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The Telecom Digest for Sat, 25 Feb 2017
Volume 36 : Issue 21 : "text" format

Table of contents
A major security flaw means you have to change your passwords again.Monty Solomon
With Jews nationwide watching, the FBI works to crack the tough case of a telephone culpritMonty Solomon
Apple Doesn't Need to Buy NetflixMonty Solomon
Apple, Let Us Tune into Those FM Radio ChannelsBob Goudreau
USA: "Data" SIMM Card That Does Not Expire?Pete Cresswell
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <C51CFBAA-EA69-4DB2-A813-4047BF06B408@roscom.com> Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2017 22:35:31 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: A major security flaw means you have to change your passwords again. A major security flaw means you have to change your passwords again. By Hayley Tsukayama A security flaw at Cloudflare means that Uber, Fitbit, OK Cupid and other users may have had their passwords exposed. But there's no need for panic. The security firm Cloudflare disclosed late Thursday that a long-running bug in its security systems may have leaked information, including potentially personal information, from thousands of sites including Uber, Fitbit and OKCupid. The problem was first uncovered by Google security expert Tavis Ormandy, who let Cloudflare know about the issue on Feb. 18. But the service had been leaking information for months in a way that allowed search engines to pick it up, according to Cloudflare. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/02/24/a-major-security-flaw-means-you-have-to-change-your-passwords-again ------------------------------ Message-ID: <B949B8A3-82EB-47E6-8FC0-B21E5C77A9D4@roscom.com> Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2017 22:18:52 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: With Jews nationwide watching, the FBI works to crack the tough case of a telephone culprit With Jews nationwide watching, the FBI works to crack the tough case of a telephone culprit Again and again, the calls have come in. In Miami, hundreds of young students fled their school building. In Foster City, Calif., parents scrambled to pick up preschoolers whose school suddenly closed for the day. In West Hartford, Conn., elderly women climbed out of the pool mid-swim to evacuate. The threats are coming in to JCCs from a robocaller with a masked number, difficult to trace. ]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/02/24/with-jews-nationwide-watching-the-fbi-works-to-crack-the-tough-case-of-a-telephone-culprit/ ------------------------------ Message-ID: <3353A39A-F0C7-4189-BC03-5296D55DA9FD@roscom.com> Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2017 21:35:10 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Apple Doesn't Need to Buy Netflix Calls for Apple to buy Netflix are getting louder. Instead of evaluating whether Apple should buy Netflix, a more valuable question is whether or not Apple actually needs to buy Netflix to accomplish its goals. Upon closer examination, it becomes clear that calls to buy Netflix are misplaced as Apple is chasing after something entirely different in the video streaming space. ]https://www.aboveavalon.com/notes/2017/2/21/apple-doesnt-need-to-buy-netflix ------------------------------ Message-ID: <008c01d28de3$0942c8b0$1bc85a10$@nc.rr.com> Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2017 09:42:19 -0500 From: "Bob Goudreau" <BobGoudreau@nc.rr.com> Subject: Apple, Let Us Tune into Those FM Radio Channels Our esteemed moderator wrote: > Incipient paranoia department: given the fact that board designers > have a religion called "minimum parts count", and that electrical > engineers obsess over every femtoamp in a battery-powered > environment, I find myself wondering what an unused FM receiver chip > is doing in an iPhone in the first place. As the article notes, phones' FM chips are commonly enabled in other countries (it cites a figure of 80 percent in Mexico, for instance). Apple doesn't want to manufacture multiple variant iPhone models for different national markets if it can avoid it, so it's presumably cheaper to just include the FM chip even if it isn't activated in some countries. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ Message-ID: <2d5uac9ksid96j9o0mhvd7c30g043trd5h@4ax.com> Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2017 12:16:57 -0500 From: Pete Cresswell <PeteCress@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: USA: "Data" SIMM Card That Does Not Expire? Full Disclosure: I have a legacy tMobile prepaid account and it's working for me: nets out to about $.10 per minute.... I buy $100 worth of minutes every so often, and they roll over year-after-year.... Maybe there's better out there, but this one is good enough and I am familiar with it.... But it lacks data. I am thinking about getting one of the Huawei phones that takes 2 or more SIMM cards, staying with tMob, and supplementing it with a "Data" SIMM card. I think my only "Musts" for a phone are that it accepts a 256-gig external SD card and allows use of a stylus (for TeamViewer-ing into big-screen PCs). A user-replaceable battery is a strong "Want". The idea being that when I'm out and around, I want the ability to log into Lyft or Uber in case I need a ride home. So: infrequent, occasional use. Seems like break even on the new phone vs going over to a monthly plan with data is somewhere around a year or 18 months depending... so I like the new phone. But I'm too cheap to go for a "Data" SIMM that expires.... I want rollover like the tMob SIMM. Anybody found such a plan? Better choices for the phone? Other thoughts/suggestions? -- Pete Cresswell ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Sat, 25 Feb 2017

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