TELECOM Digest     Mon, 5 Sep 2005 17:19:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 405

Inside This Issue:                            Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Katrina's Real Name - The Boston Globe (Marcus Didius Falco)
    Australian Court Rules Against Kazaa (Michael Perry)
    Cellphones and Blimps? (Thomas A. Horsley)
    For Victims, News About Home Can Come From Strangers Online (Monty Solomon)
    A Major Backfire in Japan Deflates Vodafone's One-Size-Fits-All (M Solomon)
    How to Make Phone Calls Without a Telephone (Monty Solomon)
    Why the Internet Isn't the Death of the Post Office (Monty Solomon)
    New Technology May Increase Identity Theft - Scientist (Monty Solomon)
    Report Says US Data Secrecy Expanding and Getting Costlier (Monty Solomon)
    Not Even Web Retailers Will Be Exempt From the Aftereffects (Monty Solomon)
    Re: Flood Relief Efforts - Unfair Criticism? (Joseph)
    Re: Washington Failed to Fund Levee Projects (Tony P.)
    Re: Internet is Bulletin Board For Katrina Victims (jmeissen@aracnet.com)

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

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and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest.  

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

Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2005 23:49:37 -0400
From: Marcus Didius Falco <falco_marcus_didius@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Katrina's Real Name - The Boston Globe


Replies on-list only, please

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/08/30/katrinas_real_name/


By Ross Gelbspan  |  August 30, 2005

THE HURRICANE that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the
National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming.

When the year began with a two-foot snowfall in Los Angeles, the cause was
global warming.

When 124-mile-an-hour winds shut down nuclear plants in Scandinavia
and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland and the
United Kingdom, the driver was global warming.

When a severe drought in the Midwest dropped water levels in the
Missouri River to their lowest on record earlier this summer, the
reason was global warming.

In July, when the worst drought on record triggered wildfires in Spain
and Portugal and left water levels in France at their lowest in 30
years, the explanation was global warming.

When a lethal heat wave in Arizona kept temperatures above 110 degrees
and killed more than 20 people in one week, the culprit was global
warming.

And when the Indian city of Bombay (Mumbai) received 37 inches of rain
in one day -- killing 1,000 people and disrupting the lives of 20
million others -- the villain was global warming.

As the atmosphere warms, it generates longer droughts, more-intense
downpours, more-frequent heat waves, and more-severe storms.

Although Katrina began as a relatively small hurricane that glanced
off south Florida, it was supercharged with extraordinary intensity by
the relatively blistering sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of
Mexico.

The consequences are as heartbreaking as they are terrifying.

Unfortunately, very few people in America know the real name of
Hurricane Katrina because the coal and oil industries have spent
millions of dollars to keep the public in doubt about the issue.

The reason is simple: To allow the climate to stabilize requires
humanity to cut its use of coal and oil by 70 percent. That, of
course, threatens the survival of one of the largest commercial
enterprises in history.

In 1995, public utility hearings in Minnesota found that the coal
industry had paid more than $1 million to four scientists who were
public dissenters on global warming. And ExxonMobil has spent more
than $13 million since 1998 on an anti-global warming public relations
and lobbying campaign.

In 2000, big oil and big coal scored their biggest electoral victory
yet when President George W. Bush was elected president -- and
subsequently took suggestions from the industry for his climate and
energy policies.

As the pace of climate change accelerates, many researchers fear we have
already entered a period of irreversible runaway climate change.

Against this background, the ignorance of the American public about
global warming stands out as an indictment of the US media.

When the US press has bothered to cover the subject of global warming, it
has focused almost exclusively on its political and diplomatic aspects and
not on what the warming is doing to our agriculture, water supplies, plant
and animal life, public health, and weather.

For years, the fossil fuel industry has lobbied the media to accord
the same weight to a handful of global warming skeptics that it
accords the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
 -- more than 2,000 scientists from 100 countries reporting to the
United Nations.

Today, with the science having become even more robust -- and the
impacts as visible as the megastorm that covered much of the Gulf of
Mexico -- the press bears a share of the guilt for our self-induced
destruction with the oil and coal industries.

As a Bostonian, I am afraid that the coming winter will -- like last
winter -- be unusually short and devastatingly severe. At the
beginning of 2005, a deadly ice storm knocked out power to thousands
of people in New England and dropped a record-setting 42.2 inches of
snow on Boston.

The conventional name of the month was January. Its real name is global
warming.

Ross Gelbspan is author of 'The Heat Is On' and 'Boiling Point.'
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
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------------------------------

From: Michael Perry <reuters@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Australian Court Rules Against Kazaa
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 10:24:19 -0500


By Michael Perry

An Australian court ruled on Monday that users of Kazaa, a popular
internet music file-swapping system, breached music copyright and
ordered its owners to modify the software to protect copyright.

Federal Court Judge Murray Wilcox ruled that Kazaa's owners, Sharman
Networks, had not breached copyright but had encouraged millions of
Kazaa users worldwide to do so.

"The respondents have long known that the Kazaa system is widely used
for the sharing of copyright files," said Wilcox in his ruling in a
Sydney court.

Australia's major record companies sued Kazaa's Australian owners and
developers, Sharman Networks, claiming Kazaa's breach of copyright had
cost them millions of dollars in lost sales.

"The court has ruled the current Kazaa system illegal," Michael Speck,
a spokesman for the Australian music industry, told reporters outside
the court.

"It is a great day for artists, it is a great day for anyone who wants
to make a living from music," Speck said.

The record companies will now seek damages for hundreds of millions of
pirated music downloads, saying Sharman Networks had boasted that
Kazaa downloaded 270 million tracks a month.

The music companies include the local arms of Sony BMG Music
Entertainment, EMI Group, Warner, Universal Music and several
Australian firms.

Sharman Networks defended the use of the internet to download music
tracks, telling the court that file sharing reflected a revolution in
the way music was distributed and sold.

It said it had copyright protection in place, such as its licensing
agreement, but added it could not control the actions of an estimated
100 million worldwide users.

Judge Wilcox said Kazaa failed to use available technology, such as
key word filters, to prevent copyright infringements because it would
have been against its financial interest.

He said that Kazaa's "Join the Revolution" Web site campaign to
attract users did not directly advocate sharing copyright files, but
criticised record companies for opposing file sharing.

"It seems that Kazaa users are predominately young people, the effect
of this web page would be to encourage visitors to think it 'cool' to
defy the record companies by ignoring constraints," Wilcox said.

Wilcox ordered Sharman Networks modify the Kazaa software with filters
to protect copyright.

"If Kazaa cleans up its act and does what the court has ordered it to
do, stop its illegal business, then they have an opportunity to be
part of the music industry," said music industry spokesman Speck.

Recorded music sales have slipped in recent years, with global sales
down 7.6 per cent in 2003 to $32 billion, according to the
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

The federation blames rampant piracy, poor economic conditions and
competition from video games and DVDs for the slump. Supporters of
file swapping argue that it can encourage people to buy music by
exposing them to a range of styles.


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.

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

Subject: Cellphones and Blimps?
From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley)
Organization: AT&T Worldnet
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2005 15:26:54 GMT


Curious about something in the wake of Katrina: If we had been
prepared to do so, could cellphone communications have been restored
(at least periodically) to the area by flying any kind of cell relay
equipment over the area in blimps? I can imagine it would take special
equipment, since cell towers are usually attached to land lines and a
blimp (obviously) won't have a landline connection, but I do wonder if
something like that could be feasible for getting at least limited
communications re-established quickly?

>>==>> The *Best* political site <URL:http://www.vote-smart.org/> >>==+
      email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL      |
<URL:http://home.att.net/~Tom.Horsley> Free Software and Politics <<==+

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

Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 11:49:03 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: For Victims, News About Home Can Come From Strangers Online


By KATIE HAFNER

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 4 - On Friday afternoon, Leonard Sprague, a
general contractor in Gainesville, Fla., saw the electronic plea.

"I hope someone can help," someone using the name ZuluOne wrote to an
online bulletin board. "I am trying to get a current overlay for the
area around 2203 Curcor Court in Gulfport, Miss."

Mr. Sprague knew that "current overlay" meant a bird's-eye view. And
an altruistic impulse combined with an urge to play with a new
technology propelled him into action. Using his PC, he superimposed a
freshly available posthurricane aerial photograph over a prehurricane
image of the same neighborhood. After 15 minutes, he had an answer.

"Actually, it looks like your house looks pretty good," Mr. Sprague
told ZuluOne by e-mail. "Unfortunately, it doesn't look so good for
some of your neighbors. Best of luck to you and your family."

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of displaced residents
and their relatives -- along with people like Mr. Sprague -- have
turned to the Internet for information about a home feared damaged or
destroyed. Many are using Google Earth, a program available at the
Google Web site that lets users zoom in on any address for an aerial
view drawn from a database of satellite photos.

By the end of last week, a grass-roots effort had identified scores of
posthurricane images, determined the geographical coordinates and
visual landmarks to enable their integration into the Google Earth
program, and posted them to a Google Earth bulletin board -- the place
ZuluOne turned for help.

Most of the images originated with the Remote Sensing Division of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has been
posting them to its Web site http://noaa.gov since Wednesday.

Taking inspiration from the online volunteers, Google, NASA and
Carnegie Mellon University had by Saturday night made the effort more
formal, incorporating nearly 4,000 posthurricane images into the
Google Earth database http://earth.google.com for public use.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/technology/05google.html?ex=1283572800&en=e092019eb18b6b94&ei=5090

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

Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 12:06:06 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: A Major Backfire in Japan Deflates Vodafone's One-Size-Fits-All


By MARTIN FACKLER and KEN BELSON
September 5, 2005

TOKYO - Yoko Yakushiji's biggest complaint with her Vodafone cellphone
was not just the lack of functions, the expensive bills or the poor
signal. It was not even the delays in receiving text messages.

What annoyed her most was feeling like a social outcast, cut off from
the instantaneous electronic world of Japan's tech-savvy youth. The
21-year-old university student says she often missed friends' calls
and messages with invitations to meals, parties and even class
assignments.

In April, she switched providers -- something she had resisted because
she had to change her phone number and phone-based e-mail address.

"My friends used to treat me differently. They'd say things like, 'Oh,
you can't reach Yoko. She's got Vodafone,' " said Ms. Yakushiji, a
junior in international finance at Meiji Gakuin University in
Tokyo. "I just couldn't take it anymore."

Ms. Yakushiji was not the only one, as Vodafone, the world's largest
cellphone carrier, is finding out. Service problems, a botched rollout
of its third-generation phone network and a skimpy lineup of new
handsets have driven away Japanese customers in droves. The exodus has
turned into an embarrassing and costly setback for Vodafone -- and one
it is now struggling to overcome.

Vodafone, which is based in London and also owns 45 percent of Verizon
Wireless in the United States, now must win back customers if it is to
revive what was once one of its most profitable units and a cash cow
for its global operations. Though the performance of its subsidiary in
Japan has shown some signs of improving, it has fallen far behind its
two larger rivals here, NTT DoCoMo and KDDI.

Vodafone's woes in Japan are a lesson in how global corporations can
stumble if they try to push a sales agenda across many national
markets without heeding local quirks. The company admits that its
biggest misstep was a decision to focus its lineup in Japan on what it
calls "converged handsets" -- mobile phones that Vodafone released in
December in 13 countries simultaneously. By offering the same phones
to many of its 165 million worldwide subscribers, Vodafone hoped to
drive down handset prices.

But the one-size-fits-all approach backfired in Japan. Features that
were acceptable in Europe or the United States appeared primitive and
clunky in Japan. Consumers here are used to getting new technologies
like high-resolution color screens, two-megapixel cameras and full
Internet access a year or two before the rest of the world.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/business/worldbusiness/05vodaphone.html?ex=1283572800&en=b42572bbb0631922&ei=5090

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

Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 12:26:45 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: How to Make Phone Calls Without a Telephone


By THOMAS J. FITZGERALD

Internet telephone service is well on its way into the mainstream.

Companies like Vonage, using a technology called voice over Internet
protocol, or VoIP, offer cheap long-distance rates and features not
found with conventional phone service. Cable giants, too, are taking
Internet phones to the masses.

Now a subset of VoIP services, called PC-to-phone service, is gaining
momentum. With these services, users can make calls to and receive
calls from regular phones on their PC's as long they have a broadband
connection, VoIP software downloaded from the Web and a headset.

One advantage of such services is the ability to make calls through an
Internet-connected laptop when cellular service is unreliable.  Many
people also prefer the convenience of talking while working on a PC;
the services can operate while you are doing other tasks on the
computer. Another advantage is price. PC-to-phone VoIP rates are less
expensive than conventional phone calls and in many cases cheaper than
phone-to-phone VoIP services, which route calls through broadband
modems to regular phones.

Early versions of these services have been around since the late
1990's, but the rise of Skype, a mostly free VoIP service using
file-sharing technology, has increased competition in the field.

Yahoo, America Online and Microsoft have each announced plans to add
new phone services to future versions of their instant messaging
programs. And last week, Google introduced Google Talk, a free service
that enables users to talk through their computers and could be a
first step toward a PC-to-phone service.

PC-to-phone services available today from companies like Skype,
SIPphone, i2Telecom and Dialpad Communications offer many features
like free PC-to-PC calling, conference calls, voice mail, choice of
phone numbers, call forwarding and reduced long-distance rates,
especially for international calls. But as with phone-to-phone VoIP
services, call quality is not always perfect.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/technology/circuits/01basics.html?ex=1283227200&en=d515c0052b9b19fb&ei=5090

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

Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 12:39:04 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Why the Internet Isn't the Death of the Post Office


By JAMES FALLOWS

MILLIONS of people now rent their movies the Netflix way. They fill
out a wish list from the 50,000 titles on the company's Web site and
receive the first few DVD's in the mail; when they mail each one back,
the next one on the list is sent.

The Netflix model has been exhaustively analyzed for its disruptive,
new-economy implications. What will it mean for video stores like
Blockbuster, which has, in fact, started a similar service? What will
it mean for movie studios and theaters? What does it show about "long
" businesses -- ones that amalgamate many niche markets, like those
for Dutch movies or classic musicals, into a single large audience?

But one other major implication has barely been mentioned: what this
and similar Internet-based businesses mean for that stalwart of the
old economy, the United States Postal Service.

Every day, some two million Netflix envelopes come and go as
first-class mail. They are joined by millions of other shipments from
online pharmacies, eBay vendors, Amazon.com and other businesses that
did not exist before the Internet.

The eclipse of "snail mail" in the age of instant electronic
communication has been predicted at least as often as the coming of
the paperless office. But the consumption of paper keeps rising. (It
has roughly doubled since 1980, with less use of newsprint and much
more of ordinary office paper.) And so, with some nuances and internal
changes, does the flow of material carried by mail. On average, an
American household receives twice as many pieces of mail a day as it
did in the 1970's.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/technology/04techno.html?ex=1283486400&en=03a3c97e10d5235b&ei=5090

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

Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 00:18:44 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: New Technology May Increase Identity Theft - Scientist


By Patricia Reaney  |  September 4, 2005

DUBLIN (Reuters) - New technology could increase rather than solve the
problem of identity theft and fraud, a British criminologist warned on
Monday.

Identity cards and chip and pin technology for credit cards will force
fraudsters to be more creative and are unlikely to alleviate the
problem.

Dr Emily Finch, of the University of East Anglia in England, said
dependence on technology was leading to a breakdown in individual
vigilance, which experts believe is one of the best ways to prevent
fraud and identity theft.

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/09/04/new_technology_may_increase_identity_theft_scientist/

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

Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 00:19:49 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Report Says US Data Secrecy Expanding and Getting Costlier


Expenses rose to $7.2b in 2004

By Michael J. Sniffen, Associated Press  |  September 4, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The government is withholding more data than ever from
the public and expanding ways of shrouding information. Last year,
federal agencies spent a record $148 creating and storing new secrets
for each $1 spent declassifying old secrets, a coalition of watchdog
groups reported yesterday.

That's a $28 jump from 2003, when $120 was spent to keep secrets for
every $1 spent revealing them. In the late 1990s, the ratio was
$15-$17 a year to $1, according to the secrecy report card by
OpenTheGovernment.org.

Overall, the government spent $7.2 billion in 2004 stamping 15.6
million documents 'top secret,' 'secret,' or 'confidential.' That
almost doubled the 8.6 million new documents classified as recently as
2001.

Last year, the number of pages declassified declined for the fourth
straight year to 28.4 million. In 2001, 100 million pages were
declassified; the record was 204 million pages in 1997.

These figures cover 41 federal agencies, excluding the CIA, whose
classification totals are secret.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/09/04/report_says_us_data_secrecy_expanding_and_getting_costlier/

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

Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 02:45:04 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Not Even Web Retailers Will Be Exempt From the Aftereffects of Katrina


By BOB TEDESCHI
September 5, 2005

AS the Gulf Coast reels from Katrina's devastation, online businesses
are struggling to gauge the impact of the possible loss of half a
million prospective customers for weeks or months.

"This is a tough one, because it is a big market," said Patti Freeman
Evans, an analyst with Jupiter Research, an Internet consulting firm.
"You can't get goods in there, and people aren't in their homes
anyway, so there's not much companies can do."

According to comScore Networks, an Internet research and consulting
firm, 860,000 people, on average, surfed the Web from their homes or
offices in New Orleans and the Mississippi towns of Biloxi and
Gulfport each day in the week preceding the storm.

People who fled the Gulf Coast will no doubt find Internet access in 
their temporary homes, but few are likely to look on the Web for the 
necessities of life.

Online travel agencies like Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz are no
doubt feeling the pinch more than most online retailers. Not only must
they cope with a deluge of calls from customers who had booked trips
to the Gulf Coast and now want their money back, they must also face
up to the possibility of a slump in sales as some vacationers and
business executives deterred from flying to New Orleans drop their
travel plans altogether.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/technology/05ecom.html?ex=1283572800&en=729119de4961aaf5&ei=5090

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

From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Flood Relief Efforts - Unfair Criticism? 
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2005 06:30:38 -0700
Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com


On Sun, 04 Sep 2005 14:30:10 -0700, John L. Shelton
<john@jshelton.com> wrote:

> It will be very hard to convince me that 100k people in New Orleans
> were incapable of leaving in advance. Many poor people have cars, or
> have friends/families with cars. There were enough cars in NO to
> evacuate everyone.

Maybe you're having problems being convinced since you're well off
enough to have a vehicle to take you where you need to go.  Many
people in the area are poor and probably had no way to move themselves
and their families out of there.  I'm not sure why you're assuming
that there are enough cars in New Orleans to evacuate everyone. 

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

From: Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net>
Subject: Re: Washington Failed to Fund Levee Projects
Organization: ATCC
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 11:18:01 -0400


In article <telecom24.404.4@telecom-digest.org>, latimes@telecom-
digest.org says:

> http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-levee4sep04,0,6360838,full.story

> By Richard A. Serrano and Nicole Gaouette LA Times Writers
> KATRINA'S AFTERMATH

> Despite Warnings, Washington Failed to Fund Levee Projects. To cut
> spending, officials gambled that the worst-case scenario would not
> come to be.

> September 4, 2005

> WASHINGTON - For years, Washington had been warned that doom lurked
> just beyond the levees. And for years, the White House and Congress
> had dickered over how much money to put into shoring up century-old
> dikes and carrying out newer flood control projects to protect the
> city of New Orleans.

> As recently as three months ago, the alarms were sounding -- and being
> brushed aside.

Why don't we cast the blame where it belongs? I love how media is now 
trying to spin this as Clinton's fault, etc. 

You have to remember that during most of Clinton's term he had to 
contend with a Republican controlled congress. And now we've got 
Republican control in all three branches. 

So tell me what the real problem is. 

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

From: jmeissen@aracnet.com
Subject: Re: Internet is Bulletin Board For Katrina Victims
Date: 5 Sep 2005 18:28:12 GMT
Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com


In article <telecom24.403.3@telecom-digest.org>, TELECOM Digest
Editor's said:

> Note: Also consider http://wwl.com which is maintained by WWL-TV, 
> channel 4 in New Orleans.  

I've seen your references to this before. Actually, wwl.com is the
website of 870AM radio, WWL-AM. The television station's website is
http://www.wwltv.com, which has, among other things, a streaming video
feed of their broadcast. I watched it pretty much continuously during
most of the crisis.


John Meissen                                           jmeissen@aracnet.com


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are correct; my error, sorry. One
can watch up to the minute news regards Katrina and otherwise there,
and one can also read/post 'missing persons' ads tgere as well. Other
than when they were forced out of their studio because of the rising
waters, they were on 24/7 with coverage.  PAT]
------------------------------


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data, video, and voice networks.

The MSTM degree draws on the expertise of the OSU's College
of Business Administration; the College of Arts and Sciences; and the
College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology. The program has
state-of-the-art lab facilities on the Stillwater and Tulsa campus
offering hands-on learning to enhance the program curriculum.  Classes
are available in Stillwater, Tulsa, or through distance learning.

Please contact Jay Boyington for additional information at
405-744-9000, mstm-osu@okstate.edu, or visit the MSTM web site at
http://www.mstm.okstate.edu

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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #405
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