For your convenience in reading: Subject lines are printed in RED and
Moderator replies when issued appear in BROWN.
Previous Issue (just one)
TD Extra News
Add this Digest to your personal
or  
TELECOM Digest Fri, 7 Oct 2005 00:04:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 456 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Electric Powerlines to be Used For Broadband (John Hines) Re: Electric Powerlines to be Used For Broadband (John Stahl) Re: U.S. FTC Sues New Hampshire 'Spyware' Operation (David B. Horvath) Re: U.S. FTC Sues New Hampshire 'Spyware' Operation (Barry Margolin) Re: 2L-4N, 3L-4N, 2L-5N Numbering (Neal McLain) Re: United States Says No! Internet is Ours! (George Mitchell) Re: Disaster Recovery in 1871 (Norm) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Hines <jbhines@newsguy.com> Subject: Re: Electric Powerlines to be Used For Broadband Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 15:18:21 -0500 Organization: www.jhines.org Reply-To: john@jhines.org > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A couple things I do not understand > about voice communication over electrical power lines: Some say it > will not work; others say it is okay. My understanding is there are two different electrical systems in the world, the 220v version the rest of the world uses, and the 110v the US uses. In the rest of the world, a fairly large number of residences are run off a single transformer, where in the USofA, a much smaller number are run. For example, in my neighborhood, each block of houses (8-10) has its own transformer, which would require a fiber run, or some way to couple it to the 12kv 3phase line that drives the transformer. Multiply by millions and millions of these things all over the place, and it is easy to see why, even though it is being reported in the US media, the actual action is taking place in a foreign county, in the article, it was Japan. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 18:17:07 -0400 From: John Stahl <aljon@stny.rr.com> Subject: Re: Electric Powerlines to be Used For Broadband Previously published: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A couple things I do not understand > about voice communication over electrical power lines: Some say it > will not work; others say it is okay. <clip> The real bottom line measurement for potential deployment is probably cost. The existing technology of "transmitting" broadband over a medium to/from the end-user is pretty mature technology (for example DSL, broadband over cable, wireless, etc.) and therefore probably able to offer much lower costs than BPL will ever offer. The following article indicates that one of the major power companies (Pittsburgh Power and Light, Allentown, PA) in field testing phase of BPL (Broadband Over Power Line) technology has decided to "pull-the-plug" and not pursue widespread deployment. Full article at: http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15323715&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=415898&rfi=8 > http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?brd=2185 custlogo.gif > 10/04/2005 > PPL Corp.ditches Internet program > BY DAVID FALCHEK Staff Writer > Intense competition and the high cost of a full-scale rollout prompted PPL > Corp. on Monday to ditch a year-old pilot program that offered residential > customers Internet service over the electric company's power lines. According to earlier published articles about this technology, the basics of design came from research and development of European power companies. But their usage differs from potential US deployment from the basic differences in end-user voltage of 240 VAC (Europe) vs. 120 VAC (US). The European distribution system normally connects something like 200 - 300 end-users into one (last link) transformer distribution point while the US power system has something like 4 or so end-users connected to the (last link) power transformer. This big difference makes the US proposed BPL system design more expensive than other deployed methods of supplying broadband to end-users. Don't be surprised to see many more of the BPL testing power companies to similarly end their testing and plans for deployment. John Stahl Telecom/Data Consultant Aljon Enterprises ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 16:54:59 -0400 Subject: Re: U.S. FTC Sues New Hampshire 'Spyware' Operation From: David B. Horvath, CCP <dhorvath@notchur.biz> PAT -- please mung return address, real name is fine. On Date: 6 Oct 2005 09:19:43 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > It's too bad the programming profession never developed widely > recognized codes of ethics and professional standards like CPAs or > PEs. Actually there are, unfortunately too many people have the mind set "the kid down the street can do it, why should I pay more for you because you're certified". Check out www.iccp.org or www.acm.org or even www.ieee.org I will mention that I volunteer with the ICCP. > I think the programmers ought to be prosecuted as accomplices in > creating of fraud. Likewise for those who create spam systems. That's a tough one. If I write some generic code for the company that they later add into the larger spamming package, would I also be subject to prosecution even though I had no way of forseeing the final use of that code? Should car dealers go to jail as accomplices for selling cars to habitual drunkards? Should gun manufacturers and dealers go to jail as accomplices for selling guns to someone with a clean record who goes and commits a crime with that gun? > Can anyone make a case to defend the programmers who do such garbage? Because they are unemployed and the alternative is their kids going hungry/homeless (or nearly so while trying to live on McDonald's wages)? Or because they're on H1 visas and will be kicked out of the country if unemployed. Or they're really sitting in Russia or India or Karjackastan which don't have laws against such activities? - David ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu> Subject: Re: U.S. FTC Sues New Hampshire 'Spyware' Operation Organization: Symantec Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 19:23:18 -0400 In article <telecom24.455.7@telecom-digest.org>, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > Reuters News Wire wrote: >> Those infected with Odysseus' spyware have their search results >> corrupted as well, the FTC said. When they try to use a search engine >> like Yahoo or Google, they are steered to a look-alike page that >> prominently lists Odysseus clients in the results. >> Those who use an Odysseus software tool to remove the spyware only >> draw more unwanted programs on to their computers, the FTC said. > The practices described are outright fraud. > I wonder what kind of people work as programmers for these kinds of > outfits. I used to think -- obviously incorrectly -- that computer > programmers had some level of ethics and would use their skills and > gifts for good, not evil. Why would you expect programmers to be different from the rest of humanity? There are evil people in all walks of life. I'd expect priests to be the epitome of morality, yet we have all those child abuse scandals. > It's too bad the programming profession never developed widely > recognized codes of ethics and professional standards like CPAs or > PEs. Organizations like ACM do publish codes of ethics. Buta code of ethics has little force if the profession doesn't require licensing. And even if it does, why would a malware company care whether their employees are licensed? It would be like not hiring an assasin because he couldn't get a proper gun license. > I think the programmers ought to be prosecuted as accomplices in > creating of fraud. Likewise for those who create spam systems. > Can anyone make a case to defend the programmers who do such garbage? I could be wrong, but I assumed these programs were written by the bad guys themselves, they didn't hire programmers to do it. Then they sell their programs to other bad guys. Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 20:45:42 -0500 From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com> Subject: Re: 2L-4N, 3L-4N, 2L-5N Numbering During the 1952 presidential election campaign, the Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson had complained about "the mess in Washington," apparently referring to the ongoing war in Korea and alleged corruption in the Truman administration. The Republican campaign adopted a strategy of ignoring Stevenson, and concentrated its efforts on discrediting Truman while positioning the Republican candidate, Dwight Eisenhower, as the candidate who could clean up the mess. While this was going on, C&P Telephone converted the Washington DC area (including suburbs in Maryland and Virginia) from 2L-4D to 2L-5D. An example that comes to mind: Bethesda's OLympic XXXX became OLympic 9-XXXX. That change really did create a mess in Washington, as contemporary commentators and cartoonists noted. One memorable newspaper cartoon featured a telephone operator speaking with a customer, noting that "that number has been changed to (some NNX code)-OOU2." Neal McLain ------------------------------ From: George Mitchell <george@m5p.com> Subject: Re: United States Says No! Internet is Ours! Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 14:33:21 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Kenneth P. Stox wrote: > Am I the only one who is ROFLMAO about this? There is nothing > preventing other nations and/or organizations from setting up their > own root servers. [...] Anybody who wants to can set up their own name servers, and they don't have to ever connect to the current root name servers. But few people are inclined to do this. Ninety-nine percent of users will simply configure their systems to use their ISP's name servers by virtue of doing nothing: DHCP, the same protocol by which they receive their IP address assignment, will also tell them the IP address(es) to use for domain name lookups. Ninety-nine percent of ISPs will use the root name server hints which were packaged with their own name server setup packages, and guess where those hints will send domain name requests for the root zone? Various people have tried on more than one occasion to set up meaning- ful alternative root name servers. None achieved wide acceptance, and no one I know of has even tried in the last five years. -- George Mitchell ------------------------------ From: Norm <nsdec@mercurylink.net> Subject: Re: Disaster Recovery in 1871 Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 15:11:19 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: normdec@yahoo.com Nice item, thanks! I've looked for something you posted a dozen years ago, that happened during the initial A- bomb testing, where they couldn't make phone calls and someone drove out and traced the telephone lines to the "central" office in a house and woke the operator. Is that still around somewhere? Thanks, Norm [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The story goes like this ... in the early to middle 1960's I was employed as a telephone operator at the University of Chicago. I lived in an apartment hotel on East 56th Street, 56th and Hyde Park Blvd. to be precise. Another resident of the hotel was Mrs. Laura Fermi, widow of the late Enrico Fermi, of atomic bomb fame. Mrs. Fermi was a typical, 'well-to-do' widow. She, on various occassions 'invited' me, a Young Man to join her for dinner and cocktails at 'The Anchorage', the hotel's dining room and cocktail lounge. I almost always accepted her invitation. In those days, forty years ago, the Windermere Hotel (phone FAIrfax 4-6000) was not only a very good place for a Young Man to live, but the bar and restaurant was very 'cozy' also. Of course dinner and drinks were on her on-going always-open tab at the restaurant/bar/hotel. I understand now that maybe 20-25 years ago, UC bought the property and converted it into faculty housing. I understand the bar, restaurant, front lobby, etc have, like much of Hyde Park these days lost their luster, if in fact The Anchorage is even still open, which I sort of doubt. Anyway, this would have been in 1962-63 or thereabouts. Mrs. Fermi told me a very interesting story which I will relate to you. After I first related this here in the Digest, middle to late 1980's there were some readers who discredited it to varying degrees. The discredits ranged from polite attempts to set the record straight, to more crude replies about older ladies spending forty dollars (in 1960's money) to entertain and amuse a Young Man with food and drink for whatever reason, once or twice weekly. Most readers did not discredit the account, nor me, nor Mrs. Fermi however. Certainly, as a telephone operator at a prestigious university, and a salary to match the cheap standards of UC (i.e. 'you should be glad to be allowed to work here, do not bother us asking for still more money') I certainly could not afford to eat/drink at The Anchorage, although I did live in the building. The Hyde Park Coffee Shop up the street was more my speed. Anyway, Mrs. Fermi was good friends with Doctor and Mrs. Beadle, (in those days _he_ was president of UC) so it just seemed 'prudent' IMO, for this Young Man to do what was expected of him. With this preamble in mind, Mrs. Fermi told me this acccount of the closing days of World War II: "Enrico and several fellow employees in his lab were asked to go out to Alamagordo, NM, to monitor one of the test explosions. It was all very hush-hush, secrecy was still in effect and quite widely enforced. He took me along, and was to report to a certain place about forty miles out in the desert about 3 AM that day. We checked into a motel outside Alamagordo, then drove out to the place where Encrico was to set up his observation equipment. As luck would have it, it started raining, a very hard drenching rain. We sat in the car and waited until the rain stopped, then he sat up his testing gear. The test explosion was to happen at 4 AM, but 4 AM came and went; no bomb test. "Finally Enrico got to thinking it out and he said that maybe because of the heavy rain the test had been called off. He would need to check with the other scientists and see what was going on. He packed up all his equipment and we drove back toward Alamagordo. The only place that was open at that time of night was the motel we were staying in, so he drove the car up and stopped next to the public phone in the parking lot. He put a nickel in the phone and waited and waited and waited for an answer from the operator; which never happened. He finally slammed the phone down in disgust and said 'I am going to find out what is going on here.' We got back in the car, and starting from that payphone booth, he began driving slowly down the street, all the while stickihg his head out of the car window studying the overhead wires. We went down one street, then the wires turned another way and we started going down that street. I know why he put the nickle in the phone; all the scientists on this mission had agreed that if anything went wrong they would talk in code to each oher; him in Alamadordo, the other guys elsewhere. Anyway, driving down the street he suddenly saw what he was looking for; there was this one house and out of the sky from various directions came bunches of telephone wires; all the wires went in through a hole on the side of this lady's house. A bunch of wires as thick as your wrist; all came out of the sky from various directions and went into this house. "It just looked like any regular house; but the front porch light was turned on, the front door was open but the screen door was latched. In the house itself sat a telephone switchboard, with bunches of lights blinking off and on. A radio was playing soft music in the background and there was a sofa nearby; stretched out on the sofa was a woman who was sound asleep. "Enrico banged and pounded on the door for a couple minutes, then the lady must have woke up; she sat up sort of startled, looked over at Enrico by the door, then turned and looked at the switchboard all glowing with people waiting for service. She looked back at Enrico and literally jerked to her feet, stood up, walked over to the switchboard, sat down and began taking the calls as fast as she could. Enrico said to me as he got back in the car, let's go back to my observation point. And we drove out there right away; Enrico set up his test gear once again, and about eight or ten minutes after we got there, the test explosion went off. "We found out later that all those guys had been trying to get in touch with one another since a few minutes after 4 AM, but the central swithboard for that area was going unanswered while this woman had her nap. I cannot blame her, really, yes, she should have been awake and alert, but given that she worked nights and had to sleep in the daytime, it was a 'mere' 115 degrees the day before, too hot to sleep during the day when she should have been, and then that night it rained, blessed cool air and she fell asleep. I doubt if on a typical night there were ever more than one or two calls through the board all night (there was a 'night bell' and a 'flashing light' which should have woken her up in those cases) but somehow they did not do so. "I seriously doubt to this day that the lady knows the reason the atomic test explosion was delayed for an hour and fifteen minutes was because _she_ was asleep. Enrico said to me 'I am not going to tell on her and get her in trouble.' She looked to me like just a teenage girl anyway." ---------------- Now that was the story as told by Laura Fermi, eighteen years after it happened, and twenty-five years (my first relaying of it) after I heard it and now forty years (my second relaying of it.) Is it a true story or not? Or was Mrs. Fermi a wee bit forgetful that night? Or did I have too many shots of brandy or some other after-dinner liquor in me? PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2004 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE JUST 65 CENTS ONE OR TWO INQUIRIES CHARGED TO YOUR CREDIT CARD! REAL TIME, UP TO DATE! SPONSORED BY TELECOM DIGEST AND EASY411.COM SIGN UP AT http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest ! ************************ Visit http://www.mstm.okstate.edu and take the next step in your career with a Master of Science in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) degree from Oklahoma State University (OSU). This 35 credit-hour interdisciplinary program is designed to give you the skills necessary to manage telecommunications networks, including 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 ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #456 ****************************** | |