31 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981

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The Telecom Digest for December 6, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 285 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: Fundraising appeal (Julian Thomas)
Re: Who Do Online Advertisers Think You Are? (T)
Re: Why passwords have never been weaker-and crackers have never been stronger (PV)
A Feisty Start-Up Is Met With Regulatory Snarl (Monty Solomon)
The Future Of Internet Freedom (Monty Solomon)
Apps Redirect Text Messages, and Profits, From Cellular Providers (Monty Solomon)
Just Avoiding the Cookies May Not Be Enough (Monty Solomon)

====== 31 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 Bill Horne 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 that person, or email address owner.
Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without the explicit written consent of the owner of that address. 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: Tue, 4 Dec 2012 20:15:54 -0500 From: Julian Thomas <jt@jt-mj.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Fundraising appeal Message-ID: <7D311567-93AE-4584-A597-4C0D71B35D42@jt-mj.net> Confirm that this is legit and I'll kick in a modest sum ***** Moderator's Note ***** I'm sorry to say that it's all too real: I wish it was just a nightmare, but every body shop I've talked to said "Don't bother", which means I'm going to have to buy another car. I'm also worried about damages to a very expensive pickup truck and a third car that the pickup hit, since everyone is going to try to blame my wife. If there's any doubt remaining, you can find my phone number at the address listed below, and call me in person. Better yet, do a reverse lookup on 781-784-7287. You'll see my name and address, and I'm sure the Stoughton, Massachusetts police will be able to confirm that the car shown in the pictures belongs to us. Thanks for your help! Bill Horne Moderator 43 Deerfield Rd Sharon MA 02067-2301 bill at horne dot net On 4Dec 2012, at 5:54 PM, Telecom Digest Moderator <redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu> wrote: > I won't pretend that I'm more deserving of support than all the other > organizations that people hear from at this time of year. I'm not tax > deductable, and although Pat's frequent entreaties left ample > precedent for personal appeals in the Digest, I know that times are > tough and money is tight even for those who have jobs. I never > expected the moderator's chair to be padded, and I'm not going to make > a habit of it, but I'm asking for your help. > > Thanks for thinking about it. > > Bill Horne > Moderator > > bill at horne dot net has been set up to connect with Paypal -- Sent from my new iMac Julian Thomas jt@jt-mj.net http://jt-mj.net
Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500 From: T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Who Do Online Advertisers Think You Are? Message-ID: <MPG.2b289edd25f96b38989d52@news.eternal-september.org> In article <p06240810cce03b157ba1@[10.0.1.5]>, monty@roscom.com says... > Having created my new digital identities as heavy-handedly as > possible, I returned to my usual Web sites. At first, the ads on my > favorite Washington neighborhood blog, the Prince of Petworth, were > the same on both browsers. But less than two days later, an ad for > Mitt Romney suddenly appeared next to a story I was reading on > Firefox about Gore Vidal's burial. When I opened that page on Safari, > the ad in the exact same spot was for Catholic University's master's > program in human resources management. > > How did Republican Jeff and Democratic Jeff end up seeing entirely > different ads? The answer is real-time bidding, a technology that's > transforming advertising, politics, news and the way we live online. > Advertisers compete in an auction for the opportunity to send ads to > individual consumers. Each time a company buys access to me, it can > bombard me with an ad that will follow me no matter where I show up > on the Web. > > So what of folks like me, who block all ads. I mean every single one of them.
Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2012 13:42:06 -0600 From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (PV) To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Why passwords have never been weaker-and crackers have never been stronger Message-ID: <2LadnaGUU8gTnSDNnZ2dnUVZ_oednZ2d@supernews.com> Pete Cresswell <PeteCress@invalid.telecom-digest.org> writes: >Not to beat a dead horse... but... > >If I'm understanding this thread correctly: > >- Sites and DBs do not record a user's password. > Instead they record the hashed result and apply > the hashing algorithm to whatever the user > types in. Yep. Correct on all counts. * -- * PV Something like badgers, something like lizards, and something like corkscrews.
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 00:16:35 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: A Feisty Start-Up Is Met With Regulatory Snarl Message-ID: <p0624081bcce1d3111b62@[10.0.1.5]> A Feisty Start-Up Is Met With Regulatory Snarl By BRIAN X. CHEN December 2, 2012 WASHINGTON - Summoning a taxi or car service with your smartphone feels like the future. City governments around the world can agree on that. But many of them are proposing new rules that would run Uber, one of the most prominent ride-requesting apps, off the road. At a recent conference here, transportation regulators and car service operators from cities in the United States and Europe met to talk about how smartphone apps were changing the hire-a-car business. Some of these apps are integrated with dispatching systems run by the car companies, while others allow drivers to directly connect with passengers, phone to phone. While the regulators discussed ways to clarify the legality of these apps, they also proposed guidelines that would effectively force Uber, a San Francisco start-up, to cease operations in the United States. Uber also faces new lawsuits filed by San Francisco cabdrivers and Chicago car service companies, and a $20,000 fine from the California Public Utilities Commission. The battle between Uber and city governments underscores the tension between lawmakers and technology companies at a time when Web sites and mobile apps can outmaneuver old rules. Services like Uber, Airbnb and Craigslist can cut out the middleman and lead to more efficient markets. But regulators say they could also put consumers at risk. Uber has rattled regulators in many cities with its unusual approach to expansion. It says that it first consults a transportation lawyer in a city on whether it is legal to operate there. When it comes to town, its employees contact local car service companies to discuss working with them; in cities where Uber works with cabs, employees put up fliers or approach drivers at airports and gas stations. Participating drivers get free iPhones that run Uber's navigation software, which helps them find people nearby who are requesting rides with their smartphones. The start-up, which has raised $50 million since 2010, generally does not consult transportation regulators before it starts rolling in each city. Because it is not an actual provider of rides, it says that it is not subject to such regulation. To date, this approach has generally worked for it in 18 cities, including San Francisco, Washington, New York, Chicago, Paris and Amsterdam. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/technology/app-maker-uber-hits-regulatory-snarl.html
Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2012 21:30:48 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: The Future Of Internet Freedom Message-ID: <p06240809cce5b381a735@[10.0.1.5]> On Point with Tom Ashbrook The Future Of Internet Freedom December 5, 2012 http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/12/05/internet-freedom Big powers want to chop up the global internet and put nations in charge. Russia. China. We're looking at the push to rein in the web. The Internet was born free. A novel network that spanned the globe before governments entirely understood what was going on. But they know now. More than forty nations now filter and censor the web. Some have just plain shut it down - think Syria last week. At a big UN meeting this week in Dubai, there is a fresh push to give national governments more control over the global web. Maybe through the U.N. China, Russia, Iran appear to like the idea. The control. The U.S. and big American companies -- Google, Facebook -- do not. This hour, On Point: alarm bells over global Internet freedom. -Tom Ashbrook Guests Brian Murphy, Dubai bureau chief for the Associated Press. Tom Gjelten, covers a wide variety of global security and economic issues for National Public Radio. Ronald Deibert, Director of Citizen Lab and a professor at the University of Toronto. http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/12/05/internet-freedom
Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2012 21:38:14 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Apps Redirect Text Messages, and Profits, From Cellular Providers Message-ID: <p0624080bcce5b56f1afd@[10.0.1.5]> Apps Redirect Text Messages, and Profits, From Cellular Providers By BRIAN X. CHEN December 4, 2012 For a long time, opening a cellphone bill was scary for the parents of teenagers. Charges for texting could reach hundreds of dollars a month, prompting many families to sign up for unlimited plans. But at perhaps $20 a month for each family member, that quickly added up, too. Relief is on the way. Cellphone users are sending more text messages than ever, but increasingly they are free - thanks to the Internet. While that is good news for consumers, it could cost the world's wireless companies tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue. Standard texting, the kind where you send abbreviation-filled messages over a cellphone network, has been in decline in many parts of the world, and now appears to be shrinking in the United States. That is because smartphones can use free Internet-powered services that send messages over data networks instead, and those services are attracting millions of users. The shift is opening an opportunity for big companies like Facebook and Apple and smaller start-ups like WhatsApp and Kik, which are making aggressive grabs at this market, aiming to put themselves at the center of how people communicate in the smartphone era. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/technology/free-messaging-apps-siphon-profits-from-cellular-providers.html
Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2012 21:43:54 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Just Avoiding the Cookies May Not Be Enough Message-ID: <p0624080ccce5b6c36ab0@[10.0.1.5]> Just Avoiding the Cookies May Not Be Enough By JEFFREY ROSEN DECEMBER 4, 2012 In last weekend's magazine, I wrote about how the rise of targeted advertising is transforming online privacy and fragmenting our politics, news and culture. By describing the new technologies, which include real-time bidding auctions, where advertisers bid on the right to send us ads wherever we go online (and increasingly on our mobile devices), I tried to get at the costs of living in an increasingly personalized virtual universe. These include the "filter bubble" problem - where the ads and news we see are tailored to profiles that we can't access or control - and the problem of digital redlining, where we may receive different discounts online, or even pay different prices at the mall, based on invisible judgments about how much advertisers think we're worth. The reader reactions to the story have been great. Many have mentioned that they avoid tracking by blocking cookies and have provided helpful suggestions about their favorite programs or apps for avoiding tracking. (I use Ghostery myself.) Here's a sampling of suggestions: ... http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/just-avoiding-the-cookies-may-not-be-enough/
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