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TELECOM Digest Thu, 5 May 2005 15:27:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 198 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New Twist on 'Phishing' Scam - 'Pharming' (Lisa Minter) Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? (Lisa Minter) Yahoo Says its Video Search Now Widely Available (Lisa Minter) U.S. Cities Set up Their Own Wireless Networks (Lisa Minter) Sock Puppets Defend Puppet Show (Jack Decker) FCC Seeking E-911 Requirement for VOIP (Telecom Daily Lead from USTA) Re: Connecticut's Suit Against Vonage is Less Than Baseless (Thor Simon) Re: Connecticut's Suit Against Vonage is Less Than Baseless (Tony P.) Re: Forward Fax to Email (Carl Navarro) Re: Forward Fax to Email (Dave Garland) Re: Forward Fax to Email (Scott Dorsey) Re: Wireless Headsets for Cordless Phones ? (Scott Dorsey) Re: Wireless Headsets for Cordless Phones ? (Jimbo) Re: Here's how Vonage-Verizon E-911 Will Work (Justin Time) Re: Collect Calls From Correctional Facilities (Lisa Hancock) Re: Collect Calls From Correctional Facilities (Mike Riddle) Re: Spam and Scam: E-mail From PayPal and Ebay (Barry Margolin) Re: Spam and Scam: E-mail From PayPal and Ebay (NOTvalid@surplus4actors) 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: Thu, 5 May 2005 12:42:06 -0400 From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: New Twist on 'Phishing' Scam - 'Pharming' http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0505/p13s01-stin.html by Gregory M. Lamb Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor "The pharmers are coming! The pharmers are coming!" Hang warning lanterns all over the Internet: It's under attack by a new scam. For two years users have been hearing about "phishing," the sending of bogus e-mails -- allegedly from a bank or other online business - by criminals who hope to hook the unwary. Those who bite by clicking on a hyperlink in the e-mail are shipped off to a phony but authentic- looking website and asked to enter sensitive information. If they type in their passwords or account numbers, thieves have that data. Now phishers have been joined by "pharmers," who have made the ruse more sophisticated by planting a seed of malicious software in the user's own computer -- or poisoning servers that direct traffic on the Internet. The result: Even if you type in the correct address of a website, the software can send you to a bogus one. "It's a rapidly growing threat, and one we've been seeing a lot more discussion about" among Internet security experts and people in the banking industry, says Lance Cottrell, founder and president of Anonymizer Inc. in San Diego, an Internet privacy and security firm. Phishing attacks "rely on some gullibility of and participation by the victims," Mr. Cottrell says, since they must be persuaded to click on a link within the e-mail. -But not clicking on such links "is no protection against a pharming attack.-" Here's how the scam works. The thieves rely on the fact that the word address you use, such as www.my-bank.com, is connected to a distinct numerical address, like a browser to the right website. Pharming replaces the number with a fraudulent one, sending you to a criminal site instead of the real one. Besides keeping antivirus and antispyware programming up to date on their PC, users have few other ways to defend themselves from pharming. But any website that is conducting financial transactions should be able to maintain a secure website, Internet security experts say. The corner of the browser should display a padlock symbol, and the address in the address bar should begin with "https," not simply "http." Are you being scammed? To determine if you're at the real site, click on the lock symbol and make sure it displays the address you are expecting to be at, says Mikko Hyppoenen, chief research officer of F-Secure, an Internet security company in Helsinki, Finland. But another kind of pharming, sometimes called "domain spoofing," "domain poisoning," or "cache poisoning," attacks the servers that route traffic around the Internet. These so-called domain name system (DNS) servers also link the word address to its underlying numerical address. To corrupt a DNS "takes significantly more expertise, more access" than attacking PCs, says Peter Cassidy, secretary-general of the Anti-Phishing Working Group, which has offices in Cambridge, Mass., and Menlo Park, Calif. That's why thieves first will try to get into individual computers. "They're the low-hanging fruit," he says. But "they'll try anything that works." Some servers are hard to crack, he says, but others don't keep their defenses up-to-date. Unlike the traditional landline telephone system, which was built from the outset to be a commercial enterprise, the Internet was designed to make sharing of information between scholars and researchers fast and easy, not for secure financial transactions. "It was built in a laboratory by guys who knew each other and married each other's sisters," Mr. Cassidy says. Now new layers of security continually must be added, as criminals probe for weak points. Spreading fraud The Anti-Phishing Working Group reports that the number of new phishing messages rose by an average 38 percent per month in the last six months of 2004. And pharming was one of the top five Internet scams in March 2005, says a recent report from the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance, a nonprofit arm of the Direct Marketing Association. Internet fraud in general, which includes phishing and pharming, cost merchants $2.6 billion in 2004, $700 million more than in 2003, according to CyberSource Corp., which processes Internet financial transactions. While Cassidy has seen some disturbing pharming attack reports from Britain, "we haven't seen it taking over the universe," he says. "We have seen significant attacks, but not rapid proliferation, partly because it does take a little more expertise." One pharming technique is to flood the DNS server with messages to trick it into saving false information that will send users to a phony website, Cottrell says. "Then in many cases [the criminals] try to bounce you back to the real bank's website, so that you're not aware that anything has happened." Phishers and pharmers set up their fake websites for only a few days or even a few hours, then move on before they can be found out. Cottrell's company, Anonymizer, runs all its clients' Internet traffic through its own secure DNS servers, which he says can protect clients from pharming. Keyboard trouble: But even if crooks can't get at your PC or the DNS server, they can always hope that you just can't spell. Early last week, F-Secure discovered that a malicious website had been set up at www.googkle.com, just one keystroke away from the famous www.google.com site. Users who accidentally went to the site using the popular Internet Explorer browser immediately were inundated with spyware, adware, and other malicious software that tried to secretly load itself onto their PCs. By the end of last week, the site had disappeared. But Mr. Hyppoenen still warns people not to try to visit it out of curiosity. "These things sometimes pop up again," he says. The technique isn't new. Similar attack sites have been created just a slip of the finger away from sites such as CNN.com, AOL.com, and MSN.com, Hyppoenen says. The people behind the malicious sites can be anywhere from South Korea to Brazil to Russia. The PC operating the site could be "somebody's grandmother's computer in Canada" being remotely controlled without her knowledge, he adds. Gone 'phishing': "Phishing" means sending out official-looking e-mails to tempt users to visit a bogus website and type in personal or financial data. Here are key points from a March report: * Since July 2004, the number of websites linked to the scam rose an average 28 percent a month. * The United States hosted a third of the phishing sites -- more than any other nation -- followed by China (12 percent) and South Korea (9 percent). * Financial services are the most frequent target, with 4 of 5 phishers appropriating the brand of a bank or some other financial institution. * Such sites only last an average 5.8 days before they're taken down. * A new version of the scam -- "pharming" -- plants malicious software on PCs to direct users to bogus sites. Source: Anti-Phishing Working Group Copyright 2005 The Christian Science Monitor. 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. Read the Christian Science Monitor on line here each day also: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html (then scan the far right column). *** 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 Christian Science Publishing Society. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 12:44:10 -0400 From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0502/p12s02-usju.html by Susan Llewelyn Leach Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor It's an old story with a heart breaking twist. A young marine is killed in the line of duty in Iraq and his parents, in their sorrow, request all his belongings, including his correspondence -- in this case, his e-mail. The Internet company refuses to give out the marine's password, saying that would violate its privacy rules. The parents go to court, causing a storm of discussion on the Net and in the media. This small episode involving Yahoo! and the parents of US marine Justin Ellsworth raises new and tricky questions about the nature of e-mail. Should it be treated as paper correspondence or as something new? And how much access should relatives have to a record of the thoughts of a loved one who has passed away, especially ones that can be as extensive, intimate, -- and even embarrassing -- as in e-mail? In this case, the probate judge ordered Yahoo! to hand over the contents of the account. Yahoo obeyed the judge's instruction. Many bloggers, of course, were horrified. "We thought we had absolute privacy and now we have learned that after our death, a family member could possibly wrangle access to [our] personal space," one blogger lamented on drudge.com. "If the soldier had wanted his family to read his e-mail, then he would have CC'd or BCC'd them," another wrote. Yet many legal experts say Yahoo! acted correctly. It denied the family's informal request and only yielded under court order. "I would hope that the Yahoo! position here would become a trade practice -- that e-mail would only be released if a judge approved it," says Gerald Ferrera, executive director of the Cyberlaw Center at Bentley College in Waltham, Mass. For Yahoo!'s part, the company says it still stands behind its commitment to treat each user's e-mail as private and confidential. "We are pleased that the court has issued an order resolving this matter ... and allowing Yahoo! to continue upholding our privacy commitment to our users," says Yahoo! spokeswoman Mary Osako. But from a legal point of view, e-mail's status is not clear cut. Even the experts can't agree. One law professor describes it as "a property interest," but not intellectual property. Another lecturer on law says absolutely it is intellectual property and is covered by copyright laws. What makes these legal distinctions more critical is the growing volume of e-mail -- and with it rising privacy issues. Free e-mail accounts -- some with storage capacities up to 250 MB -- allow people to pile up digital photos, documents, and volumes of correspondence without a second's thought. Few people are thinking through the ramifications, says Alan Chappell, a privacy and data-collection consultant. For instance, "You might have a situation where someone is carrying on an affair and doesn't want his family to know about it if he should die," says Henry Perritt, dean of Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Or a confidential exchange of e-mails might never be meant for a third party's eyes. The legal solution, Professor Perritt says, is to write a will and bequeath the e-mail to a trustee who is instructed to destroy it. "That would leave no doubt in the service provider's mind about what's supposed to happen," he says, "and it would keep it away from your family." But that takes considerable forethought. Most people leave their privacy in the hands of e-mail providers, rarely reading through the terms of service and privacy policy before clicking the "I agree" box. Yahoo! states that its accounts are nontransferable and that "rights to the Yahoo! I.D. and contents within the account terminate upon death." Destroying the data once the contract ends simplifies life for Internet service providers (ISPs), says Mr. Chappell. That gatekeeper role of ISPs and the amount of responsibility they should have in retaining information are among the constant battlegrounds in Internet law, says John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. For reasons of cost, ISPs are reluctant to keep data indefinitely and then turn it over at a moment's notice, says Mr. Palfrey. Another area of contention in cyberlaw is whether contracts override other rights such as copyright law, Palfrey adds. The tension here is between a strict legal construction of the contract, he says, "versus an equity or fairness analysis which would say, 'We've put a lot of our personhood and identity into the information we're putting online and it doesn't much matter what this contract says.' " "In e-mail," he says, "your identity is wrapped up in it in a way that your identity is not wrapped up in your car or some other tangible object." Copyright 2005 The Christian Science Monitor. For a free sample copy of the print edition of the Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/aboutus/sample_issue.html 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. To review several good newspapers with no registration or login requirements, and hear audio news reports from National Public Radio, please go to URL http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html *** 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 Christian Science Publishing Society. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: 05 May 2005 09:38:07 -0700 From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: Yahoo Says its Video Search Now Widely Aavailable Yahoo has been working hard on this feature for a long time. What are your thoughts about it? http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050505/wr_nm/tech_yahoo_dc ------------------------------ Date: 05 May 2005 09:38:58 -0700 From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com Subject: U.S. Cities Set up Their Own Wireless Networks Many cities, and even some small towns, have dealt with this. Although some thought was given to it here in Independence, since there are many netters here in our town, eventually the city authorities decided against it -- at least for now -- as being a bit too much for them to bite off. What about where you live? http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050504/wr_nm/life_wireless_dc ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker <jack-yahoogroups@withheld_at_request> Date: Thu, 05 May 2005 01:52:39 -0400 Subject: Sock Puppets Defend Puppet Show http://wifinetnews.com/archives/005233.html By Glenn Fleishman Okay, this is a new one on me: the curtain is thrown back but the socks keep on talking, claiming there's no hand inside them: This is pretty remarkable, but the New Millennium Research Council and Issue Dynamics are defending their paid work on behalf of their incumbent telecom and cable customers directly. No pretense, no hiding. They want their cake and eat it, too. Can it be said any clearer in this News.com article than a policy advocate at Consumer's Union? "Sometimes we agree with the phone companies, and sometimes we don't. But we never accept any money from an interested party." NMRC pretends to be independent. I have asked the many reporters who have interviewed them, and unless they ask, the funding sources aren't revealed, though NMRC does disclose its relationship with Issue Dynamics on its Web site and vice versa. Reporters are being handed experts to talk to that don't provide reasonable disclosure about their financial ties to the organizations they are commenting on. The president of Issue Dynamics, Sam Simon, says, "We try to be reasonably open about the fact that some research funding is from business interest." It's true, they are from their end. But NMRC is much less so, and it's not in Issue Dynamics's clients interests for NMRC to be seen as an arm of the media relations firm. (Update: Simon has jumped into the fray in the comments below; I've posted his remarks unedited and replied.) Full story at: http://wifinetnews.com/archives/005233.html 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/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 12:51:05 EDT From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA <usta@dailylead.com> Subject: FCC Chief Seeking E911 Requirement for VoIP Telecom dailyLead from USTA May 5, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=21359&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Report: FCC chief seeking E911 requirement for VoIP BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Report: W. Europe to reach 100% mobile phone penetration * Ericsson to close CDMA business in North America * NFL Network, Verizon sign carriage deal * MCI reports earnings USTA SPOTLIGHT * Hear Telecom Crash Course author Steven Shepard at Telecom Engineering Conference @ SUPERCOMM EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Qualcomm takes wraps off all-in-one chips * Searching the Web via cell phone * MSOs bet on video e-mail REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * SEC probes Qwest stock trades Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=21359&l=2017006 ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Connecticut's Suit Against Vonage is Less Than Baseless Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 07:13:02 UTC Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article <telecom24.197.8@telecom-digest.org>, Jack Decker <jack-yahoogroups@workbench.net> wrote: > And what about the fact that Connecticut filed the suit just about on > the eve of today's announcement that Vonage will work with Verizon > (the main local telco in Connecticut) to enable E911 solutions? Maybe Jack, Sometimes it seems you can't get _any_ of your facts straight. The "main local telco in Connecticut" is SNET. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "The inconsistency is startling, though admittedly, if consistency is to be abandoned or transcended, there is no problem." - Noam Chomsky ------------------------------ From: Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net> Subject: Re: Connecticut's Suit Against Vonage is Less Than Baseless Organization: ATCC Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 07:12:07 -0400 In article <telecom24.197.8@telecom-digest.org>, jack- yahoogroups@workbench.net says: > http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=399 > 5/4/2005 > -Posted by Russell Shaw @ 4:05 pm > Connecticut is the latest state to sue Vonage for misrepresenting the > way in which the service handles "911" calls. > Seems to me that Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal > instructed his staff to obtain a copy of the Texas suit -- and after > doing so, did some CPR (cut, paste, rewrite). Then, they drafted the > current suit. > The Connecticut suit has less than no merit. No specific Vonage > customer in Connecticut seems to have suffered the trying consequences > of Vonage 911-connect failure like that customer in Houston may have. > And what about the fact that Connecticut filed the suit just about on > the eve of today's announcement that Vonage will work with Verizon > (the main local telco in Connecticut) to enable E911 solutions? Maybe > Blumenthal and his folks didn't bother to check. Or, maybe he and > his staffers were concerned that 911 solution progress is slower > between Vonage and SBC (which covers part of Connecticut) than it is > between Vonage and Verizon. Actually Connecticut is SBC, not Verizon. That might have something to do with it. ------------------------------ From: Carl Navarro <cnavarro@wcnet.org> Subject: Re: Forward Fax to Email Date: Thu, 05 May 2005 03:23:03 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On 4 May 2005 10:48:30 -0700, Jeremy <payday215@aol.com> wrote: > I currently have a fax number that is widely used by my clients. > Problem is that I get a ton of fax "spam" if you will. I am looking > for the BEST solution to have these faxes forwarded to e-mail, while > keeping my existing fax number since that is the one everyone knows > and uses. > I am somewhat familiar with e-fax, but they can not re-use my existing > number, plus you have to pay for outgoing faxes. I have seen where I > can have a forward feature put on my fax line that would forward to an > e-fax number, and I would still be able to use my fax machine for > outgoing faxes (at least that is how I understand it). > Because of the number of "spam" faxes I receive via fax, I have to > replace my toner about every other week. As you can imagine this is a > very high expense for me, so I thought if I could have them sent to > e-mail then i could print the ones I want to keep and delete the > trash. > Does anyone have any better solutions than this. Someone mentioned a > Microsoft Fax Software, but I did not have any luck finding anything > out about it, so therefore I know nothing about it. Please let me > know if there is a better alternative solution. The E-fax product has an ongoing cost of $12.95 a month, even if you can get a local number. Not very cost effective, since you still have to maintain your fax number and pay for outbound faxes. I use MaxEmail, which is a lot less, but my number is in suburban Chicago. A quick search of "fax software" on Google brings up www.electrasoft.com where, for $60 you can get 3 or 4 fax programs that will use your existing fax line and internet connection to send and receive faxes. I'd put this on the fax line, and program the fax maching to not answer calls until the 4th ring. Let the computer answer the faxes and you can choose whether to send faxes via computer or just walk to the fax machine. You can try the software before you buy it. Carl Navarro ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> Subject: Re: Forward Fax to Email Date: Thu, 05 May 2005 02:33:06 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when Jeremy <payday215@aol.com> wrote: > Does anyone have any better solutions than this. Someone mentioned a > Microsoft Fax Software, but I did not have any luck finding anything > out about it, so therefore I know nothing about it. Please let me > know if there is a better alternative solution. Since your fax line is (presumably) already located where you wish to read the faxes, you can skip the email step. You'll need a computer with a fax-modem in it (that's most modems made since 386 computers and Windows 3.1 were the cutting edge of technology, and virtually all computers sold in the last 5 years) and software. There's software that comes with Windows (since Win95), or bundled when you buy a faxmodem, there's shareware, there's programs you can purchase separately. Most of these will save the faxes as images, one to a page, and you can review them, delete the unwanted and select which to print out. Other programs often come with computers, or are bundled with modems, some are shareware, some are commercial software, many of them provide more bells and whistles than the version that comes with Windows. But you probably don't need bells and whistles. Use your desk computer, or dedicate an old junker, this doesn't require much computing power. (Of course, whatever computer you use, you'll have to leave it turned on.) If you're running Windows XP, see http://tinyurl.com/24csp or http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/crawford_02october21.mspx for instructions. ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Forward Fax to Email Date: 5 May 2005 10:08:19 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Jeremy <payday215@aol.com> wrote: > I currently have a fax number that is widely used by my clients. > Problem is that I get a ton of fax "spam" if you will. I am looking > for the BEST solution to have these faxes forwarded to e-mail, while > keeping my existing fax number since that is the one everyone knows > and uses. I find that if you take one or two of the fax spammers to court and get judgments against them, you get on their bad list and suddenly the amount of fax spam you receive is dramatically lowered. > Because of the number of "spam" faxes I receive via fax, I have to > replace my toner about every other week. As you can imagine this is a > very high expense for me, so I thought if I could have them sent to > e-mail then i could print the ones I want to keep and delete the > trash. That's why it's illegal to send fax spam, yes. Has been for well over a decade. An afternoon in small claims court can get you a judgement for a few tens of thousand dollars (which will probably never be paid, of course), but more importantly it will provide relief. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Wireless Headsets for Cordless Phones ? Date: 5 May 2005 10:04:58 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Jimbo <jmweb@comcast.net> wrote: > I am wondering if there is a way, or a product, that would allow > someone to wear a cordless headset (like the Bluetooth earpieces used > for cell phones) and access a cordless (land line) phone setup ? > My wife is handicapped and I would like to set her up this way so she > does not have to carry the cordless phone around all day. It wouldn't help, because bluetooth only has a range of a few feet, so she would still have to have the cordless phone on her body. You can get cordless phones with headsets and body packs. Hello Direct has a couple models. That might be closer to what you're wanting. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Jimbo <jmweb@comcast.net> Subject: Re: Wireless Headsets for Cordless Phones ? Date: 5 May 2005 07:02:11 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Thanks, Pat ... My wife is in about the same place -- she can move around ok, but getting to the phone on time is a challenge. I was hoping for something that didn't require something to be clipped on a belt or shirt pocket (apparently the fairer sex do not normally have these things), but I will look into this as a start !! Thanks again, [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, the Uniden cordless phone is sort of light-weight, you don't really notice it in your pocket or clipped on your belt, and mine at least goes about a block away from home if I wish to carry it around, when walking outside, although in those cases I usually just carry my cell phone. (My set up is landline rings three times, and call is set on ring/no answer to then go to my cell phone. I'd let the landline ring 4-5 times before transfer to cell phone but many people would grow impatient and disconnect, which they sometimes do anyway, even with just three rings [which they hear; I may have only recieved two rings and the start of the third], and there is the briefest pause where they hear silence while the central office yanks the call back and forwards it to my cell phone.) The other suggestion made today was 'Hello Direct' which is a fine company but I think a bit pricey. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Justin Time <a_user2000@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Here's how Vonage-Verizon E-911 Will Work Date: 5 May 2005 05:30:45 -0700 While the process documented mirrors the process for traditional landline phones, it doesn't address what happens when the VoIP user takes their phone someplace else and then calls 9-1-1. Which center is called? The one for their home of record or the one serving the hotel/motel/grandma's house? Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Collect Calls From Correctional Facilities Date: 5 May 2005 08:20:19 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Jack Decker wrote: > <http://www.inmatephoneservices.com/>. From time to time there has > been some discussion about the high cost of calls from correctional > facilities. This is by state policy to make a handsome profit. Considering the families of prison inmates did nothing wrong and often poor, such a policy seems immoral. Considering that continuing family contact is very helpful in inmate rehabilitation and morale (which translates to less fights and riots within the prison and less recidisvm crime), it would be good public policy NOT to make a profit on such calls, rather, to encourage such calls at no more than cost or even at a subsidy. The actual toll cost to prisons for such calls is extremely low since states buy long distance in bulk at very low rates; though there is a monitoring cost and that is important for numerous security reasons. > ...and also the fact that in many cases, people who have only > cellular or VoIP service are unable to receive such calls, and this > appears to be a partial solution. Can cellular and VOIP services receive collect calls placed from traditional locations, such as pay stations or landline phones? Since VOIP could serve as someone's home telephone service, though ought to be able to receive collect calls. Emergencies happen. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But Lisa, the Corrections Industry runs things, not social workers. The Corrections Industry has no interest at all in keeping guys from going back to prison. They are hoping in fact they do go back. Nothing warms their hearts more than some seventeeen or eighteen year old guy who gets a life sentence with no chance of parole. That _always_ gives them a thrill when they contem- plate the next thirty or so years of that guy's life. So please don't get any weird ideas about 'keeping the family involved' or being able to 'stay in touch with the world, etc'. Corrections has no time nor place for all that rot. The _only reason_ prisons/jails have phones for prisoner use at all is because those liberal Supremes and their 'run-away activist' court required them to do so several years ago. You know the Judiciary which thinks _it_ is in charge of things. Illinois, for example, deliberatly builds its prisons at the far south end of the state -- 300 miles from Chicago -- although 95 percent of the inmates are from Chicago. Their thoughts in Chicago are the prisoner is 'scum' by extension his family must be also. Now regards _Billed Number Screening_, the telco database which (if you choose to get listed on it) allows no collect nor third party billings to your number. Ask your service rep if you want to get listed there. It is a national (inter-telco) database which all telcos consult when someone asks to make a 'collect' call or to 'bill this call on my home phone'. VOIP and cellular are all listed there by default. You _cannot_ 'call collect' to VOIP or cell, and of course VOIP does not even have any 'operator services' anyway, however cell does have operator services, usually brokered through the incumbent telco in the area. I know Prairie Stream (our local telco) for example brokers its operator services from SBC and its directory assistance through SBC also. You cannot 'call collect' to my house either; with the cost of collect/third-party billing calls being so extravagent as compared to the pennies you pay for direct dial (and an 800 number being so cheap these days as well), why take a chance on some phreak or phone phraud person playing a trick on you. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mike Riddle <nospam@ivgate.omahug.org> Organization: Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish & Short Date: Thu, 05 May 2005 11:55:58 -0500 Subect: Re: Collect Calls From Correctional Facilities Jack Decker wrote: > From time to time there has been some discussion about the high cost > of calls from correctional facilities Related to Jack's initial inquiry, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled on the question of jail charges and surcharges. Gilmore v. Cty of Douglas, found online at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=3Dcase&court=3D8th= &no=3D04-1325 Pamela Gilmore brought an action against the County of Douglas [Nebraska] under 42 U.S.C. 1983 alleging that the Douglas County Corrections Center (the DCCC) violated her Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights by assessing her charges for collect telephone calls made to her from inmates in the facility. The district court concluded that Gilmore failed to state a cause of action and dismissed the complaint pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The Court of Appeals affirme the district court. ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu> Subject: Re: Spam and Scam: E-mail From PayPal and Ebay Organization: Symantec Date: Thu, 05 May 2005 08:54:04 -0400 In article <telecom24.197.13@telecom-digest.org>, shlichter1@aol.com <shlichter1@aol.com> wrote: > Anyone get either or both of these e-mails? > I know they were frauds right off since I have never used the address > they were sent to for anything, except once last week to make a post > here, that was before I fixed my newgroup client to munch my return > address. Uhh, where have you been? Phishing scams like this are now one of the most prevalent forms of spam. Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** ------------------------------ From: NOTvalid@surplus4actors.INFO Subject: Re: Spam and Scam: E-mail From PayPal and Ebay Date: 5 May 2005 09:10:49 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Report bank/Ebay/Paypal scam/spam to Spam@uce.gov other good addresses: mail-spoof@cc.yahoo-inc.com, spoof@yahoo-inc.com, spoof@ebay.com, spoof@paypal.com I have the UCE and Spoof addys in address books of several several EMail accounts including wife's. For a second opinion, on questionable offers, submit to The Internet Fraud Complaint Center http://www.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp REMEMBER: The new Federal Trade Commission address to report spam is: Spam@uce.gov -- Incredibly low long distance phone rates, as low as USA-Canada 1.9CPM! Works as prepaid phone card. PIN not needed for calls from home or cell phone. Compare the rates at https://www.onesuite.com/ No monthly fee or minimum. 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