For your convenience in reading: Subject lines are printed in RED and
Moderator replies when issued appear in BROWN.
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TD Extra News
For your convenience in reading: Subject lines are printed in RED and
Moderator replies when issued appear in BROWN.
Previous Issue (just one)
TD Extra News
TELECOM Digest Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:30:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 117
Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson
Spain Leads 12-Nation Crackdown on Internet Child Porn (Lisa Minter)
E-Mail Paranoia (Lisa Minter)
Ebbers Convicted of $11 Billion Fraud (Telecom dailyLead from USTA)
VoIP's Next Step: Hearings On The Hill (Jack Decker)
Lifespan of a Desktop PC? (Lisa Hancock)
The Lost Lessons of the 1920s and 1930s (Lisa Hancock)
FTC Goes After Spyware Firm (Justin Time)
Hosting Content on Zombie Computer Networks (Gareth Morrissey)
Re: What Happened To Channel 1 (Michael Quinn)
Re: 3 Verizon Phones - Throw Away or What? (Justin Time)
Re: 3 Verizon Phones - Throw Away or What? (Joseph)
Re: 3 Verizon Phones - Throw Away or What? (John Levine)
Re: Cell Phone Reception (Dean)
Re: Cell Phone Reception (John Levine)
Re: Los Angeles Times: Low-Tech Methods Used in Data Theft (L. Hancock)
Re: Former WorldCom CEO Guilty on All Counts (Lisa Hancock)
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: 16 Mar 2005 07:09:54 -0800
From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: Spain Leads 12-Nation Crackdown on Internet Child Porn
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain said Wednesday it was coordinating a
12-nation police operation against Internet child pornography and
around 500 arrests were expected.
Police were making simultaneous searches of homes in Spain, France,
Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Chile, Argentina, Panama, Costa Rica,
Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay, the Interior Ministry said
in a statement.
Nineteen people had been arrested so far throughout Spain and
worldwide arrests were expected to total around 500, the ministry
said.
The operation targets child pornography distributed through a
Spanish-language Internet chat room.
Police had found more than 20,000 items containing child porn,
including videos, photographs and MP3 files and had also seized video
cameras and documents, the ministry said.
The investigation began in January when a Spaniard complained to
authorities about "highly aggressive" photographs of very young
children that were available through an Internet chat room, the
Interior Ministry said.
Spanish police monitored the site to find out who was
putting the material on the Internet and tracked down more than
900 connections from all over the world in two weeks.
Spain then informed Eurojust and IbeRed, organizations that coordinate
judicial cooperation in Europe and Latin America respectively.
Investigating judges from all countries involved took part in planning
meetings before Wednesday's swoop.
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, Reuters, Limited.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Is it just me, or do other readers
think that child porn is getting increasingly common? It seems like
every few weeks now, we read where X-hundred people have been arrested
for it. Then before long, another X-hundred more have been arrested.
Whoever said that child porn was a universally disliked crime? I
think more people are 'into it' than we realize. PAT]
------------------------------
From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: E-Mail Paranoia
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 00:00:00 GMT
I love the Toshiba laptop I bought last year. I keep just about
everything related to work, school, and my finances on it. So when I
received an e-mail from Toshiba warning that my model may have a
data-threatening memory defect, I was anxious to find out whether my
machine was affected. A link in the message took me to a Toshiba Web
page, which promised to download a utility to my PC that would check
for a defective memory module. All I had to do was click one button.
But just as I was about to click that button, a doubt bubbled up from
the depths of my digital credulity. Could the whole thing be a scam?
Was I about to download and install a Trojan horse, backdoor program,
or worm? As it turned out, it wasn't a trick: Toshiba really did send
out an e-mail containing an embedded link leading to an executable
file download located at a long, complex Web address. Trouble is,
phishing exploits, browser hijackers, and other online scams often
hook their victims by using similar-looking e-mail messages.
Fortunately, you can learn to spot these e-mail cons by using a
handful of investigative techniques and a boatload of common
sense. Here are some of the ways to tell a genuine message from a
bogus one.
Don't Take the Bait
If you keep just this one thing in mind, you'll protect yourself from
the majority of e-mail attacks: Assume any message could be
malicious. It matters not who the sender appears to be, or whether the
message's corporate logos, artwork, and embedded links look
authentic. It's a trivial matter for scam artists to create fake
messages that contain return addresses, images, and URLs lifted from
the real company's own Web site.
Next, use your newfound paranoia to examine messages critically. If
you don't have an account with Citibank, for example, the company
won't be sending you any account-related e-mail. But even messages
that appear to come from firms you have an account with may not be
real. Remember, your new motto is "Trust No One."
Before clicking a link or taking any action requested in a message,
determine for certain that the message is genuine. Return addresses,
embedded links, and images can be deceiving. Look for dire warnings
and other classic con techniques, undoubtedly accompanied by a link to
a bogus Web site where you'll be asked to enter personal information.
Legitimate e-mails and scams can look very much alike. Both may be
text-based, reasonably well written, and plausible (although phishing
messages often contain typos and poorly composed sentences with
questionable logic). Both also contain real addresses to each
company's Web site. The only difference is that, for example, a
faux-Citibank message also may have a link to a short-lived phishing
site where the unsuspecting visitor is asked to enter personal
information. Rather than providing a link to a specific page, genuine
messages from companies that are savvy to phishing and other online
fraud will generally instruct you to visit or log in to the company's
main Web site.
Another clue: A phishing message may be delivered to an e-mail address
that you don't use with that company or institution. Note that I've
received phishing messages at a widely publicized (and indexed)
address (nettips@pcworld.com), whereas a genuine PayPal message came
to my personal address, which I had previously verified with
PayPal. If you get a message at an address you never registered with
the company, it's fake.
Intuition and a suspicious nature are a good start, but to separate
real messages from bogus ones, you also need to decipher their Web
addresses. In a couple text-based messages I received, all addresses
were plain text, so what I clicked was what I got. Clicking
"https://www.paypal.com" took me to the real PayPal Web site. But
clicking
"http://218.45.31.164/signin/citifi/scripts/login2/index.html" didn't
exactly lead to a Citibank Web site.
One clue is the string of numbers following the URL prefix
"http://". Every Web site resides at a specific Internet Protocol
address, so, for example, you can get to the PCWorld.com site by
typing 65.220.224.30 in your browser's address bar instead of
www.pcworld.com. However, "218.45.31.164" doesn't lead to the Citibank
Web site, even though the rest of the address looks like other links
you may routinely click. The only way you can be sure to reach the
real Citibank site is to type the domain-name-based URL
www.citibank.com into your browser's address window manually. (And
once you do, be sure to click the Consumer Alert link that describes
these fraudulent e-mail messages.) If you're not sure where an IP
address leads, don't click it.
Substituting a numeric IP address for a domain name in a URL isn't the
only way a malicious message will try to trick you. The address
"www.citibank.com" is the real deal, but "www.citibank.phishing.com"
could lead anywhere. Every domain name ends with a top-level domain,
such as.com,.org,.edu, or a country-specific TLD such as.cn
(China),.uk (United Kingdom), or.ru (Russia). The word just to the
left of this TLD, together with the TLD portion, spells out the actual
domain name: "citibank.com", for example, is all it takes to get to
Citibank's site. When a phisher modifies a domain name slightly, or
inserts a word to the left of the TLD, the link changes. Phishers hope
that you won't know or notice the difference between "pcworld.com" and
"pcworld-gotcha.com" or "pcworld.phishing.com."
E-mail attacks can also use the HTML formatting to conceal the true
destination of links. If a message is composed using HTML, the
underlined link text may not be the same as the actual embedded
link. This was true of the e-mail I received from Toshiba and was one
reason I became suspicious of its origin. Most e-mail programs display
an embedded link's destination URL in the bottom status bar or in a
pop-up window when you hover the mouse pointer over it.
I needed to find out whether the message from Toshiba was genuine; if
it was, I would have to test my beloved laptop for a faulty memory
module. First I entered a likely Toshiba site URL -- "toshiba.com" --
into my browser's address bar; this move transported me to a global
Toshiba site.</p>
After rummaging around awhile, I finally stumbled upon a Web page
describing the same issues noted in the Toshiba e-mail, and using the
same URLs. Voil?! I had my confirmation -- the Toshiba e-mail was truly
legitimate. But I still never clicked the message's embedded link,
going instead through the link on the company's Web site. You can
never be too careful.</p>
Scott Spanbauer is a contributing editor for PC World He writes the
monthly Internet Tips column.
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, Reuters Tech Tuesday, PC-World.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder if most netizens realize the
serious way in which phishing has proliferated. I must get a dozen or
more of these daily in my account here at massis. Since massis is an
old-fashioned style mail service (uses 'sendmail' with text copy) it
is very easy for me to tell where I would be sent to if I clicked on
something by just reading through the html looking at the links which
would appear if I had been using html and had clicked. It is really
pretty disgusting, the volume of it. It is literally all over the
place. I get them all the time pertaining to 'errors found in my
PayPal account' or 'fraud discovered in my Citibank account' etc. I
don't even have a Citibank account, and my PayPal account does not
go through massis. PAT]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:44:15 EST
From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA <usta@dailylead.com>
Subject: Ebbers Convicted of $11 Billion Fraud
http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=20104&l=2017006
TODAY'S HEADLINES
NEWS OF THE DAY
* Ebbers convicted of $11 billion fraud
BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH
* Qwest to raise MCI bid
* RIM settles patent lawsuit
* TiVo shares soar 75% after deal with Comcast
* Differences between Motorola, Apple forced iTunes phone delay
USTA SPOTLIGHT
* In the Telecom Bookstore: Broadband Facts
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
* SureWest jumps into TV game
REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE
* SEC charges former Qwest CEO and other former executives
Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others.
http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=20104&l=2017006
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Situations like this are the main
reason I could _care less_ if people happen to rip off the 'telephone
company' a little now and then. I hope old man Ebbers never gets out
of jail; considering what MCI has done rather routinely to the
telephone network since back in the late 1960's. PAT]
------------------------------
From: Jack Decker <jack-yahoogroups@withheld on request>
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:39:07 -0500
Subject: VoIP's Next Step: Hearings On The Hill
Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com
http://www.telecomweb.com/news/1110908201.htm
Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology and carriage is
starting to get additional attention in light of potential rewrites of
the 1996 Telecom Act during the 109th session of Congress, with the
House Rural Caucus Telecommunications Task Force feeling out the
business last week and the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on
Telecommunications and the Internet scheduling on open hearing on the
subject tomorrow.
The Rural Caucus' broadband-oriented Telecom Task Force, co-chaired
by Rep. Gil Gutknect (R-Minn.) and Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), followed up
last year's briefings on future telecom challenges facing the rural
United States and universal service fund (USF) issues with a March 9
hearing on VoIP during which carriers and lobbying groups outlined
their positions surrounding VoIP in rural America.
BellSouth Chief Technology Officer Bill Smith underscored VoIP's rural
importance to his company by saying "BellSouth provides service to
more rural customers than all of the independent companies
combined," including in three states via the high cost portion of
the USF program and in six states where it receives no such
support. "With continued broadband deployment, there are now
broadband service applications that can provide people who live in
rural America with a competitive alternative to conventional voice
phone service that is comparable in both quality and functionally and
generally lower in price," he said. "Given the changes in
technology and the right economic incentives, providers will target
more and more areas to provide both broadband and VoIP services to
compete for the consumer's business."
Full story at:
http://www.telecomweb.com/news/1110908201.htm
How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home:
http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html
If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/
------------------------------
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Lifespan of a Desktop PC?
Date: 16 Mar 2005 08:24:27 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Would anyone know what is the average/typical physical lifespan of a
desktop PC? That is, how many years do they run before components
start failing?
When buying a new PC, how do people typically transfer the contents
from the old PC hard drive to the new PC? At work, people move stuff
out onto the LAN server or move the old drive into the new box; but
others say old drives are not compatible with new technology. How do
home users without a LAN handle it?
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have here a Toshiba Satellite 220-CDS
sine 1995. It started life as Win 95, has since been converted to Win-98
(which I am sorry I did, really, it seems to be running a little
slower than it did as a 95). But it _never_ freezes up, _never_ locks
out; just sits there all day long as part of my network doing its
thing, the same as it did as a 95. Is ten years a rather good life
span? PAT]
------------------------------
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: The Lost Lessons of the 1920s and 1930s
Date: 16 Mar 2005 10:56:15 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com
In the 1920s there was a terrific economic boom. Underneath there was
some dark clouds, like that much of the boom was based on 'nothing',
that is stocks that had no real value under them bought on margin
without any real coverage. But everyone was having such a good time
the naysayers were ignored.
The boom burst. The securities markets collapsed. Since so much was
based on nothing, underlying loans and margin accounts collapsed as
well, causing a nasty domino effect throughout the financial world.
Nobody could pay any of their debts in a long chain. Without any
money, the economy of the world ground to a halt.
In the 1930s reformers of the New Deal attempted to save the system.
The industrialists and financiers were terribly upset since until now
they had done as they pleased and answered to no one. But without
reform they would end up with nothing.
Sadly, today the descendants of those industrialists and financiers
are pulling the same crimes as was done in the 1920s.
But what is worse is that the regulators and laws that were supposed
to prevent this sort of thing have been forgotten. We need to be more
"competitive" they tell us as an excuse to allow big monopolies and
concentrated power. "This will create economic development" they tell
us while laying off thousands of employees with no other place to go.
Had the SEC and auditors been doing their job properly Enron, MCI, and
other fisascos would've been stopped early or not started at all.
But they told us "everyone is having such a good time", so we
shouldn't interfere.
Years ago the power utilities were caught in a scandal with lots of
watered stock in the form of layered "holding companies". We're going
right back to that today.
------------------------------
From: Justin Time <a_user2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: FTC Goes After Spyware Firm
Date: 16 Mar 2005 06:46:23 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com
FTC Goes After 'Phony' Spyware Assassin
Elizabeth Millard, www.enterprise-security-today.com
The Federal Trade Commission has asked a U.S. District Court to bar
Spyware Assassin and its affiliates from offering consumers free
spyware detection scans and from selling antispyware software.
The FTC also is seeking a permanent halt to the alleged "marketing
scam," as well as redress for consumers.
"The defendants' free remote scan is phony, and the defendants'
representations that they have detected spyware on the consumer's
computer are deceptive," the FTC charges.
Bogus Claims About Spyware
In papers filed with the court, the FTC alleges that Spyware Assassin
and its affiliates use Web sites, e-mail, banner ads and pop-ups to
draw users to the company's site.
After dire warnings about spyware, users are offered a free scanning
tool, which inevitably finds "dangerous spyware virus infections,"
according to the company's post-scan pop-up message.
The message advises users to pay for and download Spyware Assassin
software, which does not remove all, or substantially all, spyware, the
FTC alleges. This violates the FTC Act, which bars deceptive claims.
Fraudulent E-Mail on the Rise
As the FTC was conducting its investigation, security firms also were
noticing the rise in Spyware Assassin's antispyware e-mail activity.
Reston, Virgina-based iDefense, a threat-intelligence firm, noticed
the fraudulent e-mails increasing over the past couple of months.
"There's been a dramatic increase in the number of messages from
Spyware Assassin," said iDefense director of malicious code research
Ken Dunham. "We checked it out and found they were bogus."
Unlike prescription drug scams, antispyware protection appeals to a
larger group of people, Dunham noted, because many users have heard of
spyware, but most are unaware of how to remove it.
Larger Spyware Issues
Although Spyware Assassin could be shut down permanently, that does
not solve the deeper issue of user naivete, according to Dunham.
"The larger problem that this highlights is that users are far too
trusting [of] junk e-mail and spam," he said. "There is an issue here
much bigger than this one fraudulent site, and that's user education,"
Dunham added.
Without reliable information being disseminated to users about what is
safe and what is fraud, bogus e-mail claims are likely to proliferate,
noted Dunham.
Rodgers Platt
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, Enterprise Security Today.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
------------------------------
From: garethmorrissey@yahoo.com (Gareth Morrissey)
Subject: Hosting Content on Zombie Computer Networks
Date: 16 Mar 2005 10:44:17 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Would it be possible to host content on zombie computer networks (like
those used to send out spam)?
Is anybody doing this currently?
The next wave of p2p program? Solves the free rider problem??
Just curious.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: What Happened To Channel 1
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:25:21 -0500
From: Michael Quinn <quinnm@bah.com>
Along this line, and at the risk of perhaps being slightly OT, if anyone
knows why television uses channels while radio uses frequencies (for the
most part, that is, the 88 channel) FM Marine Band in the 156 MHz range
being an exception), I would be interested in hearing about it.
Regards,
Mike
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On radio, there are also 'channels', as
you point out for example in the FM Marine Band, also the Citizens
Band has 'channels'. I think the difference is where 'frequencies'
refers to a general range of spaces in the spectrum for general
categories of service (radio or television), 'channels' further
divides that group of frequencies into into specific allocations. For
example, we say the 'eleven meter band' (of frequencies) is divided
into forty channels. PAT]
------------------------------
From: Justin Time <a_user2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: 3 Verizon Phones - Throw Away or What?
Date: 16 Mar 2005 06:59:21 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com
I believe that you will be able to cancel the service contract with
the return of the phones as you are leaving the country. You need to
go in to your local VZW store - not an "authorized dealer" and explain
the situation.
Rodgers Platt
------------------------------
From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: 3 Verizon Phones - Throw Away or What?
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 08:21:29 -0800
Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com
On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 16:04:03 -0800, Paintblot <sssssssssssff@ef.com>
wrote:
> I'm permanently leaving the USA in a few weeks. I have a Verizon
> account with 3 telephones, 2 of which are almost new. These phones
> have 2 year contracts. When we leave, what should I do? I cannot take
> them back to Verizon, because all they'll want is the big dollar
> contract buyout, which I won't pay (let them attack my credit, who
> cares, I'm not coming back here). Sell the phones? Aren't they banned
> from continuing to work on the Verizon network, and locked into the
> Verizon network? Just destroy them and throw them away?
If the contract was not fulfilled or you have not paid the account the
ESNs on the phones will be shown to be in default and no one will be
able to use them. I'm not sure how contract terms will have any
effect on it though.
On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 16:04:03 -0800, Telecom digest editor wrote:
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My personal advice, for whatever it is
> worth, is sell them for a few dollars each and get what you can out of
> them. If you know anyone you can generally trust, sell them a phone
> (for ten or twenty dollars?) with the understanding that _they_ can
> continue to pay the bill for the remainder of the contract (or until
> they get tired of paying the bill and/or the phone gets turned off,
> whichever comes first. PAT]
If you mean pay the charges as if he was someone else that would work.
If you meant taking over the account Verizon would likely require a
credit check.
------------------------------
Date: 16 Mar 2005 18:33:08 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: 3 Verizon Phones - Throw Away or What?
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA
> I'm permanently leaving the USA in a few weeks. I have a Verizon
> account with 3 telephones, 2 of which are almost new. These phones
> have 2 year contracts. When we leave, what should I do?
You can sell them on ebay, or you may be able to donate them to a
local charity. They're locked to Verizon's network, but VZ shouldn't
care if someone else wants to use them on a different VZ account.
Ebay has a page with estimates of how much they're worth:
http://pages.ebay.com/rethink/cpsz/howmuch.html
I gather that womens' shelters and the like can use old phones even
without service since they can still dial 911. See
http://www.wirelessfoundation.org/CalltoProtect/index.cfm
Regards,
John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies,
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor
"More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.
------------------------------
From: Dean <cjmebox-telecomdigest@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Cell Phone Reception
Date: 16 Mar 2005 09:36:39 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On my personal cell phone, which is on
> Cingular Wireless, my latest contract is about to run out, and when
> I was downtown Friday, I went in the Cingular Wireless store and
> talked to the lady about getting a new phone in exchange for renewing
> my contract. There were several hangups, IMO: the newer phones are
> a bit smaller and (a) they would not work with my existing Cell Socket
> device; I use a Nokia 5165, which is an older phone, but it works
> quite well (and, it also works quite well when tied into my PBXtra
> through the Cell Socket) ... (b) the picture quality on the newer
> phones, while it has gotten better, _still_ has a way to go before the
> picture quality is as good as an inexpensive digital PC camera, and
> (c) the lady told me unlike Cingular Wireless text messages, to send
> a picture costs more money, around 40 cents per transmission. If there
> was a way to avoid that transmission charge (for example by somehow
> transferring the picture directly to my computer, then using my own
> email to move the picture around, I might be inclined to get a new
> phone and try it. PAT]
Pat,
Getting pics from the cell phone to the PC generally depends on the
device. If you don't take too many pics, I've found the cheapest way to
be to use a cell phone with an infrared port. Then all you need to do
is send the images to the laptop via its infrared port. Costs nothing,
but can only be done one image at a time. There are fancier ways
(bluetooth, special cables and special software etc) but this is the
cheapest I've found.
Regards,
Dean
------------------------------
Date: 16 Mar 2005 18:22:12 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: Cell Phone Reception
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA
>> Go visit the forums over on http://www.howardforums.com/, the
>> phone hackers there ...
> I really don't think those who contribute to Howardforums would
> appreciate you calling them *hackers!* Would you like someone to call
> you a hacker?
Sure. Among people old enough to understand, it's a term of respect.
Perhaps you're confusing it with "cracker" or "script kiddie".
R's,
John
------------------------------
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Los Angeles Times: Low-Tech Methods Used in Data Theft
Date: 16 Mar 2005 10:44:50 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Marcus Didius Falco wrote:
> Low-Tech Methods Used in Data Theft
> By David Colker
> Times Staff Writer
> Executives at besieged information broker ChoicePoint Inc. have said
> they had no idea how vulnerable the company was to the identity thieves
> who recently tapped into personal data on 145,000 Americans, igniting a
> national furor over privacy.
The network news showed the congressional hearings. The CEO appeared
before Congress and came off as a total boob.
These companies were greedy, collecting extremely sensitive and
personal information for corporate use -- use that would seriously hurt
many of us every day people in our jobs and business dealings.
Corporations use the information -- true or not -- to justify price
increases or lower salaries on the grounds the person is a "bad risk".
I was shocked to learn that bad credit history can prevent someone
from getting a job and making them pay more for insurance. So someone
in bad straits is pushed down by their system even lower -- someone
unemployed can't even get a job and has to pay more for vital
services!
There apparently is virtually no regulation of the collection or
dissemination of the information. If something is inaccurate, I can't
help but wonder that the private person has a really tough time
demonstrating otherwise, especially when they don't learn about it
until years later.
On top of it all, they are sloppy with their security and let stuff
get stolen.
If it were up to me:
1) Their own credit report would be free to consumers.
2) When any time seriously adverse information is posted
to a person's file, the credit company would be required
to notify the person and allow time for a response. The
consumer should be able to challenge such adverse information
and the burden of proof to be on the reporter, without any risk
or penalty or cost to the individual person.
3) Any time a business requests credit info the consumer is to be
notified.
("Credit info" to all personal info about a person, not just
financial.)
Obviously these companies would howl in protest. The news said they
spent millions lobbying against any regulation in the past. But I
suspect these companies are quite profitable and the costs of
accomplishing the above would be modest. It would also cause credit
reporters to be more careful and have better internal procedures and
controls (which are sorely lacking today) and they'll protest that as
well.
But it is not up to me since I'm not a yuppie nor have access to
million dollar lobbyists.
Is anyone out there on the side of these info bank companies?
------------------------------
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Former WorldCom CEO Guilty on All Counts
Date: 16 Mar 2005 09:51:35 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Lisa Minter wrote:
> A federal jury in Manhattan returned guilty verdicts on all nine
> counts, including securities fraud, conspiracy and lying to
> regulators; a decision that could send Ebbers, 63, to prison for the
> rest of his life. Sentencing was set for June 13.
He clearly deserves prison. As CEO, understanding the overall
finances of his company was a very basic legal responsibility.
I don't know where that guy went to school, but my basic
accounting classes they made it quite clear that falsifying
the books was a serious crime, that managers had a responsibility
to understand their records, and how to understand a financial
statement.
Does anybody out there think he -- or others convicted in stock fraud
-- got a raw deal?
------------------------------
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