For your convenience in reading: Subject lines are printed in RED and
Moderator replies when issued appear in BROWN.
Previous Issue (just one)
Classified Ads
TD Extra News
Add this Digest to your personal
or  
Read Daily Spam News
TELECOM Digest Sun, 25 Dec 2005 21:41:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 580 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Spying on Telephone Calls is OK, Says Powell (Associated Press Newswire) Re: Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report (harold@hallikainen) Unanswered Calls to Cell Phones? (Lisa Hancock) Entire New York Times Available On-Line (Lisa Hancock) Taxes, was: NYC Transit Strike Midst Cold Weather and Christmas (Burstein) Re: NYC Transit Strike Midst Cold Weather and Christmas (John Smith) Re: Cell Phone Extenders? (Rik) Re: Florida Attorney General: My Email is Not Spam! (John R. Levine) Re: Florida Attorney General: My Email is Not Spam! (John McHarry) 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: Associated Press News Wire <ap@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Spying on Telephone Calls is OK, Says Colin Powell Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2005 19:02:24 -0600 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Over this holiday weekend, we have given some attention to the National Security Agency and its massive intrusion into people's privacy via the telephone. In the Digest for Saturday evening, I printed (what had been) the 'secret charter' of the agency founded during President Truman's administration in 1952. It was so secret, that most people knew nothing about its formation at all for several years, and even today, not a lot is known about the NSA. What we have found out about NSA in recent months was that President Bush has used them for a lot of 'warrantless wire tapping of people suspected to be 'terrorists' as part of Bush's 'war on terrorism'. An article on the Associated Press newswire earlier Sunday quoted an interview (also earlier today) from former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Here are some excerpts from today's interview with Powell. PAT] ==================================== Powell: 'Nothing Wrong' With Eavesdropping Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday supported government eavesdropping to prevent terrorism but said a major controversy over presidential powers could have been avoided by obtaining court warrants. Powell said that when he was in the Cabinet, he was not told that President Bush authorized a warrantless National Security Agency surveillance operation after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Appearing on ABC's "This Week" Powell said he sees "absolutely nothing wrong with the president authorizing these kinds of actions" to protect the nation. But he added, "My own judgment is that it didn't seem to me, anyway, that it would have been that hard to go get the warrants. And even in the case of an emergency, you go and do it." The New York Times reported on its Internet site Friday that the NSA has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States. The program bypassed the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Powell said Congress will need to judge whether Bush is correct in his assertion that he could approve eavesdropping without first obtaining court orders. "And that's going to be a great debate," Powell said. Powell, who also is a former chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, had no reservations when asked whether eavesdropping should continue. "Of course it should continue," he said. "And nobody is suggesting that the president shouldn't do this." 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 For more headline news from Associated Press, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No one obects, , that is, except for all the Democratic members of Congress and quite a few of the Republican members of that body. PAT] ------------------------------ From: harold@hallikainen.com <harold@hallikainen.com> Subject: Re: Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report Date: 25 Dec 2005 08:52:29 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com How about a new email header that identifies whether the message is terrorist related or not? That'd simplify their work a lot! Harold [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's a lot like my tongue in cheek suggestion that ICANN open a TLD for .spam and .scam. How many users do you think would tag their email as .terrorist related? Probably sbout as many would identify their writing as '.spam and in fact, later in this current issue we are going to have more comments about the Florida Atttorney General who has b.s. 'ed his way around the spammed rules by flatly declaring it does not apply in his instance. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Unanswered Calls to Cell Phones? Date: 25 Dec 2005 12:41:30 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com If you call a cellphone (without voicemail) and it doesn't answer, after a few rings an intercept recording will come on and tell you the party is not available and terminate the call. When you reach that recording, is that call chargeable? I don't think it should be since it was unanswered, but my experience is that one does get charged. A few years ago I was meeting a friend at a convention, and I was to call his cell phone from a pay phone upon my arrival. His cell phone number was long distance from that point. I called a few times using my Calling Card but couldn't reach him and I was billed for the calls. (I complained and they took it off.) Now I realize most people today have such low per-call fees (ie 10c) so this isn't an issue, but there are times from a pay phone, long distance, or peak period cell phone roaming where the per-call charge is indeed significant, even as much as a dollar or more per minute. It doesn't seem to fair to charge for unanswered calls. I don't know if traditional supervision (call answered) signals are passed back from cell phone switches. [public replies, please] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Entire New York Times Available On-Line Date: 25 Dec 2005 12:43:11 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I understand the entire New York Times going back to its beginning, is now available on-line for a modest fee. Some libraries have this for their patrons free of charge and one can access it from home. The database includes advertisements and is searchable. My question about this is _how_ did they manage to get it all on? Presumably they had some automated scanning process to read in the microfilm pages and convert them to .PDF text, but considerable human effort must have been needed to reconcile errors, deal with the random blocking of articles and ads as they appeared on a page, and the continuation of articles from one page to another. When you consider how thick the newspaper is and how long its been published, you see what a massive task that was. Also the scanning software, reading from microfilm which is pretty coarse, must have been quite sophisticated. Anyway, I've used the on-line access and it's quite a powerful and convenient tool. Sitting at one's own PC is much easier than treking to a large library and fiddling with microfilm readers. One must locate the desired dates in an index book, and check separate books for each year. Then, one must find the proper reels of microfilm. It's a bit tricky to thread the film through the reader spools and lens. Last, one must sequentially search for the specific date and article through the reel. A bit dizzying watching it spin by. While on the surface it would seem on-line access would surpass microfilm in every way, microfilm still has a few advantages: 1) On-line searching is very narrow. That is, if you're searching for articles on the Verrazano Bridge and you spell it wrong -- very easy to do with that word -- you're seach will come up empty. But in a hard copy index, as long as you have "Ver" you should find what you want. Further, while looking in the index book, you might see other entries of interest which you don't get in an on-line search. 2) You get the article and only the article from on-line. If viewing the microfilm, you get to see the whole newspaper of the time frame. Often there are sidebar articles which might be of related interest. You see how your article appeared in the paper -- as a page one headline or buried in the classifieds on page 90. You also see the advertisements of the day. In my research, I've often accidently stumbled articles of high interest that just happened to be in the paper in that time span. 3) Sometimes there are alternative resources in the library which you don't have at home. Yes, going to a major library can be a nuisance (the ones I use have parking problems). But there are other indexes, such as the Reader's Guide to Periodicals, and other publications available only on microfilm, such as Newsweek and Business Week, that may be necessary to round out your research. The New York Times is a newspaper of record and a good resource, but it is by no means the final authority on any subject and a good researcher will check alternative sources as well. 4) Microfilm access is usually free; unless your library pays for the service, on-line research has a fee. [public replies, please] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are good rationales for both microfilm and online records. What I understand about the New York Times project (and the Chicago Tribune, which began in 1847) is that many of the very old pages are done in .pdf style or something similar to .jpg , that is instead of scanning all those old articles, they are taking a _photograph_ of the page and putting that photographic image on the computer. That would seem to be an easier way of handling it. Chicago Tribune started with miicrofilm of every page of every back issue from 1871 forward; between 1847 and October, 1871 they have a scattered selection of back issues (those that were not lost in the Great Fire). By using the .pdf and-or .jpg format, reasearchers get the context of the articles and the advertisements on the pages, etc. One thing I have noticed about New York Times in recent months is how you can have all you want _at no charge_ through their several RSS feeds and news wires. I put a hundred or more articles each day on the page http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html, which are available with no registration or login requirements. Just go to that URL and spend the day reading their stuff as desired. I have the top 20-25 news items each day from several news categories with their blessings. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein <dannyb@panix.com> Subject: Taxes, was: NYC Transit Strike Midst Cold Weather and Christmas Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2005 04:14:11 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In <telecom24.579.4@telecom-digest.org> sethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) writes: [ Responding to TELECOM Digest Editor regarding NYC's Mayor Bloomberg's non-control of the State chartered transit system ] > Then why can't he get the commuter tax back? (There used to be a NYC > Income Tax for non-residents of the city who worked there, but the > state turned it off. Turning it on to lower taxes paid by city > residents who vote for mayor would help Bloomberg.) If you really believe that letting NYC tap additional tax revenue (from, in this case, non city residents) would lead to a corresponding decrease in other taxes, I'd suggest you're demonstrating a very rosy view of government finances. obtelecom: There's an extra special "tax" on telephone services (wired and wireless) that's applied to the dozen or so counties (that's NYC and a hefty chunk of the surrounding area) supposedely earmarked for the mass transit system. Note that I just spent a half hour going through lots and lots of financial web pages and couldn't find the actual figure ... _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: John Smith <user@example.net> Subject: Re: NYC Transit Strike Midst Cold Weather and Christmas Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2005 08:08:27 GMT Howard S. Wharton wrote: > There are many who would like to change the Taylor Law. There are many > points to the law that protects the public employee. We cannot pick > or choose what laws we want to obey. Roger Toussaint, President of TWU Local 100, responded to Mayor Bloomberg, who had made remarks essentially the same as those above. He said, "There is a higher calling than the law and that's justice and equality. Had Rosa Parks answered the call of the law instead of the higher call of justice, many of us who are driving buses today would still be in the back of the bus." In other words, there are times we MUST pick and choose what laws we will obey. Gary Novosielski "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality." --Dante Alighieri ------------------------------ From: Rik <hrasmussen@nc.rr.com> Subject: Re: Cell Phone Extenders? Date: 25 Dec 2005 07:55:45 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I concur. I work for a city, managing the Public Safety radio system. I see the same thing in our city. They do not want towers, but everyone complains about coverage. Talk to Verizon. It may be also that you are on the edge of their footprint and they have to be sure they do not encroach on the neighboring carrier's area. That is a big issue here in North Carolina because Verizon is only licensed for some areas, not the entire state. Rik ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Florida Attorney General: My Email is Not Spam! Date: 24 Dec 2005 22:11:04 -0500 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Spam has to be "deceptive"? It does to be illegal. Thank CAN-SPAM and the DMA for that. R's, John ------------------------------ From: John McHarry <jmcharry@comcast.net> Subject: Re: Florida Attorney General: My Email is Not Spam! Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2005 22:42:08 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net They all say that, don't they? ------------------------------ 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 #580 ****************************** | |