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

Add this Digest to your personal   or  

The Telecom Digest for April 5, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 86 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Forget SOPA, You Should Be Worried About This Cybersecurity Bill (Monty Solomon)
Re: Forget SOPA, You Should Be Worried About This Cybersecurity Bill (Bill Horne)
Re: Wireless Taxes and Fees: A Tragedy of the Anticommons (Steven)

====== 30 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: Wed, 4 Apr 2012 06:49:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Forget SOPA, You Should Be Worried About This Cybersecurity Bill Message-ID: <p06240892cba1d69e8ef2@[10.0.1.4]> Forget SOPA, You Should Be Worried About This Cybersecurity Bill by Mike Masnick Apr 2 2012 Techdirt While most folks are looking elsewhere, it appears that Congress is trying to see if it can sneak an absolutely awful "cybersecurity" bill through Congress. We've discussed how there's been some fighting on the Senate side concerning which cybersecurity bill to support, but there's a similar battle going on in the House, and it appears that the Rogers-Ruppersberger bill, known as CISPA (for Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) or HR 3523 is winning out, with a planned attempt to move it through Congress later this month. The bill is awful -- and yet has somehow already gained over 100 sponsors. In an attempt to pretend that this isn't a "SOPA-like" problem, the supporters of this bill are highlighting the fact that Facebook, Microsoft and TechAmerica are supporting this bill. However, this is a terrible bill for a variety of reasons. Even if we accept the mantra that new cybersecurity laws are needed (despite a near total lack of evidence to support this -- and, no, fearmongering about planes falling from the sky doesn't count), this bill has serious problems. As CDT warned when this bill first came out, it's way too broad and overreaching: ... http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120402/04425118325/forget-sopa-you-should-be-worried-about-this-cybersecurity-bill.shtml Cyber Intelligence Bill Threatens Privacy and Civilian Control https://www.cdt.org/blogs/greg-nojeim/112cyber-intelligence-bill-threatens-privacy-and-civilian-control Comparison of Cybersecurity Information Sharing Legislation American Civil Liberties Union March 2012 http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu_cs_info_sharing_leg_chart_march_2012__final.pdf
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2012 10:42:15 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Forget SOPA, You Should Be Worried About This Cybersecurity Bill Message-ID: <20120404144215.GA16587@telecom.csail.mit.edu> On Wed, Apr 04, 2012 at 06:49:02AM -0400, Monty Solomon wrote: > > Forget SOPA, You Should Be Worried About This Cybersecurity Bill > > by Mike Masnick > Apr 2 2012 > Techdirt > > While most folks are looking elsewhere, it appears that Congress is > trying to see if it can sneak an absolutely awful "cybersecurity" > bill through Congress. We've discussed how there's been some fighting > on the Senate side concerning which cybersecurity bill to support, > but there's a similar battle going on in the House, and it appears > that the Rogers-Ruppersberger bill, known as CISPA (for Cyber > Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) or HR 3523 is winning out, > with a planned attempt to move it through Congress later this month. > The bill is awful -- and yet has somehow already gained over 100 > sponsors. In an attempt to pretend that this isn't a "SOPA-like" > problem, the supporters of this bill are highlighting the fact that > Facebook, Microsoft and TechAmerica are supporting this bill. As the authors of the articles cited point out, CISPA is a terrible bill, but not from the perspective of the Congress. I've written about SOPA in my blog (http://billhorne.com/), and CISPA is the next step on the road that started with the Clipper chip and will end only when the cop in the woodpile and the cop on the corner and the cop knocking at your front door know everything you've done online and everyone you've written to. There is a devious agenda in this and previous monitoring bills: Uncle Sam is scared silly that the lower classes will start using the tax havens and offshore banking previously reserved for the elites and their friends - in other words, the ruling class. Online banking is now so common that ordinary citizens are realizing that they can use a different URL and avoid the tax collector in the woodpile and the tax collector knocking at their front door, and that's something that right-thinking, loyal Americans aren't supposed to do. Bill -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly)
Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:36:45 -0700 From: Steven <diespammers@ikillspammers.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Wireless Taxes and Fees: A Tragedy of the Anticommons Message-ID: <jlhpqe$4lq$1@dont-email.me> On 4/3/12 6:27 PM, Bill Horne wrote: > Two researchers at George Washington University's Mercatus Center have > analyzed the tax burden telephone users bear, and found that it's out > of proportion to other levies. > > by Matthew Mitchell, Thomas Stratmann Jan 23, 2012 > > Combined federal, state, and local taxes on wireless services are > about twice as high as the average retail sales tax. While the > normative justification for above-average taxation of wireless > service is weak, there is a compelling public-choice explanation: > The mobile service tax base appears to suffer from a tragedy of the > anticommons. That is, multiple parties have the power to block or > partially block access to a resource, resulting in > under-utilization of the resource. > > Numerous overlapping tax authorities seek to obtain revenues > through wireless-service taxation, and this may lead to > overexploitation of the tax base. The anticommons problem has two > dimensions. First, the mobile-service tax base funds numerous > distinct projects at each level of government. Second, the base is > taxed by numerous overlapping levels of government. > > Rest at > > > http://mercatus.org/publication/wireless-taxes-and-fees-tragedy-anticommons > > -or- > > http://goo.gl/FO0UM > > > > In California at least cities can't tax cell phones, the reason is because the nature of the phone; not used in the city were it is billed. Some years ago Riverside tried it and was blocked from doing so. In January a third party billing service for Sprint and T-Mobile added a city utility users tax, the city had no idea it was being billed until they started getting calls, it took Sprint 2 months until they were able to stop the billing, we have yet too get a refund, even more stupid is the city was sent 2 checks for over $120,000 each and they are trying to send the checks back. -- The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2011 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co.
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
339-364-8487
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) 2012 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 (3 messages)

Return to Archives ** Older Issues