TELECOM Digest     Sun, 6 Mar 2005 17:55:00 EST    Volume 24 : Issue 97

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Watching the Detectors (Monty Solomon)
    RadioSHARK Review (Monty Solomon)
    Harvard Applicants Breached Security (Monty Solomon)
    ChoicePoint Data Cache Became a Powder Keg (Marcus Didius Falco)
    All Wired up (Marcus Didius Falco)
    FYI: Paper About Metcalfe's Law (Marcus Didius Falco)
    If You Use Ebay (LB@notmine.com)
    Strange Call ID (Spyros Bartsocas)
    Corporate Identify -- Verizon vs. "Bell Telephone" (Lisa Hancock
    Re: Nokia 6010 Reporting in to Mama -- Radio Interference? (Joseph)
    Re: Nokia 6010 Reporting in to Mama -- Radio Interference? (Tony P.)
    Re: Vonage (Isaiah Beard)
    Re: Vonage (DevilsPGD)
    Re: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship' (Joel M. Hoffman)
    Re: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship' (Dana)

Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
Internet.  All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson 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.

               ===========================

Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be
sold or given away without explicit written consent.  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; other stuff of interest.  

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 16:05:44 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Watching the Detectors


Author Patrick Radden Keefe is keeping an eye on electronic 
intelligence gathering

By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff  |  March 5, 2005

Six years ago, when Patrick Radden Keefe was a graduate student at
Cambridge University in England, he happened upon British newspaper
stories that mentioned an international surveillance network with the
code name Echelon. Intrigued, he immersed himself in the subject.

"It's one of those classic stories where I got clips from the 
newspaper and suddenly there's a handful of articles and suddenly I 
need a new folder and then it's a file cabinet," Keefe says. "The 
next thing you know I need a bigger apartment."

Those bulging files and that overstuffed apartment have paid off: At
28, with a few months before he graduates from Yale Law School, Keefe
is making a splash with "Chatter: Dispatches From the Secret World of
Global Eavesdropping," a book that tries to fill in the shadowy
portrait of electronic intelligence gathering by the United States and
its allies.

On a recent weekday, as he sits on a couch in his childhood home in
the Ashmont section of Dorchester, it is the growing culture of
domestic secrecy and surveillance that seems to worry Keefe most.
While he acknowledges there is a legitimate need for intelligence
gathering in the post-9/11 world, he hopes his book will generate a
public discussion about the trade-offs between security and privacy
that, he says, are being made by government authorities without
consulting the American people.

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2005/03/05/watching_the_detectors/

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 14:10:08 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: RadioSHARK Review



Griffin Technology radioSHARK
By Eric Bangeman
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/radioshark.ars

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 03:40:06 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Harvard Applicants Breached Security


Tried via computer to learn status

By Hiawatha Bray and Robert Weisman, Globe Staff  |  March 4, 2005

For at least two hours after midnight Wednesday, a computer hacker
enabled applicants to the Harvard Business School to find out whether
they'd been accepted, weeks before Harvard planned to release the
news.

According to Harvard, more than 100 would-be graduate students took
advantage of the digital loophole, and some of them glimpsed
preliminary decisions on their applications. The loophole affected
other schools, including the Sloan School of Management at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and business schools at
Stanford, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, and other universities. But officials
at Stanford and MIT said none of their admissions decisions had yet
been posted to their sites.

In a security breach at ApplyYourself Inc., the Fairfax, Va. company
that runs the admissions computer systems for the business schools and
400 other colleges and universities, a hacker found a way to let
applicants peek at confidential admissions data. "This is the first
incident of this kind," said Len Metheny, the chief executive of
ApplyYourself. "Once we learned about it, within literally 2 (?) hours,
we had made appropriate adjustments to the system ... We still
remain confident that it's a secure system."

But Steven Nelson, the executive director of Harvard's MBA program,
said their admissions data were vulnerable for nine hours, during
which 119 applicants from countries around the world tried to get at
their admissions status.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/03/04/harvard_applicants_breached_security/

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 22:55:37 -0500
From: Marcus Didius Falco <falco_marcus_didius@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: ChoicePoint Data Cache Became a Powder Keg


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8587-2005Mar4.html

Identity Thief's Ability To Get Information Puts Heat on Firm
By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 5, 2005; Page A01

The man on the phone called himself James Garrett.

Speaking with a lilting accent, the man said he was an executive with
a Los Angeles company called M.B.S Financial. He told an employee at
ChoicePoint Inc. that he wanted to open an online account with the
company to receive electronic reports on people.

It was the kind of request that ChoicePoint, one of the nation's
largest information services, gets all the time. Thousands of
corporate and government clients rely on the company to provide them
with publicly available information on people for help in hiring,
fraud detection, journalist research, national security and debt
collection.

But the man's call last fall was different, according to a detective's
description of the encounter and testimony presented in a later court
hearing. Unknown to ChoicePoint, the caller was not Garrett, an actor
in the Los Angeles area. Police said he was a con artist involved in a
vast identity-theft scam that succeeded in making off with records of
at least 145,000 people. The real Garrett was just another victim.

The imposter's attempt to gain access to even more files would not
only expose the scam, but spark a national outrage and congressional
hearings over whether the nation's growing commercial data industry is
doing enough to guard personal information.

Yesterday, the burgeoning scandal led ChoicePoint to cut off access to
some sensitive data to thousands of small businesses. The company also
announced in filings with the government that two senior executives
were under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for
stock trades that took place after they learned about the scheme last
fall but before they made it public.

On the day the man called ChoicePoint in late September, he was close
to getting what he wanted. He had already filed an application for the
right to download reports to his computer, for about $15 each,
claiming he needed sensitive personal information like Social Security
numbers to track down targets of his collection agency.

But to the ChoicePoint employee on the other end of the line,
something wasn't quite right. For starters, the caller used a Los
Angeles copy store to fax his paperwork to open an account. That
seemed strange for a businessman, and even more so when an in-house
investigator realized that similar requests had recently been made by
others in the Los Angeles area.  Something also seemed out of kilter
about the local government documents the man forwarded to prove his
business existed.

Authorities in Los Angeles were called for help. The officer assigned
to the case, a sheriff's detective named Duane Decker, asked the
company whether it could lure the man posing as Garrett back to the
copy store as part of a modest sting operation. ChoicePoint would
convince Garrett he needed to go back to the copy store to sign a
faxed copy of his application and send it back to the company.

The ruse worked. On Oct. 27, a man claiming to be Garrett showed up as
promised at the Copymat store on Sunset Boulevard. He approached the
counter, asked for a document filed for James Garrett and paid the
bill.

Decker, lingering nearby, asked the man if he was Garrett. When the
man said yes, Decker asked him to step outside. As they left the
store, the detective said he thought he had an easy case in hand. He
couldn't have been more wrong.

The man Decker stopped was Olatunji A. Oluwatosin, a 41-year-old
Nigerian national. Oluwatosin claimed he was picking up the paperwork
for another man named Bobby, according to testimony at Oluwatosin's
court hearing.

On the way out of the store with Decker, Oluwatosin dropped the
paperwork he had just received from ChoicePoint and other forms for a
company dubbed Gala Financial. At the time, he was carrying five cell
phones, only one of them in his own name. Three credit cards bore the
names of other people, including at least one woman.

At Decker's request, Oluwatosin shared his address in North
Hollywood. Once there, Decker said he found a printout of a
ChoicePoint search involving another name, that of a man he later
learned had lost $12,000 to identity thieves. Decker also found a
receipt for a public storage business not far away. Before long,
searching in unit B-245, Decker found what he later told a state court
judge were the tell-tale signs of an identity theft operation: new
televisions, electric generators and other products in shipping boxes
stripped bare of details about where the goods came from.

The paperwork offered other leads. Decker found addresses that turned
out to be commercial mail services. Investigators asked to see the
unopened mail at some of those locations. One clerk brought out two
large bags containing credit card applications, financial statements
and other mail that had been redirected from homes around the nation.

Driving to more than a dozen commercial mail services in one day,
Decker and a postal inspector identified redirected mail from more
than 700 people. Further investigation revealed links to 22 other
ChoicePoint accounts that had been opened under false pretenses.

"I realized that this was just absolutely huge and out of control,"
Decker said.

Identity theft and fraud has become a national problem in a few short
years. In 2003, federal authorities estimated that about 750,000 people
fell victim to some identity scam. Now the prevailing estimate is close to
10 million.

Driving the rise is a growing number of clever criminals who use
people's Social Security numbers and other facts of their lives to
take on their personas to run up credit cards bills, empty bank
accounts and commit other crimes. But consumer advocates say it's also
the failure of so many information brokers, retailers and credit
issuers to adequately protect records or do enough to stop swindlers
by verifying the identities of customers.

Credit card companies, marketers and others have lost millions of
files to hackers and identity thieves in recent years. Two years ago,
ChoicePoint itself was hit by another identity theft scheme involving
personal records of thousands of people.

ChoicePoint, based in Alpharetta, Ga., has assembled a huge trove of
personal data in recent years. Much of that information, such as court
rulings, driver records and real estate details, comes from government
agencies. The company also purchases information from the three major
credit bureaus and other information services.

Its ability to create and electronically transmit exhaustive dossiers
on people makes it a favorite of many Fortune 500 companies,
government agencies and law enforcement and Homeland Security
authorities. Today, it has more than 100,000 customers and revenue
approaching $1 billion, a large proportion based on the resale of
details about individuals.

Before granting service, ChoicePoint typically requires a photocopy of
a driver's license and business records on file with a state or local
government agency. A ChoicePoint employee would then verify that such
a person and company exists. Identity thieves skirted this system by
using fake IDs and by setting up front companies on paper, registered
with government agencies in phony names, according to court and
company records.

Olatunji Oluwatosin pleaded no contest to identity theft in a
California court last month. He was sentenced to 16 months in state
prison.  Authorities are still investigating who else may be involved
in the scandal. They believe others, possibly many others, worked with
him.

ChoicePoint officials, meanwhile, said they have since identified more
than 50 accounts that appear to be phony. The company has warned
people to watch for unauthorized activity on their credit reports and
has offered to give them free access to that information, at an
estimated cost of $2 million.

The real James Garrett said he first noticed that something was amiss
when he received a call from a credit card company. The company told
him that a card in his name had been redirected to another
address. When Garrett went to police to report the fraud, police told
him he was apparently part of an identity theft ring, possibly related
to terrorist financing, Garrett said yesterday.

An investigator in the ChoicePoint case later told him that identity
thieves had obtained not only his name and address, but his Social
Security number, credit card password and mother's maiden name.

"They knew everything about me," Garrett said.

Behind the scenes, the case continues to expand. Decker and other
authorities in Los Angeles have discussed the case with the FBI and
Secret Service, which has indicated it may have another identity theft
suspect with ties to the ChoicePoint case. The Federal Trade
Commission has begun an inquiry.

At the same time, public ire is intensifying. Congress is planning to
hold hearings about the breach and the information industry in
general. Some of those hearings may involve questions about national
security. Democrats, including Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) have asked
for a study about how terrorists might use information brokers like
ChoicePoint.

In response to the thefts, ChoicePoint said in an SEC filing that it
is "discontinuing the sale of information products that contain
sensitive consumer data ... except where there is either a specific
consumer-driven transaction or benefit or where the products support
federal, state or local government and law enforcement purposes."

"We fully support a continued national discussion of how to ensure
that information is used responsibly, that the positive benefits of
information use are preserved and that the illegal uses of data are
severely punished," the company's filing said.

The company has defended the sale of hundreds of thousands of shares
since November, before the scandal became public, by ChoicePoint chief
executive Derek V. Smith and president and chief operating officer
Douglas C.  Curling, saying the transactions were part of scheduled
sales arranged last fall. Smith said he personally did not know about
the security breach until January.

Decker, meanwhile, said that after four months it feels like his
investigation is just beginning.

"Sometimes you're looking at Social Security numbers, and all of the
sudden a name pops out and you realize, 'These are real people, all of
them,' " he information is out there," he said. "They could all be
victims, if not now, in the future. 

Special correspondent Kimberly Edds contributed to this story from Los
Angeles.

Copyright 2005 The Washington Post Company

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily
media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . Hundreds of new articles daily.

*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the
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For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 23:50:51 -0500
From: Marcus Didius Falco <falco_marcus_didius@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: All Wired Up


http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1428626,00.html

Plans to cover huge areas with wireless internet access are gathering
pace.  And, finds Sean Dodson, companies that stand to lose are taking
the threat seriously.

Thursday March 3, 2005
The Guardian

Once the preserve of first-class business lounges, the mobile internet
is fast becoming a reality. Last month, Southern Trains announced it
was rolling out Wi-Fi access along its London to Brighton route. For
about the cost of a bacon sandwich, commuters will soon be able enjoy
internet access as they race across the Ouse viaduct. Not to be
outdone, service station operator Moto said it was installing Wi-Fi
hotspots at 43 of its motorway locations and you will even be able to
check email at 35,000 feet: Boeing is installing Wi-Fi access points
in its new fleet of long-haul aircraft.

Wi-Fi, short for wireless fidelity, is the branding given to
interoperability-tested products based on IEEE 802.11, an industry
standard that allows data to be sent over the radio spectrum rather
than through a cable or phone line. Now a standard feature on all but
the cheapest laptops, the protocol is coming pre-packaged in a variety
of electronic devices including mobile phones, palmtop computers and
even the latest Nintendo games console.

Until now, only a patchy blanket of disparate wireless networks has
allowed these devices to connect to the internet and it has been
difficult for users to roam between those networks since most cover
only small geographical areas.

But that is changing. Philadelphia is steaming ahead with an ambition
to become the world's most wired - or unwired - city, with a $10m plan
to bathe 135 square miles with wireless coverage - potentially
accessible by 1.5m residents. Over the next 18 months, more than 4,000
wireless antennae will be attached to the city's lampposts, trans
mitting free internet access into the city's parks and public
places. But, more controversially, Philadelphia's residents and
businesses will also be tempted with wireless broadband for about the
cost of a dial-up connection. According to the mayor, John F Street,
Philadelphia is "singularly obsessed" with bringing the benefits of
high-speed internet access "anywhere, anytime, to anyone that needs
it".

Cities as diverse as New York, Taipei, Calgary and Adelaide are
competing to launch similar "muni nets". Smaller scale networks have
been deployed on corporate and university campuses and, more recently,
in large shopping areas, such as a 42-square block section of downtown
St Louis, Missouri.  Smaller US cities, such as Salem and Austin,
offer city-wide wireless access, while in Europe, the genteel Dutch
city of Leiden offers a foretaste of the wireless city.

The UK picture is more parochial, though no less passionate. A
patchwork of smaller wireless networks, often funded by local
councils, is beginning to blossom. Yesterday, Access to Broadband, a
pressure group partially funded by the government, reported to the
Department for Trade and Industry that there were at least 550 smaller
scale wireless networks operating in towns and villages across the
UK. Nearly 90% employ wireless networking. These tiny, cooperative
projects are in remote corners, but what they have in common with
Philadelphia is that they have been established in the wake of the
market's failure to deliver affordable high-speed internet connections
to everyone who needs it. The rural outposts going wireless are those
that feel they are poorly served by BT.

There are also moves to furnish London with city-wide wireless
networks.  Lewisham council is building a wireless network in south
London, while the closest Britain has to wireless Philadelphia is a
three-mile ribbon in central Bristol.

What unites these groups is the belief that cheap wireless access has
the power to even out the inequalities inherent in the network
society. But not everyone is convinced by such egalitarianism. In
Philadelphia, critics have argued that local government-run networks
will result in poor service and be a waste of taxpayers' money. Far
from being an anti-poverty weapon, say dissenters, municipal networks
are more likely to be aimed at attracting hi-tech businesses. As Scott
Wallsten wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer last week: "Does anyone
really believe that impoverished families are going to run to the
store and plunk down more than $500 on a computer just because they
can suddenly save a few bucks a month on internet access?"

The mayor's office responded swiftly, saying its pilot projects had
engaged with low-income groups, citing the People's Emergency Centre
(PEC), a homeless shelter in beleaguered west Philly, as an indication
of how wireless networks can reach the poorest. Three years ago, PEC
created a small wireless network for the surrounding area (average
annual family income below $20,000) and offered to share its leased
internet line with local residents for $5 per month - roughly a
quarter of the commercial rate.

The network -- which remains popular -- was supported by courses,
whose successful students could buy a refurbished computer with a
wireless card for $120.

So far, so good. But city hall soon ran into serious problems that
could stifle the wireless dreams of municipalities across the
world. US cable companies, which see citizen-funded networks as a
threat to their commercial fiefdoms, backed a bill that effectively
outlawed municipal wireless in the state of Pennsylvania. In December,
the state passed a bill forbidding any municipality in the state from
running an "information network". Only a last-minute deal with
Verizon, the state's de facto monopoly provider of broadband, saved
Philadelphia's vision. Verizon promised to allow the city's network,
but at the expense of the rest of the state. At least 15 US states are
considering similar telco-backed bills to ban municipal networks.

To Dianah Neff, Philadelphia's chief information officer, municipal
wireless is no mere luxury. Neff, a veteran public servant, sees
municipal networks as a potential leveller in a city where 70% of
state school children receive free school meals. "We have a vibrant
downtown," she says, "but we need to make sure all our neighbourhoods
can compete in the knowledge economy.

"We are not using taxpayers' dollars to build the network," she
adds. "We will finance it through taxable bonds or bank financing."
Moreover, Neff believes the network will be cost neutral, meaning that
the start-up costs will be offset by a reduction in the cost of civic
services. "We need outdoor access for our field operations, whether
that's building inspectors, health and social workers or public
safety. Our inspectors need access to engineering diagrams in the
field if there's a water main break," she explains. "DSL or cable
doesn't meet our needs."

Chris Clark, chief executive for BT Wireless Broadband, said the UK's
biggest broadband supplier would not be taking the same approach as
Verizon.  "The community wireless projects, which started in an
environment of concern about rural service, are evolving into
providing all sorts of innovative services," he says. "It would be a
pity to see such innovation stifled. More recently, a number of
metropolitan wireless projects have been in the pipeline. BT is fully
supportive of these initiatives."

While such sentiments will be welcomed by broadband campaigners, some
wish to go further and establish truly free wireless networks. If
municipal wireless represents a leveller approach to the network
society, then the "free networkers" represents its diggers. The idea
of a free, wireless network to "act as a direct counter strategy to
top-down, telecom-provided monopoly networking", was born in Southwark
nearly five years ago.

Julian Priest, then a web designer, posited the idea that the wireless
protocol could be used on a city-wide scale. His company wanted to
share its spare internet bandwidth with Backspace, a community of
digital artists working over the road. However, it is illegal to
stretch an overhead cable across a street. Priest and James Stevens,
of Backspace, solved the problem by connecting the buildings with
wireless technology. The realisation that the network could be
extended followed quickly.

The pair's idea to float a "data cloud" over London inspired a
generation of free networkers to take to the roofs armed with
antenna. Ad hoc free networks have since been established across the
world, as far away as Indonesia, Nepal and Tanzania. Priest is
lobbying Ofcom - the industry regulator -- to establish a "spectrum
commons" that would set aside certain frequency bands for public
use. 802.11 has grown out of the thin sliver of the spectrum given to
public use, "but it has to share that space with everything else,"
says Priest. "It's become an incredibly noisy and chaotic channel and
we need more space."

Free networkers, like Priest, believe that the transit of data through
the air should be free. Not just in terms of cost but in terms of
content.  "People need to take responsibility for their own network,"
says Pete Gomes, of Wireless London, a pressure group established in
January to promote free networks in the capital.

"Because of the scale of London, the possibility of creating a unified
wireless system from grass roots activity is complex. We are in a
position where we are embedding infrastructure for the future and if
London doesn't realise that, we could easily be left behind."

Links

Wireless Philadelphia
www.phila.gov/wireless/

Wireless London
http://wirelesslondon.info

------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people
very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."  Douglas Adams, The
Restaurant at the End of the Universe


NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily
media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . Hundreds of new articles daily.

*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without
profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the
understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic
issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I
believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the U.S.  Copyright Law. If you wish
to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go
beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner, in this instance, the Guardian Newspaper Group.

For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 23:47:45 -0500
From: Marcus Didius Falco <falco_marcus_didius@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Paper About Metcalfe's Law


 From the CyberLaw list

  ---------- Forwarded message ----------
  Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 23:20:58 CST
  From: Andrew Odlyzko
  Subject: FYI: paper about Metcalfe's Law

Dear Colleagues,

Sorry for the spam, but I thought you might be interested in the
paper described below.  Comments are invited.

Andrew

                       A refutation of Metcalfe's Law
                    and a better estimate for the value
                 of networks and network interconnections

                              Andrew Odlyzko
                         Digital Technology Center
                          University of Minnesota

                              Benjamin Tilly

                                Abstract

Metcalfe's Law states that the value of a communications network is
proportional to the square of the size of the network.  It is widely
accepted and frequently cited.  However, there are several arguments
that this rule is a significant overestimate.  (Therefore Reed's Law
is even more of an overestimate, since it says that the value of a
network grows exponentially, in the mathematical sense, in network
size.) This note presents several quantitative arguments that suggest
the value of a general communication network of size n grows like
n*log(n).  This growth rate is faster than the linear growth, of order
n, that, according to Sarnoff's Law, governs the value of a broadcast
network.  On the other hand, it is much slower than the quadratic
growth of Metcalfe's Law, and helps explain the failure of the dot-com
and telecom booms, as well as why network interconnection (such as
peering on the Internet) remains a controversial issue.


                             FULL PAPER AT:

             http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/metcalfe.pdf

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily
media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . Hundreds of new articles daily.

*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without
profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the
understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic
issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I
believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the U.S.  Copyright Law. If you wish
to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go
beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner, in this instance, Andrew Odlyzko. 

For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

------------------------------

From: LB@notmine.com
Subject: If You Use Ebay
Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 09:45:42 -0500
Organization: Optimum Online


You may need to sign in, but it is free and the site is worth it.

 From the NY Times.

 EBay's Joy Ride: Going Once ...
 By GARY RIVLIN
 Many longtime sellers and Wall Street analysts, long
 bullish on eBay, now say they are uncertain about the
 company's ability to sustain its torrid rate of growth.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/business/yourmoney/06ebay.html?th

Definitely worth the time to read the whole thing.

LB


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, you can read NY Times on
line here each day with no obligation for login or registration. Just
go to http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html   PAT]

------------------------------

From: Spyros Bartsocas <spyros@telecom-digest.zzn.com>
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 22:09:59 +0200
Subject: Strange Call ID


I live in Greece. I received a call from my cousin in NY. On my caller
Id his number appeared as 0044212xxxxxxx (where the x's show his
actual 212 area code POTS number.

How is this possible?

------------------------------

From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Corporate Identify -- Verizon vs. "Bell Telephone"
Date: 5 Mar 2005 19:53:56 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com


As has been done for years, the regular telephone bill mailing
contained an advertising insert for premium products and services.

On a recent Verizon leaflet, at the bottom was a small line,
"Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania".

This was curious since that's a very old name that hasn't been used
for years.  Even in the Bell era, they shortened it to just "Bell of
Pennsylvania".  After divesture they became "Bell Atlantic", and IIRC
they legally changed their name to that.  Further, IIRC, their name
change to Verizon was a legal name change as well, not just a
marketing tool.

So, I'm curious as to why they would use an old name on modern sales
literature, esp when they're pushing their most modern high tech
services.  (They changed their name to Verizon specifically to sound
high tech and not old fashioned with 'Bell Telephone').

The only thing I could think of is perhaps it's to distinguish this
mailing for this state, and former Bell customers (as opposed to GTE
customers).

------------------------------

From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Nokia 6010 Reporting in to Mama -- Radio Interference?
Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 15:27:12 -0800
Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com


On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:09:28 -0500, Isaiah Beard
<sacredpoet@sacredpoet.com> wrote:

> I've been noticing lately that a lot of the newer GSM phones are
> starting to do this.  I worry that GSM handset manufacturers are
> starting to get a little bit careless in taking steps to avoid
> interference.

Nonsense.  GSM phones have always done this.  I think you're stating
this because GSM has become more mainstream than it was several years
ago.

> You will find, however, that CDMA based phones (those on Verizon,
> Sprint, Alltel and a few others) will not have this problem.  

That's because CDMA uses a different scheme to communicate with the
system than does TDMA and GSM.

Just because it's cellular does not mean everything works exactly the
same way from different system to different system.

------------------------------

From: Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net>
Subject: Re: Nokia 6010 Reporting in to Mama -- Radio Interference?
Organization: ATCC
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 19:13:32 -0500


In article <telecom24.96.5@telecom-digest.org>, phil@mckerracher.org 
says ...

> Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:telecom24.94.8@telecom-digest.org:

>> On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 15:59:30 -0500, Ted Koppel <tkoppel@adelphia.net>
>> wrote:

>>> My new Nokia 6010 has an interesting and somewhat annoying habit.  If
>>> it's anywhere within a 5 foot radius of my PC speakers, I can hear it
>>> periodically transmitting something (sort of a rhythmic
>>> dum-diddy-dum-diddy-dum-dum-dum).  Sounds like static, but definitely
>>> with a paced rhythm.  I haven't timed the intervals exactly, but it
>>> seems to take place every 17-20 minutes.  In a related activity, I
>>> hear a big burst of static on my PC speakers, and then some rhythmic
>>> noise, about 5-7 seconds before the cell phone begins to ring.

>>> This is the first cell phone I've had that caused these noises.  Do I
>>> have a mutant phone?  Is this anything to be concerned about?

>> It's not just the Nokia 6010.  *Any* GSM will exhibit the
>> characteristics you refer to.  It's the phone communicating with the
>> system periodically...

> True. I was told by a contact at ETSI (the organisation that defined
> many of the GSM standards) that this was originally an oversight --
> they had not realised that the modulation scheme was effectively 100%
> amplitude modulation, which would be "detected" by any rectifying
> circuit nearby. It caused a lot of consternation in the early days.

> The "solution" they eventually agreed was to reduce the power
> transmitted by the phones by a factor of 10. This had been proposed
> anyway, to reduce the cell size and hence increase system capacity
> (also to increase battery life).

> Phil McKerracher
> www.mckerracher.org

So GSM that we have today is a patch on top a patch. Nice to think about 
that. 

------------------------------

From: Isaiah Beard <sacredpoet@sacredpoet.com>
Subject: Re: Vonage
Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 09:12:49 -0500
Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com


Henry Cabot Henhouse III wrote:

> So, anyone else notice that Vonage has taken a dump?  I've tried from
> a number of different networks, nada, zip, kerflunk.

Been working fine in the 732 area code.

Tony P. wrote:

> They definitely have some problems in different parts of the country but 
> my service in the northeast has been rock solid. I wonder -- I know I'm 
> on a Paetec switch so is it a Focal issue? 

Nope, I'm on a Focal switch, and it's been working fine for me all week.

E-mail fudged to thwart spammers.
Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply.

------------------------------

From: DevilsPGD <ihatespam@crazyhat.net>
Subject: Re: Vonage
Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 19:22:34 -0700
Organization: Disorganized


In message <telecom24.96.10@telecom-digest.org> John Levine
<johnl@iecc.com> wrote:

> No kidding.  I ported my number to Lingo almost a month ago due to
> Vonage's poor service and non-existent support, and I'm still trying
> to get hold of someone at Vonage who can cancel my account.  Perhaps
> they'll notice that I cancelled the credit card.

Why not use Vonage's website to cancel your account?

------------------------------

Subject: Re: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship'
Organization: Excelsior Computer Services
From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman)
Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 15:55:37 GMT


> Yes Pat, but it didn't do it on the basis of the 1st Amendment. As I
> understand it, the fine was to preserve "Net Freedom" (Powell's term)
> and although I like it, I still don't understand the legal basis for
> this action.  It seems to me the Telco's ought to be concerned about
> this because if there is now a "must carry" rule for VoIP traffic, what
> happens when they start to offer TV/video? Will they be forced to allow

In the end, the only reason VoIP is so cheap is that it passes the
costs off to other sectors.  Personally, I have seen the quality of my
phone service plummet in the past ten years, and I'd be willing to pay
a little more to get my good service back.  I don't want to pay a
little less, get even worse service, and on top of it end up paying
more for basic Internet.  But that's where VoIP is leading.


-Joel

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please feed the 35mm lens/digicam databases:  http://www.exc.com/photography
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

From: Dana <raff242@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Vonage's Citron Says VoIP Blocking Is 'Censorship'
Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 11:35:05 -0900
Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com


Isaiah Beard wrote:

>> My local convenience store and drugstore carry certain newspapers, but
>> not all for my area.  Does that mean they are _censoring_ the ones
>> they don't sell?  According to Vonage they are.

> You comparison is overbroad and overreaching, and compares apples to
> oranges.

No, his comparison is right on. Not carrying all possible newspapers
in an area is similar to blocking access to ports that certain
services use.  

> I would think of it more this way: let's say that
> your phone company provider, be it Verizon or other LEC, decided
> that profanity should no longer be used on its phone lines, and
> installs special filters to capture and "bleep out" such speech.
> Would that be acceptable?

This is a strawman argument, as this is in no way compariable to the
situation with Vonage. 

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, back in the 'teens and '20s
of the last century, Bell had a rule against using profanity on the
telephone. For example, the cover of the 1920 Chicago Telephone
Company (predecessor to Illinois Bell) had this notice on the cover of
the phone directory: "When addressing our operators, please do not use
profanity. Please address our operators in the same courteous voice
you would want them to use in their reponses to you. It is not our
operator's fault if the line you have requested is engaged or does not
respond. Would you like it if the operator responded with a curse when
telling you the number did not respond."  Apparently people would ask
for the number of the train station information line (for example),
and find it always in use or slow to respond. So people would curse
out the operator and blame her for it, then slam down the reciever.

------------------------------


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