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Message Digest Volume 28 : Issue 23 : "text" Format Messages in this Issue: Re: Tricky Windows Worm Wallops Millions Re: President Obama keeps his Blackberry Re: President Obama keeps his Blackberry Re: Voicemail via email Cyber bullying, freespeech, home computer use article Re: Cyber bullying, freespeech, home computer use article Re: Why Obama's phone calls will always go through Re: Why Obama's phone calls will always go through Re: FDR's calls to Churchill Presidential telephones was Re: Why Obama's phone calls will always go through Re: Tricky Windows Worm Wallops Millions Re: Staff Finds White House in the Technological Dark Ages Foreign Listings Again Worm Infects Millions of Computers Worldwide Lawsuit over website links in spotlight / Copyright violation or fair use to be decided Is this lawman your Facebook friend? / Increasingly, investigators use social networking websites for police work ====== 27 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== 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, and other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 04:38:06 GMT From: tlvp <PmUiRsGcE.TtHlEvSpE@att.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Tricky Windows Worm Wallops Millions Message-ID: <49793B76.2060603@att.net> Colin wrote: > tlvp wrote: > >> On Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:59:25 -0500, after a post by >> Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>, the Moderator wrote: >> >>> ***** Moderator's Note ***** >>> >>> I guess I'm out of date on the Windows OS: why does a file on a USB >>> stick pose a threat? This may seem an obvious question, but I trained >>> in the days when a program could only be started by operator command >>> or by an already-running program. Yet, with this and other worms, it >>> seems that executable files magically start themselves just by the >>> fact that they're located in the Windows file system. >> [Moderator snip] >> ... I suspect others with a better grasp of the mechanism at play >> here will be able to provide further enlightenment. >> >> Cheers, -- tlvp >> > > From today's US-CERT Technical Cyber Security Alert TA09-020A -- > Microsoft Windows Does Not Disable AutoRun Properly: > > * The Dangers of Windows AutoRun - > > <http://www.cert.org/blogs/vuls/2008/04/the_dangers_of_windows_autorun.html> [Moderator snip] To add to Colin's long and exhaustive list of relevant URLs, let me offer the recent Woody Leonhard {Windows Secrets} article http://WindowsSecrets.com/links/tqohuquze4aod/9e9cf0h/?url=WindowsSecrets.com%2F2009%2F01%2F22%2Fts%2F%3Fn%3Dstory1 (horribly long URL, that) which I think is another good read on the subject. Cheers, -- tlvp ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:27:30 +1100 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: President Obama keeps his Blackberry Message-ID: <pan.2009.01.23.05.27.29.381665@myrealbox.com> On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:22:53 -0500, Telecom digest moderator wrote: > According to The News Hour on PBS, President Obama will keep his > Blackberry, with additional security added, and changes to comply with the > Presidential Records Act. > > I'll bet that he stops using it within three months: as the > responsibilities of office start to weigh on the President, I'm sure he'll > accept the fact that he needs to have around him, and to use, the screens > and filters other chief executives have enjoyed. I predict that the > President will accept that he must be offline if he's to attain maximum > effectiveness. Wouldn't less "insulation" from the outside world make a leader more effective? If your country's predecessor is any example, being fed information just from a set group (with their own agenda) doesn't do anyone any good in the wash-up. -- Regards, David. David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have. ***** Moderator's Note ***** In a word, no: less insulation makes a leader more cold, not more effective. You are, of course, right in being concerned about the President getting information only from a small circle of men with hiddne agendas. Nature _does_ abhor a vacuum, and the space between the former President's duties and his capabilities was as close to intergalactic nothingness as I ever want to get: there are too many men and women lying dead because of it. Having said that, I will also say that the circle of advisors around the President can be _either_ too small _or_ too large, but is rarely "just right". These are matters which have been pondered down through history, by those much more intelligent than I, so I will stick to some obvious (to me) observations. Any leader, whether in politics or industry or charity, knows that he must seek out and use the _MOST_ accurate information possible, from those _MOST_ competent to give it. That is why flag officers routinely eat in the Enlisted mess, because it's the most effective way to find out if the enlisted men are being fed well. That is why General officers go to the front line and ask the lowliest Private if he has enough ammunition. That is why the Chairman of a large, multinational corporation attends company meetings and welcomes questions from all comers. That is why President Obama needs, and I hope will use, the resources of his office to obtain the unvarnished truth from those citizens who are in the best position to tell it. For the leader of the free world, finding the truth is a deadly serious business: every President-Elect gets a very hard dose of that reality when "the man with the football" comes in and introduces his teammate, who opens up a practice kit and tells the soon-to-be Commander-In-Chief how many millions of souls he can dispatch. If _that_ experience didn't convince President Obama that he's no longer on the South Side of Chicago, then his first National Security Council meeting should: he will be confronted with dedicated, disciplined, patriotic men and women who are willing to spend their own and others' lives like water in order to assure an ideal which is, in the great spam of history, no more substantial than the colors of a flag. It is a truism of both ancient and modern life that opinions are like noses: everybody's got one, and they love to stick it in everyone else's business. A Blackberry - or ANY unfiltered means of access to the President - is asking for an avalanche of conceit to bury the chief executive beneath personal, social, and societal obligations that have very little to do with the day-to-day running of his office and which are, by the fact of their volume, an impediment to clear thinking, rational decision-making, and effective leadership. Moreover, those who have the President's ear soon find that _they_ are sought after, in a way totally out of proportion to their experience and abilities, because every nation, every governor, every congressman, and every self-appointed expert in the world wants the President to hear his or her version of the truth. The best advice on this subject is what I was tought in the leadership courses given by the Army: "If you want the low-down, you've got to go low down". Nobody who is in between the top and the bottom will tell a powerful men the facts: at best, they give the version of the truth that they know, and at worst they give the version of the truth fed to them by someone else who is pulling their strings. If the President doesn't already know, then I hope he will quickly learn: he must seek out the truth, not expect it to arrive unannounced. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:44:54 -0800 (PST) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: President Obama keeps his Blackberry Message-ID: <cdc46fd8-9b78-4aa7-98e0-d733a9ec64aa@i18g2000prf.googlegroups.com> On Jan 22, 11:22 pm, Telecom digest moderator <redac...@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu> wrote: > According to The News Hour on PBS, President Obama will keep his > Blackberry, with additional security added, and changes to comply with > the Presidential Records Act. IMHO, these "record acts" are too strict. Public officials need the ability to discuss issues and accept advice in confidence. Ideas bantered around in e-mails, IMHO, do not constitute "an official public record", any more than telephone calls do. When discussing an issue, all points of view, including extreme ones, are considered. Just because an extreme idea is mentioned in passing (e.g. using nuclear weapons in a trouble spot) does not mean the idea will be adopted, or the advisor who suggests it is a wild freak. If society is adamant to know 'everything', than record (video and audio) the president 24/7. Everything at all times, after all, his wife may offer comments late at night (as Eleanor Roosevelt freely did). ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:05:34 -0500 From: Carl Navarro <cnavarro@wcnet.org> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Voicemail via email Message-ID: <76nin4haomi8km7s8mjcibi93ahbd5irrg@4ax.com> On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:58:07 -0500 (EST), John Schmerold <john@katycomputer.com> wrote: >ed wrote: >>> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 06:55:34 -0600 >>> From: John Schmerold <john@katycomputer.com> >>> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu >>> Subject: Single port vmail to wav file >>> Message-ID: <4975C9C6.6010100@katycomputer.com> >>> >>> I am looking for an answering machine that delivers its voicemail >>> message via email with wav file attachment. I recognize I could rig >>> something up with a PC, but don't want all the fuss associated with a >>> PC. >>> >>> Any ideas? I want to keep this under $300. >>> John, >> > >> I use Ring Central to do this. You can pick a phone number in >> almost any area code/city, and for $10/mo the messages are emailed >> to you as .wav files. [Moderator snip] >Ed: > >Thank you for the follow-up. I have a 15 year old Intertel system, I >cannot justify replacing it ... [Moderator snip] >Problem with my solution is that it's six months and $1,000 out, so if >someone made a cheap little appliance - not sure why $300 is so >laughable, when Grandstream makes a nice little PBX for $600, but to >each his own, I would buy the little appliance, I'd be happy and set >for another 5 years when the Intertel is dead beyond all recovery. It stays laughable because you already found some sort of solution for twice what you suggested you want to pay. I bought an Asterisk developer's kit for about $300: [you could] supply your own PC and load the free software. It was a single FXO and FXS on a 4-port frame. In one breath you set conditions and then you sugest solutions that cost 2-3x wha you were hoping for. Note that everybody suggested a software solution on a PC. Sigh. Carl, still laughing ***** Moderator's Note ***** I assume that Carl is laughing at himself and not the original poster: at one time or another, we have all found out the hard way that everything costs more when you want it done right. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 08:21:10 -0800 (PST) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Cyber bullying, freespeech, home computer use article Message-ID: <4e215e29-dfee-46fe-9072-26b19434c2da@a26g2000prf.googlegroups.com> MSNBC has an article on cyberbullying rules vs. free speech. It also deals with schools responding to statements made on home computers independent of school networks. Please see: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28629118/ ***** Moderator's Note ***** Having attended a parochial school, I can attest to the sad truth that too many educators fall into the trap of demanding that students think, not for themselves, but only in prescribed and approved wayss, and never of proscribed or inconvenient subjects. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:56:07 -0800 (PST) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Cyber bullying, freespeech, home computer use article Message-ID: <c8342b81-e155-4afa-bb93-8c6c9f9957f4@r40g2000yqj.googlegroups.com> On Jan 23, 2:09 pm, hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > ***** Moderator's Note ***** > > Having attended a parochial school, I can attest to the sad truth that > too many educators fall into the trap of demanding that students > think, not for themselves, but only in prescribed and approved wayss, > and never of proscribed or inconvenient subjects. My public high school had many kids who attended parochial school. They often wrote negative essays about their experiences, which in those days included physical punishment. Questioning the nuns was not tolerated. However, in college we also had many kids from parochial schools and they were very well prepared for college studies. (While my college was non-sectarian, it had an informal relationship with the Church and welcomed and encouraged students from area parochial schools.) As to freedom of speech for youth, my own opinion is that it depends on the ownership. The school 'owns' the student newspaper and as such the school is the publisher and has a legitimate veto power over anything in the paper, just as the owner of a regular newspaper can veto any submitted article. The same would apply to computer networks administered by the school. As to off-school publications, that is different. If a kid prints up a leaflet at his own expense and distributes it off school grounds (say at the corner of the school), then the kid has a right of free speech, subject to the same limtiations of libel/slander/obscenity/ yell fire in a crowded theatre that other publications must comply with. Likewise with off-school computer networks. While I don't like teen bullying and know it can be extremely viscious and devastating, private networks are private and I don't think the school should have say whatsoever on what is said. HOWEVER, such networks should be subject to the same libel/slander/ obscenity/yell fire laws of other publications. If one kid posts nasty slanderous stuff about another kid, the victim should have a right to sue for slander/libel. That means the host of the network has to provide the real identity of the posters and take reasonable steps to insure it's the real person. Otherwise, the network ought to be responsible; after the all, the network is providing the forum for the abuse to take place. (I don't buy the 'post a note on a tree in the park' theory of immunity.) I think a big motivation of schools to interfere with private networks is the lack of control these networks have, and that IS a legitimate concern. ***** Moderator's Note ***** It's much easier to say "No" than it is to say "It's OK, provided ...". Public and parochial schools both have an obligation to teach their students how to complain about what irks them: with respect, without name calling, and in the open. I don't think people should be encouraged to put a note on a tree, but I _do_ feel that they should be entitled to take a soapbox to the park and stand up and say what's on their minds. The best cure for rumor and gossip is, as they say, fresh air. Does the high school principle dislike criticism? The students are allowed to point it out. Does the math teacher disdain calculators? The student should (pun intended) call her to account. Does the Board of Selectmen underfund the school and force parents to pay for pens, pencils, paper, and even books? A student who calls that sort of cheating "shortsighted", "reckless", or "criminal" is exercising his rights. It goes without saying that children need limits and direction, but too many parents have neglected this disdainful task and have allowed their offspring to get their view of the world from television, where all problems are solved in sixty minutes with time out for commercials, where the tall white guy makes all the decisions, and where guns are an accepted means of solving disagreements. We all know that that is wrong, but very few are willing to step forward and declare their view of what is right. In a perfect world, the Parent Teacher Associations would be a vehicle for the parents and the teachers to talk frankly about, and hopefully agree on, a standard of behavior that all children could be expected to follow in the community where they live. The problem is that we've all gotten so scared of criticism that we've forgotten that such a moral baseline is needed, indeed essential. Educators have been forced to promulgate rules about off-campus behavior because parents are either too busy, or too lazy, to tell junior to stop behaving like a spoiled brat. Children are left without guidance, without standards, without discipline, and bullying and gangs and pitiable academic performance are the result. _SOMEONE_ has to say *ENOUGH!*, and you and I have allowed public servants and private school employees to take on that task. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:55:31 -0800 (PST) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Why Obama's phone calls will always go through Message-ID: <1e42a6d6-5591-452d-b2e6-af3a5b1617a0@r15g2000prd.googlegroups.com> On Jan 22, 10:44 pm, gordonb.15...@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) wrote: > Is that supposed to mean that if he for some reason calls me, and > the line is busy because I'm cussing out a telephone solicitor, > that the call to the telephone solicitor will be dropped?  And Obama > will get the tail end of my cussing if I'm not paying attention to > what's happening? What it means is that the White House has had, for many years, a team of aggressive telephone operators who will track down someone and get him to the phone when the White House wishes to speak him. If the person's line is busy, they will ask the local operator to interrupt. (A longstanding capability in dial switches, which anyone can request for a fee in an emergency.) I'm pretty sure high level officials, such as cabinet officers, have dedicated special "hot" lines in their homes. Somewhere I heard the nature of their work requires them to still use a cord switchboard. Would anyone know accurately if that is true? A cord board does offer the maximum in flexibility. I don't know about today, but the famous US-Soviet "hot line" installed after the Cuban missile crisis was actually a teleprinter, not a voice connection. It was generally used for social chitchat by the operators at each end since it was extremely rare for it to actually be used in a crisis. President Lyndon Johnson was kind of a phone freak and had phones installed all over the place. It is suggested that FDR kept in touch with Churchill by telephone, but given the limited reliability of overseas calls at that time I'm not sure how true that is. Obviously scrambling would be required to maintain confidentiality over radio waves. (The Bell System used a crude scrambler). Until an overseas cable was developed and laid in the 1950s, the radio waves used a combination of short wave and long wave, using whatever worked best at the particular time and season of the call. ***** Moderator's Note ***** I don't know if the operators at the White House still use cord boards, but it's true that _some_ White House communications still connect through them. In the words of a WHCS operator who I asked about this subject: "They never break". It's possbile that the U.S. <> Russio "hot line" is still connected via TeleType (Model 15's, IIRC), but I doubt there's much chit-chat: the Russians sent their messages in Russion, and we sent ours in English, so as to assure the minimum possibility of translation error. I suppose there are now "hot lines" of one sort or another in every capitol building of every nuclear power. Then-Senator Johnson was reported to have received a call on his IMTS car phone from Senator Everett Dirkson, his father-in-law, in which Dirkson bragged about getting a phone for _his_ car after using his influence to get to the top of the priority list (at the time, IMTS was the only system available and in such short supply that the FCC gave government officials priority). Johnson's reply was "Hold on, Ev: my other phone is ringing!". It's true that Churchill and FDR talked on an international telephone hookup, but also true that the scrambling was primitive by today's standards. They both had, of course, the advantage of having used telegrams and letters all their lives, and so I assume that they were used to phrasing their statements in a way that would be difficult to follow even without a scrambled connection. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:48:26 +0000 (UTC) From: David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Why Obama's phone calls will always go through Message-ID: <glddva$3lg$1@reader1.panix.com> >It's possbile that the U.S. <> Russio "hot line" is still connected >via TeleType (Model 15's, IIRC), but I doubt there's much chit-chat: >the Russians sent their messages in Russion, and we sent ours in >English, so as to assure the minimum possibility of translation >error. They exchange test messages every hour (or maybe half hour). Sometimes it's poetry, sometimes literature.... >It's true that Churchill and FDR talked on an international telephone >hookup, but also true that the scrambling was primitive by today's >standards. SigSaly: <http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_history/publications/sigsaly_story.shtml> -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433 ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jan 2009 01:13:42 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: FDR's calls to Churchill Message-ID: <20090124011342.17324.qmail@simone.iecc.com> > It is suggested that FDR kept in touch with Churchill by telephone, > but given the limited reliability of overseas calls at that time I'm > not sure how true that is. It's quite true. A remarkable system built by Bell Labs called SIGSALY provided digital encrypted voice communication. The Germans had broken the older scrambling system early in the war, but they apparently never even realized that the SIGSALY traffic was voice. It was decades ahead of its time, but since it was secret until 1976, its innovations were re-invented in the meantime. http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_history/publications/sigsaly_story.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:23:57 -0800 (PST) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Presidential telephones was Re: Why Obama's phone calls will always go through Message-ID: <abbe75ce-46c7-42d7-866d-d4fa27fccbc4@r15g2000prd.googlegroups.com> On Jan 21, 10:14 am, John Mayson <j...@mayson.us> wrote: > The Cnet article was actually headlined "Why Obama's _CELL_ phone > calls will always go through", but that's a misleading and inaccurate > come-on. The President uses a communications system totally separate > from the commercial cellular network. MSNBC had a photo series about White House life. Some of the pictures showed the President's telephones. (Other telephones may be out of view.) JFK's desk. One colored Call Director, one black no-dial 500 set. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28796930/displaymode/1107/s/2/ Ford: 6 button Touch Tone keyset with side buzzer buttons. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28796930/displaymode/1107/s/2/framenumber/8/ Carter: colored Call Director (smaller than JFK's). http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28796930/displaymode/1107/s/2/framenumber/9/ Bush Sr bedroom: white rotary six button keyset, red no-dial 500 set. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28796930/displaymode/1107/s/2/framenumber/13/ (rotary was in decline by 1988). ***** Moderator's Note ***** Shrub's office: a Mickey Mouse phone, with the cord cut. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:57:24 -0800 (PST) From: David Kaye <sfdavidkaye2@yahoo.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Tricky Windows Worm Wallops Millions Message-ID: <ebc6f864-11f5-448d-93f8-ea25e9ed1eca@d36g2000prf.googlegroups.com> On Jan 20, 8:59 pm, Monty Solomon <mo...@roscom.com> wrote: > A sneaky computer worm that uses a virtual Swiss army knife of attack > techniques has infected millions of Microsoft Windows PCs, and > appears to be spreading at a fairly rapid pace, security experts warn. I keep my customers' computers up to date by making sure that Windows auto-update is enabled for automatic patch installation. Over the past 7 years I've had hundreds of customers. They all have my phone number. None --- NONE -- have contacted me about problems with either of these worms. There is nothing wrong with autorun. What people tend to do is click "yes" to any and all installations without thinking about what they're doing. Now, one of the problems with Windows on a network platform is also one of its benefits: mass deployment of software. By allowing mass deployment, a Windows sysadmin is also opening Windows to vulnerabilities from being open. This is likely why the reports on these latest infections is that they're hitting the bigger networked computers in business environments. ***** Moderator's Note ***** There's nothing wrong with deploying software over the network. The problem is that network admins don't want to go to the trouble of learning how to deploy and maintain the PKI infrastructure that would allow them to sign applications and thus prevent unauthorized software from being installed. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:02:27 -0800 (PST) From: David Kaye <sfdavidkaye2@yahoo.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Staff Finds White House in the Technological Dark Ages Message-ID: <5e18d4e0-b172-41cb-96e3-fd7a06aee711@v5g2000pre.googlegroups.com> On Jan 22, 7:49 pm, Monty Solomon <mo...@roscom.com> quoted this: > The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, found > computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft > software. Welcome to the real world. There is nothing wrong with 6-year old Windows XP. It can do everything the snazzy Mac can do and for a lot less money. And what's more, those computers can be fixed with off- the-shelf parts, unlike Macs. ***** Moderator's Note ***** Cnet is apparently assuming that its readers can't subtract: "six-year-old versions of Microsoft software" means MS Office 2003, the defacto standard for business use. However, it doesn't matter if the new kids on the block at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. use Linapple or Wintel machines: what matters is that they realize that _getting_ someone elected is different than _governing_, and that they buckle down to producing more substance and less style. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:26:22 -0700 From: "Fred Atkinson" <fatkinson@mishmash.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Foreign Listings Again Message-ID: <002a01c97ddb$e98cd300$c800000a@mishmash> In response to the earlier question, Carolina Net says my number is currently ported by Level 3 but they are getting me changed over to Verizon Business to resolve it. Any suggestions? Fred ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2009 01:59:29 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Worm Infects Millions of Computers Worldwide Message-ID: <p0624080cc5a06c9adc19@[10.0.1.6]> Worm Infects Millions of Computers Worldwide By JOHN MARKOFF The New York Times January 23, 2009 A new digital plague has hit the Internet, infecting millions of personal and business computers in what seems to be the first step of a multistage attack. The world's leading computer security experts do not yet know who programmed the infection, or what the next stage will be. In recent weeks a worm, a malicious software program, has swept through corporate, educational and public computer networks around the world. Known as Conficker or Downadup, it is spread by a recently discovered Microsoft Windows vulnerability, by guessing network passwords and by hand-carried consumer gadgets like USB keys. Experts say it is the worst infection since the Slammer worm exploded through the Internet in January 2003, and it may have infected as many as nine million personal computers around the world. Worms like Conficker not only ricochet around the Internet at lightning speed, they harness infected computers into unified systems called botnets, which can then accept programming instructions from their clandestine masters. "If you're looking for a digital Pearl Harbor, we now have the Japanese ships steaming toward us on the horizon," said Rick Wesson, chief executive of Support Intelligence, a computer security consulting firm based in San Francisco. Many computer users may not notice that their machines have been infected, and computer security researchers said they were waiting for the instructions to materialize, to determine what impact the botnet will have on PC users. It might operate in the background, using the infected computer to send spam or infect other computers, or it might steal the PC user's personal information. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/technology/internet/23worm.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2009 02:30:27 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Lawsuit over website links in spotlight / Copyright violation or fair use to be decided Message-ID: <p06240818c5a073d78e6d@[10.0.1.6]> Lawsuit over website links in spotlight Copyright violation or fair use to be decided By Robert Weisman, Globe Staff | January 23, 2009 The Boston Globe A copyright and trademark infringement lawsuit filed last month against The New York Times Co., owner of The Boston Globe and its Boston.com website, is being watched closely by news organizations, Internet researchers, independent bloggers, and companies that aggregate news online by linking to a variety of news sites. At the heart of the complaint, lodged by GateHouse Media Inc., which publishes 125 community newspapers in Massachusetts, is the question of whether Internet news providers will be able to continue the practice of posting headlines and lead sentences from stories they link to on other sites. The case has been scheduled for trial in US District Court in Boston as early as Monday. "This is the first case where these intellectual property issues have come to a head," said David Ardia, director of the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society in Cambridge. "If the judge was to rule for GateHouse on every point, it would have far-reaching implications for the news and information ecosystem that underlies the Web as we know it." Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., a school for professional journalists, said the case could result in new guidelines for how much, if any, content from one website can be used by another. "This is standard procedure across the Internet now," she said. "Newsrooms adopted the procedure from other practitioners." GateHouse, a national chain of local daily and weekly newspapers based in Fairport, N.Y., filed its suit Dec. 22, alleging that Times Co. violated copyright law by using "verbatim" headlines and snippets from GateHouse stories on Boston.com. The Globe's website in November launched a local news site covering Newton, the first of a series of "hyper-local" Your Town sites planned for the Boston area. The sites, which now include Needham and Waltham, compete with GateHouse's own stable of "Wicked Local" community sites. In addition to copyright violation, the complaint charged that Boston.com was infringing on GateHouse's trademark rights by posting online attributions to GateHouse brands such as Newton Tab, Daily News Tribune, and Wicked Local, "thereby causing confusion and mistake among users of the infringing website as to the source and endorsement of the content posted there." ... http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/01/23/lawsuit_over_website_links_in_spotlight/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2009 02:56:52 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Is this lawman your Facebook friend? / Increasingly, investigators use social networking websites for police work Message-ID: <p06240821c5a07a1103fe@[10.0.1.6]> Is this lawman your Facebook friend? Increasingly, investigators use social networking websites for police work By Julie Masis, Globe Correspondent | January 11, 2009 The Boston Globe When a Wilmington man in his early 20s overdosed on heroin the day after Christmas, local police Detective Pat Nally turned to his computer. He wanted to look at the deceased's Facebook and MySpace pages for possible clues about the source of the drug and who might have been using it with the man. "People arrange to buy and sell drugs on Facebook; there's talk of what they may do and where they may go," said Nally. "We'd be foolish not to use it as an investigative tool." The Wilmington investigator is not alone. In an informal survey of 14 departments in this area, officials in half of them said they use social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace in detective work - particularly in investigations involving young people. In Harvard, the police signed on to such sites about three years ago, after a woman was sexually assaulted and beaten by three men whom she met on MySpace and invited to her house. Police contacted MySpace and tracked the assailants using their online usernames and accounts, said Chief Edward Denmark. Now even the chief has a Facebook page himself. ... http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2009/01/11/is_this_lawman_your_facebook_friend/ ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecom- munications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition 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. 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