The Telecom Digest for November 27, 2010
Volume 29 : Issue 320 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
====== 28 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, 26 Nov 2010 01:35:28 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Netflix's Move Onto the Web Stirs Rivalries
Message-ID: <p0624084dc914f8770e37@[10.0.1.2]>
Netflix's Move Onto the Web Stirs Rivalries
By TIM ARANGO and DAVID CARR
November 24, 2010
In a matter of months, the movie delivery company Netflix has gone
from being the fastest-growing first-class mail customer of the
United States Postal Service to the biggest source of streaming Web
traffic in North America during peak evening hours.
That transformation - from a mail-order business to a technology
company - is revolutionizing the way millions of people watch
television, but it's also proving to be a big headache for TV
providers and movie studios, which increasingly see Netflix as a
competitive threat, even as they sell Netflix their content.
The dilemma for Hollywood was neatly spelled out in a Netflix
announcement Monday of a new subscription service: $7.99 a month for
unlimited downloads of movies and television shows, compared with
$19.99 a month for a plan that allows the subscriber to have three
discs out at a time, sent through the mail, plus unlimited downloads.
For studios that only a few years ago were selling new DVDs for $30,
that represents a huge drop in profits.
"Right now, Netflix is a distribution platform, and has very little
competition, but that's changing," said Warren N. Lieberfarb, a
consultant who played a critical role in creating the DVD while at
Warner Brothers.
For the first time, the company will spend more over the holidays to
stream movies than to ship DVDs in its familiar red envelopes
(although it is still spending more than half a billion dollars on
postage this year). And that shift coincides with an ominous
development for cable companies, which long controlled home
entertainment: for the first time in their history, cable television
subscriptions fell in the United States in the last two quarters - a
trend some attribute to the rise of Netflix, which allows consumers
to bypass their cable box to stream movies and shows.
...
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/business/25netflix.html
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2010 20:55:04 -0600
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: When Your Company Remote-Wipes Your Personal Phone
Message-ID: <r8KdndD2g7AVvHLRnZ2dnUVZ_vmdnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>
In article <AANLkTi=VCS7ZWhraSpZ-eS4=xUSbSK9uExU=nTg2Z9ky@mail.gmail.com>,
John Mayson <john@mayson.us> wrote:
>Is the iPhone the only smart phone with this "feature"? A friend of
>mine claims this is impossible on an Android device, but didn't
>elaborate.
SOME BlackBerry units -- those that have been configured to use a corporate
BlackBerry Enterprise Server as their point of contact -- have remote
administration options/actions that cannot be over-ridden/modified/disabled
at the device level other than by completely wiping the device and re-
installing the operating system. And you can't "divorce" the BlackBerry
from the BES without doing the wipe and re-install.
I would expect a device targeted/intended for the 'corporate' market to
have such "capabilities" -- it is an eminently sensible thing to do, IF
you're looking at things from the corporate data-security/data-integrity
viewpoint.
For purely "personal"-use devices, the situation is a lot more complicated.
Securing and controlling access to the 'wipe' functionality is a completely
different kettle of fish if you're talking about the average home user as the
'security administrator'.
Or, if you put the function in the hands of the telco, you open the door for
'data for ransom' if the phone owner tries to change carriers.
Leave it in the hands of the equipment manufacturer, and the legit owner has
a problem 'proving' that they are the person entitled to order the wipe,
*especially* if they bought the phone on the second-hand market.
Make ordering/executing the 'wipe' "too difficult" and the folks with real
need have difficulty using it. Make it "too easy", and it is subject to
fraudulent use via 'social engineering'.
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2010 21:42:40 -0600
From: Jim Rusling <usenet@rusling.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: When Your Company Remote-Wipes Your Personal Phone
Message-ID: <92bue6dgq160l16ja60hccmsah16efisvp@rusling.org>
John Mayson <john@mayson.us> wrote:
>Is the iPhone the only smart phone with this "feature"? A friend of
>mine claims this is impossible on an Android device, but didn't
>elaborate.
I know on certain Android phones running 2.1 with the latest Exchange
client they can do it as well. It also enforces a password when
coming out of sleep mode. There have been a lot of complaints about
this.
--
Jim Rusling
More or Less Retired
Mustang, OK
http://www.rusling.org
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 21:50:28 GMT
From: sfdavidkaye2@yahoo.com (David Kaye)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: When Your Company Remote-Wipes Your Personal Phone
Message-ID: <icpa32$4sn$1@news.eternal-september.org>
Jim Rusling <usenet@rusling.org> wrote:
>I know on certain Android phones running 2.1 with the latest Exchange
>client they can do it as well. It also enforces a password when
>coming out of sleep mode. There have been a lot of complaints about
>this.
Lesson #1: Don't link your phone to your work. Companies have a right to
secure their data, and given that corporate data can be copied into personal
emails it's reasonable for a company to want to control a worker's phone.
Of course, if your company demands that you use your Android, Blackberry,
whatever for work purposes then I think it's worth asking whether that's the
kind of company you'd want to work for. Personally, I'd never work for a
company that demanded me to check in with them when I wasn't working.
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 09:44:17 -0500
From: T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: History--computer based information operator terminal system
Message-ID: <MPG.275991ce3a6c5cc989d01@news.eternal-september.org>
In article <6efod69qm4e8kd7ftqov9rjsgfkt5sle4k@4ax.com>,
rng@richbonnie.com says...
>
> On Wed, 10 Nov 2010 13:56:40 -0800 (PST), Lisa or Jeff
> <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>
> >A history article in the IBM Systems Magazine describes an IBM System/
> >360-50 used to support an on-line lookup system for telephone
> >information operators. While the article is more about the computer
> >than the telephone operators, it is interesting none the less.
> >
> >for article please see:
> >http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/mainframe/marchapril09/24886p1.aspx
> >(consists of three pages).
> >
> >(That web page has other mainframe computer history stories.)
>
> Sometime in my career at Bell Labs (I think in the 1970's, but not
> sure) our internal newspaper announced a new completely automatic
> directory-assistance system they were experimenting with. They had it
> working with the employee phone directory. To use it, you used the
> telephone keypad to spell out the last name of the person wanted. I
> don't know if this ever got into production.
Of course it got into production. I know the AT&T/Lucent/Avaya Definity
and Prologix all have dial by directory available.
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 19:47:52 EST
From: Wes Leatherock <wesrock@aol.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: History--computer based information operator terminal system
Message-ID: <2c1e93.1047924c.3a21af38@aol.com>
In a message dated 11/26/2010 11:30:45 AM Central Standard Time,
kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net writes:
>> Sometime in my career at Bell Labs (I think in the 1970's, but not
>> sure) our internal newspaper announced a new completely automatic
>> directory-assistance system they were experimenting with. They had
>> it working with the employee phone directory. To use it, you used
>> the telephone keypad to spell out the last name of the person
>> wanted. I don't know if this ever got into production.
> Of course it got into production. I know the AT&T/Lucent/Avaya
> Definity and Prologix all have dial by directory available
I just remembered the number to reach the Southwesteern Bell "Master
Employee Locator--1-800-667-MEL.
The last time I tried it, mayber a couple of year ago, it had so many
features added and so much security added it was pretty hard to use.
Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
wleathus@yahoo.com
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:47:04 +0000 (UTC)
From: David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Disconnected: Attention Passengers it's perfectly safe to use your cellphones
Message-ID: <icooa8$hb7$1@reader1.panix.com>
Most of this thread is ignoring an issue. We are not talking
about [to use telco terms..] a "flag day" where every aircraft
in the US changes from old AM to new SSB.
We are taking about every aircraft, airport, and ATC facility
*in the world*....
And while the descreasing #'s of GA owners in the US might be
better off $$ than Franny Foreclosed; the same is not true of most
airlines and governments.
--
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: Thu, 25 Nov 2010 19:48:50 -0800 (PST)
From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: How Ma Bell Shelved the Future for 60 Years
Message-ID: <160870.95324.qm@web52702.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
What would the world be like if fiber optic and mobile phones had been
available in the 1930's? Would the decade be known as the start of the
Information Revolution rather than the Great Depression?
The Great Bell Labs
In early 1934, Clarence Hickman, a Bell Labs engineer, had a secret
machine, about six feet tall, standing in his office. It was a device
without equal in the world, decades ahead of its time. If you called
and there was no answer on the phone line to which Hickman's invention
was connected, the machine would beep and a recording device would
come on allowing the caller to leave a message.
The genius at the heart of Hickman's secret proto-answering machine
was not so much the concept - perceptive of social change as that
was - but rather the technical principle that made it work and that
would, eventually, transform the world: magnetic recording tape.
Recall that before magnetic storage there was no way to store sound
other than by pressing a record or making a piano roll. The new
technology would not only usher in audio cassettes and videotapes, but
when used with the silicon chip, make computer storage a
reality. Indeed, from the 1980s onward, firms from Microsoft to
Google, and by implication the whole world, would become utterly
dependent on magnetic storage, otherwise known as the hard drive.
If any entity could have come up with advanced recording technology by
the early 1930s it was Bell Labs. Founded in 1925 for the express
purpose of improving telephony, they made good on their mission
(saving AT&T billions with inventions as simple as plastic insulation
for telephone wires) and then some: by the 1930s the laboratories had
effectively developed a mind of their own, carrying their work beyond
better telephones and into basic research to become the world's
preeminent corporate-sponsored scientific body. It was a scientific
Valhalla, hiring the best men (and later women) they could find and
leaving them more or less free to pursue what interested them.
When scientists are given such freedom, they can do amazing things,
and soon Bell's were doing cutting-edge work in fields as diverse as
quantum physics and information theory. It was a Bell Labs employee
named Clinton Davisson who would win a Nobel Prize in 1937 for
demonstrating the wave nature of matter, an insight more typically
credited to Einstein than to a telephone company employee. In total,
Bell would collect seven Nobel Prizes, more than any other corporate
laboratory, including one awarded in 1956 for its most famous
invention, the transistor, which made the computer possible. Other,
more obscure Bell creations are nevertheless dear to geeks, including
Unix and the C programming language.
http://gizmodo.com/5691604/how-ma-bell-shelved-the-future-for-60-years?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gizmodo%2Ffull+%28Gizmodo%29
or:
http://goo.gl/7IvMw
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 14:11:19 -0800 (PST)
From: Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: How Ma Bell Shelved the Future for 60 Years
Message-ID: <f76eb163-9033-4134-803c-fca549c7272c@j1g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>
On Nov 25, 10:48 pm, Joseph Singer <joeofseat...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> The new [magnetic recording tape]
> technology would not only usher in audio cassettes and videotapes, but
> when used with the silicon chip, make computer storage a
> reality. Indeed, from the 1980s onward, firms from Microsoft to
> Google, and by implication the whole world, would become utterly
> dependent on magnetic storage, otherwise known as the hard drive.
The statement is grossly inaccurate in terms of the time line.
Magnetic tape for information processing was developed in the early
1950s, long before silicon chips. It quickly developed into a major
storage medium for computers. Magnetic drums, using the same
principle but on a hard surface, were in service even earlier.
Magnetic disks were invented and utilized by IBM in the mid-1950s.
Mmagnetic core memories were another 1950s development.
Magnetic wire was utilized for crude voice recording prior to the
development of tape.
Bell also used strips of sound movie film to play back pre-recorded
messages, such as passing a phone number to a manual switchboard
operator.
> If any entity could have come up with advanced recording technology by
> the early 1930s it was Bell Labs. Founded in 1925 for the express
> purpose of improving telephony, they made good on their mission
> (saving AT&T billions with inventions as simple as plastic insulation
> for telephone wires)
Did telephone wires use plastic as an insulator that far back? I
thought that came in the 1960s, before that paper, textile, and rubber
were used. While some plastics were available in the 1940s, I thought
their big growth was after WW II.
Anyway, I don't see in the above where magnetic recording was
perfected as a usable technology, or an explanation why Hickman's
invention wasn't utilized. Note that many years often go between the
time something is invented and the by the time it can be inexpensively
manufactured and meet industrial standards. It took ten years for the
transistor to be developed into something that would be cheaper and
more reliable than the vacuum tube, and several decades more before it
finally replaced all applications of the vacuum tube.
The Bell Labs history specifically states that AMA used paper tapes
when developed in the 1950s because magnetic recording technology
wasn't ready.
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 15:44:43 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: During boring classes, texting is the new doodling
Message-ID: <p0624087ac915cbef06ce@[10.0.1.2]>
During boring classes, texting is the new doodling
By Michael Rubinkam
Associated Press / November 26, 2010
WILKES-BARRE, Pa.-When his professors drone, Dan Kautz whips
out his phone.
Kautz, a senior at Wilkes University, might send a text message to
someone across the room -- "I can't wait to get out of here" -- or
make plans with his roommates. He's become so adept at texting during
class that he can tap out a message without even looking at the
screen, making it appear as if he's paying attention to the
instructor when he's really chatting with his girlfriend.
...
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/11/26/during_boring_classes_texting_is_the_new_doodling/
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 Bill Horne. 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.
The Telecom Digest is moderated by Bill Horne.
Contact information: Bill Horne
Telecom Digest
43 Deerfield Road
Sharon MA 02067-2301
781-784-7287
bill at horne dot net
Subscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=subscribe telecom
Unsubscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=unsubscribe telecom
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
Copyright (C) 2009 TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved.
Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA.
---------------------------------------------------------------
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 The Telecom Digest (10 messages)
|
| |
or 