TELECOM Digest     Wed, 10 Aug 2005 15:17:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 362

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Students Charged With Computer Trespass (Michael Rubinkam)
    Kenya to Begin Using Internet Phones (George Obulutsa)
    DTV Beta: Internet TV (Monty Solomon)
    Pushing Broadcasting to the Limit (Monty Solomon)
    Bluesecurity and BlueFrog (Chuck Wassall)
    Franchise Rules Could Blunt IPTV's Promise (USTA Daily Lead)    
    Re: How Do I Find GSM Coverage in the US? (John Levine)
    Re: FCC Gives Blessing to Sprint, Nextel Marriage (Joseph)
    Re: Hiroshima Marks 60th Anniversary of Atomic Bomb Attack (jtaylor)
    Re: Don't Forget Peter Jennings'... Flaw (John McHarry)
    Re: Don't Forget Peter Jennings'... Flaw (Steve Sobol)
    Re: Don't Forget Peter Jennings'... Flaw (Joseph)

Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
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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.  

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

From: Michael Rubinkam <ap@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Students Charged With Computer Trespass
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 12:32:45 -0500


By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, Associated Press Writer

They're being called the Kutztown 13 -- a group of high schoolers
charged with felonies for bypassing security with school-issued
laptops, downloading forbidden Internet goodies and using monitoring
software to spy on district administrators.

The students, their families and outraged supporters say authorities
are overreacting, punishing the kids not for any heinous behavior --
no malicious acts are alleged -- but rather because they outsmarted the
district's technology workers.

The Kutztown Area School District begs to differ. It says it reported
the students to police only after detentions, suspensions and other
punishments failed to deter them from breaking school rules governing
computer usage.

In Pennsylvania alone, more than a dozen school districts have
reported student misuse of computers to police, and in some cases
students have been expelled, according to Jeffrey Tucker, a lawyer for
the district.

The students "fully knew it was wrong and they kept doing it," Tucker
said. "Parents thought we should reward them for being creative. We
don't accept that."

A hearing is set for Aug. 24 in Berks County juvenile court, where the
13 have been charged with computer trespass, an offense state law
defines as altering computer data, programs or software without
permission.

The youths could face a wide range of sanctions, including juvenile
detention, probation and community service.

As school districts across the nation struggle to keep networks secure
from mischievous students who are often more adept at computers than
their elders, technology professionals say the case offers multiple
lessons.

School districts often don't secure their computer networks well and
students need to be better taught right from wrong on such networks,
said Internet expert Jean Armour Polly, author of "Net-mom's Internet
Kids & Family Yellow Pages."

"The kids basically stumbled through an open rabbit hole and found
Wonderland," Polly, a library technology administrator, said of the
Kutztown 13.

The trouble began last fall after the district issued some 600 Apple
iBook laptops to every student at the high school about 50 miles
northwest of Philadelphia. The computers were loaded with a filtering
program that limited Internet access. They also had software that let
administrators see what students were viewing on their screens.

But those barriers proved easily surmountable: The administrative
password that allowed students to reconfigure computers and obtain
unrestricted Internet access was easy to obtain. A shortened version
of the school's street address, the password was taped to the backs of
the computers.

The password got passed around and students began downloading such
forbidden programs as the popular iChat instant-messaging tool.

At least one student viewed pornography. Some students also turned off
the remote monitoring function and turned the tables on their elders_
using it to view administrators' own computer screens.

The administrative password on some laptops was subsequently changed
but some students got hold of that one, too, and decrypted it with a
password-cracking program they found on the Internet.

"This does not surprise me at all," said Pradeep Khosla, dean of
Carnegie Mellon University's engineering department and director of
the school's cybersecurity program.

IT staff at schools are often poorly trained, making it easy for
students with even modest computer skills to get around security, he
said.

Fifteen-year-old John Shrawder, one of the Kutztown 13, complained
that the charges don't fit the offense. He fears a felony conviction
could hurt his college and job prospects.

"There are a lot of adults who go 10 miles over the speed limit or
don't come to a complete stop at a stop sign. They know it's not
right, but they expect a fine" not a felony offense, he said.

Shrawder's uncle, James Shrawder, has set up a Web site that tells the
students' side of the story.

"As parents, we don't want our kid breaking in to the Defense
Department or stealing credit card numbers," said the elder Shrawder,
a businessman. "But downloading iChat and chatting with their friends?
They are not hurting anybody. They're just curious."

The site, http://www.cutusabreak.org, has been visited tens of
thousands of times and sells T-shirts and bumper stickers, including
one that says: "Arrest me, I know the password!"

The district isn't backing down, however.

It points out that students and parents were required to sign a code
of conduct and acceptable use policy, which contained warnings of
legal action.

The 13 students charged violated that policy, said Kutztown Police
Chief Theodore Cole, insisting the school district had exhausted all
options short of expulsion before seeking the charges. Cole said,
however, that there is no evidence the students attacked or disabled
the school's computer network, altered grades or did anything else
that could be deemed malicious.

An association of professional computer educators, The International
Society for Technology in Education, believes in a less restrictive
approach to computer usage. The more security barriers a district puts
in place, the more students will be tempted to break them down, it
believes.

"No matter how many ways you can think to protect something, the truth
is that someone can hack their way around it," said Leslie Conery, the
society's deputy CEO. "The gauntlet is thrown down if you have tighter
control."

On the Net:
Students' site: http://www.cutusabreak.org
Kutztown Area School District's response:
http://www.kasd.org/districtinfo/kasdPressrelease.htm

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. 

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. For AP News Radio and headlines, go to URL:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html

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

From: George Obulutsa  <reuters_newswire@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Kenya Telecoms Regulator to Allow Internet Phone
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 12:31:22 -0500


By George Obulutsa

Kenya's telecoms regulator on Wednesday said it would this week permit
telecoms operators to provide call services over the Internet, in
order to lower high phone costs and expand telephone services to the
rural areas.

Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) Director-General John Waweru
said the regulator will place a notice in Kenya's official publication
on Friday allowing licensed Internet service providers to transmit
phone calls using the Internet -- or Voice over Internet Protocol
(VoIP).

"As a further step toward liberalization, the commission has
introduced the provision of Voice over Internet Protocol," Waweru told
reporters at a news conference. "We expect that the introduction of
VoIP is going to increase the teledensity, particularly in the rural
areas."

The regulator said that the notice would give guidelines to licensed
service providers on how to run the Internet calls.

The new service would also reduce calling costs locally and
internationally, but that would depend on how the companies involved
adopt it, Waweru said.

Industry players had accused Kenya's only fixed line provider, Telkom
Kenya, of interfering with companies that attempted to provide
Internet phone services long after its monopoly ended in June 2004.

"It's the reason why these guidelines have been issued -- to remove
the conflict. With this guidelines they (Telkom Kenya and service
providers) will now be allowed to negotiate," Waweru said.

Telecoms industry experts say they expect the cost of making calls to
fall with the introduction of Internet calls.

While hailed for reducing calling costs, experts say that using the
Internet to transmit phone calls is open to eavesdropping when done on
unencrypted connections.

Kenya is one of the east African countries hoping to connect to a
fibre optic cable running under the sea from Djibouti to South
Africa. Waweru said that he hoped the completion of the cable
connection in early 2007 would reduce Internet costs by diverting
traffic from terrestrial satellites heavily used to transmit data out
of Kenya.

"At that time, I think the cost of bandwidth will be affordable, and
even Voice over Internet Protocol will be even better and the prices
will be better," he said. )


Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited.

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.

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

Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 00:59:09 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: DTV Beta: Internet TV on Your Mac


http://participatoryculture.org/download.php

WINDOWS VERSION AND FULL LAUNCH COMING SOON.

Internet TV is Open and Independent.

DTV is a new, free and open-source platform for internet television
and video. An intuitive interface lets users subscribe to channels,
watch video, and build a video library. Our publishing software lets
you broadcast full-screen video to thousands of people at virtually no
cost. The project is non-profit, free and open source, and built on
open standards. A Windows version of DTV and a full website are well
underway and will arrive in the next several weeks.

http://participatoryculture.org/download.php

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

Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 01:06:31 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Pushing Broadcasting to the Limit


http://www.apple.com/uk/pro/video/tourdefrance/

Even by the standards of the world's most prestigious cycling event,
this year's Tour de France was momentous. Cycling enthusiasts from all
over the world tuned in to watch the indefatigable Lance Armstrong
make history with an unprecedented seventh consecutive Tour win.

In the UK, ITV covered the three-week event with a daily hour-long
highlights programme on ITV2 plus live coverage on Saturday and
Sunday, and a weekly highlights programme every Monday on ITV1.

Mounting a broadcast operation on such a large scale is a phenomenal
task. Turnaround needs to be lightning-fast and with a high profile
event like the Tour, there's simply no margin for error. A
London-based 'dream team' was assembled to take on the job -- and the
'dream workflow' they employed was based around Apple technology.

James Venner, producer/director of production company VTV, has been
covering the Tour since 1986. Venner joined forces with freelance
editor Peter Wiggins, who has been editing sport for over 15 years and
the Tour for nine years. The other key members of the 'dream team'
were Soho-based broadcast facility, Molinare, and Apple Solution
Experts, Root6, who supplied the equipment and helped install the Xsan
at Molinare.

http://www.apple.com/uk/pro/video/tourdefrance/

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

Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 23:04:38 -0700
From: Chuck Wassall <woodchuk@c-zone.net>
Subject: Bluesecurity and BlueFrog


After ten years with the same email address I was getting over a
hundred spams a day.  Now I get *none*. This program really works and
does what congress failed to do.  It's free for now and I have no
ethics problems in flooding ISP's that harbor spammers.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I generally have no objections or
ethics problems with that same concept. I do think one needs to make
abosolutely certain (or as reasonably certain as one can be) that
your aim is at the _actual offender_ and that you do very little or
no 'collateral damage' to other 'valid' users at the ISP. I object to
your use of the phrase 'flooding ISP's that harbor spammers' however.
You or your agent (in this instance, Blue Frog/Blue Security) are
entitled to complain or respond _ONE TIME_ to each proven, valid,
actual offender, not 'flood' the ISP. That is what I understand that
Blue is doing. A hundred spams per day is nothing, believe me, really
nothing. How about 500 to a thousand spams per day plus viruses which
is what my score is up to? I do not have the time nor patience to 
investigate _actual offenders_ so I employ Blue to do that work for
me. Believe me, should I get proof that Blue is not doing _exactly as
they claim_ locating offender by offender and sending them exactly one
each complaint per offended netter then I will quickly pull out of 
their program. Of course one complaint per offended party to each
actual offender still causes  lot of  commotions does it not?  PAT]    

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

Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 14:35:12 EDT
From: USTelecom dailyLead <ustelecom@dailylead.com>
Subject: Columnist: Franchise Rules Could Blunt IPTV's Promise


USTelecom dailyLead
August 10, 2005
http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=23732&l=2017006

		TODAY'S HEADLINES
	
NEWS OF THE DAY
* Columnist: Franchise rules could blunt IPTV's promise
BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH
* Skype mulls its options
* Deutsche Telekom buys Tele.ring
* Report: DSL port shipments hit new record
* Sprint, Nextel target "third screen"
* Cisco, MCI report earnings
USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT 
* The MVNO model:  Should it be included in your business plan?
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
* Author reaches tween fans via SMS
REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE
* The future of P2P
* Europe may regulate wireless broadband

Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others.
http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=23732&l=2017006


Legal and Privacy information at
http://www.dailylead.com/about/privacy_legal.jsp

SmartBrief, Inc.
1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20005

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

Date: 10 Aug 2005 03:47:53 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: How Do I Find GSM Coverage in the US?
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA


> It may not be official but if you go to
> http://www.cellreception.com/towers/ they have interactive google maps
> of areas with red balloons where towers are.  Clicking on a balloon
> will show you who it belongs to.  From what I understand it won't show
> everything except towers that are registered with the FCC.

It looks to me like it's just towers that are tall enough to be
registered with the FAA.  I checked its coverage of the area where I
live, and it had none of the towers that are mounted on buildings and
water towers and missed a lot of the freestanding towers that are
short enough not to need lights.  On the other hand, it also includes
towers for public service and broadcast radio that don't have any cell
antennas.

It's better than nothing, but don't take its contents too seriously.

In the particular case of Fort Bragg, it shows a couple of towers for
Edge Wireless, which the gsmworld site says does GSM 1900, confirming
the info that Cingular works there.  There's also a note on the
cellreception site claiming that T-Mobile works, but since T-Mobile
claims no coverage in that county at all, I'd guess they were roaming
onto Cingular.


R's,

John

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

From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: FCC Gives Blessing to Sprint, Nextel Marriage
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 06:03:38 -0700
Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com


On 9 Aug 2005 05:02:33 -0000, John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:

> That's the point, iDen doesn't provide an upgrade path to spiffy
> digital services.  I wonder whether they're going to move to CDMA in
> the 800 band that Nextel uses or run the networks in parallel forever
> or what.  They're surely not going to abandon the iDen band, since
> they paid so much for them and 800 propagates a lot better than 1900.

I'd say it's highly likely they'd move to the PCS 1900 band since Nextel
already has problems of interference with public safety broadcasting
in several areas in the 800 Mhz band.  Nextel is already in the
process of transferring out of the 800 Mhz band.  See:
<http://www.macom-wireless.com/800rebanding/default.asp>

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

From: jtaylor <jtaylor@deletethis.hfx.andara.com>
Subject: Re: Hiroshima Marks 60th Anniversary of Atomic Bomb Attack
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 22:06:25 -0300
Organization: MCI Canada News Reader Service


Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net> wrote in message
news:telecom24.361.15@telecom-digest.org...

> The Germans were pretty much on their way to having their own atomic
> weapons.

The stuff I've read (Farm Hall transcripts, for instance) says no,
they were working on a pile, not bombs.  They miscalculated the amount
of fissionable material necessary and so thought they could not

a) get enough;
b) if not a), get such a big bomb to anywhere it would do them any good.

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

From: John McHarry <jmcharry@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Don't Forget Peter Jennings'... Flaw
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 01:30:52 GMT
Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net


On Tue, 09 Aug 2005 14:41:13 -0400, alan@bloomfieldpress.com wrote:

The most mean spirited off topic load of bollocks you have allowed to
seep through into this forum in many a year. At least he included his
800 number, 1-800-707-4020, for posting in pay phone booths.

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

From: Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net>
Subject: Re: Don't Forget Peter Jennings'... Flaw
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 19:45:12 -0700
Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com


alan@bloomfieldpress.com wrote:

> Newscasters and reporters are falling all over themselves trying to
> out-praise the now deceased Peter Jennings. I suppose it's only
> natural, but it hides something important.

You're entitled to your opinion. However, I think you're exceedingly
foolish if you believe any particular slant in ABC's coverage is the
fault of Jennings or any other reporter. Your posthumous attack seems
rather sleazy to me -- you should direct your ire at the people
actually responsible for making decisions about coverage.


Steve Sobol, Professional Geek   888-480-4638   PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Company website: http://JustThe.net/
Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/
E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307
n
------------------------------

From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Don't Forget Peter Jennings'... Flaw
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 06:09:51 -0700
Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com


On Tue, 9 Aug 2005 14:41:13 -0400, alan@bloomfieldpress.com wrote:

> Newscasters and reporters are falling all over themselves trying to
> out-praise the now deceased Peter Jennings. I suppose it's only
> natural, but it hides something important.

> Jennings was one of the prime actors in the greatest news suppression
> and anti-rights campaigns ever waged. Yes, it's the anti-gun-rights,
> unabated to this day.

Once again, Pat uses his "good" judgment to permit this article which
doesn't have a damned thing to do with telecom to allow this lug nut
to spew his crap. I guess Telecom Digest and CDT have really gone
into the toilet.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This Digest does not exist to serve as
a mouthpiece for CDT or for that matter, _any of Usenet_. Usenet is
so nineteen-sixtyish it is not funny. It might have been a cute and
quaint thing back in the 1980's or even the 1990's, but this is 2005
for god's sake. Only a ... well ... Usenetter would pay any attention
to the load of crap coming out of that network most of the time. 

And although you (obviously!) do not believe in the Second Amendment
to the US Constitution it _is_ one of our rights (not privileges) as
citizens here. I dunno why the legislature simply does not retract
the Second Amendment or amend it to make it read the way some of you
think it should read. Yes, that would be a chore to do and should not
be taken lightly, but we have what -- twenty four or twenty five 
amendments to the constitution and one that was even repealed
totally (Prohibition) so the Second _can_ be amended or repealed if
that is the wishes of the people through their legislators. Make it
read the way _you_ think it should read, if not outright abolish it. 
It has been watered down and diddled with so substantially now it
might was well not exist anyway. I know John Ashcroft and Senor
Gonzales and Mr. Bush wish a few of the amendments were not present
or could be easily eliminated.  Why not number two as well?   PAT] 

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


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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #362
******************************