TELECOM Digest     Sat, 24 Dec 2005 17:21:00 EST    Volume 24 : Issue 578

Inside This Issue:                                      Merry Christmas!!

    Avoiding Post-Holiday Online Shopping Blues (Jim Finkle)
    Netflix Wins First Round in DVD Rental War (Gina Keating)
    Florida Attorney General: My Email Are Not Spam! (Reuters News Wire)
    IE Bug Allows Hackers to Phish via Your Google Desktop (Robert McMillan)
    College Has a Cell Phone Movie Contest (William Kates)
    Internet History Re-Opening Soon (TELECOM Digest Editor)
    Google's AOL Investment May Lead to IPO (Michael Leidtke)
    Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report (Monty Solomon)
    Re: Sun Sets on Transit Strike (Henry)
    Re: Sun Sets on Transit Strike (Steve Sobol)
    Re: Cell Phone Extenders? (AES)
    Re: As Decency Issue Boils, Comcast Sets a Family Tier (Seth Breidbart)
    Merry Christmas For a Dog Who was Frozen to Railroad Track (AP News Wire)

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: Jim Finkle <reuters2telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Avoiding Post-Holiday Online Shopping Blues
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 14:36:53 -0600


By Jim Finkle

Shopping online from the comfort of your sofa may be convenient, but it can
lead to hassles after the holiday purchases are delivered.

As retailers set more strict return policies, unwanted gifts can cause
headaches on both sides.

Online retailers may receive more complaints over returns this year,
if only because they are poised to post record sales.

U.S. online holiday sales will jump roughly 24 to 25 percent this
year, according to projections from two major market research
firms. That growth rate dwarfs forecasts for overall holiday spending,
which analysts expect will rise between 5 and 7 percent.

Online retailers who were able to ship last-minute orders may have
gotten a boost from the New York transit strike, which affected the
mobility of about 7 million commuters.

"The ability to order online ... was a major attraction to New York
area residents when it was difficult to reach their favorite retail
stores," says Tal Zamir, director of the market research firm comScore
Networks.

But in some cases, New Yorkers eager to shop online may have ended up
accepting return policies that are stricter than those at stores where
they normally shop.

One of the biggest frustrations is having to foot the bill to send
back unwanted items, says JupiterResearch analyst Patti Freeman Evans.

Somebody returning a heavy desktop computer with a $400 price tag
could end up paying more than $150 in shipping fees.

"I don't want to get stuck having to send things back," says Rebecca
Miller, an administrative assistant at a Boston law firm who does most
of her holiday shopping online.

Online retailers frequently charge a restocking fee for taking back
opened items -- especially computers, digital cameras and other
electronics products. They average about 15 percent, but can be
higher.

Some traditional retailers also impose such fees. They include The
Apple Store, Best Buy, Circuit City and Target.

Costco, which is known for having what may be the industry's most
liberal customer satisfaction guarantees, is one of several chains
that do not charge restocking fees.

To avoid unpleasant surprises, Miller prefers buying from familiar
sites such as Macys.com, PotteryBarn.com and WilliamsSonoma.com --
places where she shopped before they opened online stores and which
will allow the return of goods at local outlets.

But she shuns the Web when it comes to electronics -- products like
iPod digital music players and computers.

She wants to look a salesperson in the eye, ask questions and know
that she can bring the item back.

"I just need more help," she says.

Her approach has helped her to avoid getting caught up in one of the
biggest traps on Web shopping -- dealing with retailers that don't
accept returns under any circumstances.

Outpost.com advertises a 30-day money-back guarantee on most
items. But there can be exceptions, conditions and/or restrictions.
Its Web site says that in some cases it has the right to outright
refuse returns on merchandise from Apple, Axis, Casio, Hewlett-Packard,
IBM, Micron or Toshiba, among others.

J&R.com charges restocking fees, but its site doesn't say how
much. Charges are determined on a case-by-case basis, depending on the
condition of the goods and packaging material.

Amazon.com says it charges a 50 percent restocking fee on returns of
CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, software and video games that have been taken
out of their plastic wrap.

To avoid some of these problems, consumers can look to shopping sites
for advice. PriceGrabber.com, Shopping.com, Shopzilla.com, and
YahooShopping.com offer ratings on Web retailers, along with reviews
from individual shoppers.

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. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at
http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or) http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html

For more news headlines please go to:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html

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

From: Gina Keating <reuters@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Netflix Wins First Round in DVD Rental War
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 14:38:59 -0600


By Gina Keating

When the head of Netflix Inc. said rival Blockbuster Inc. threw
"everything but the kitchen sink at us," the world's largest video
rental chain responded by sending him ... a kitchen sink.

The message from last January's interchange was clear: Blockbuster,
with $6 billion in 2004 revenue and 5,500 domestic stores, intended to
own online DVD rental, an $8 billion industry pioneered by Netflix.

"This year was about Blockbuster taking a run at us," Netflix Chief
Executive Reed Hastings told Reuters at the company's Beverly Hills
offices.  "They chopped price. They emptied their balance sheet."

But despite Blockbuster's costly offensive, Hastings said Netflix was
on track for net subscriber additions of 1.5 million for 2005 for a
total of 4.1 million -- the midpoint of its target range.

Meanwhile, Blockbuster, which has been roiled by management and debt
problems, saw the subscriber base at its 16-month-old online service
stall at 1 million.

Chief Executive John Antioco told Reuters that Blockbuster Online was
"proud of what it has accomplished in 2005 with over 1 million
subscribers in over a year after it was launched."

Antioco had threatened earlier this year to leave the company -- and
take a $54 million severance package with him -- during a proxy fight
launched by dissident investor Carl Icahn.

TRADING PLACES

The companies also switched places in market value over the course of
an intense, yearlong price war, with Netflix -- which has no debt --
now worth $1.5 billion, compared with Blockbuster at $684 million and
more than $1 billion in debt.

"Online rental is the only thing we do, and (our) advantage is focus
and desperation," Hastings said. "So we have nowhere to go, right? It
was win or die, and that's very focusing."

Citigroup, which initiated coverage of Netflix this week with a "buy"
rating, said the company "should put added pressure on in-store
rentals, causing more locations to close.

"This creates a chain reaction that should further help (Netflix) sign
new subscribers, as consumers increasingly find themselves having to
travel farther to find an in-store rental location," the Citigroup
note said.

Citigroup put a $39 price target on Netflix shares, which now trade in
the $27 range. A year ago, Hastings had seen the price plunge from $39
to $9 on his decision to run at break-even and spend heavily to
quickly add subscribers.

The company plans to maintain this approach for at least the
short-term.

"We're feeling confident of another strong quarter," Hastings
said. "We're investing very heavily in marketing this quarter. Our
view is that a very aggressive marketing investment now will help
widen the competitive gap between us and Blockbuster."

Netflix is testing lower prices in all its subscription plans to see
if the resulting subscriber growth makes up for the reduction, he
said.

NO SHOPPING PLANS

Despite holding $182 million in cash, Netflix has no plans to go
shopping in the coming year, Hastings said.

"You (make) acquisitions if your current market does not look like it
has enough room for you to grow, and our current market look
enormous," he said.

Growth will come at the expense of stores operated by Blockbuster,
Movie Gallery Inc. and smaller chains, Hastings said. These companies
saw their collective rental revenue decline by nearly 12 percent in
the third quarter, prompting them to accelerate store closings.

Netflix itself has had setbacks. The appearance of Blockbuster Online
and the threat of Amazon.com Inc. entering the U.S. Internet rental
market forced Netflix to halt its expansion into the United Kingdom.

The company also had to withdraw its plans to launch a limited online
delivery service for movies because of problems obtaining licenses for
films from Hollywood studios.

The competitive landscape improved in May, when Wal-Mart Stores
Inc. got out of online DVD rental and agreed to direct its subscribers
to Netflix for rental services.

As for Amazon, whose online video rental presence is limited to the
UK, Citigroup agreed with Hastings that Netflix's growth and market
dominance are increasing the barriers to entry in the United States.

"It was the shortest, most intense competitive squall that I have ever
seen," Hastings said. "The last thing on my mind was walking away from
it. I would have ridden it down to the very bottom, still fighting."

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. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at
http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or) http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html

More news headlines can be found at:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html

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

From: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Florida Attorney General: My Email is Not Spam!
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 14:41:08 -0600


Florida's attorney general has spearheaded an aggressive campaign
against unsolicited e-mails, or spam. But as a candidate for governor,
he appears to be generating some unwanted Internet clutter himself.

Charlie Crist was a staunch defender of a tough anti-spam law passed
by the state legislature last year, under which violators can be fined
up to $500 for every e-mail they send.

But a report in Thursday's St. Petersburg Times said Crist, a
Republican gubernatorial candidate, had annoyed some residents of the
state by sending them unwanted e-mails promoting his candidacy and
soliciting campaign donations.

Joe Spooner, a 41-year-old investment adviser, told the newspaper he
had no idea how the Crist campaign got his e-mail address but
repeatedly tried to unsubscribe.

After his fifth request to be removed, Spooner sent the Crist campaign
an e-mail of his own. He accused Crist of hypocrisy because of the way
he seemed to have forgotten all about his vocal crackdown on spammers.

'Do I need to file a complaint with the attorney general's office?"
Spooner wrote.

The newspaper quoted other people who had received unsolicited e-mails
from Crist's campaign.

Crist was not immediately available for comment. But Vivian Myrtetus,
a spokeswoman for his gubernatorial campaign, denied that he was
somehow holding himself to different standards than other e-mailers.

"This is not spam. This is truthful, it's straight forward. We're
honest. To be spam it has to be, under Florida law, defined as being
deceptive," Myrtetus.

"The attorney general does not consider this spam and is, as you know,
at the forefront of protecting citizens against that."

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. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at
http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or) http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html

For more news headlines, along with a classical music background, go
to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/KOSU.org

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

From: Robert McMillan <idgnews.telecom-digest.org>
Subject: IE Bug Lets Hackers Phish With Google Desktop
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 14:44:14 -0600


Hacker could scan your hard drive and steal sensitive info.

Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

A bug in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser gives phishers a way to
scan the hard drives of Google Desktop users, according to an Israeli
hacker. Because of a flaw in the way IE processes Web pages, a
malicious Web site could use the attack to steal sensitive information
like credit card numbers or passwords from the hard drives of its
visitors.

"Google Desktop users who use IE are currently completely exposed,"
wrote hacker Matan Gillon in an e-mail interview. "An experienced
attacker can covertly harvest their hard drives for sensitive
information such as passwords and credit card numbers. Since Google
also indexes e-mails which can be read in the Web interface itself,
it's also possible to access them using this attack."


The Details

Gillon has posted an extensive description of how such an attack would
work, along with a proof of concept exploit, on his blog.

The IE bug concerns the way Microsoft's browser processes Web page
layout information using the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) format.  The
CSS format is widely used to give Web sites a consistent look and
feel, but attackers can take advantage of the way that IE processes
CSS to get Google Desktop to reveal sensitive information.

Hackers would first need to trick users into visiting a malicious Web
site for the attack to be successful, Gillon says. The attack works
with IE 6 and Google Desktop version 2, and may also work on other
versions of Microsoft's browser, but not on non-Microsoft browsers
like Firefox or Opera, he adds.

Turn Off JavaScript

Users can nullify the attack by turning off JavaScript in their
browsers, Gillon says. This can be done by disabling "Active
scripting" in IE's Internet Options menu. JavaScript is a popular
scripting language used by Web developers to make their sites more
dynamic.

Users need to be particularly wary of the Web sites they visit these
days, because of another unpatched IE vulnerability that could be used
to take over a user's PC. Hackers posted sample code that exploited
this problem over a week ago, and Microsoft said that hackers are
already using the code in attacks. As with the new CSS problem, users
must first be tricked into visiting a malicious Web site for this IE
bug to be exploited.

Some security experts believe that Microsoft is in the process of
rushing out a patch to fix this problem before these attacks become
more widespread. These attacks can also be avoided by disabling
JavaScript in IE, or by using an alternative browser.

Microsoft executives were unavailable to comment on the CSS bug, but a
spokeswoman for the company's public relations agency said the issue
is being investigated. Microsoft is not aware of any attacks resulting
from the hole, she said.

Copyright 2005 IDG News Service

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

From: William Kates <ap@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: College Launches Cell Phone Film Contest
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 14:45:50 -0600


By WILLIAM KATES, Associated Press Writer

An Ithaca College dean is encouraging students to instead think small
 -- and she's offering a $5,000 prize to do it. The school has invited
high school and college students across America to submit a 30-second
movie shot entirely with a cell phone.

It may come off like a gimmick, but Dean Dianne Lynch has no doubts
about the contest's academic value.

In today's media marketplace -- where cell phones can take pictures,
play music and games and connect to Web sites -- it's all about
thinking small and mobile.

"Historically, we've always had students thinking bigger and
bigger. It's gone from radio to television to the movie screen, to the
era of blockbuster films. All of a sudden, things have reversed and
everything is getting smaller," said Lynch.

The submission deadline is Jan. 10. A winner will be chosen from among
10 finalists and announced online Jan. 30.

The idea came to Lynch last year while she was in New York City
attending an industry conference. One of the topics was the future of
mobile delivery of content.

Disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the July bombings in London
showed what cell phone cameras are capable of, as everyday people used
them to provide TV stations and the Internet with vivid images of the
devastation.

Bigger houses, bigger cars, bigger portions at the local fast food
joint. In America, the guiding maxim is to think big -- really big.

There are an estimated 2 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide
and 194.5 million in the United States, according to the Washington,
D.C.-based CTIA The Wireless Association.

About 130 million Americans own cell phones with camera capabilities
and approximately half of those camera phones also shoot video, said
Roger Entner, an analyst with Ovum, a Boston-based technology
consulting firm.

This fall, MTV launched "Head and Body," a comedy series of eight
programs created exclusively for cell phone users. Last year, Zoie
Films, an Atlanta-based producer of independent films and festivals,
ran what it billed as the world's first cell-phone film festival.

And in October, the Forum des Images in Paris held its first Pocket
Film Festival, which included everything from 30-second shorts to
mini-soap operas to full-length features.

"It's exciting. We were discussing this last year in film club," said
Sasha Stefanova, an Ithaca College junior from Kazanlak, Bulgaria, who
is majoring in photography and visual arts. As soon as she heard about
Lynch's contest, "I went immediately to the dean's office and said,
`How can I enter?' I love old films, and old-school techniques. The
challenge here is how to get a meaningful idea into such an everyday
tool."

Stefanova is still pondering her entry. She is traveling home to
Bulgaria for the holidays and plans to shoot scenes during her
travels.

"It will be about my generation's mobility and the falling down of
borders," she said.

Sudhanshu Saria is a senior in filmmaking and likes the novel
challenges presented by working with a cell phone and a 1- to 2-inch
screen.

"There are definitely visual limitations. You have to be able to tell
a quick story. You can't really make it character-based," said Saria,
from Siliguri, India.

"With a super small screen, you can't have wide shots or crowd
scenes. The images have to be visually simple. You can sustain
closeups better than on a huge screen but some images may need to be
exaggerated to compensate for the small size of the screen," Saria
said.

Saria's initial reaction was that the contest "could be gimmicky
 ... But I hope people studying film will take it as my generation's
chance to provide a new language, a new way of thinking."

The rules of the contest are simple.

There must be a story, a narrative and sound, and the film must be
shot on a cell phone. The movies can be edited digitally on a computer
or a cell phone that has editing functions.

The technical quality of the movies will depend on the cell phones,
some of which can film with greater resolution than others. To ensure
fairness, all submissions will be judged in basic VGA (video graphic
array) quality, Lynch said.

The submissions will be reviewed by a panel of film students and
faculty, who will select 10 finalists. Those entries -- which can be
viewed on the contest Web site -- will be judged by a panel of faculty
and professional filmmakers.

"The challenge is, can you capture an audience member's attention in
30 seconds and hold it an environment where not only is the delivery
system small, but the time frame is short?" Lynch said. "Every single
frame matters. There's no excess. That's an incredible discipline to
develop."


On the Net:

http://www.cellflixfestival.org

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

Subject: Internet History Re-Opening Soon
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 15:32:43 EST
From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor)


I am expecting to have the Internet History page open again <<real soon>>,
probably by January 1, 2006.    I think you will be pleased with the
change in appearance, etc. A little work remains to be done.

      *****************************************
      I NEED TO HAVE THE GENTLEMAN WHO HAS BEEN
      HELPING ME ON THIS PLEASE GET IN TOUCH WITH
      ME IMMEDIATLY ABOUT A SERIOUS PROBLEM AT
      THIS POINT IN TIME. PLEASE CALL ME ON MY
      PRIVATE NUMBER WHICH I HAVE GIVEN TO YOU
      IN EMAIL IN THE PAST. TODAY IF POSSIBLE! 
      THANKS! 
      *****************************************

PAT

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

From: Michael Liedtke <ap@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Google's AOL Investment May Lead to IPO
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 14:47:24 -0600


By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer

Google Inc.'s $1 billion investment in America Online could lead to an
IPO in 2008, giving the online search engine leader and AOL parent
Time Warner Inc. an opportunity to capitalize on an Internet
advertising boom that they hope to fuel through their partnership.

The possible timeline for an initial public offering by AOL emerged in
a Friday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The
documents provide additional details about a deal announced earlier
this week that extends the business ties that Google and AOL formed
when they began working together in 2002.

Although Google will hold only a 5 percent stake in AOL, it retains
the right to demand an IPO beginning in July 2008, according to the
SEC documents. If Time Warner doesn't want to pursue an IPO then it
could buy back Google's stake based on a fair market appraisal, the
filing says.

Time Warner has been under pressure from a group of shareholders led
by hedge fund investor Carl Icahn to lift its stock, which has fallen
by 9 percent this year to continue a prolonged slide.

To help get the stock moving, AOL co-founder Steve Case said he
proposed pursuing a spin-off three months before his October
resignation from Time Warner's board of directors.

In an interview earlier this week, Time Warner Chairman Dick Parsons
declined to discuss whether the Google investment might be paving
AOL's path toward an IPO. He described the Google alliance as the best
way to increase AOL's market value, which stands at $20 billion, based
on the Google investment.

Google has had a golden touch since its own August 2004 IPO, raising
investor hopes that it can help AOL become more valuable. Google's
market value has increased from about $23 billion at the time of its
IPO to $125 billion today.

AOL was among the biggest beneficiaries of Google's IPO. When the two
companies first became business partners in 2002, Google awarded AOL
stock warrants that were later converted into 7.4 million shares - a
stake that Time Warner sold for $1.1 billion.

Google's shares fell $1.11 Friday to close at $430.93 on the Nasdaq
Stock Market and Time Warner's shares dipped 2 cents to close at
$17.68 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Under the new five-year deal announced earlier this week, AOL will now
have the right to use Google's search technology on its own and also
will receive a $300 million credit to advertise its content and
services through Google's vast marketing network.

Google in turn is depending on AOL to sell more graphical ads to
diversify the search engine beyond the text-based ads that generate
most of its profits. Google also will be able to draw upon AOL's huge
video library -- a resource that could help boost traffic to its own
Web site.

AOL's Internet-leading instant messaging service will become
compatible with Google's 4-month-old service next year, but Google's
users will have to register with AOL to gain access to the expanded
network, according to Friday's filing.

While most analysts have applauded Google's investment in AOL, the
response among some search engine users has been less enthusiastic.

Web logs, or blogs, are filled with comments expressing fears that
Google will begin giving preferential treatment to AOL content in its
search engine. Those concerns have been exacerbated by a provision of
the deal requiring Google to help AOL make its material easier to
index.

Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user
content, sought to reassure the search engine's users in a posting on
the company's own blog.

"Business partnerships will never compromise the integrity or
objectivity of our search results," Mayer wrote. "If a partner's page
ranks high, it's because they have a good answer to your search, not
because of their business relationship with us."


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. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at
http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or) http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html

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http://telecom-digrdy.ord/td-extra/tech-news.html

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

Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:26:55 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report


By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN
December 24, 2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and
analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications
flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping
program that President Bush approved after the Sept.  11, 2001,
attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to
current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and
voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than
the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected
by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication
system's main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic
surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation
of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to
streams of domestic and international communications, the officials
said.

The government's collection and analysis of phone and Internet traffic
have raised questions among some law enforcement and judicial
officials familiar with the program. One issue of concern to the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has reviewed some
separate warrant applications growing out of the N.S.A.'s surveillance
program, is whether the court has legal authority over calls outside
the United States that happen to pass through American-based
telephonic "switches," according to officials familiar with the
matter.

"There was a lot of discussion about the switches" in conversations
with the court, a Justice Department official said, referring to the
gateways through which much of the communications traffic flows.
"You're talking about access to such a vast amount of communications,
and the question was, How do you minimize something that's on a switch
that's carrying such large volumes of traffic? The court was very,
very concerned about that."

Since the disclosure last week of the N.S.A.'s domestic surveillance
program, President Bush and his senior aides have stressed that his
executive order allowing eavesdropping without warrants was limited to
the monitoring of international phone and e-mail communications
involving people with known links to Al Qaeda.

What has not been publicly acknowledged is that N.S.A. technicians,
besides actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed
through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of
patterns that might point to terrorism suspects. Some officials
describe the program as a large data-mining operation.

The current and former government officials who discussed the program
were granted anonymity because it remains classified.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24spy.html?ex=1293080400&en=016edb46b79bde83&ei=5090


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you ever wondered how N.S.A. first
got started and why, the next issue over the Christmas weekend will
tell you all about it.  PAT]

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

From: henry999@eircom.net (Henry)
Subject: Re: Sun Sets on Transit Strike
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 01:05:36 +0200
Organization: Elisa Internet customer


Lena <lenagainster@gmail.com> wrote:

> What it boils down to is that Toussaint is all mouth and no mettle,
> and didn't want to park his butt in jail for the benefit of the
> transit workers from whom he extorts dues.

Here comes Lena Anonymous, another one with the loaded agenda:

'extorts', eh?

How pathetic.

Cheers,

Henry Larsen

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

From: Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net>
Subject: Re: Sun Sets on Transit Strike
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 11:23:03 -0800
Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com


Lena wrote:

> What it boils down to is that Toussaint is all mouth and no mettle,
> and didn't want to park his butt in jail for the benefit of the
> transit workers from whom he extorts dues.

The way I understand it, the union was being advised by its own legal
counsel to settle, and the union leaders ignored the advice. (How
accurate is that? I haven't been following the story.)


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

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

From: AES <siegman@stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: Cell Phone Extenders?
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 16:25:55 -0800
Organization: Stanford University


In article <telecom24.577.6@telecom-digest.org>, Rik
<hrasmussen@nc.rr.com> wrote:

> These devices are illegal to install and operate. Only a licensee is
> authorized by the FCC to install these devices. The fact that they are
> easily purchased does not make them legal to use.

> They are frequently the source of interference to commercial wireless
> systems and more importantly, they are frequently the source of
> interference to Public Safety radio systems.

> There have been recent instances of law enforcement showing up at a
> location where one of these devices is in use and demanding it be
> disabled to stop interference to their radio system.

I had no idea this was the case -- and maybe it explains why Googling
on the topic brought up such a mixed bag of mostly not very useful
responses.

So, here's a Verizon customer, sitting at the north end of Silicon
Valley, not way out in the hills, just a mile or two from downtown
Palo Alto -- and less than one tower in the display on my phone.  Any
advice on how to approach Verizon about this?

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

From: sethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart)
Subject: Re: As Decency Issue Boils, Comcast Sets a Family Tier
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 04:07:56 UTC
Organization: Society for the Promulgation of Cruelty to the Clueless


In article <telecom24.577.1@telecom-digest.org>, Monty Solomon
<monty@roscom.com> wrote:

> By Keith Reed, Globe Staff 

> Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable provider, said yesterday it
> will offer a package of family-friendly channels in 2006, following
> increasing pressure on the industry from legislators and regulators to
> curb access to violent and sexually explicit content.

When are they going to stop sending porn spam to a 12-year-old
account?

Seth


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I assume you meant an email account
which has been open for twelve years, _not_ a twelve year old person.
PAT]

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

From: Associated Press News Wire <ap@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: A Merry Christmas For a Helpless Dog Who was Frozen Outside
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 14:53:30 -0600


     Men Rescue Dog Frozen to Railroad Tracks

CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis. (AP) -- He's missing a lot of hair, but a
Siberian husky has a new name and a new life, thanks to a construction
worker and police officer who rescued him from a railroad track
minutes before a train arrived.

Jeremy Majorowicz thought it was a little strange that the dog had
been sitting on the track for an hour-and-a-half in the cold, and
stranger still that he wouldn't accept a bite of muffin.

"I have two dogs myself, so I didn't want to leave the dog if there
was something wrong," Majorowicz said, so he called police.

Officer Tim Strand said the dog was "shivering unmercifully" when he
arrived Monday and would not come to him, so he called animal control
officer Al Heyde, who also couldn't get the dog to budge.

"I lifted his tail and hind quarters, and saw he was literally frozen
to the tracks," Strand said.

Strand pulled hard on the dog's tail and was able to release him, but
the dog lost a lot of hair. "He gave a heck of a whelp," he said.

Just 10 minutes later, a train came down the track.

"If the dog would have seen that train I'm afraid it would have been
the end of the pupster," Strand said.

The dog was taken to the Chippewa County Humane Association, where
workers named him "Ice Train."

Copyright The Associated Press. 


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And ...  happy holidays to all our
readers here as well.  Seasons greetings to one and all!   PAT]

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


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