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The Telecom Digest for May 16, 2014
Volume 33 : Issue 84 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
What is "Viber"? (John Meissen)
Re: What is "Skype"? (John Levine)
Re: What is "Viber"? (John Meissen)
Re: What is "Viber"? (John R. Levine)
Re: What is "Viber"? (tlvp)
Verizon, AT&T leaving landline phone networks to rot, complaint says (Monty Solomon)
Good news for privacy: Fewer servers sending e-mail naked, Facebook finds (Monty Solomon)
FCC gets an earful from all sides as it considers reclassifying broadband (Neal McLain)
Re: Woman allegedly records own arrest, gets accused of wiretapping (Pete Cresswell)
Latest study on cell phones and cancer finds another weak association (Monty Solomon)
NSA routinely tapped in-flight Internet, intercepted exported routers (Monty Solomon)
Comcast's Cohen: Company will roll out usage-based pricing when trials are complete (Neal McLain)

====== 32 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.
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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


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Date: Thu, 15 May 2014 11:22:34 -0700 From: "John Meissen" <john@meissen.org> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: What is "Viber"? Message-ID: <20140515182234.C8D0817F89A@john> I was wondering if anyone in the community knows anything about this app? http://www.viber.com/ Traveling to Japan recently I was looking for some way to make calls with my phone over wifi (since Verizon apparently had their head in a dark place when they told me my phone would work there). Skype would do what I want, but I don't believe there's an android version. I have a Google Voice number, but the GV integration doesn't use the data connection by itself. There was an app that used the gmail calling feature, but Google removed that external API recently, and it was a PITA to use anyway. This looks promising, but the skeptic in me says, "what's the catch?" As I'm fond of saying, TANSTAAFL. Regards, john-
Date: 15 May 2014 20:07:46 -0000 From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: What is "Skype"? Message-ID: <20140515200746.2942.qmail@joyce.lan> >Skype would do what I want, but I don't believe there's an android version. Sure there is. Fire up Google Play, download and install it. Calls to other Skype users or to numbers in the US are free. An alternative for making phone calls is Vonage (yes, that Vonage.) They also have an Android app that lets you call US numbers for free. R's, John
Date: Thu, 15 May 2014 14:02:34 -0700 From: "John Meissen" <john@meissen.org> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: What is "Viber"? Message-ID: <20140515210234.AB0B517F89A@john> > >Skype would do what I want, but I don't believe there's an android version. > > Sure there is. Fire up Google Play, download and install it. Calls > to other Skype users or to numbers in the US are free. > Thanks, I didn't know it was there. I'll give it a try, although the slew of recent 1-star reviews doesn't fill me with confidence. > An alternative for making phone calls is Vonage (yes, that Vonage.) > They also have an Android app that lets you call US numbers for free. I'm not ready to ditch my local provider yet, although I've considered switching to Vonage in the past. It won't help my daughter while she's out of the country this summer, either. Neither of those answer the original question, though. Viber seems to integrate nicely into the phone GUI, and doesn't require separate registration/login. I've heard from one person I know who apparently likes it and is impressed by the call quality. But I can't figure out what their business plan is. They don't use advertising, so where's the money? john-
Date: 15 May 2014 17:18:06 -0400 From: "John R. Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: What is "Viber"? Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1405151707040.3219@joyce.lan> >> An alternative for making phone calls is Vonage (yes, that Vonage.) >> They also have an Android app that lets you call US numbers for free. > > I'm not ready to ditch my local provider yet, although I've considered > switching to Vonage in the past. It won't help my daughter while she's > out of the country this summer, either. The Vonage app is just an Android app to make outgoing calls. It doesn't affect any other phone service you might have. I think for extra money you can get an incoming phone number, but you can do that with Skype and other apps, too. > Neither of those answer the original question, though. Viber seems to > integrate nicely into the phone GUI, and doesn't require separate > registration/login. I've heard from one person I know who apparently > likes it and is impressed by the call quality. But I can't figure out > what their business plan is. They don't use advertising, so where's the > money? It's like Skype. Calls to other people using the Viber app are free. If you want to make real phone calls, those are .019/min to US numbers. That's not partcularly cheap. I use a service called Voipdiscount, which is a reseller of the German VoIP company Betamax (no relation to the video recorders), with a freeware VoIP app called CSipSimple. When I load up my VoipDiscount account with â?¬10 of credit, I get 120 days of free calls to most of the countries you'd want to call (landline and mobile in North America, landline only most other places), other calls are on the order of â?¬0.01/minute. Works pretty well. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly
Date: Thu, 15 May 2014 16:19:40 -0400 From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: What is "Viber"? Message-ID: <w8dzam1m3u0f.v5xqfztjvs4l.dlg@40tude.net> On Thu, 15 May 2014 11:22:34 -0700, John Meissen wrote: > I was wondering if anyone in the community knows anything about this app? > > > http://www.viber.com/ > > > This looks promising, but the skeptic in me says, "what's the catch?" Looks as if it's only good for communicating w/ other viber users -- quote: > ... lets you send free messages and make free calls to other Viber users ... Cheers, -- tlvp -- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 23:38:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Verizon, AT&T leaving landline phone networks to rot, complaint says Message-ID: <p06240838cf99e6fab4f9@[10.0.1.3]> Verizon, AT&T leaving landline phone networks to rot, complaint says FCC urged to investigate complaints that customers were forced off landlines. by Jon Brodkin May 13 2014 Ars Technica http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/verizon-att-forcing-customers-off-landline-phones-complaint-says/
Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 23:46:03 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Good news for privacy: Fewer servers sending e-mail naked, Facebook finds Message-ID: <p0624083fcf99e8c22014@[10.0.1.3]> Good news for privacy: Fewer servers sending e-mail naked, Facebook finds Company calls on laggards to join majority of servers by deploying STARTTLS. by Dan Goodin May 13 2014 Ars Technica Server-to-server e-mail encryption using the STARTTLS protocol has reached an important tipping point that hardens the majority of messages Facebook sends its users against wholesale snooping by well-financed adversaries, according to figures released Tuesday by the site. The social network said 58 percent of the notification e-mails it sends users are successfully encrypted using STARTTLS. Even more impressive, 76 percent of unique Mail Exchange hostnames are set up to support the protection, although only about half of them use valid digital certificates to cryptographically validate connections. STARTTLS ensures that plaintext e-mails are encrypted before being transferred from the sending server to the receiving server. Amid revelations of an expansive surveillance program by the National Security Agency and other state-sponsored groups, the extension is seen as a way of thwarting such programs or at least making them more costly to carry out. But like most network-based technologies, its value is proportional to the square of the number of servers that use it, meaning it provides benefit only when widely used. ... http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/05/good-news-for-privacy-fewer-servers-sending-e-mail-naked-facebook-finds/
Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 18:40:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: FCC gets an earful from all sides as it considers reclassifying broadband Message-ID: <a9573a30-1b94-4f0b-ad60-f221ba7034ca@googlegroups.com> By K.C. Neel, FierceCable, May 14, 2014 As FCC chairman Thomas Wheeler mulls changes to net neutrality rules, representatives from all corners of the industry -- from cable and telecom executives to Hollywood and Capitol Hill players -- are giving him their two cents on the issue. The FCC will release proposed new rules regulating the Internet on Thursday, and no one appears happy with what's been floated so far. The new rules are being crafted in the wake of a federal appeals court ruling in January that struck down the existing basis for the FCC's net neutrality guidelines. Wheeler's new proposed rules seek to prevent broadband providers from blocking or slowing down websites but would allow some content companies to pay for preferential treatment. He has also indicated he'll look at turning broadband service into a Title II service, which would treat the delivery mechanism as a common carrier or utility. More than two dozen cable and telecom industry titans are begging the commission not to reclassify broadband as a Title II service, arguing that "the growth of the Internet and the rapid adoption of mobile technology have been great American success stories, made possible by a light regulatory touch for the entire online ecosystem." They went to say that imposing "common carrier-style regulation upon any part of the Internet would be a dangerous rejection of this successful policy course, potentially impeding the development and adoption of new Internet technologies and services, and threatening future investment in next-generation broadband infrastructure." Continued: http://www.fiercecable.com/story/fcc-gets-earful-all-sides-it-considers-reclassifying-broadband/2014-05-14?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal -or- http://tinyurl.com/pqwtxpp Neal McLain
Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 13:05:06 -0400 From: Pete Cresswell <PeteCress@invalid.telecom-digest.org> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Woman allegedly records own arrest, gets accused of wiretapping Message-ID: <gh87n9ddqgamhjae8c8cen4bnio2r7pf3u@4ax.com> Per Monty Solomon: >Massachusetts wiretapping law prohibits secretly recording police. Can somebody explain the rationale for such laws? -- Pete Cresswell
Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 23:44:31 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Latest study on cell phones and cancer finds another weak association Message-ID: <p0624083ecf99e8730d55@[10.0.1.3]> Latest study on cell phones and cancer finds another weak association A small study with known limitations doesn't do much to change our understanding. by John Timmer May 13 2014 Ars Technica Over the years, various governments around the world have attempted to enact regulations that warn cell phone users of the supposed risks of heavy cell phone use. There's just one problem with that: medical authorities have had a very hard time determining what those risks are. It's not for lack of trying. Various small studies have found hints of an association between cell phone use and specific cancers. But large meta-analyses and extended cohort studies have come up empty, suggesting that either the small studies produced spurious results or that only a small subset of the cell phone using population is at risk. Without a larger, definitive study, it's simply impossible to tell. But that hasn't stopped a steady flow of smaller studies from continuing to retread well-worn ground-or journalists from giving these limited studies more attention than they deserve. In the latest example, the AFP picked up a French study that shows a potential elevated risk of cancer from high levels of cell phone use. But the study has the usual collection of limitations, and it has some details that run counter to some of the past studies that found elevated cancer risk. ... http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/05/latest-study-on-cell-phones-and-cancer-finds-another-weak-association/
Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 23:41:24 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: NSA routinely tapped in-flight Internet, intercepted exported routers Message-ID: <p06240839cf99e742c5f5@[10.0.1.3]> NSA routinely tapped in-flight Internet, intercepted exported routers Greenwald book provides more data on NSA's "Homing Pigeon," other surveillance. by Sean Gallagher May 13 2014 Ars Technica In his new book No Place to Hide, Glenn Greenwald revealed a number of additional details on the "craft" and tools used by the NSA and its British counterpart, the GCHQ. While many of the capabilities and activities Greenwald details in the book were previously published in reports drawing from Edward Snowden's vast haul of NSA documents, a number of new pieces of information have come to light-including the NSA's and GCHQ's efforts to use airlines' in-flight data service to track and surveil targeted passengers in real time. The systems-codenamed "Homing Pigeon" by the NSA and "Thieving Magpie" by the GCHQ-allowed the agencies to track which aircraft individuals under surveillance boarded based on their phone data. ... http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/nsa-routinely-tapped-in-flight-internet-intercepted-exported-routers/
Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 18:34:45 -0700 (PDT) From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Comcast's Cohen: Company will roll out usage-based pricing when trials are complete Message-ID: <6548e111-e328-46e5-aab0-ff57d11d5ff9@googlegroups.com> By Sue Marek, FierceCable,May 14, 2014 A Comcast executive said that he is confident the company will roll out usage-based data pricing nationwide once it completes a series of "robust" trials it is currently conducting in several markets. Speaking at the MoffettNathanson Media & Communications Summit today in New York City, David Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast, said that the company is moving slowly with its usage-based data trials to avoid alienating consumers. "We don't want to blow up our high-speed data business," he said. The company has been testing metered billing in several markets including Savannah, Ga.; Jackson, Miss.; Charleston, S.C.; Huntsville and Mobile, Ala.; and central Kentucky. Last December, Comcast added the Atlanta market. Cohen noted that Comcast has tested a few different models for its usage-based data pricing -- but he said that the current model, in which customers are allotted 300 GB of data per month and then charged an additional $10 for every 50 GB of data they use over the 300 GB, seems to be the most popular model. Continued: http://www.fiercecable.com/story/comcasts-cohen-company-will-roll-out-usage-based-pricing-when-trials-are-co/2014-05-14?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal -or- http://tinyurl.com/opw7sew Neal McLain
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