33 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
Copyright © 2015 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.

The Telecom Digest for Apr 24, 2015
Volume 34 : Issue 75 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Computer Attacks Spur Congress to Act on Cybersecurity Bill Years in the Making (Monty Solomon)
Re: Los Angeles Streetlights to Be Controlled via Cellular Network (Neal McLain)
Caller ID is my own name/number? (Retired)
Re: Caller ID is my own name/number? (Bill Horne)
Re: Caller ID is my own name/number? (Duncan Smith)
Re: Caller ID is my own name/number? (Bill Horne)

I don't know why black skin may not cover a true heart as well as a white one.  - Ulysses S. Grant

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Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:48:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Computer Attacks Spur Congress to Act on Cybersecurity Bill Years in the Making Message-ID: <3CD09E94-3AB2-4C37-8B2F-D682C74BA1E6@roscom.com> The House is expected to pass a bill pushing companies to share data with federal investigators in the wake of breaches at Sony, Target and the health insurer Anthem. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/23/us/politics/computer-attacks-spur-congress-to-act-on-cybersecurity-bill-years-in-making.html
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 06:20:41 -0500 From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Los Angeles Streetlights to Be Controlled via Cellular Network Message-ID: <5538D589.3040709@annsgarden.com> On Wednesday, April 22, 2015 at 9:13:32 AM UTC-5, HAncock4 wrote: > On Friday, April 17, 2015 at 10:27:47 PM UTC-4, Bill Horne wrote: > >> The system will identify each streetlight's location via GPS, and >> will allow workers to turn lights on or off and to dim them or >> brighten them as needed. > > I'm confused by this. Why is this even necessary? > > Today, streetlights are controlled by a photocell, automatically. > When it gets dark, the streetlight goes on, when it becomes light, > the streetlight goes off. If it becoms dark early, say due to a > bad storm and cloud cover, the lights will go on. Why would it > even be necessary to manually turn them on and off? Because: * Photocells are not reliable. If it gets covered with bird poop or fails for other reasons the light burns continuously. * There's no way to monitor the operation of individual lights from a central location. If a light burns out or if it burns continuously for reasons cited above, maintenance crews don't know about it until somebody reports it. * There are other reasons cited in the original CNN article here: http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/10/technology/l-a-lights/index.html Neal McLain
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 15:06:53 -0400 From: Retired <Retired@home.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Caller ID is my own name/number? Message-ID: <94GdnWf0mPZT36TInZ2dnUU7-SednZ2d@giganews.com> Just now the phone rang, and the CID showed *my own name and number*. I let it go to the answering machine (we do call screening). No message was left. It was on the home phone, a Comcast Xfinity VOIP number. ISTR this happened once before about a year ago. How or why would a telemarketer/scammer do this ?
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 18:44:26 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Caller ID is my own name/number? Message-ID: <20150423224426.GA23372@telecom.csail.mit.edu> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 03:06:53PM -0400, Retired wrote: > Just now the phone rang, and the CID showed *my own name and > number*. I let it go to the answering machine (we do call > screening). No message was left. > > It was on the home phone, a Comcast Xfinity VOIP number. > > ISTR this happened once before about a year ago. > > How or why would a telemarketer/scammer do this ? To get you to answer the phone: after all, your own name and number are a lot more familiar to you than anyone else's, and so sending it to you makes it more likely that some people will answer the phone because they assume the display is showing their info for a reason. I suggest you write to your Congressman and Senators, and tell them that you want them to pass a law making it illegal to falsify Caller ID information. Bill -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:07:27 -0700 From: Duncan Smith <Duncan@xrtc.net> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Caller ID is my own name/number? Message-ID: <20150423230726.GA21269@markka.xrtc.net> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 06:44:26PM -0400, Bill Horne wrote: > I suggest you write to your Congressman and Senators, and tell them > that you want them to pass a law making it illegal to falsify Caller > ID information. It's ALREADY against the law. What can passing more laws accomplish? Specifically, the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, aka Public Law 111-331, says: 111-331> It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States, 111-331> in connection with any telecommunications service or 111-331> IP-enabled voice service, to cause any caller identification 111-331> service to knowingly transmit misleading or inaccurate caller 111-331> identification information with the intent to defraud, cause 111-331> harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value, unless such 111-331> transmission is exempted pursuant to paragraph (3)(B). Read this at https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/s30/text , or the entirety of 47 USC sec 227 at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/227 . Duncan Smith
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:18:39 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Caller ID is my own name/number? Message-ID: <20150423231839.GA23646@telecom.csail.mit.edu> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 04:07:27PM -0700, Duncan Smith wrote: > On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 06:44:26PM -0400, Bill Horne wrote: > > I suggest you write to your Congressman and Senators, and tell them > > that you want them to pass a law making it illegal to falsify Caller > > ID information. > > It's ALREADY against the law. What can passing more laws accomplish? > > Specifically, the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, aka Public Law > 111-331, says: [snip] Well, I am not a lawyer, so I can't argue the law. However, I doubt that the current law(s) have any meaningful teeth in them, or the problem wouldn't be occuring. Bill -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)

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