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The Telecom Digest for August 17, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 196 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: Ring voltage measurment question (Will)
Re: 'Heather from card services', et al. (David Lesher)
Re: Did anyone ever figure out where "E&M" came from? (Will)
How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking (Monty Solomon)
Re: SIT Tones and Robo Calls (unknown)
Re: AT&T sets deadline for 2G sunset in 4 years (T)
Re: AT&T sets deadline for 2G sunset in 4 years (John Levine)
Any Non-free SMS Gateways for e-mail to SMS on Wireless Carriers that Lack a Free SMS Gateway? (SMS)

====== 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.
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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: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:57:10 -0500 From: Will <imo252@yahoo.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Ring voltage measurment question Message-ID: <XnsA0B0D5230CA2Aimo252yahoocom@216.196.97.131> RonTheGuy@null.invalid (Ron) wrote in news:1klb6ws.oopg46dxj39kN% RonTheGuy@null.invalid: > Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote: > >> Analog multimeter says that during ringing there'a 18 volts across the >> terminals of the (outside) NIJ and across the terminals of the >> (indoor) block into which the phone is plugged. Sheesh! >> >> Ring is the only problem; none with calling out or sound quality. >> >> Next stop: telco service folks, but armed with a little knowledge. > > Wow, that should ideally be 90 volts. > Minimum ring voltage at the NI: 55V RMS @ 20/30 Hz (Depending on ILEC).
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2012 02:02:02 +0000 (UTC) From: David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: 'Heather from card services', et al. Message-ID: <k0hkaq$dr7$1@reader1.panix.com> Heather had the day off; Andy called me today. I hope he was not too bored listening to himself. -- 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
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 20:37:49 -0500 From: Will <imo252@yahoo.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Did anyone ever figure out where "E&M" came from? Message-ID: <XnsA0B0DC0732459imo252yahoocom@216.196.97.131> Fred Goldstein <fgoldstein.SeeSigSpambait@wn2.wn.net> wrote in news:20120312221919.705485468@mailout.easydns.com: > On Sun, 11 Mar 2012, Bill Horne wrote, > >>I was at a lunch for ham radio operators yesterday, and the sea of >>grey hair that I saw has put me in a reflective mood. > > Hey, but we kept the riff-raff out with that Morse Code requirement! > ;-) (In this case, almost anyone born after, say, 1955. It was > dropped too late.) > >>I've been searching through various archives this morning, without >>success, trying to find out if anyone ever figured out the origin of >>the "E & M" signalling lead designations. When I took the D-18 course >>at New England Telephone, I read that the designations might have come >>from old circuit diagrams for telegraph equipment, but that nobody >>knew for sure. > > I'd put this into one of those "lost to history", but I tend to give > some credence to the story told in various sources, including David > Talley's "Basic Telephone Switching Systems" (1969), which said, > > "The E and M system received its name from historical designations > found on old circuit drawings. The E refered to the middle "e" in > received and the M from the m in transmit." > > But it's also possible that those were just mnemonics. The drawings > of some circuit or other at sone point in time may have simply > labeled the leads A,B,C,... and those two happened to be E and > M. Then somebody came up with the mnemonics. After all, if I wanted > to name the two signaling (not bearer) leads, ear and mouth would not > be the first things that come to mind. > > > -- > Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com > ionary Consulting > http://www.ionary.com/ > > +1 617 795 2701 > > I suspect that the E&M leads, as known today for two state signalling, may have been in addtion to other signaling leads used on early in-band signaling equipment. For example, while I never worked on DLL equipment at the AT&T Toll office where I once worked in the late 1970's, DLL equipment, not to be confused with the more typical 2W loop extension repeater circuits in common use, were designed to work with signaling units to convert two state E&M signaling (B & X Types) to loop & ground start operations. I recall circuit layout models showing a K option for DLL equipment. Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to work on such circuit layout designs, having been broken in in B, E, and F type SF, and auxiliary units. Latter DS1 carrier equipment. While trunk signaling equipment employed E&M leads, loop signaling units used an A&B lead designation, along with SX/SX1 when a DC signaling component was employed.
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 23:23:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking Message-ID: <p06240816cc52166e42e6@[10.0.1.9]> How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking By Mat Honan August 6, 2012 In the space of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed. First my Google account was taken over, then deleted. Next my Twitter account was compromised, and used as a platform to broadcast racist and homophobic messages. And worst of all, my AppleID account was broken into, and my hackers used it to remotely erase all of the data on my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook. In many ways, this was all my fault. My accounts were daisy-chained together. Getting into Amazon let my hackers get into my Apple ID account, which helped them get into Gmail, which gave them access to Twitter. Had I used two-factor authentication for my Google account, it's possible that none of this would have happened, because their ultimate goal was always to take over my Twitter account and wreak havoc. Lulz. Had I been regularly backing up the data on my MacBook, I wouldn't have had to worry about losing more than a year's worth of photos, covering the entire lifespan of my daughter, or documents and e-mails that I had stored in no other location. Those security lapses are my fault, and I deeply, deeply regret them. But what happened to me exposes vital security flaws in several customer service systems, most notably Apple's and Amazon's. Apple tech support gave the hackers access to my iCloud account. Amazon tech support gave them the ability to see a piece of information - a partial credit card number - that Apple used to release information. In short, the very four digits that Amazon considers unimportant enough to display in the clear on the web are precisely the same ones that Apple considers secure enough to perform identity verification. The disconnect exposes flaws in data management policies endemic to the entire technology industry, and points to a looming nightmare as we enter the era of cloud computing and connected devices. ... http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/all/ How Not to Become Mat Honan: A Short Primer on Online Security http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/how-not-to-become-mat-honan/ After Epic Hack, Apple Suspends Over-the-Phone AppleID Password Resets http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-icloud-password-freeze/
Date: 15 Aug 2012 11:47:01 -0500 From: Telecom Digest Moderator To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: SIT Tones and Robo Calls While the Digest does not forbid putting 'invalid' from lines on submissions, we do have a polic against forging OTHER PEOPLE'S ACTUAL DOMAIN NAMES. A user from an Omaha NE area ISP did just that today -- unintentionally, I am sure, but 'notforreal.net' is a real domain. Those submittig messages to the Digest -- either via the mailing-list, or the newsgroup -- are strongly encouraged to use a valid, replyable, address on their submissions. For those who desire spam-proofing, or total anonomity, submissios can use the '[obfuscate]' tag on the subject line -- which modifies the submitter address in a way that a person can derive the correct address for a reply, but mechanical harvesting will fail. OR they can use the '[Anonymous]' tag, which will remove all trace of the sender/origin, replacing it with a standarized, "well known", psuedonym. For those who insist on munging addresses themselves, please 'register' a 'real' email address with the moderator, alnog with the invalid address you will be using on submissions. Lastly, be sure it =is= invalid,
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2012 14:03:10 -0400 From: T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: AT&T sets deadline for 2G sunset in 4 years Message-ID: <MPG.2a96ffeab932f80a989d8e@news.eternal-september.org> In article <k013bv$om4$1@dont-email.me>, bill@horneQRM.net says... > > On 8/8/2012 12:22 PM, PV wrote: > > Bill Horne<bill@horne.VALID-IF-THIS-IS-ELIDED.net> writes: > > >> BTW, does this mean that AMPS is finally going away, that AT&T will > >> phase out TDMA, or that some other branch of the "voice" cellular tree > >> is to be pruned at the same time? > > > > Eh? Those are both retired technologies and have been for quite some time. > > I don't think anyone even owns the spectrum to run AMPS/TDMA on analog > > anymore. Dead like the dodo. * > > I thought AT&T was using GSM, and that GSM used TDMA. Are we talking > apples and oranges? > > Bill I believe GSM uses a subset of CDMA, not TDMA.
Date: 16 Aug 2012 18:44:23 -0000 From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: AT&T sets deadline for 2G sunset in 4 years Message-ID: <20120816184423.73331.qmail@joyce.lan> >> I thought AT&T was using GSM, and that GSM used TDMA. Are we talking >> apples and oranges? > >I believe GSM uses a subset of CDMA, not TDMA. You are mistaken. GSM is most definitely TDMA. The next generation, LTE, is indeed CDMA. R's, John
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2012 18:17:42 -0700 From: SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Any Non-free SMS Gateways for e-mail to SMS on Wireless Carriers that Lack a Free SMS Gateway? Message-ID: <502d9bbb$0$70417$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net> While most wireless carriers have a free SMS gateway so you can send an SMS to a phone via e-mail, not all do. I.e. on Verizon where you can send an e-mail to 4085551212@vtext.com and it sends the e-mail as an SMS to the phone (at least the first 160 characters of it). I was looking for a paid service that would accept e-mail messages forwarded from my Gmail account and send the e-mail as an SMS to a phone on a foreign (non-U.S.) wireless carrier that lacks an SMS gateway. I thought http://www.ipipi.com would work, but it requires that the subject of the e-mail be a password to their system. So while you could manually do e-mail to text and enter the password in the subject line, you can't automatically change the subject of a forwarded e-mail (at least I couldn't find a way to do it). Here's what I'm trying to do. When I travel outside the U.S. I forward my Verizon/Pageplus cell phone to my Google Voice number. My Google Voice number is, in turn, forwarded to a rented Localphone.com incoming phone number which in turn forwards to the prepaid phone number with a SIM card that I buy when I reach my destination. The reason I have Google Voice in between my Verizon/Pageplus cell phone and the Localphone incoming number is so SMS to my Verizon/Pageplus phone will be sent as an e-mail to my Gmail account, while voice calls will be forward to Localphone then forwarded to the foreign prepaid phone. Localphone forwards voice calls internationally, but does not forward SMS. Google does not forward internationally at all. I had the bright idea of setting up a Gmail filter that looks for the subject words "SMS from" and sends those e-mails (which are received SMS on my Verizon/Pageplus phone) to an SMS gateway which then sends a text to my foreigh prepaid phone. I tried this out and it works fine, but it requires that the foreign carrier have an SMS gateway, and not all do. In fact in China, none do (probably for political reasons). Anyone know of a way to do what I want to do? Even a localphone alternative that passes through SMS would be fine. localphone does pass through texts for UK incoming numbers, but not for U.S. incoming numbers. *Moerator note: if email is processed on a system where one can use 'procmail', then automatically changing the subject line on a forwarded message is trivial. Also, a quick google search for 'paid sms gateway' turned up over 800K hits.
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