33 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
Copyright © 2014 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.

The Telecom Digest for Dec 14, 2014
Volume 33 : Issue 227 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Verizon's New, Encrypted Calling App Comes Pre-Hacked for the NSA (Bill Horne)
Data sent between phones and smartwatches wide open to hackers (Monty Solomon)
Verizon downplays impact of net neutrality rules (Bill Horne)
AT&T, Verizon tax breaks fail to produce jobs (Bill Horne)
Verizon, VITA upgrade phone passwords after breach (Bill Horne)
In Twin Cities, Centurylink fiber rollout not quite up to speed (Bill Horne)

The President of the United States of necessity owes his election to office to the suffrage and zealous labors of a political party, the members of which cherish with ardor and regard as of essential importance the principles of their party organization; but he should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves the country best.  - Rutherford B. Hayes

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Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 03:26:05 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Verizon's New, Encrypted Calling App Comes Pre-Hacked for the NSA Message-ID: <m6e8qe$rou$1@dont-email.me> Verizon is the latest big company to enter the post-Snowden market for secure communication, and it's doing so with an encryption standard that comes with a way for law enforcement to access ostensibly secure phone conversations. Verizon Voice Cypher, the product introduced on Thursday with the encryption company Cellcrypt, offers business and government customers end-to-end encryption for voice calls on iOS, Android, or BlackBerry devices equipped with a special app. The encryption software provides secure communications for people speaking on devices with the app, regardless of their wireless carrier, and it can also connect to an organization's secure phone system. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-12-11/verizons-new-encrypted-calling-app-comes-prehacked-for-the-nsa -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 19:18:34 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Data sent between phones and smartwatches wide open to hackers Message-ID: <5AA7E488-2B51-4FFA-A505-E6203CB9EDFD@roscom.com> Data sent between phones and smartwatches wide open to hackers http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/12/connections-between-phones-and-smartwatches-wide-open-to-brute-force-hacks/
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 09:45:48 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Verizon downplays impact of net neutrality rules Message-ID: <m6hje9$k7t$1@dont-email.me> by Brian Fung One of the key arguments put forward by the broadband industry in opposing federal regulation is that it would cause an enormous economic fallout. Aggressive oversight, Internet service providers argue, would raise costs for consumers and force telecom companies to stop investing in their networks. They wouldn't be able to offer new services or faster speeds. In plain English, this roughly boils down to: "Leave us alone, or the average American gets hurt." http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/12/10/verizon-actually-strong-net-neutrality-rules-wont-affect-our-network-investment/ -or- http://goo.gl/BCtDFV -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly) And you to whom adversity has dealt a final blow With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go Turn to and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again - Stan Rogers
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 10:09:15 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: AT&T, Verizon tax breaks fail to produce jobs Message-ID: <m6hkq8$pik$1@dont-email.me> By THOMAS GRYTA With Congress poised to extend a raft of tax breaks, consider this: One such break has helped AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. slash their recent tax bills by billions of dollars without leading to the intended increase in investment or jobs. The measure, known as "bonus depreciation," lets companies offset their income with investments they have made more quickly. It was enacted in 2008 as part of the economic stimulus package with the goal of giving companies an incentive to build more factories or upgrade more equipment, creating jobs and giving a boost to sluggish economic growth in the process. http://www.wsj.com/articles/at-t-verizon-tax-breaks-fail-to-produce-jobs-1418345589 -or- http://goo.gl/QySU3f -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly) But when you roar at the income tax And the slippery bureaucratic hacks And the ancient political fishlike smell And assert that the world is going to hell ... - Ogden Nash
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 09:53:35 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Verizon, VITA upgrade phone passwords after breach Message-ID: <m6hjsr$ls6$1@dont-email.me> by Andrew Cain Verizon has worked with the Virginia Information Technologies Agency to upgrade phone passwords at state agencies that use the Verizon Hosted IP Centrex phone service after someone apparently hacked into the system in August and made unauthorized calls. On Aug. 3, Verizon notified VITA of 26 suspect phone calls that totaled 73 minutes of use were made on Aug. 1 between 9 and 11:42 p.m., said Janice Akers of VITA. http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/state-regional/verizon-vita-upgrade-phone-passwords-after-breach/article_94883c17-61a8-5e5e-a624-3277bd73254b.html -or- http://goo.gl/7Zn5Cw -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly) I was bought by a man named Ray A card-carrying member of the NRA But he left me out in his car one day And now the finger on my trigger hasn't seen its sixteenth birthday - Ellis Paul
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 10:30:15 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: In Twin Cities, Centurylink fiber rollout not quite up to speed Message-ID: <m6hm1j$u4l$1@dont-email.me> by Julio Ojeda-Zapata CenturyLink is mum on when its previously promised fiber-optic gigabit-per-second Internet service will roll out across St. Paul and Minneapolis. But readers have been digging up tantalizing clues. The latest comes from Blake Haas, who thinks he figured out the extent of CenturyLink’s fiber-optic deployments by using Web-mapping tools. http://blogs.twincities.com/yourtechweblog/2014/12/11/centurylink-fiber-clues-reader/ -or- http://goo.gl/Y5Aoel -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly) There's a hundred-thousand Frenchmen in New Orleans In New Orleans there are Frenchmen everywhere But your house could fall down Your baby could drown Wouldn't none of those Frenchmen care - Randy Newman

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'.

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