For your convenience in reading: Subject lines are printed in RED and
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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 Fri, 15 Apr 2005 21:20:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 166
Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson
South Korea Cracks Down on Online Porn (Lisa Minter)
AS5350, TCL and DTMF Tone (Victor Cappuccio)
VoicePulse Lowers Startup Costs and Drops Tax (Jack Decker)
Internet Pioneer: VoIP is NOT Telephony (Jack Decker)
Mitigating Identity Theft (Dave Garland)
Re: Texting is Slower Than Morse (Pete Romfh)
Re: Texting is Slower Than Morse (Wesrock@aol.com)
Re: Cellular Phone Harassment from '555-555-1212' (spam trap)
Re: Getting Serious About the War on Spam (John Levine)
Re: Spam Hits Us Hard Today - Message Losses (Lisa Hancock)
Re: Walkie Talkie (Wesrock@aol.com)
Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors (cphipps@gmail.com)
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: 15 Apr 2005 16:42:41 -0700
From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>
Subject: South Korea Cracks Down on Online Porn
South Korea Cracks Down on Online Porn
By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer
The world's most wired country is raiding cyberspace's red-light
district in a campaign pitting Confucian morals against modern
technology.
Since January, the main prosecutor's office in Seoul has issued arrest
warrants for about 100 people charged with spreading obscene material
under South Korea's telecommunications law, a crime carrying penalties
of up to a year in jail or a nearly $10,000 fine.
In a highly publicized case last month, police in the southern city of
Busan arrested the operator of a Web site that offers a forum to
arrange swaps of sex partners. The 36-year-old man, whose name hasn't
been released, is charged with spreading obscene material and remains
jailed while the investigation continues, said Busan police officer
Lee Nam-sik, who is heading the probe.
The campaign comes amid a wider moral crackdown starting last year,
when penalties for prostitution-related crimes also were doubled.
Korea has an active sex trade both online and off. According to the
Korean Institute of Criminology, the amount spent on prostitution
alone amounted to $23.6 billion in 2002, the last year for which
figures were available.
At a recent Cabinet meeting, where the campaign against prostitution
was discussed, President Roh Moo-hyun stressed the need for
establishing a "healthy consumption culture," implying money should be
spent on things other than the sex trade.
In a country where more than 70 percent of homes have high-speed
Internet connections, access to cyberporn is easy.
That means traditional taboos in Korea's conservative, Confucian-based
society have quickly shattered, said Lee Mee-sook, a sociology
professor at Paichai University in the central city of Daejeon.
"The code of ethics became weak, and people started satisfying their
sexual desires through the Internet anonymously," she said.
On a busy street in the center of the South Korean capital Seoul,
"adult" Internet cafes aren't hard to find. In the cafes, customers
can surf the Web in private booths, as opposed to the open rows of
computers found in typical cybercafes.
Authorities "can't really control it because it's the Internet, it's
impossible," said Lee, 28, a worker at the Red Box adult Internet
cafe, who gave only his last name. "We should have the freedom to see
whatever we want."
Web operators insist that adult content appearing on mainstream sites
has been rated by the Korea Media Rating Board, the agency responsible
for setting age recommendations for everything from films to computer
games, and complain that prosecutors have overstepped their authority.
"The portal sites are being accused for what they thought was legal,"
said Lee Yeun-woo of Kinternet, an organization that represents
popular portals such Yahoo Korea, Daum and Naver. "The fine actually
isn't that much. But we want to prove what those sites did wasn't
illegal and want the prosecutors to prove what was wrong."
To get around laws regulating Web site content, some sex sites are
based on Web servers outside South Korea. The Ministry of Information
and Communications is asking Internet providers to block access to
them as well.
Many Korean Web sites require users to enter their national
identification card numbers to confirm their age to access adult
content. But tech-savvy children can use programs to create false
numbers or simply use their parents' IDs instead.
South Korea's constitution guarantees freedom of speech, but contains
the caveat that such expression should neither "violate the honor or
rights of other persons nor undermine public morals or social ethics."
The law doesn't define obscenity, but Jun Ji-yun, a law professor at
Seoul's Yonsei University, said it was understood to be something that
"brings sexual disgrace to people."
Given the sheer volume of Internet pornography, prosecutors realize
they face an uphill battle. They are focusing on larger Web portals
and other well-known sites first, in hopes that their investigation
will draw attention to the issue and serve as a warning, said Kim
Dae-hyun, a Seoul prosecutor.
"There are so many crimes and so many pornography
sites out there," he said. "We cannot deal with all of them with such
a limited amount of people here."
AP reporter In-young Bang contributed to this report.
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/more-news.html . 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, Associated Press.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, take the word of someone who
knows what pornographic spam is all about: I get literally tons of it
everyday from South Korea, always in those ascii-attempts-to-translate
Korean into English, you know, the '@@@@@@@@' characters. But I have
installed a Korean language pack from Microsoft I think, and been able
to see the _real thing_ as they put it out, and some of it will indeed
curl your hair. They are downright weird, even in their porn.
Now, an issue or two ago, I suggest a 'good neighbor policy' where we
Americans route all our email/Usenet stuff through China for handling
and I suggest we include South Korea in that. Now you know how the
Chinese government feels about South Korea; they won't listen for a
minute to any of that stuff; they'd just as soon nuke them and be done
with it. Imagine the Chinese government having to hire a couple
million more censors to sit there and trash that stuff all day before
they sent our email and news back to us here in the USA. PAT]
------------------------------
From: vcappuccio@gmail.com (Victor Cappuccio)
Subject: AS5350, TCL and DTMF Tone.
Date: 15 Apr 2005 14:07:22 -0700
Hola a todos,
I was wondering if I can do this:
Can a AS5350 running a TCL Script, detect when the call is completed
and generate a DTMF Tone (like a #) and send it to a Billing Call
Control System?
Thanks in advance,
Saludos,
Victor
------------------------------
From: Jack Decker <jack-yahoogroups@withheld_on_request>
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 18:31:57 -0400
Subject: VoicePulse Lowers Startup Costs and Drops Tax
A VoicePulse press release some of you might find interesting.
VoicePulse offers service in as many or more Michigan ratecenters than
any of the other major VoIP providers, and seems to receive far more
positive comments than other providers on the BroadbandReports.com
VoIP forum. Note, if any members of the press are reading this, an
e-mail that came to me with this release said that Ravi Sakaria, the
President & CEO of VoicePulse, is available for comment - contact
Chris Liu, VoicePulse Public Relations, at 732-339-5106 to arrange an
interview. Personally, I'd like to see the VoIP companies that
actually offer numbers in all of Michigan's area codes (rather than
just rateceters in the Detroit and Grand Rapids areas) get some
publicity in the major media, and VoicePulse is in my opinion the top
company in that regard, especially after this announcement.
http://www.primezone.com/newsroom/?d=76351
VoicePulse Lowers Startup Costs and Drops Tax
Company lowers first month cost by $50 and drops unwanted tax
JAMESBURG, NJ (April 15, 2005) - VoicePulse Inc. announced today a
promotion that reduces the startup costs of their most popular
nationwide calling plan, the America Unlimited Special Offer, by $50.
The America Unlimited Special Offer allows consumers to make the jump
to Voice-over-IP (VoIP) for only $24.99/month for unlimited local & US
long distance calling.
"We've been able to build and maintain an efficient operation without
sacrificing customer satisfaction or service quality," says Ravi
Sakaria, VoicePulse President & CEO. "Combined with our increased
scale, this translates into lower costs for VoicePulse and savings for
our customers."
In addition, VoicePulse has stopped charging Federal Excise Tax (FET),
saving customers an additional 3% each month. VoicePulse is now the
only broadband phone service provider that does not charge any
unnecessary taxes or regulatory fees other than common sales tax.
"There is no clarity regarding whether or not the Federal Excise Tax
applies to VoIP service, so we have decided to err in favor of the
consumer," says Sakaria.
VoicePulse continues to pay Federal Excise Tax to its underlying
telecommunications providers, as those services are still regulated
and subject to taxes and tariffs.
VoicePulse has won awards from highly regarded technical journals and
trade magazines such as PC Magazine, PC World, and DesignTechnica.
VoicePulse also boasts having the top award from Broadband Reports,
which is based solely on customer reviews.
ABOUT VOICEPULSE
VoicePulse is a New Jersey based communications company that uses its
VoIP network to deliver advanced features and high-quality phone
service to residential and small-business consumers. The company
leads the industry in delivering innovative features and excellent
customer service.
For more information about VoicePulse, please contact:
Rima Vaghasiya
732-339-5100
rima @ voicepulse.com
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: Jack Decker <jack-yahoogroups@withheld_on_request>
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 18:28:16 -0400
Subject: Internet Pioneer: VoIP is NOT Telephony
http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=354
4/15/2005
Internet pioneer: VoIP is NOT telephony
-Posted by Russell Shaw @ 2:32 am
My colleague Renai LeMay at ZDNet Australia has just had the
professional privilege of hearing remarks by one of the technology
world's smartest men.
Vint Cerf. The Vint Cerf that developed the TCP/IP protocol that makes
the Internet work. And more than 30 years after that singular (hey, I
just realized how Cingular got its name) feat of innovation, there
Cerf was yesterday, addressing an Internet governance forum in Sydney.
Vint Cerf does not want VoIP to be regulated. His fear, though -- one
that I share, is because VoIP "looks like telephony," regulatory
bodies all over the world will knee-jerk assume that it needs to be
governed.
"My concern here is the fact that VoIP looks like, and sounds like
telephony," Cerf told the group. "This is horribly misleading. To leap
to that conclusion is extremely dangerous. VoIP is really just another
application on the Internet. Nothing special about it."
Oh, boy. This is a fitting statement for April 15, but how I wish that
revenue-hungry state and local governments in the U.S. got it. But
they haven't. Here in the U.S., too many jurisdictions are going to
keep longingly looking at VoIP as a cash cow -- and will keep trying
to figure out ways to glean money from it.
The above is from:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=354
------------------------------
From: Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com>
Subject: Mitigating Identity Theft
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 19:50:27 -0500
Organization: Wizard Information
excerpted from Bruce Schneir's CryptoGram
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0504.html
Bruce Schneir is an important figure in the field of computer and
systems security.
Mitigating Identity Theft
Unfortunately, the solutions being proposed in Congress won't help.
To see why, we need to start with the basics. The very term "identity
theft" is an oxymoron. Identity is not a possession that can be
acquired or lost; it's not a thing at all. Someone's identity is the
one thing about a person that cannot be stolen.
The real crime here is fraud; more specifically, impersonation leading
to fraud. Impersonation is an ancient crime, but the rise of
information-based credentials gives it a modern spin ...
The crime involves two very separate issues. The first is the privacy
of personal data. Personal privacy is important for many reasons, one
of which is impersonation and fraud ...
The second issue is the ease with which a criminal can use personal
data to commit fraud. It doesn't take much personal information to
apply for a credit card in someone else's name. It doesn't take much
to submit fraudulent bank transactions in someone else's name. It's
surprisingly easy to get an identification card in someone else's
name. Our current culture, where identity is verified simply and
sloppily, makes it easier for a criminal to impersonate his victim.
Proposed fixes tend to concentrate on the first issue -- making
personal data harder to steal -- whereas the real problem is the
second. If we're ever going to manage the risks and effects of
electronic impersonation, we must concentrate on preventing and
detecting fraudulent transactions.
Fraudulent transactions have nothing to do with the legitimate account
holders. Criminals impersonate legitimate users to financial
institutions. That means that any solution can't involve the account
holders. That leaves only one reasonable answer: financial
institutions need to be liable for fraudulent transactions. They need
to be liable for sending erroneous information to credit bureaus based
on fraudulent transactions.
They can't claim that the user must keep his password secure or his
machine virus free. They can't require the user to monitor his
accounts for fraudulent activity, or his credit reports for
fraudulently obtained credit cards. Those aren't reasonable
requirements for most users. The bank must be made responsible,
regardless of what the user does.
If you think this won't work, look at credit cards. Credit card
companies are liable for all but the first $50 of fraudulent
transactions. They're not hurting for business; and they're not
drowning in fraud, either. They've developed and fielded an array of
security technologies designed to detect and prevent fraudulent
transactions. They've pushed most of the actual costs onto the
merchants. And almost no security centers around trying to
authenticate the cardholder ...
That's an important lesson. Identity theft solutions focus much too
much on authenticating the person ... once you understand that the
problem is fraudulent transactions, you quickly realize that
authenticating the person isn't the way to proceed.
Again, think about credit cards. Store clerks barely verify
signatures when people use cards. People can use credit cards to buy
things by mail, phone, or Internet, where no one verifies the
signature or even that you have possession of the card. Even worse,
no credit card company mandates secure storage requirements for credit
cards. They don't demand that cardholders secure their wallets in any
particular way. Credit card companies simply don't worry about
verifying the cardholder or putting requirements on what he does.
They concentrate on verifying the transaction.
This same sort of thinking needs to be applied to other areas where
criminals use impersonation to commit fraud. I don't know what the
final solutions will look like, but I do know that once financial
institutions are liable for losses due to these types of fraud, they
will find solutions ...
Right now, the economic incentives result in financial institutions
that are so eager to allow transactions -- new credit cards, cash
transfers, whatever -- that they're not paying enough attention to
fraudulent transactions. They've pushed the costs for fraud onto the
merchants. But if they're liable for losses and damages to legitimate
users, they'll pay more attention. And they'll mitigate the risks.
Security can do all sorts of things, once the economic incentives to
apply them are there ...
Doing anything less simply won't work.
------------------------------
From: Pete Romfh <promfhTAKE@OUThal-pc.org.invalid>
Subject: Re: Texting is Slower Than Morse
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 17:17:10 -0500
Organization: Not Organized
Colin wrote:
> The Sydney Morning Herald reports on a challenge between
> 93 year old telegraph operator transmitting morse code to
> an 82 year old with a manual typewriter, and youngsters
> sending a text message. The text message was received 18
> seconds after the message was already on paper.
> http://smh.com.au/articles/2005/04/14/1113251739401.html
> Regards,
> Colin Sutton
And telegraph operators can spell also. No silly abbreviations. I'm
forwarding this (by email not morse code) to all the young
whippersnappers around the office.
They probably say I'm a crochety old fart.
And they're exactly correct. =;)
Pete Romfh, Telecom Geek & Amateur Gourmet.
promfh at hal dash pc dot org
------------------------------
From: Wesrock@aol.com
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 19:40:14 EDT
Subject: Re: Texting is Slower Than Morse
In a message dated Fri, 15 Apr 2005 23:33:07 +1000, Colin
<colin@sutton.wow.aust.com> writes:
> The Sydney Morning Herald reports on a challenge between 93 year old
> telegraph operator transmitting morse code to an 82 year old with a
> manual typewriter, and youngsters sending a text message. The text
> message was received 18 seconds after the message was already on
> paper.
> http://smh.com.au/articles/2005/04/14/1113251739401.html
> Regards,
> Colin Sutton
This is not surprising to anyone who has worked with capable Morse
operators.
My first experience with them when I was writing the play-by-play for
University of Oklahoma football games with a Morse operator beside me
sending the copy as I wrote it. (Newspapers carried play-by-play
accounts in their early editions up to the deadline for that edition
in the days before there was television coverage of everything. Later
editions, of course, would carry a regular story.)
Later, when I was a newsman for United Press in Dallas, which had
responsibility for many college football games throughout the
Southwest, we were always delighted when a Morse operator showed up
with this key and sounder. For most of the games Western Union used
teletypewriters with just ordinary key punchers, not usually very
skilled. But the Morse operators they sometimes sent were always
skilled press operators -- even at that time, in the early and middle
1950s, declining in numbers. In the very competitive news business,
their usuable output was well ahead of Western Union teletypewriter
operators.
Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
------------------------------
From: spam trap <strap@hanh-ct.org>
Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Harassment from '555-555-1212'
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 17:07:05 -0400
Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
Lisa Hancock wrote:
> T. Sean Weintz wrote:
>> This is almost definitely a scofflaw telemarketer calling from a PRI
>> line. By using a PRI line, can set the caller ID to be whatever he wants.
> Could you explain what is a "PRI" line, and characteristicss give it the
> power to change caller ID?
PRI = Primary Rate Interface. It's a standard High Capacity ISDN line,
with 23 B channels and 1 D channel. Generally attached to a PBX
system. The "B" channels function as phone lines, while the D channel
is iused for signalling. The caller ID info is (I believe) passed back
to the CO via the D channel.
> Why would any subscriber have access to such a line?
Well, where I work we have it beacuse a) it's cheaper than 23
individual business lines, and 2) Much more flexible. I have about 50
or so DID numbers pointed at our two PRI lines -- when someone calls
in, the CO passes the DNIS info (eg - what number did the person dial
to get us?) to our PBX, and it uses that info to route the call to
the correct extension. I also set the outgoing caller ID for calls
made to individual extensions to whatever number I have set up to be
the DID for that extension. When an outgoing call is made, the system
grabs whatever of the 46 B channels I have happens to be free - the
caller ID will always be set to the DID number of the extension making
the call.
I depend on our ability to set the outgoing caller ID.
>> You answer and get no-one on the other end because he is using a
>> predictive dialer -- a computer dials the numbers, and connects the calls
>> to people in the telemarketing call center only when the call is
>> answered on your end. If no one is available in the call center to take
>> the call, when you answer you get the classic "no one there when I
>> answer" effect -- you just hear dead air.
> I don't understand that when the fellow answers the call, why someone
> doesn't come on on the other end and make their sales pitch. There is
> usually a brief 1-2 second, but someone does come on. Obviously they
> don't want live people to miss their sales pitches.
Yes, but it would seem they have more outgoing lines than they have
salespeople to answer them. Common enough -- we all get those hang up
sales calls from time to time I think.
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The hassle is the 'predictive dialer'
> (which is what they call the device which 'dials ahead' and gets
> suckers on the line works too fast for the human beings doing the
> talking/selling. It thinks, based on formulas built in, that by the
> time it gets a sucker on the phone, an agent will be ready to talk to
> them. That's when the predictive dialer plays a pre-recorded message
> saying 'please hold, we have an important message for you' or
> something similar. That's when I usually hang up, and you should also.
> PAT]
------------------------------
Date: 15 Apr 2005 21:09:10 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: Getting Serious About the War on Spam
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA
> Ok, this guy contracted for high speed internet connectivity from
> someone or another.
That would be MCI.
> Why did anyone else accept any packets from this organization?
Good question. They're consistently #1 on the Spamhaus hit parade.
R's,
John
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Then why are they not getting cut off
from the rest of the world until they make an effort to get rid of
their spam traffic? Is it possibly because your superiors at ICANN
and their mouthpiece Vint Cerf are so well funded by MCI that they do
not allow (by heavy pressure or otherwise) anyone to put a permanent
halt on MCI's traffic? Why is ICANN so silent on the volumes of spam
the rest of the net has to endure day after day? Is it because ICANN
and Vint Cerf are actually more interested in appeasing the spammers
and commercial interests rather than the vast majority of the netizens?
John, instead of answering a question with the statement 'good question'
why is no one (in authority on the net) actuall, physically cutting
off MCI by refusing to accept any or all of their traffic until the
spam stops? PAT]
------------------------------
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Spam Hits Us Hard Today - Message Losses
Date: 15 Apr 2005 14:10:55 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ... Have you seen those various
> commercials playing on TVLand?
As an aside, I don't watch TV Land much anymore. I liked them and
Nick originally when they showed a lot of classics from the 1950s and
early 1960s -- great shows that hadn't been seen for years. But now
it's mostly 1980s/1990s stuff and just another station running
syndicated reruns. I don't need a specialty cable network to watch
"Cheers".
> Now the first part of your message, summed up thusly: Can't *they* do
> anything about it? I can tell you that much of the software used in
> email was constructed thirty years ago when spam was unheard of; it is
> not easily adaptable for modern times.
IMHO, that is a major weakness of the Internet. I don't know the
technical details, but the idea of "anonymous" relay sites is foolish
on a public network.
When the Internet was a tightly closed community, it could get away
with no security (although I'm surprised college kids didn't try
pranks with it even way back.) But what works in a closed community
simply will not work in an open one.
It is ridiculous to me that we spend so much money on anti-virus
software and other protections when the network itself should be
hardened to protect the bad stuff from getting out on it. Despite all
the protection and savvy people, my employer was knocked out of
commission on several occasions from 'worms' and the like that flooded
the emails. That kind of weakness is scary. Adding locks on the door
will not prevent crime in the streets from entering -- we must clean up
the crime in the first place.
> I can also tell you there was a time many years ago when the very
> notion of censoring email and/or Usenet messages was unthinkable.
I remember that controversy well. Again, once the Internet became a
public network rather than a private one the rules needed to change.
I never bought into that early "anything goes" philosophy -- because
that philosophy never existed anywhere else. Contrary to myth,
college campus conversation never was as freewheeling, open, or as
wideranging as educators want us to believe -- there was always some
sort of constraint AND moderation of them.
In the 1960s it was trendy in some places to use foul language or
explicit sex talk on campus. Most kids participated because it was
fun to break the rules and they enjoyed doing something in class that
they're parents would freak out over. But such talk also made a lot
of people uncomfortable (even if they didn't say so at the time), and
such people avoided from such discussions. So, what was supposedly a
_wider_ discourse was actually a _narrower_ one.
In normal society, there are social and legal rules that normally
prevent things from getting out of hand. Freedom of speech is
protected, but someone who attempts to monopolize it and prevent
others from speaking will eventually get knocked day. The overall
society isn't perfect but it usually works out.
On the other hand, the Internet being technical rather than
face-to-face presents a completely different set of challenges. The
old social norms and enforceability don't work. I have seen several
Usenet groups become worthless because of high volume abusive postings
that drown out legitimate discourse.
Further, there's something about email that lets people say nasty
things they otherwise wouldn't say in other media. Maybe because it's
so easy to type it fast and send it without proofing as we once did
when we typed or handwrote letters, or when speaking to someone face
to face. And then of course there's anonymous email that is often
used to harass and intimidate or worse.
> So Lisa, to further elaborate on your question "can't anything be
> done", there are some politics involved with spam even today. There
> are still some netters, that though they bitch and moan about all the
> spam still don't want to get down to the real business of putting them
> all to sleep once and for all. Thankfully, more and more people on the
> net are getting to the point of 'thinking' about it. PAT]
Is it still the pioneer "netters" who fight efforts to block spam, or
are corporate interests involved somewhat? IIRC, some spam fighting
techiques were opposed by mainstream corporations because they can
send out mass emails, too. (Sears fought against automated computer
phone messages because it uses them to set up service call appts. I
think they should spring to hire real people to do that.)
Thanks for your observations.
What scares me is that the pendulum might swing far in the other
direction and draconian steps will be taken to "protect us".
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What you term 'pioneer netters' are the
only ones who know anything about the system at all. Corporate
interests don't know beans about it. All they know is that when Gore
invented the internet, he included 'cheap email' with it. If the
'pioneer netters' decided to shut the whole thing down -- bring it all
to a sreaming halt for a couple days -- my feeling is ICANN and their
mouthpiece Vint Cerf would soil their pants, right, John??? They take
our registration money (paid for the domain names) and went off to
Argentina in South America last week for a convention, where they
could kiss each other's backsides and compliment each other on the
fine job they are doing on the net. As has been said many times in
the past, ICANN hopes to rip off the net entirely from most of us and
give it to commercial interests, and MCI is one of the principals
in the scheme.
What I do not understand is why ICANN does not cut to the chase and
declare this to be all one big SpamNet, where the rest of us innocent
bystanders is 'allowed to send messages if we wish'. Instead of using
Spam Assassin and the like, the rule will just just toss it all out
except for persons X, Y and Z provided _we_ have paid fees to use it.
PAT]
------------------------------
From: Wesrock@aol.com
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 19:54:18 EDT
Subject: Re: Walkie Talkie
In a message dated 4/15/05 2:37:59 PM Central Daylight Time,
editor@telecom-digest.org writes:
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Chances are likely that the radio you
> refer to by its generic name 'walkie talkie' was actually a UHF radio
> operating in something other than the traditional citizen's band
> frequency. My clue is your reference to 'private company' and 'within
> the company itself'. Maybe like a radio a security service would use
> in its work. Those will typically have two or four 'channels' which
> is all they seem to need. I don't know why they don't have more channels
> in them; probably they don't need more, and more would make the unit
> too cumbersome. Any other ideas, anyone? PAT]
The General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) and Family Radio Service (FRS)
have many, many channels,some of them shared and interoperable
between the two services, and multiple identifying tones available on
each channel to mute the receiver unless its tones are received to
avoid having to listen to all the other transmissions on that channel.
There are also many business services, some for itinerant use, some
for fixed use, some designated for particular types of business, that
all serve as walkie talkies. Not only security people, but many store
people (stockers, managers, checkers, the cleaning and maintenance
staffs and many other store employees) use to communicate with each
other, usually with the receive volume turned up so high that all the
customers are annoyed as they shop.
Many people find it interesting to monitor all the walkie talkie
communications at athletic events, car races, parades, etc., as part
of their enjoyment of the sport.
Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
------------------------------
From: cphipps@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors
Date: 15 Apr 2005 16:54:23 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Jack Decker wrote:
http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/dailyarchives.jhtml?articleId=159905955
> Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors
> Vonage says it's been blocked; Company's terms of service "prohibits"
> use of certain high-bandwidth applications.
> By Paul Kapustka,
> Advanced IP Pipeline 2:32 AM EST Fri. Mar. 25, 2005
> Someday, customers of wireless broadband provider Clearwire Corp. may
> be able to use Voice over IP services. But right now, Craig McCaw's
> newest company is giving its customers the silent treatment by
> apparently blocking outside VoIP providers from its network.
> In what the company claims is an effort to preserve the performance of
> its pre-standard WiMAX network, Clearwire says it reserves the right
> to prohibit the use of a wide range of bandwidth-hungry applications,
> a list that apparently includes VoIP as well as the uploading or
> downloading of streaming video or audio, and high-traffic Web site
> hosting. According to the company's terms of service, Clearwire
> reserves the right to restrict access or terminate service to
> customers who don't comply with its rules.
> While a company executive claimed the restrictions were necessary to
> ensure network performance reliability, Clearwire could not explain
> how that issue would be resolved when it offers its own VoIP services
> in the near future. Earlier this month, Clearwire signed an agreement
> with Bell Canada under which Bell Canada will provide VoIP systems and
> services for Clearwire, at a date and price yet to be announced.
> Full story at:
http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/dailyarchives.jhtml?articleId=159905955
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Aren't there, in most communities a
> choice of other highspeed data services, such as AOL? PAT]
------------------------------
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