS 5, the world's most advanced mobile operating system with over 200 new features; and iCloud, a breakthrough set of free cloud services that work with your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC to automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices. ... http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/10/04Apple-Launches-iPhone-4S-iOS-5-iCloud.html ***** Moderator's Note ***** I've never used an iPhone, or felt the need to have a "1080P" screen in the palm of my hand. ISTM that Apple is trying to pack every digital device known to man into a palm-sized box that is (1) very easy to lose, and (2) way too expensive, and (3) has a tiny screen that Uberman's X-Ray vision would be strained to see. Frankly, the Apple PR agent's gushy superlatives put me off. That's partly my age, but also because I've seen miracle devices before, and they never live up to their hype. I don't feel the need to be entertained while I'm accomplishing miraculous feats of bureaucracy as I draw admiring stares from all the women at the airport/train station/polo meet/lunar landing, and while Apple's PR department is doing a good job training Twenty-somethings to imagine themselves in that commercial, they're not impressing me, or (I suspect) any other potential buyer over the age of Forty. Digital electronic devices are not toys, not magic, and definitely not cheap, but their most serious deficiency is that they are not a substitute for human judgement and critical thought. I always thought that the whole idea of being able to access informaiton was to be able to make informed judgements concerning it, and to report on my opinions about it, quickly and concisely. There is no cell phone, no matter how many extra features it may offer to those with a lot of disposable income, that can help me to do that. I'm fairly sure that having the world's accumulated literature at my disposal won't make me any smarter than I already am - not even to mention the difficulty of finding accurate information when "the truth", although "out there", is always mixed in with several cesspools of hype and disinformation and lies. What Apple's minions can't provide is wisdom and experience, although IMNSHO those whom invest in Apple's gadgets will find themselves gaining the former at the expense of the later. Bill Horne Moderator Copyright (C) 2011 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 16:51:37 -0400 From: "Geoffrey Welsh" <gwelsh@spamcop.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Cell phone privacy cases slated for U.S. Supreme Court's new term Message-ID: <a8aa2$4e8b71a9$4038e0ce$1781@PRIMUS.CA> Bill Horne wrote: > This is also from CNET: > His attorneys argue that such precise turn-by-turn tracking > requires a search warrant signed by a judge--a step that > D.C. police chose not to take. Would police have required a warrant to tail the suspect? I realize that technology can change things in very fundamental ways, but if the principle in question is turn-by-turn tracking then such a ruling could threaten the legality of 'warrantless tailing.' (That said, as an individual I am concerned that the the relative ease, low expense, and scalability of using such devices could make widespread tracking of people for no apparent reason viable.)
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 17:56:07 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Cell phone privacy cases slated for U.S. Supreme Court's new term Message-ID: <a23a2$4e8b71a9$4037f0ce$1781@horne.net> "Geoffrey Welsh" <gwelsh@spamcop.net> wrote: > Bill Horne wrote: >> This is also from CNET: >> His attorneys argue that such precise turn-by-turn tracking >> requires a search warrant signed by a judge--a step that >> D.C. police chose not to take. > Would police have required a warrant to tail the suspect? I realize > that technology can change things in very fundamental ways, but if > the principle in question is turn-by-turn tracking then such a > ruling could threaten the legality of 'warrantless tailing.' (That > said, as an individual I am concerned that the the relative ease, > low expense, and scalability of using such devices could make > widespread tracking of people for no apparent reason viable.) I'm concerned that tracking movements of a vehicle can give a misleading picture of the driver and of those he comes into contact with. While a particular person might be doing something unlawful, that does not mean that every stop (s)he makes is in pursuit (pun intended) of illegal ends. Consider a newsdealer: if the police have a record of a suspect's car stopping at his stand every day, they might presume that he is also a drug dealer, or a money launderer, or a messenger, etc. He doesn't deserve that just because he's available to do business. The same things applies to a hamburger stand, a street person panhandling at a traffic light, and even to a cleric at a church: all are in a position to facilitate illegal activities, but are unlikely to do so, and their choice of a livelihood which brings them into daily contact with both saints and sinners shouldn't cast suspicion on their good name. The U.S. Constitution contains a specific prohibition against quartering troops in private homes: it was a tactic the British government used to keep track of the populace in the years leading up to the revolutionary war. I think that provision is there in order to prevent the government from trying to turn mundane gossip or ordinary people "blowing off steam" into the appearance of criminal acts. So too, their whereabouts: I don't want the government to know where I am, because it's not the government's business to know. I have been saying for some years now that the last vestige of privacy in America is that citizens are not required to divulge the names of their friends, and that information is rapidly accumulating in commercial databases that are available to anyone with the price of access. Although most of the data gathering activity currently being conducted is being done with the consent of those who use things like instant messenger or facepage, there is too fine a line between "the government" and "firms the government has influence over" for me to be comfortable with any lessening of the privacy rights I enjoy. Bill, who encrypts all his emails to keep the FBI from finding out how boring his life is. Bill Horne (Filter QRM for direct replies)
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 16:23:35 -0700 From: dplatt@radagast.org (Dave Platt) To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Cell phone privacy cases slated for U.S. Supreme Court's new term Message-ID: <n4hsl8-p78.ln1@radagast.org> In article <a8aa2$4e8b71a9$4038e0ce$1781@PRIMUS.CA>, Geoffrey Welsh <gwelsh@spamcop.net> wrote: >> His attorneys argue that such precise turn-by-turn tracking >> requires a search warrant signed by a judge--a step that >> D.C. police chose not to take. >Would police have required a warrant to tail the suspect? I realize >that technology can change things in very fundamental ways, but if the >principle in question is turn-by-turn tracking then such a ruling >could threaten the legality of 'warrantless tailing.' I suspect that the distinction is that LE actually attached a device to his vehicle. If I recall correctly, there's a strong precedent in case law that a person doesn't have an "expectation of privacy" from simply being observed, when they are in public. "Warrantless tailing" gains its legitimacy from this, in part... you aren't "searching" a person by watching them drive or walk around in a public space. Actually placing a transmitter (or a recording GPS tracker) on a vehicle crosses a line, in the opinion of many people, in that it does invade a person's private "space" to some extent. > (That said, as >an individual I am concerned that the the relative ease, low expense, >and scalability of using such devices could make widespread tracking >of people for no apparent reason viable.) Yes, that's a significant part of the concern. Here in the U.S. the courts have recognized that certain forms of surveillance or monitoring can have a "chilling effect" on Constitutionally-protected rights (e.g. of expression or association). E.g. "If the police can track me without a warrant, then I don't think I'll go to that talk about political corruption in the city government... no telling who the police might tell and then I'd end up having zoning problems." -- Dave Platt <dplatt@radagast.org> AE6EO Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior I do not wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 17:38:27 -0400 From: "Geoffrey Welsh" <gwelsh@spamcop.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Nine facts about SIP Message-ID: <bd113$4e8b7ca2$4038e0ce$4675@PRIMUS.CA> Bill Horne wrote: > I'm curious if others agree with "John". > SIP Trunks aren't trunks. There is no physical circuit, just a > voice path routed over a carrier's IP network using VoIP > technology. They can be. To me, a trunk isn't a specific physical medium such as a loop start copper pair or a T1 demuxed from a fiber pair, it's a communications path that permits access to or from multiple endpoints such as a line pool for outgoing calls from multiple of handsets or an ISDN PRI supporting DIDs to those same handsets. If there's a physical characteristic that is common to trunks (as opposed to single lines as we might have at home or even Centrex deployments) it would be that it provisions a switch, not a handset. In that respect, SIP can be a trunk or not a trunk. (The phone just within my reach uses SIP in a non-trunk capacity; none of my clients currently use SIP trunking but it has been available from multiple telcos in this area for some time.) > SIP trunks can be used for more than just voice communication. > SIP can be used for video, presence, instant messaging and audio > over IP broadcasting. I'll take their word for it, though telecom is chock full of examples of people figuring out how to get one medium through a path designed for another (usually voice): videophones, FAX machines, VoIP, etc. Of course, if you already have IP transport, then there are umpteen (posisbly better) protocols available to support a wide variety of other communication requirements... and those protocols might be more firewall-friendly than SIP. > SIP enables a single network for an organization's local, long > distance, toll free and data transmission, allows for > centralized management of all those services and provides > operational efficiency with centralized designs and pooled > trunks. Geez, my home POTS service provides local and long distance calling, I'm sure I could get a toll-free number for it, I've used a modem on it, and it's all billed on one invoice. Ooh, and if I had an old-fashioned phone it would light up during a blackout, too. <grin> > SIP allows for greater competition in the market place because > the service bypasses the public switched telephone network owned > by the incumbents. Most of the rest of these questions center not on SIP but on how [anything] over IP is not necessarily subject to the telcos' traditional limitations and costs. Many authors better than I have written about the implications of the way that the internet moves service differentiation to the edge of the network, as opposed to the traditional method of having a relatively simple device in front of the user and the services implemented in the network switches. > SIP allows an organization to purchase only the call paths they > require; they aren't forced to purchase trunks in increments of > 23 and 24. I'd be surprised if I'm the only reader here who has ever purchased fractional T1 voice service. Of course, there are fixed costs associated with the T1 that mean the costs don't scale linearly with the number of voice channels... but the same applies to anything-over-IP, where service good enough for one channel is probably good for a few, but when you approach that limit you need to take a leap up to the next tier of IP transport. Ironically, some of those tiers are derived from the same T1 (and its multiples) that the statement bemoans.
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 22:25:13 +0000 (UTC) From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Nine facts about SIP Message-ID: <j6g149$ahb$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu> In article <bd113$4e8b7ca2$4038e0ce$4675@PRIMUS.CA>, Geoffrey Welsh <gwelsh@spamcop.net> wrote: >> SIP trunks can be used for more than just voice communication. >> SIP can be used for video, presence, instant messaging and audio >> over IP broadcasting. > >I'll take their word for it, though telecom is chock full of examples of >people figuring out how to get one medium through a path designed for >another (usually voice): videophones, FAX machines, VoIP, etc. Of course, >if you already have IP transport, then there are umpteen (posisbly better) >protocols available to support a wide variety of other communication >requirements... and those protocols might be more firewall-friendly than >SIP. Actually, SIP was designed specifically with broader applications in mind; that's why it leaves the media layer to another protocol (RTP). In that it reflects the experience from SAP and from mid-nineties work on the "Integrated Services Internet" and multicast conferencing. Unfortunately, the presence of middleboxes leaves many of those designs undeployable. There are, of course, other protocols available, including most notably MGCP, but SIP seems to have won the day. -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 15:18:13 -0700 (PDT) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: news report on cell phone spam - 'tough' Message-ID: <937b0f18-c164-4937-9362-47a4cd053b0c@u13g2000vbx.googlegroups.com> A local TV news report discussed the problem of spam texts and phone calls to cell phones, where the callee often has to pay for them. Many people interviewed resented the intrusion of such calls and texts and their cost. The news report said "it's hard for [users] to stop this on cell phones". (I don't know if that's true) They quoted the carriers as saying they will credit customers for such calls upon request. (Not mentioned was how difficult it sometimes can be to reach a carrier's customer service to get such a credit.) For myself, after receiving and billed for several unsolicited spam messages I had my carrier turn off texting, a feature I don't use. I can't help but wonder if the carriers and telephone network administrators could do more to stop spam and illegal solicitation calls. (It's also illegal to call a nursing home resident, but sales people would call my mother.) [public replies, please]
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 20:32:04 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: DOJ Document Shows How Long Telcos Hold Onto Your Data Message-ID: <CAFY5RQ+zsm_C14tYGWTL1=MAOef5wW3keRxS3=y7NQcpmaEfvg@mail.gmail.com> This is from techdirt: With the Justice Department believing that it can get all sorts of data from telcos without any oversight or without a warrant, it seems rather important to know what kind of info your mobile operator is keeping - and for how long. The ACLU, via a Freedom of Information Act request, was able to get a "for law enforcement use only" document that shows how long the carriers hold on to what data ... (Scroll down for a readable copy) Rest: http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20110929/13165516137/doj-document-shows-how-long-telcos-hold-onto-your-data.shtml Bill Horne (Filter QRM for direct replies)
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 22:00:28 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Apple Special Event October 2011 Message-ID: <p06240827cab1668fbf45@[10.0.1.9]> Apple Special Event October 4, 2011 Watch streaming video from today's special event. Streaming video requires Safari 4 or 5 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Lion, Safari on iOS 3 or later, or QuickTime 7 on Windows http://apple.com/apple-events/october-2011/
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