TELECOM Digest     Thu, 29 Sep 2005 00:57:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 443

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Few Phones, Little Drinking Water, But New Orleans Re-opens (Adam Nossiter)
    FEMA Under Fire Again, This Time for Rita Effort (Juan Lozano)
    US Congress Told to Wait on File Sharing Action (Reuters News Wire)
    Cingular to Sell Nokia Email Phone (Sinead Carew)
    Can't Trust Spyware Protection? (Andrew Brandt)
    Who Will Control Mobile Entertainment? (Monty Solomon)
    10 Out of 10 For Idea, -1000 For Implementation (Chris Farrar)
    Re: Why is VOIP Getting Hot Now? (Tony P.)
    Re: Oakland Calif Conversion From 6 to 7 Digit Dialing? (Lisa Hancock)
    Re: Stealing Your ID Can be as Easy as ABC (Tony P.)
    Re: How Come www Has Number as in http://www31.website.com (John Levine)

Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
Internet.  All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and
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               ===========================

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.  

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

From: Adam Nossiter <ap@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Few Phones, Little Drinking Water, But New Orleans Re-opens
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 22:05:19 -0500


By Adam Mossiter, Associated Press Writer

Areas of New Orleans Reopen to Residents

More areas of New Orleans that escaped flooding from Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita will be formally reopened starting Thursday, Mayor
Ray Nagin said.

The areas include the French Quarter, the Central Business district,
and Uptown with its historic Garden District. Business owners will be
allowed in on Thursday, and residents on Friday.

"The re-entry started Monday and is going very well -- exceedingly
well," Nagin told legislators at a hearing Wednesday at the state
capitol.  "Everything you hoped to happen is happening. Algiers is
alive and well and breathing."

On Monday, Nagin opened the Algiers neighborhood, which has  electricity,
telephones and clean water.

Nagin said checkpoints where officers stop people will be pulled back
Thursday so that only areas that were flooded will be off limits. 
Homes in those areas were heavily flooded and most are likely beyond
repair.

If all goes well, as of Oct. 5 only the Lower Ninth Ward, which was hit
especially hard by the flooding, will be cordoned off, Nagin said.

Electricity has been restored to some dry parts of the city, but the water
is not yet drinkable. The mayor disagreed with the head of the state's
Health Department about the condition of the city's water, insisting
residents could now wash in it, though they shouldn't drink it.

"The two things that are absolutely necessary to ensure public health
 -- clean drinking water and proper sewage systems -- simply are not
available in the east bank area of New Orleans at this time," said
Dr. Fred Cerise, secretary for the state Department of Health and
Hospitals.

"People who re-enter the city may be exposed to diseases such as
E. coli, salmonella or diarrhea illness if they do not allow time for
the necessary inspections to ensure public health and safety," Cerise
said.

Many residents of the city have returned ahead of Nagin's official
timeline, and the mayor appeared eager Wednesday to get more of them
back.

Nagin complained that state opposition was feeding a misperception
about New Orleans, saying: "We're fighting this national impression
that we're tainted, we're not ready."

Yet a handout from the mayor's office to returning motorists struck a
more cautious tone than Nagin himself. Police and National Guardsmen 
handed out notices to each arriving vehicle which described the
sorry state of affairs:

"You are entering the city of New Orleans at your own risk," it reads,
before going on to detail potential health hazards from water, soil
and air, and advising residents to bring in food and drinking water,
batteries and other needed items. Returning motorists were advised to
"drive slowly and carefully and be observant to any road obstructions
which might block the way; do not drive through water where any
utility line (electric or telephone) is laying in the street. Do not
touch or try to remove such wires. Stay away from them."

Nagin also noted that telephone service was still 'mostly
non-existent' in much of the city, and where it existed, service was
'spotty' at best. People who are aquainted with the specifics of
telephony said what that meant was that corrosion had damaged much
equipment and excessive water from Rita and Katrina caused a lot of
'crosstalk' and noisy lines, in addition to 'traffic jams' on fewer
than normal circuits; frequent disconnects, etc. Bell officals told
Associated Press that lines were being restored 'on a daily basis'. 

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.

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

From: Juan A. Lozano <ap@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: FEMA Under Fire Again, This Time For Rita Effort
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 19:29:39 -0500


By JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press Writer

Saying they were caught off-guard by the number of people in need,
FEMA officials closed a relief center early on Wednesday after some of
the hundreds of hurricane victims in line began fainting in
triple-digit heat.

The midday closing of the Houston disaster relief center came as
officials in areas hit hardest by Hurricane Rita criticized FEMA's
response to the storm, with one calling for a commission to examine
the emergency response.

Across southeastern Texas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency
delivered ice, water and packaged meals to residents who rode out last
week's hurricane, which blew ashore at Sabine Pass in East Texas early
Saturday.

But the agency was not ready for the roughly 1,500 people displaced by
Hurricanes Rita and Katrina who sought help at the Houston center when
it reopened Wednesday.

The center, offering help from a variety government and private
organizations, initially opened for Katrina refugees. It closed last
week when Houston was evacuated before Rita.

The line started forming Tuesday night, and as temperatures reached
record highs, some people fainted and had to be carried off by police
and other refugees.

FEMA spokesman Justin Dombrowski said the agency closed the center for
the day because of the heat and the unexpectedly large crowds. Those
already in line were allowed to enter. The center was expected to
reopen Thursday morning.

Frances Deculus, 65, of Beaumont got in line at 3 a.m. and emerged
shortly before the center shut down. She said that all she was able to
do was register for FEMA assistance, and that she will have to return
to actually get any help.

"We don't know what to do. It's frustrating. We have five small
children," said Deculus, who is staying in a Houston hotel with 12
other relatives.

Dombrowski said FEMA is asking refugees who do not need help right
away to wait a few days. He also encouraged refugees to register with
FEMA by telephone or the Internet.

Local officials, including Port Arthur Mayor Oscar Ortiz and Jefferson
County Judge Carl Griffith, whose county includes Beaumont, said
FEMA's response has been inadequate.

Griffith said he has asked Gov. Rick Perry to set up a commission to
study the emergency response to Rita. Congress is holding hearings
this week on the federal government's response to Katrina.

FEMA spokesman Ross Fredenburg in Austin said communications between
Austin and rural East Texas have been troubled, in part because of
power problems.  But he said FEMA had set up 27 distribution points in
27 southeastern Texas cities.

"I don't know what could have been done better since the materials
were in place before the hurricane," Fredenburg said. "We're doing
everything we can to get water and ice to whomever remains."

Perry, meanwhile, issued an emergency order allowing the utility
Entergy to immediately erect temporary lines and plug into the Houston
area's power supply to get electricity flowing to the hardest hit
areas.

But it could take three to four weeks to restore power to those areas
of southeast Texas where nearly all transmission lines are down and
homes are so damaged they can't safely receive electricity, said Paul
Hudson, chairman of the state's Public Utility Commission.

In rural Tyler County, north of Beaumont, volunteer firefighters
distributed food, water and ice to hundreds of residents trapped in
their homes by fuel shortages or by huge fallen trees blocking the
one-lane, dirt roads out.

Firefighters are climbing over the trees to get to stranded residents
until crews can cut the debris away, said Roger McGee, a firefighter.

McGee said the firefighters had been collecting the supplies on their
own until Tuesday, when FEMA showed up to give them meals, water and
ice to distribute.

"We're tired. We're wore out, but we ain't giving up," McGee said.

Ortiz said he expects to allow residents back into Port Arthur by the
weekend, even though as of Wednesday, the industrial town of about
58,000 had no power, telephone, water or sewer service. Ortiz said it
could take three to five weeks to fully restore electricity and phones.

Associated Press writers Pam Easton in Tyler County and Abe Levy in Port
Arthur contributed to this report.

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 more news headlines and stories from Associated Press please go
to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html

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

From: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: US Congress Told to Wait on File Sharing Action
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 22:07:05 -0500


Congress should probably wait and see how lower courts apply a recent
landmark Supreme Court ruling on file-sharing networks before trying
to legislate on the subject, the U.S. official in charge of copyrights
said on Wednesday.

The Supreme Court's decision in June that anyone who distributes a
device used to infringe copyright is liable for the resulting acts of
infringement by others may well have resolved questions about
boundary-setting in file-sharing networks for now, said Marybeth
Peters, the U.S. Register of Copyrights.

But the Supreme Court also sent the case back to a lower court for
further action on whether the file-sharing networks encouraged its
users into infringing action.

"It may be that legislation should be enacted, but my own preference
would be to see how the courts deal with this at this time," Peters
told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The ruling to date has caused a ripple effect among file-sharing
services.  Several have curtailed operations or sought to align
themselves with legitimate business partners.

The president of the developer of the popular file-sharing site
eDonkey testified on Wednesday that he expected all existing open
peer-to-peer companies in the United States to cease operating in
coming months due to the legal uncertainty surrounding their
operations.

He warned there was a danger of driving all peer-to-peer networks
offshore, but said his company would comply with a cease-and-desist
letter it had received from the trade group Recording Industry
Association of America.

"The direction we're headed in is compliance rather than litigation,"
Sam Yagan, president of MetaMachine Inc., developer and distributor of
eDonkey.

"Because we cannot afford to fight a lawsuit, even one we think we
would win, we have instead prepared to convert eDonkey's user base to
an online content retailer operating in a 'closed' P2P (peer-to-peer)
environment," he said in testimony.

He told reporters after the hearing he had been talking with Ali
Aydar, the chief operating officer of SNOCAP Inc., a company formed by
Napster founder Shawn Fanning to enable authorized digital
distribution of content through peer-to-peer service.

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.

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

From: Sinead Carew <reuters@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Top US Service Cingular to Sell Nokia E-Mail Phone
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 22:08:20 -0500


By Sinead Carew

Nokia, the world's mobile phone leader, said on Wednesday No. 1
U.S. mobile service Cingular Wireless will sell Nokia's top-of-the
line computer phone and Blackberry e-mail pager.

The deal with Cingular gives Nokia's 9300 line of phones a leg into
the U.S.  market, where rival Palm Inc. Treos and Blackberry phones
from Canada's Research In Motion Ltd. are in hot demand among business
professionals.

It also helps raise the profile of Finland's Nokia in a region where
it trails Motorola Inc., the No. 2 maker of mobile handsets worldwide,
but the leading U.S. supplier.

"This is extremely important. This takes them out of the airplane
magazine and into a great distribution channel," Yankee Group analyst
John Jackson said.

But he added that the device's success would depend largely on how
aggressively Cingular promotes it to its business customers.

"It's not something that's going to fly off retail shelves," he said.

Nokia's 9300 phone, which was introduced earlier this year and is part
of a line that has long been available in Europe, is sleeker and more
compact than a bulky predecessor nicknamed "the brick."

The device will include Research In Motion's popular Blackberry e-mail
software in a bid to compete against an upcoming Treo phone that will
run Microsoft Corp. software. It also will compete against "Q," an
ultra-slim device due from Motorola that also uses Microsoft software.

Nokia's 9300 is based on software from Symbian, a European-centered
consortium that is controlled by Nokia.

Analysts forecast more than 20 million computer-like phones will be
sold this year, a tiny fraction of the more than 700 million mobile
phones expected to be sold this year.

But this so-called "smartphone" category is expected to grow rapidly
to 170 million units a year in about five years.

Cingular is the wireless venture of SBC Communications Inc. and
BellSouth Corp..

Its biggest rival Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon
Communications Inc.  and Vodafone Group Plc, said this week it would
sell the new Treo, which will ship early next year.

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.

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

From: Andrew Brandt <tech-tuesday@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Can't Trust Spyware Protection?
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 22:10:44 -0500


by Andrew Brandt

The next time you run a scan with your anti-spyware tool, it might
miss some programs. Some adware companies, arguing that their software
is benign, have petitioned anti-spyware firms to stop warning
consumers about their software. Other companies have resorted to
sending cease-and-desist letters that threaten legal action.

In the past year, at least two anti-spyware firms' products
temporarily stopped detecting certain kinds of adware -- a process
called delisting. Last year, Lavasoft (maker of Ad-Aware) delisted
advertising software WhenU from its detection database. Lavasoft said
the delisting happened as the result of an employee error, and the
company quickly added WhenU back to Ad-Aware's detection list.

Computer Associates, which makes the PestPatrol anti-spyware tool,
temporarily delisted adware made by Claria after Claria asked to have
its software reevaluated, but Computer Associates later restored
detection of Claria to PestPatrol.

In most cases, it's difficult for customers to determine whether their
anti-spyware tool has delisted anything and, if so, which adware it
skips.

"When a spyware program gets delisted, users won't be aware of its
presence," says Harvard law student and spyware researcher Ben
Edelman. The practice, he says, "offers spyware makers a new lease on
life, letting them keep users who otherwise would have removed their
software."

Degrees of Spyware

Of course, some spyware apps are worse than others. One spyware
program may make severe changes to your computer's settings, while
another merely displays ads.

Claria and WhenU are making the case that their adware programs don't
resort to illegal tactics, such as exploiting security holes, to
install themselves. And though this software can be annoying, adware
developers argue that merely being listed in an anti-spyware scanner's
database tarnishes a company's reputation by linking its relatively
benign adware application with far more harmful and intrusive spyware
programs.

According to Avi Naider of WhenU, though some other adware companies
will track your Web meanderings and sell that data, WhenU's privacy
policy doesn't permit it to track the search queries that users type
or the Web pages that they browse.

Each anti-spyware firm uses its own set of criteria to decide whether
to remove or detect a file or Registry key related to spyware. Usually
even a few bad behaviors suffice to red-tag a file as spyware or
adware.

One company, Aluria Software, is taking a middle road when dealing
with some software that serves advertising. The company, which makes
an anti-spyware product called Spyware Eliminator, last year gave
WhenU's SaveNow toolbar its "Spyware Safe Certification," and now
categorizes WhenU's program as consumerware instead of spyware within
Spyware Eliminator. Aluria defines consumerware as "useful
applications, often given away free, [which] provide value to the end
user, pose no spyware risk, and are easily and completely removed" via
the Add or Remove Programs control panel. Spyware Eliminator still
gives users the option of automatically removing SaveNow if they
choose.

Aluria publishes a list of 26 criteria software must meet to be
declared Spyware Safe. Other software publishers disagree with that
approach. Peter Mackow of PCTools, maker of the Spyware Doctor
anti-spyware program, says that his company won't publish the entire
list of its criteria for fear that spyware companies will use the
information to design a spyware application that skirts every
rule. Many others who fight spyware share that position.

"The spyware guys want a really rigid set of rules defining spyware so
they can then make an end run around [all of them]," says Eric
L. Howes, who tracks the spyware business for Spywarewarrior.com and
consults for anti-spyware software companies.

Experts recommend that you employ two -- or even three -- anti-spyware
tools. The more you use, the likelier they are to counter the individ-
ual biases of each anti-spyware company.

To Delist or Not

It's unfair to permanently blacklist a company based on its past
behavior, so some delisting is inevitable. But delisting an adware
application is a dangerous proposition for anti-spyware developers. In
the past, some spyware and adware makers have changed their software
enough to get delisted, only to resume the activity that got them
flagged in the first place.

As a result, the anti-spyware industry has developed a thick skin.
Delisting is rare because, Edelman says, anti-spyware firms "stand up
to strongly worded demand letters."

Adware companies also decry the word spyware itself as inherently
negative, so some anti-spyware firms have tried to create terms that
mean essentially the same thing, using more-neutral language:
"grayware," "potentially unwanted programs," or "potentially unwanted
software." But Webroot CEO David Moll argues that matters could get
more confusing if the anti-spyware companies try to refer to spyware
by other names, just when many people are beginning to understand what
spyware can do.

Andrew Brandt is a PC World senior associate editor and author of the
monthly Privacy Watch column.

Copyright 2005 Yahoo! Inc. and Tech Tuesday

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, 28 Sep 2005 17:03:58 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Who Will Control Mobile Entertainment?


By Susan Kuchinskas

SAN FRANCISCO -- Mobile entertainment is the next hot thing -- and
it's been the next hot thing for a good five years now.

But phones and mobile devices may finally be growing up enough to 
support the kind of rich content industry that's developing on the 
Web. The launch of the Motorola iPod phone earlier this month and the 
expected release of a Treo smartphone running Microsoft's Windows 
embedded illustrate that mobile devices may be ready for prime time.

The Mobile Entertainment Summit is being held a day ahead of the CTIA 
Wireless & Internet show, which kicks off on Tuesday.

While devices are getting smarter, the business model for mobile 
content in the U.S. still remains stalled in the "walled garden" 
model, where network operators limit subscriber access to content, 
services and wireless Web sites on the operator's wireless Web portal.

But this model makes it hard for small content providers that don't 
have the revenue or business connections to land such a deal. 
Carriers that enable subscribers to go "off-portal" or "off-deck" to 
access any available content help grow the mobile content industry, 
mobile upstart companies contend. In this model, the operator's 
revenue comes from increased usage, rather than from a slice of 
revenue from the content.

http://www.devxnews.com/article.php/3551571

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

Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 19:28:12 -0400
From: Chris Farrar <cfarrar@sympatico.ca>
Subject: 10 Out of 10 For Idea; 1000 for Implementation


I was driving down I-95 today from Philly to Baltimore, and for most
of the time my GSM phone (which is on Fido/Rogers out of Canada) was
showing that it was on AT&T Wireless as the carrier.  As I came past
the airport, it switched over to showing T-Mobile as the carrier.  A
few seconds later I received a text message from T-Mobile (subject is
"905") welcoming me to the USA and telling me to dial home use 011- or
"+" and the number.

Its nice to see that T-Mobile is looking for non-US phones and letting
you know what to do to "call home", but it isn't set to deal with
region 1 phones, as to call back to Toronto from Philly on T-Mobile,
you definitely wouldn't dial 011 to start the call.

Perhaps someone from T-Mobile will see this and tweak their system so
it doesn't send this to Canadian phones when roaming in the USA.

Chris

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

From: Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net>
Subject: Re: Why is VOIP Getting Hot Now?
Organization: ATCC
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 18:39:41 -0400


In article <telecom24.439.7@telecom-digest.org>,
jbradshaw777@yahoo.com says:

> Hi,

> I am looking for some insight on this VOIP thing.  Why is it, seems to
> me, getting hot now? This thing has been around for many years (I
> remember using Internet Telephony application almost a decade ago),
> why is it getting hot now? why does it take so long for it to get some
> tracking?  Is there anything different now that makes it more
> appealing than a decade ago?

Because those of us who are VoIP evangelists finally got the message
out. I've made a half dozen referrals to Vonage in my office and
that's in the last couple of months.

When people are paying $45 for basic local loop and find out I'm
paying $27 (That includes the damned tax!) and getting unlimited
local/ld, plus CLID, three way, call-waiting and voice mail they tend
to start looking at Verizon as a bad company. Granted, Verizon is a
bad company and I'll do anything I can to drive the last nail into
their tariff ridden coffin.

In article <telecom24.441.11@telecom-digest.org>, JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com 
says:

> On 27 Sep 2005 10:53:32 -0700, John <jbradshaw777@yahoo.com> wrote:
 
>> I am looking for some insight on this VOIP thing.  Why is it, seems to
>> me, getting hot now? This thing has been around for many years (I
>> remember using Internet Telephony application almost a decade ago),
>> why is it getting hot now? 

> Likely because the technology has improved enough that people are
> using it on a regular basis.

>> why does it take so long for it to get some
>> tracking?  Is there anything different now that makes it more
>> appealing than a decade ago?

> Sure.  It works better than it did a decade ago.  Also, it's popular
> now because of the perceived value as compared to pricing for regular
> wireline service.

In my case it was $88 a month to Verizon vs. $27 a month to
Vonage. Big difference. It's the only thing that hasn't inflated in
the last year or two.

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

From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Oakland Calif Conversion From 6 to 7 Digit Dialing?
Date: 28 Sep 2005 13:25:48 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com


TELECOM Digest Editor noted in reply on this topic:

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Chicago was 3L-4N throughout the 1930's
> and 1940's, (that is, from the start of automated calling through the
> final cutover of same.) The original third letter (as in ALBany and
> ROGers Park) became the first number in the new 2L-5N system, (which
> is to say ALBany became ALbany-2, KEDzie became KEdzie-3 and ROGers
> Park became ROgers Park-4.

When Philadelphia converted from 3L to 2L-N, the third dial pull was
definitely NOT the third letter in almost all cases.  That is, WAVerly
(928) became WAverly 4 (924) and WAverly 7 (927), WALnut (925) became
WAlnut 2 (922), BARing (227) became BAring 2 (222), BALdwin (225)
became BALdwin 9 (229).  In other words, in effect almost everyone got
a new phone number.  I suspect they did that intentionally to make the
change clear.

I forgot the year Philadelphia changed, but it was very close to or
even within WW II.  At that time the Bell System absorbed the
competing Keystone Telephone company (which served only business
customers with flat rate service and some outlying towns) and had to
create more lines from them.

In 1943, Philadelphia cut over to the first #4 Crossbar for toll
switching.  I'm surprised this happened during the war, but perhaps it
happened because of the war and the need for faster switching and
efficiency.  Someday I'll have to search newspapers if there's any
mention.  There is no index of those years and it requires a manual
search through the microfilm.  The above 3L to 2L merited only a very
brief newspaper mention the day after and nothing the day before, to
my surprise.

(To show how priorities changed, the introduction of new el cars in
1960 was full front page major news, with numerous side bar articles.
Suppliers of car components had ads in the paper.  In contrast, a 1982
replacement of subway cars had far less coverage, still front page,
but much smaller and no sidebars.  New buses get no coverage today but
in 1954 got a full page ad by the transit company.)


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In Chicago, the third 'L' nearly always
became the first 'N' _except_ in a few cases from pre-dialing days
when there was a conflict. Then, some other first 'N' was chosen. As 
certain exchanges filled up with customers but geography dictated 
retaining the same name (such was the case with GRAceland-2 and a few
years later GRaceland-7; Graceland Cemetery on the north side of town
is a major place; quite a historical spot.) But generally they very
cleverly worked around those problems, as with MIChigan-2 and MIDway-3
and MItchell-6. (MIChigan is both the lake and the street downtown 
while MIDway Plaisance is the main thoroughfare criss-crossing the
University of Chicago. PAT]

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

From: Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net>
Subject: Re: Stealing Your ID Can be as Easy as ABC
Organization: ATCC
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 18:35:40 -0400


In article <telecom24.437.2@telecom-digest.org>, monty@roscom.com 
says:

> By Joe Light, Globe Correspondent 

> Self-proclaimed identity thieves have a message for you: personal 
> information is frighteningly easy to get.

> Tammy Martin, a 37-year-old instructor at the University of Hawaii, 
> couldn't believe it.

> "This is wild," she said. "You can't live your life in a balloon, 
> you know? But this is just wild."

> Her shock was warranted. I had just called her on an unlisted
> cellphone number and informed her that I had her Social Security
> number, Visa card number, bank account and personal identification
> numbers, and eBay account name and password.

> If I chose, not only could I drain her bank account and rack up
> charges on the Visa, but with her Social Security number, I could
> probably open new credit cards -- maybe even a mortgage -- long before
> she discovered a problem. Ultimately, she would likely not be
> responsible for the charges, but it might take days -- or months -- to
> rectify her credit.

> Martin was not a victim of identity theft. But the information was in
> the hands of a self-proclaimed identity thief. I received the
> information during an interview with someone who goes by the online
> nickname Bart Maza. He said he is an 18-year-old high school dropout
> in Russia. In total, he gave me the data of 17 people.

> I'd written several articles about identity theft for the Globe, but
> this was the first time I attempted to directly contact an apparent
> identity thief. Although I had spoken to many law enforcement
> officials, private security investigators, victims, and consumer
> advocates about the issue, I decided to go to the source to truly
> understand how the identity theft supply chain operates -- from the
> time that the data are stolen to the time that information is used
> fraudulently.

> http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/09/25/stealing_your_id_can_be_as_easy_as_abc/

What this means is all the data held by the credit bureaus is
bunk. They can't even tell if identity theft has happened or not until
it's far too late.

Of course as I've said before, banks are notoriously insecure. But
they spend an awful lot of money making sure you or I never see news
that they have serious flaws in our banking and financial systems.

Best option is to just use real cash for everything. Of course it
makes it inconvenient to buy online, etc. Oh, and never, ever, write a
check.

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

Date: 29 Sep 2005 04:13:00 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: How Come www Has Number as in  http://www31.website.com?
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA


In article <telecom24.441.14@telecom-digest.org> you write:

> How come I saw some web site has some number after www, how can they do
> that?

> i.e. http://www31.website.com, http://www52.website.com

It's just a name, which can be anything the site owner wants.  The www
prefix is a convention but there's no technical requirement that a
site have www in its name.

When you see sites named wwwNN, that invariably means that they have a
bunch of web servers sharing the load, and when you first visit the
site as www.example.com, it redirects you to one of the numbered
servers picked either at random, or picking one with a relatively low
load.

R's,

John

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


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