TELECOM Digest     Sat, 31 Dec 2005 23:08:00 EST    Volume 24 : Issue 591

Inside This Issue:                                Happy New Year to All !

    Five Year Wait for Cable Service (PR Newswire)
    California Storm Prompts Urgent Evacuation Request (Paul Elias)
    Re: Amtrak Passengers Stranded in Woods in Georgia (Wes Leatherock)
    Government Prepares for Next Big Disaster (Larry Margasak)
    Re: Mother Decides to Fight Downloading Suit on Her Own (William Warren)
    Re: Secret Court Modified Bush Wiretap Requests (jmeissen@aracnet.com)
    Re: Secret Court Modified Bush Wiretap Requests (William Warren)
    Re: Cell Phone Extenders? (Rik)
    Re: Cell Phone Extenders? (John Levine)
    Re: Unknown Name Call in Middle of Night (GarsDuBell@aol.com)
    Re: No Demarc Point (Tom Schmidt)
    Re: Web Services Thrive, but Outages Outrage Users (Ron Chapman)
    Cyber Giving Website - The Last Day for Giving This Year (Patrick Townson)

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: PR Newswire <prn@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Five Year Wait for Cable Service
Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 18:20:07 -0600


New York Man's 5-Year Fight for Service Takes 1st Place in Worst
Cable Nightmare Contest; 'Cable Dragon You Down?' Web site Theme Rings in
New Year

INDIANAPOLIS, Dec. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Think your wait for the cable
guy was too long? Count yourself lucky you aren't David Shapiro, who
waged a five-year long battle that took him from town to state
government offices before he could get affordable cable television
service at his New York home.

"I felt like I was the only one in the world left on dial-up," said
Shapiro, who by day works on supercomputers for IBM but until October
depended on spotty dial-up connections to reach the electronic world.

Shapiro's saga earned him an iPod Nano and the dubious honor of
submitting December's worst cable horror story to
http://www.MyCableNightmare.com , a Web site that offers frustrated
consumers a forum to vent about bad cable TV service. It offers the
monthly contest as a consolation prize for those who have suffered the
most. The Web site's current theme, "Cable Dragon You Down?" wonders
if 2006 will be The Year of The Cable Rate Increase (Again.)

Consumers for Cable Choice (C4CC), a national alliance of individuals
and groups working for cable TV competition to control prices and to
improve program offerings and customer service, sponsors the cable
nightmare Web site.

"David's story is a clear example of why we need competition in the
cable TV market right away," said Robert K. Johnson, C4CC president.
"Incumbent cable companies have no incentive to value consumers, and
as a result, rates are skyrocketing while customer service is
plummeting.  Competition will reverse that course."

Shapiro, one of the newest members of C4CC, learned firsthand about
the need for regulatory reform in 2000 when he sought cable service at
his home, which is in the town of Esopus near the Highland town
border. Shapiro has a Highland address, but cable service was
available only through Esopus.  In separate offers over five years,
the company authorized to serve his neighborhood offered to install
cable at Shapiro's house for fees ranging from more than $18,000 to
nearly $26,500. The Highland-based cable company would install for
free, but it didn't have an Esopus franchise and as such, couldn't
legally make the connection.

Frustrated and unwilling to pay such a premium for installation,
Shapiro repeatedly appealed to town officials and the New York State
Public Service Commission (Case No. 427808). Finally, the Town of
Esopus applied for a second cable franchise and won the state approval
it needed to offer competition.

In October 2005, Shapiro finally got cable service through the new
provider. His installation cost: zero dollars. He bought the company's
triple play of Internet/phone/television service, eliminating three
land lines for phone service, along with his monthly dial-up Internet
Service Provider fee. Total savings were over $100 month.

"I wouldn't have been as frustrated by my lack of high-speed access if
the entire area around me also couldn't get it," Shapiro said. "But
around here, almost everyone else already had high speed Internet
service.  At work I was the only one stuck on dial-up service."

Johnson said the Web site compilation of cable nightmares is designed
to demonstrate to policy makers just how badly reform is needed.  "If
you think Dave's experience is bad -- and it is -- look at our Top Ten
Cable Nightmares of 2005," Johnson said, referring to the Worst of the
Worst list from 2005 available by contacting Cheryl Reed at
cherylreed@synergy-mg.com .

About Consumers for Cable Choice, Inc.

Headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind. Consumers for Cable Choice, Inc.
is a national alliance of consumer advocacy groups, private citizens
and others who are committed to promoting maximum choice for consumers
in cable, video and broadband services. Consumers for Cable Choice
uses a combination of education and grassroots advocacy to impact
change, which will result in a deregulated and pro-consumer market
that stimulates fair price, more choices and better service options in
the cable television industry.  President Robert K. Johnson has been
advocating for policies that benefit residential and small business
consumers for more than 20 years. To learn more, visit
http://www.Consumers4Choice.org or http://www.MyCableNightmare.com .

Consumers for Cable Choice, Inc.

Web site: http://www.Consumers4Choice.org/
http://www.MyCableNightmare.com/

Copyright 2005, PRNewswire
Copyright 2005, InterestAlert

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

To see more news of interest, please go to:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html

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

From: Paul Elias <ap@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: California Storm Prompts Urgent Evacuation Request
Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 19:30:22 -0600


By PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press Writer

A powerful storm sent rivers and creeks over their banks and into
cities and set off mudslides that blocked major highways across
Northern California on Saturday. At least a dozen people had to be
rescued from the rushing water, and forecasters were warning of
another storm on Sunday.

California officials urged residents along the Napa and Russian rivers
and on hillsides to collect their valuables, gather emergency supplies
and get out.

In the city of Napa, near the heart of wine country, the river rose 5
feet over flood stage as water surged into downtown before beginning
to recede.  Napa officials estimated about 1,000 homes flooded.

"We had so much water in such a short amount of time that man hole
covers were popping all over the city," said Napa City Councilman
James Krider.

The Russian River was menacing the Sonoma County town of Guerneville,
where forecasters warned that the river was still rising and could
reach 14 feet above flood stage, and officials were urging residents
to evacuate.

Farther inland, Reno, Nev., was seeing its worst flooding since New
Year's Day 1997, when high water caused $1 billion in damage. The
Truckee River swamped downtown buildings on Saturday, and parts of
nearby Sparks were under 4 feet of water. Many businesses along the
river closed and owners spent the day piling sandbags.

Rescue crews also had their hands full, plucking stranded drivers from
cars and flooded homes across the region.

In Sonoma County alone, helicopters were used in six rescues, and
firefighters rescued two more people from a mobile home park, where 4
feet of rushing water washed at least one home off its foundation.

"We are just very strongly recommending that people living in the
lower areas lock up everything and go to higher ground," said Linda
Eubanks of Sonoma County's Office of Emergency Services. "Just because
it stopped raining doesn't mean the water is going down. In fact, we
are being warned there may be a bit more rain tonight and Sunday."

Rick Diaz took off on his own through a flooded Petaluma neighborhood
in a 14-foot Zodiac boat, ferrying residents to dry ground and
rescuing their pets.

"He's a hero," said a tearful Suzi Keber after the wetsuit-clad Diaz
rescued two pet lizards from her home.

In downtown San Anselmo, the creek overflowed into as many as 70
businesses, said town administrator Debbie Stutsman. Two people
rescued from the rising water there were hospitalized with
hypothermia, she said. Many business places were almost ruined.

"I'm looking out of my office now at merchants bringing their damaged
goods out into the street," Stutsman said. "The entire downtown area
was under 4 1/2 feet of water. Some go back and forth to the stores
bringing stuff out to dry; others stand guard over what is already
brought out."

"It's pretty bad all across town," she said.

Mudslides closed several major roads, including Interstate 80 in the
Sierra Nevada about 25 miles west of Reno. Six tractor-trailer rigs
were caught up in one slide on the interstate early Saturday, but no
injuries were reported. Troopers and others were turning motorists
away, warning them of danger ahead if they continued.

I-80, the major corridor linking Northern California and points east,
was expected to remain closed for at least a few days, said California
Department of Transportation spokesman Mark Dinger.

"No work can be done until the slide stabilizes and we don't know when
that will occur," Dinger said. "We won't endanger our own employees,"
he said.

Together, the two weekend storms could add as much as 6 inches of rain
to the already water-logged region, said Rick Canepa, a weather
service meteorologist in Monterey. More than 2 feet of snow was also
forecast in the Sierra Nevada.

One woman suffered a broken leg when a mudslide destroyed her home in
Santa Rosa late Friday. It took firefighters nearly an hour to free
her from the mud and debris, said Santa Rosa Fire Battalion Chief Andy
Pforsich.

Flash flooding and landslides temporarily closed Interstate 5 both
ways near the Oregon line. U.S. Highway 101 was closed by fallen trees
and mud south of Crescent City.

Rain also started moving into Southern California on Saturday, and
flash flood watches were issued for areas scarred by wildfire in Santa
Barbara, Ve ntura and Los Angeles counties.

Even Pasadena's Rose Parade was in danger of rain on Monday. The
parade has had dry days for half a century, but float builders were
still prepared to roll out sheets of clear plastic to protect delicate
flowers.

"I'd hate to be selfish to ask God just for this favor, but I came far
to help decorate and see the parade for the first time," said Jean
Steadman, 79, of Georgetown, Texas, as she gathered yellow roses for a
safari-themed float.

Associated Press writers Martin Griffith in Reno, Nev.; Julia Silverman in
Portland, Ore. 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. 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 and stories from Associated Press available at:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One of the reporters on Associated
Press news radio http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/Fednews.html noted 
that "in the event that someday (if/when?) the earthquake predicted
for slightly off the coast -- where the cracked plate is now -- comes
along and brings a tsunami with it, these people in northern California
tonight will have seen nothing." Even this 'little bit' they have
going on there now is a distressing way to start the New Year however.
PAT]

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

From: Wesrock@aol.com
Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 20:31:13 EST
Subject: Re: Amtrak Passengers Stranded in Woods in Georgia


In a message dated Fri, 30 Dec 2005 21:50:31 -0800,
editor@telecom-digest.org writes in reply to Jim Stewart
<jstewart@jkmicro.com>:

> The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, originally called
> Railpax and later adopting the trade name Amtrak, was created out of
> whole cloth.  Many people thought then, and still do today, that it
> was created to bring an end to railroad passenger service in the
> U.S.A. within a few years.

It was likely as much a surprise to the original managers as to the 
public and the rest of government that they made a go of it against all odds.

Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
wleathus@yahoo.com


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sorry Mr. Leatherock, that was not
_me_, I think you were quoting Mr. Stewart talking to someone else in
that message.  PAT]

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

From: Larry Margasak <ap@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Government Prepares For Next Big Disaster
Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 19:36:17 -0600


By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer

Before the next big hurricane's winds howl ashore, or a tsumani washes
ashore, Homeland Security officials want an emergency communications
network operating, emergency medical facilities treating patients, and
teams dispatched to search for victims at the likely ground zero.

In the wake of congressional hearings that exposed the breathtaking
failures of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the Bush
administration is retooling its disaster plan to react more quickly to
the next catastrophe.

Michael Brown, now the ex-chief of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, became the public face of Katrina's failure. But the
administration is reviewing how other leaders also failed last August
to execute a playbook approved just eight months earlier to handle
such a disaster.

For example, Brown's boss -- Homeland Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff - did not invoke special powers in the National Response Plan
that would have rushed federal aid to New Orleans when state and local
officials said they were swamped.

The department rejected the authority, concluding that it should be
invoked only for sudden catastrophic events that offer no time for
preparation and not for slow-approaching hurricanes.

That will not happen next time, according to officials who described
to The Associated Press some of the changes in the administration's
evolving disaster response plan.

"There has to be a way to apply federal resources when state and local
resources are overwhelmed," said Joel Bagnal, a special assistant to
the president for homeland security who is involved in the administra-
tion's lessons-learned review.

Chief among the changes to the original 426-page plan are several ideas for
rushing federal resources to a stricken area. They include:

_Dropping small military or civilian vehicles, packed with communications
gear, into a disaster zone by helicopter or driving them from nearby staging
areas.

_Setting up portable hospitals with federal emergency medical teams to
augment local facilities.

_Helping local and state police catch looters and snipers by providing
federal law enforcement officers if requested.

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Friday that the revamped
National Response Plan is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks
after meetings with hundreds of federal, state and government
officials and individuals outside the government.

The union representative for FEMA headquarters workers worries about how
well the agency will respond next time. FEMA reacted quickly to big
disasters when it operated independently, he said, but fell short in its
first big test as a member of the massive Homeland Security Department.

"You broke your toy and now it doesn't work," said Leo Bosner, himself a
veteran FEMA disaster specialist.

Those on the front lines hope to have a unified philosophy that values
flexibility and quick thinking to adapt solutions to a rapidly unfolding
human disaster.

"When you have a disaster, nothing goes by any kind of plan," said Dr.
Arthur Wallace, leader of the Oklahoma 1 FEMA medical team that was
dispatched from its staging area too late to beat Katrina to New
Orleans.

The administration officials and responders interviewed by the AP
offered a few of their own horror stories that they do not want
repeated. They also help illustrate changes in the evolving plan.

MEDICAL TEAMS: 36 HOURS LATE

Dr. Wallace's 34-member medical team from Oklahoma left its Houston
staging area Aug. 28 after receiving a request from Louisiana
officials to head for the Superdome.

Katrina made landfall in Louisiana just after 6 a.m. on Aug. 29, but
the team did not arrive until that night. It did not receive its first
patients until dawn on Aug. 30.

That was 36 hours after FEMA began reporting grave medical problems in
the stadium, such as 400 people with special needs, 45 to 50 patients
in need of hospitalization, and a dwindling supply of oxygen.

Wallace's team made it only as far as Baton Rouge the night before the
storm came ashore because wind gusts had already made it impossible to
reach the Superdome. The sick evacuees had to wait.

"The winds were buffeting the trucks pretty bad" when the team halted
in the state capital, Wallace recalled.

In the future, the administration wants medical teams in position
before the storm strikes. If for example, California has a major earth-
quake and a lot of water, the administration wants people there on the
spot. Likewise any coastal area, where a hurricane could strike on
short notice. 

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS, COMMAND AND CONTROL

U.S. military communications with Louisiana and Mississippi officials
were so poor that commanders were forced to use couriers to transmit
messages, said Paul McHale, the assistant defense secretary for
homeland defense.

FEMA's "Red October" mobile command center rode out the storm at
Barksdale Air Force Base near Shreveport, La., six hours from New
Orleans. The oversize trailer can establish communications in a
stricken area and serve as the nerve center for directing emergency
relief. But it did not arrive in the city until several days after
Katrina had struck.

Bagnal said the administration wants to replace the "clunky" FEMA
vehicles with smaller ones that could be kept nearby and either driven
or flown to where they are needed. Bagnal noted that "ideally, there
should be vehicles to travel easily across a desert area or through
mud or even several feet of water."

The lack of equipment was not the only problem. White House
spokeswoman Dana Perino said it took 10 to 12 days before a fully
staffed, multi-agency field office for coordinating the response was
operating at Katrina's ground zero.  Even then, she said, the staff
was thrown together with responders who hadn't worked with each other.

"Going forward, we definitely need a more capable, rapidly deployed
and experienced staff that works together on a routine basis -- in
noncrisis situations as well as catastrophic incidents," Perino said.

QUICKER DEPLOYMENT OF ACTIVE DUTY MILITARY FORCES

For several days, thousands of people at the New Orleans convention
center had no food, water or medical help. National Guard forces were
preoccupied with rooftop rescues and lacked the manpower to feed or
assist hungry refugees.

"Every single resource we had from Tuesday (Aug. 30) through Thursday
(Sept.  1) was committed to picking people off of rooftops and saving
people," recalled Louisiana National Guard Lt. Col. Jacques
Thibodeaux, a deputy U.S.  marshal in civilian life.

It wasn't until Friday, Sept. 2, that Thibodeaux was told to lead a
rescue mission to the convention center. He cobbled together a force
of 1,000 from diverse units representing five states.

"We took 30 minutes to secure the area. In three hours we began
feeding people. In 30 hours, we had evacuated 19,000," Thibodeaux
said.

The first active duty soldiers did not reach New Orleans until he
evening of Sept. 3.

The U.S. Northern Command, in Colorado Springs, Colo., had been
tracking Katrina before the storm made landfall and could have tapped
active duty assets. But the lone request the command received from
federal officials during Katrina's first day was for six helicopters,
spokesman Michael Kucharek said.

The White House is pressing Congress to establish the exact
circumstances and legal authority that would determine when the active
military should take over a disaster.

HELP FOR STATE AND LOCAL POLICE

The 18-member, Dallas-based Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
special response team had the very skills needed to cope with looters
and snipers, but its members did not arrive in New Orleans until
Sept. 2.

"By the time we got here, it wasn't as bad as the first nights after
the storm," team leader Charles Smith said.

The team was trained in serving arrest warrants and executing search
warrants, hostage situations, rescues, and riot and crowd control. And
Smith brought an additional asset -- he was raised and once stationed
in New Orleans.

The team showed its capabilities two nights after arriving when
gunshots were reported in a neighborhood. Smith dispatched agents with
night-vision goggles and, as a helicopter appeared overhead, the team
observed a shooter in a four-unit housing project. Smith personally
talked two men out of the building and arrested one without firing a
shot.

In the future, the administration wants such teams ready to move as
soon as local law enforcement needs assistance.

COMMUNICATING WITH THE PUBLIC

Before Katrina struck, FEMA had dispatched a sizable public affairs
contingent to Louisiana. Their mission, according to the National
Response Plan, was "to coordinate a message," said Jeff Karonis, a
Homeland Security public affairs specialist.

"Several were experienced communicators in hurricanes of the
past. They know what the issues are," he said.

But the messages to the public often were confusing, leaving vital
questions unanswered. When would buses rescue people from the
Superdome? When would rescuers arrive at the convention center? Was
crime rampant?

Russ Knocke, the chief spokesman for the Homeland Security Department,
said the specialists were hampered by "a significant amount of
inaccurate reporting" that "added confusion and added fuel to the
fire."

Louisiana officials said the federal experts didn't coordinate with
them. "I don't think there was ever a meeting about message. It wasn't
a partnership," said Denise Bottcher, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco's
spokeswoman.

In the future, Knocke said, Homeland Security is "deeply committed to
working and communicating with state and local officials. Now that we
have internet and 'thousands' of radio and television stations, there
is no reason everyone involved cannot get the same message."


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 news headlines from Associated Press, please go to:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html  (or)
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/Fednews.html   (both audio with FeedSweep)

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

Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 14:13:25 -0500
From: William Warren <william_warren_nonoise@speakeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Mother Decides to Fight Downloading Suit on Her Own


Hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> Jim Fitzgerald wrote:

>> If the downloading was done on her computer, Santangelo thinks it may
>> have been the work of a young friend of her children. Santangelo, 43,
>> has been described by a federal judge as "an Internet-illiterate
>> parent, who does not know Kazaa from kazoo, and who can barely
>> retrieve her email." Kazaa is the peer-to-peer software program used
>> to share files.

> Interesting newsgroup attitude here:

> In the problem with the kid who porned himself, people said it was the
> parent's fault for not knowing what the kid was doing.  But here
> apparently it's perfectly ok for the parent to be lnternet illiterate
> and not know what the kids were doing.

> We can't have a double standard.

Of course we can! Double standards are one of the lubricants that keep
the machinery of society spinning!

I think double standards are essential to our well-being, since they
allow for simple answers to complicated questions - questions asked by
children not yet emotionally prepared for the "true" responses that
you infer are needed.

> I think this case and the other illustrates the dangers of an
> unbridled Internet.  We can argue that the motorist is ultimately
> responsible for how he drives the car, but that doesn't stop us from
> spending billions on external safety devices to protect the motorist
> from his own driving errors.  The truth is that motorists do drift
> across the center line and that's why we have medial strips to protect
> against head-on collisions, for example.

Well, technically, if you want to be exactly correct, the government's
responsibility is to protect a motorist from the errors of _other_
drivers. Protecting a citizen from _his own_ folly is impossible,
especially in a representative democracy such as the U.S.

> There are no seat belts, medial strips, speed bumps, or anything else
> on the Internet.  We have people committing crimes and not even
> realizing it.

Do I sense a concern that your children might drift over to the other
side? ;-J.

> Regarding this music download case, did the PC come equipped with the
> software needed to download the music?  

That's very unlikely.

> If so, why did the PC mfr provide such a tool?  Why didn't the 
> music's owner protect its site from unauthorized downloads?
> Why didn't the ISP warn the downloads were illegal?

They didn't, cart before horse, and they always do: read your Terms of
Service.

> How did the PC user -- presumably the "innocent stupid kid" -- know
> where to go and how to download the illegal music?  

His friends told him on the school bus -- which is where children learn
about _REAL_ life :-).

> Maybe the kid isn't so innocent and is indeed a thief.  Would we
> let the kid get off free if he stole a carton of records from a
> music store?

Innocence and thievery are not mutually exclusive -- read Oliver Twist
 -- and the punishment for stealing a carton of records (how would a
child get access to a whole carton? Why would he want one?) would most
likely be more fitting to the crime than the RIAA's extortionate
demands for thousands of dollars as compensation for _copying_ a
copyrighted work.

I'll cut to the chase -- the P2P battle is just the trampled grass
surrounding the ring in which the industrial elephants from the old
and the new entertainment worlds are doing battle.

The old world entertainment companies, panicking at the thought of
losing their choke hold on the production and distribution of enter-
ainment media, are waging a FUD campaign to dissuade you and me from
using our computers to bypass their monopoly on the management of
popular culture.

The copying issue is a red herring: copying has always been, and
always will be, a marginal cost to the media giants. What they're
_REALLY_ afraid of is that the kid who copies a song by some
overpriced, over-hyped, and overdressed "star" will eventually pick up
a musical instrument, turn on a microphone, and undercut the carefully
timed, tightly coordinated, and incredibly profitable explosion of the
Next Big Thing(TM).

After all, the kid who trades music from other artists might -- dare
we think it? -- decide to create and distribute his own works in the
same way, and _THAT_ is what the RIAA is afraid of: what good is a
record industry if no one uses records? What good is an industry
association if there's no industry to associate with?

The new world elephants, i.e., the Linux/Apple/Intel/MS alliances that
are used to continual change and frequent renegotiations and
constantly reinventing themselves, mindful of the impossibility of
competing with the Asian Govopoly in the production of dedicated-
function devices such as CD or DVD players, are encouraging end users
to employ general-purpose computers as distribution nodes that will
bypass the studio coke heads and their vicious and ultimately doomed
attempts to arrogate a 70% tax on all forms of entertainment purchased
in the industrial world.

Pass the peanuts: it's about to get interesting out here on the grass.

William
Copyright (C) 2005 William Warren. All Rights Reserved.
Pat can publish this, but anyone else has to pay me royalties. I like 
royalties. They're like an annuity that never stops. I think everyone 
should copyright everything all the time and never give away anything 
for free.
(Filter noise from my address for direct replies)

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

From: jmeissen@aracnet.com
Subject: Re: Secret Court Modified Bush Wiretap Requests
Date: 31 Dec 2005 19:31:17 GMT
Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com


In article <telecom24.589.7@telecom-digest.org>, Tony P.
<nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net> wrote:

> Oh it would drive them crazy of all of a sudden public key encryption 
> were in use on NNTP groups. Not that pk can't be broken -- it can. It all 
> depends on the number of bits in the key. 

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I want the strongest encryption I
> can get for this Digest, if anyone will help me work on it. Maybe I
> will do it for all my web pages, etc. PAT]

What would be the point? If you encrypt it, then no one can read it.
Or everyone can read it. Think about how public key encryption works.
If you encrypt with your private key, then everyone can read it via
your public key. If you encrypt with your public key, then only you
can read it. duh. If you use someone else's public key, then only
those specific people can read it. Not very useful for a newsgroup.

I suppose you could sign the postings, maybe to support automatic
cancelation of spammed postings, but there doesn't seem to be much of
an issue with unauthorized postings lately.

John Meissen                                   jmeissen@aracnet.com


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, for a long time what I did was
use a mild form of encryption on the 'approved-by' line on Usenet
for the comp.dcom.telecom newsgroup. It was like 'md5'. My approved-by
line was always created using a group of passwords piped through md5
and then at three other major 'backbone sites' around the USA and
Europe used for Usenet, those three or four News Admininstrators had
the required key on their systems. I did not encrypt the entire
contents of all messages, just the 'approved-by' line. Now those three
or four news admins had phishermen of their own sitting there at the
stream of news as it came along. Those phisher-bots had only one
concern: looking for articles in the news group comp.dcom.telecom
nothing more or less; it is not my concern to monitor other people's
newsgroups. When an article for c.d.t. came long, the phisher-bots
would look it over closely; if it had that md5 encryption and it
was correct, they would toss it back in the stream and let it go on
its way. If the article for c.d.t. did _not_ have the proper
encryption on it the bots would fish it out of the stream and do a
couple things with it. (1) They would send it in _email_ to me to look
at; (2) they would issue a control: cancel on it to be forwarded far
and wide; (3)they would warn the other phisher-bots elsewhere to be on
the look out for it; and (4) they would destroy it entirely without
any word at all to the person who polluted the stream with it to start
with. When I got the email copy of the 'message' I then decided either 
to manually approve it and put it back in the stream but most of the 
time I pitched it also. I used that system for a couple years back in
the early 1990's and it seemed to work rather well, as long as there
were human beings upstream who knew the (automated) routine. And since
the 'approved-by' encryption line was based on the entire message and
the author's name, etc it was impossible for 'someone' to just take a
sample message and 'cut and paste' the encryption line. I suggested
it would work for almost any newsgroup which required an approved-by
line. I had had a bad seige of spam in c.d.t. about that time, people
would just add crazy 'approved-by' lines and get them though. But my
system brought that almost entirely to a halt, although I did get a
_huge_ amount of worthless junk in my own email, but the newsgroup
stayed mostly clean. 

Then I went to my father's funeral for about a week (I lived in
Chicago at the time, he and mother and grandmother lived here in 
Independence.) The Digest ran for that week or so on 'autopilot' and
when I came back someone had dismanted the md5 encryption thing
entirely. About that time I had the first of my heart attacks and
a couple 'Usenet gurus' insisted my plan would not work; that it would
take too many resources. It was never explained to my satisfaction why
it would not work, and as for resources it did not take much time to
maintain.  But, that was the end of my stream-phisher-bots. I honestly
feel several moderators working together like that could eliminate
most Usenet spam.  PAT]  

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

Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 15:00:38 -0500
From: William Warren <william_warren_nonoise@speakeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Secret Court Modified Bush Wiretap Requests


> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would be interested in finding out if
> anyone could assist me in encrypting _this Digest_ each day. Could 
> anyone help with that?

Pat,

I can think of at least a dozen humorous responses -- one involving the 
logic of putting red paint on a rectory -- but I'll give you a serious 
answer.

If you are interested in encrypting the Digest, then you'll have to 
configure your publication setup so as to encrypt each issue, using a 
common key that all your subscribers know, and set up a mass-mailing 
program to send out a copy of the "secret" key you're going to use for 
the next n days/weeks/months so that your subscribers can decode each 
edition. Of course, some functionary at the acronym factory will be 
assigned to become a subscriber, but you'll have the satisfaction of 
setting an example.

I don't think it's yet practical to send _individually_ encrypted 
copies, since the overhead of accessing individual keys, encrypting each 
issue for each subscriber, and sending the result would be too high. 
However, you might consider using PKI to distribute a key which allows 
subscribers to decode a centrally stored version, since that would 
involve encryption only of the key, not the actual publication. You'll 
need to do some tests to get a timeline for the number of subscribers 
you have: needless to say, it has to fall within some reasonable 
fraction of a day.

FWIW. YMMV.

William "Fun with Alice and Bob" Warren

William Warren
(Filter noise from my address for individual replies)


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I still have my script here to use for
encrypting the 'approved-by' lines:

#!/bin/sh

PASSWORD='password1 pw2 password3 password4 password5s'

umask 77

for f in $*; do
    echo $PASSWORD > $$
    sed -e '1,/^$/d' $f >> $$
#   hash=`md5sum $$ | awk '{print $1}'`
    hash=`md5 $$ | awk '{print $NF}'`
    rm $$
    awk "{ print } /^Sender: / { if (!h) print \"Approved: [comp.dcom.telecom/$hash]\"; h++ }" < $f > $$
    mv $$ $f
done

Substitute real words for the five instances of 'password'
above. Anyone is free to use it if it helps anyone. Don't forget to
use md5 and md5sum as shown above. Just insert it where it belongs in
your email or newsgroup message.   PAT]

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

From: Rik <hrasmussen@nc.rr.com>
Subject: Re: Cell Phone Extenders?
Date: 31 Dec 2005 12:46:38 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com


 From the mouth of the FCC:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get-cfr.cgi?TITLE=47&PART=22&SECTION=527&YEAR=2002&TYPE=TEXT

In case that long link breaks try:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?M2006356C

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

Date: 31 Dec 2005 23:22:43 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: Cell Phone Extenders?
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA


> If you buy a cellphone and contract for service for that cellphone
> with a licensed carrier, then that carrier's license covers the
> operation of the phone you activated with that carrier.  You can't
> then go out and use other phones under that contract without the
> carrier's consent.

An interesting theory, although clearly nonsensical with GSM phones.

I do agree that repeaters above 100 mw need a license which you don't
have if you're not a cell carrier.

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

From: GarsDuBell@aol.com
Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 19:45:41 EST
Subject: Re: Unknown Name Call in Middle of Night 


Tony,
 
If you hang up for more than 12 seconds, it should release the line,  
regardless of whether the caller has hung up.

 
David W.
 
In a message dated 12/31/2005 6:24:10 PM Eastern Standard Time,:

> He  called again at 5:29 AM ... same number so I picked the phone up
> and pushed  a button for about 30 seconds ... then released and
> listened ... he already  hung up

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

Reply-To: Tom Schmidt <Tomnews@tschmidt.invalid>
From: Tom Schmidt <Tomnews@tschmidt.invalid>
Subject: Re: No Demarc Point
Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 21:20:35 GMT


A NID, Network Interface Device, is required for all new construction,
old construction is grandfathered. Here in Verizon land all you need
to do is call and let them then you need a NID so you are able to
modify inside wiring.

If you cannot get satisfaction from the Telco might want to contact
your state Public Utilities Commission. Explain the situation and see
what they suggest.

/tom

J Kelly <jkelly@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:telecom24.588.4@telecom-digest.org:

> Is the telco required to have a network interface box at the point of
> demarcartion?  My house has nothing, the line comes direct into the
> basement.  It isn't even grounded and has no lightning protector.
> Qwest refuses to do anything about it unless I pay for a NIB to be
> installed.  What about grounding?  Shouldn't they be required to
> ground the line in accordance with NEC?

> I thought about grounding one side of the line and calling in a repair
> order for hum on the line, when they come to check it at the NIB they
> would have to install one.

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

Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 19:22:54 -0500
From: Ron Chapman <ronchapman@wideopenwest.com>
Subject: Re: Web Services Thrive, but Outages Outrage Users


In article <telecom24.590.2@telecom-digest.org>, Adam Pasick
<reuters@telecom-digest.org> wrote:

> Six Apart, whose TypePad service is used by many high-profile
> bloggers, experienced nearly an entire day of downtime on December 16,
> when it suffered a hardware failure. Del.icio.us had a major power
> failure on December 14. Services including Bloglines, Feedster and
> WordPress have also experienced problems.

> Nothing underlines the importance of these "social media" services as
> much as the outcry of users when the sites crash. While the services
> were usually back up and running within a few days at most, the
> outages prompted much consternation from users who were temporarily
> unable to share their blogs and bookmarks with the world.

> Russell Buckley and Carlo Longino wrote on their blog MobHappy
> http://mobhappy.typepad.com/ that waiting for TypePad to be fixed
> was like "waiting for a train to arrive, when you're sitting on a
> cold, damp platform. It's mildly irritating for the first 5 minutes,
> but then annoyance levels start to rise exponentially."

Waaaaaaaah.

People in Louisiana are still trying to get back to their lives, but
elsewhere spoiled brats are whining about not being able to access
their silly "blog" sites for a day or two.

If this is what's become of true importance in America, I'm ready to
find an uninhabited island to move to.

Seriously, where is the sense of proportion here?  Are these whining
brats really allowed out in the world to do adult things, like raise
children and vote?


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are quite correct. All of us 
complain about our problems, then we look at places like New Orleans
or Biloxi, MS or Iraq or Iran and many other places and we should
realize we have no problems at all. I look back at the years I have
spent on comp.dcom.telecom and how things in the world have gotten so
much more grim in recent years and I wonder "is the best thing we have
to talk about today telecom topics?"   PAT]

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

From: Patrick Townson <ptownson@cableone.net>
Subject: Cyber Giving Website  
Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 11:24:20 -0600


TELECOM Digest supports Network for Good, a website that makes it easy to
choose your favorite charity and donate. Join the growing number of
people who donate online each year.

      Need giving inspiration?
                  . Help Habitat for Humanity rebuild houses in New Orleans.
                  . Supply needy children with important classroom materials
through DonorsChoose.

            Do some good.
            Get the credit (tax that is).
            Donate Today

Cyber Giving Week, the Last Day to make it count on your taxes for
this year:

http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/

Thank you very much!  And Happy New Year to everyone!

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


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