Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id BAA20979; Fri, 25 Apr 1997 01:52:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 01:52:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199704250552.BAA20979@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #102 TELECOM Digest Fri, 25 Apr 97 01:52:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 102 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Note From Hillary Gorman Was a Fraud (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: How Do They Do It? (Hillary Gorman) GSM, SIM Cards, International Roaming; North American Mobile (John Covert) AOL For FREE Scare, TAX 264, Etc, etc, etc. (Eric Florack) 10 Cent Calls to England! (Tad Cook) Another Interesting Site Connected With Spamford Wallace TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * subscriptions@telecom-digest.org * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-727-5427 Fax: 773-539-4630 ** Article submission address: editor@telecom-digest.org ** Our archives are available for your review/research. The URL is: http://telecom-digest.org (WWW/http only!) They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to archives@telecom-digest.org to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* 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 twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 23:54:50 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Note From Hillary Gorman Was a Fraud In an earlier issue of the Digest, I ran a note from a person who was an imposter using the name 'Hillary Gorman'. The real Hillary Gorman is a long-time reader/supporter of this Digest, and as I explained to her in email, although I did not think much of the message in particular -- found it a little distasteful in fact -- because I *believed* it came from her I used it as a courtesy to her. I've since found out from quite a few people that it was a fraud. I apologize for running the message. PAT ------------------------------ From: hillary@hillary.net (Hillary Gorman) Subject: Re: How Do They Do It? Date: 24 Apr 1997 11:32:19 GMT Organization: Packet Shredders Anonymous In , Hillary Gorman wrote: > Check out SUBMITKING (http://www.submitking.com), the only place on > the web to submit your URL to 100 marketing resources (search engines > and the like) AUTOMATICLY for just $10US! > Thanks for your time! > Hillary Since I've been getting email all morning about this, I would just like to publicly state that although yes, hillary@*.* is USUALLY me :), this particular person is NOT me, did not hack one of my accounts, hopefully doesn't even realize she's "using my name." I remain stalwartly anti-spam and anti-luser ;) (of course I am pro-USER as always.) No need for further inquiries on the subject, Thanks, hillary gorman......................................hillary@netaxs.com If you need help, contact [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Hillary, I ran that message purely as a favor to 'you'. I thought it stunk; I thought, well, if she is doing it, okay as a favor I will give it a short blurb. I feel badly about it also. Typically I toss between two and three *dozen* items of spam in the bit bucket daily here. Yesterday in fact, the spam count was higher than usual. The one 'you' wrote was one of the least distasteful. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Apr 97 22:46:52 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: GSM, SIM Cards, International Roaming, and North American Mobile About a month ago, I had asked readers of Telecom to help me find a reliable company from which to rent GSM SIM cards for use in my GSM900 phone for occasional travel to Europe. I was unable to find any acceptable temporary rental. But since then, I have become one of the first people to actually roam in Europe on GSM900 with the same SIM card which is intended to be used in my new Omnipoint DCS1900 service in NYC. Since I don't live in NYC, I don't yet have a DCS1900 phone, but Omnipoint will be serving Boston next year, so I think I'll stay with them. In this article, I will try to present a brief but comprehensive overview of the international roaming situation and the various standards in use in North America and elsewhere. Contents: 1. The responses to my original request for rental SIM cards 2. What I ended up doing 3. Some GSM generalities 4. Systems within North America 1. The responses to my original request hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) had replied to tell me that "There's a company that has been set up specifically for this purpose." But he didn't remember the name. He suggested that I look on the GSM MoU page, contact them, and they would tell me the name. Well, the GSM MoU didn't even acknowledge the email I sent them, but their page did lead me towards a large list of American companies that have signed the GSM MoU and intend to offer GSM based services (always at 1900 MHz). I contacted almost every one of them, and the only one which had active international agreements was Omnipoint, which will be discussed later. None had the facilities to simply rent SIM cards on a short term basis. nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) had replied that AT&T would do it "through Vodaphone UK, but they do not say that". As it turns out, this is potentially interesting, but only for those people served by AT&T Wireless (formerly McCaw) and by Cantel. Since it's through Vodaphone, a well established UK GSM900 carrier, it benefits from a large number of existing roaming agreements all over the world. But the rates are terrible. First, you _must_ be one of their subscribers. They don't serve Boston, so they're useless for those of us in this area, regardless of who our carrier is. Second, the card costs $50/year. This isn't quite as bad as their rates. Outgoing calls are $2.49/minute, no matter where you are or where you're calling. From some places, this isn't too bad if you're calling back to the U.S., but it's ridiculous for local calls. Incoming is even worse, though. You pay that $2.49 per minute, *plus* a call to the U.K. (Always to the UK, no matter where you are.) And for Cantel customers, it's even worse. Not only are Canada to UK toll rates rather high, but you are charged the AT&T annual and per minute rates (charged in US dollars) plus a Cantel monthly fee of C$7.95. Nils also suggested trying the local telco in the country visited. This really doesn't work. Local telcos simply will not do business with non-residents. I have tried this in the UK, in Germany, and even in the Channel Islands. In the latter case, it seems that the Channel Islands company had to agree to not serve anyone outside the channel islands when they set up their roaming agreements with Vodaphone and Cellnet. And even if that isn't a problem, the credit departments simply aren't willing to take a chance on someone running up a large bill and being outside the reach of their local laws. There are, in some areas, pre-paid cards. But they only work within the country of issue (no roaming), and have fairly high activation fees, and expire if you don't use them for six months. The Italian example is as follows: you buy a card for Lit. 100,000, which includes a 50,000 ($29) activation fee and 50,000 worth of available usage. You can then buy recharges in either 50,000 or 100,000 denominations, but 10,000 ($6) of that is a recharge fee. Off-peak is cheap (195/min or about 12.5 cents), but peak is 10 times that. The advantage over roaming is that incoming is free. 2. What I ended up doing A friend lent me his second, and rarely used, German D1 card; I'll pay him for the usage while I have it. But this isn't a good long-term solution, so I also signed up with Omnipoint. When I had first called Omnipoint, they only had agreements with Vodaphone and the German D2 system (which is notoriously inferior to D1 in many areas I travel to). But since they were only $9.95 a month for the first three months, and no activation or cancellation fee, I decided to try them out. In the meantime, they have added Eircell, the Swiss PTT, and Libertel in the Netherlands. And they have signed agreements with Cellnet, both French carriers, and about twenty others, and are turning something new on every few weeks. They expect to add Hong Kong and South Africa next, and have said that France (my next trip is to France) should be on within a month. Omnipoint's rates are great (or seem to be; we'll see when the bill comes). For outgoing calls, they take the foreign carrier's wholesale rate and add a percentage to it. For example, on Vodaphone, they'll charge me 41p peak and 17p off-peak. For incoming, to anywhere in Europe, I pay just their standard international call rate of 99 cents; no local carrier charge. That means it's significantly cheaper for me to receive an incoming call in Europe with Omnipoint than in San Francisco with either of the two Boston AMPS carriers! And it's real GSM. I can control all the features on my NYC number while in Europe. Even call waiting works correctly. And I can receive short email messages (1917NXXXXXX@omnipoint.net), delivered very quickly, even while in Germany, and if I had a newer GSM900 phone that could send rather then just receive SMS messages, I could send them as well. 3. Some GSM generalities GSM isn't just GSM900. More importantly, it is the SIM card compatibility and the understandings that go with roaming agreements, including the interoperation of calling features and SMS messages. Certainly the most widespread GSM is the 900 MHz GSM in all of the world except North America. GSM is also used by the newer DCS-1800 companies, Orange and One-to-One in the UK and eplus in Germany. GSM will be done with DCS-1900 in the U.S., but not all 1900 MHz service in the U.S. is GSM. Various companies have announced multi-mode phones. Being a Motorola fan, the one I've looked at, which was shown at CeBit and is to be on the market later this year, is the dual mode MicroTAC International 8800: GSM900 for Europe and DCS-1900 for North America. This choice seems to be because these are the companies that are going to be establishing roaming agreements. The DCS-1800 companies are just not a large enough market to be very interesting for roaming yet. SIM cards are great. I was in a store in the UK and saw a StarTAC. I was able to pick it up, insert my own SIM card, and immediately play with it to my heart's content. The store owner didn't have to worry about his bill being run up. I want a dual mode StarTAC. 4. Systems within North America The U.S. mobile market is a sea of confusion, and to make any of the above information useful, an overview of what we have is necessary: AMPS, both analogue and digital, operates at just above 850 MHz. NAMPS was a Motorola idea for stuffing three calls into each channel which never really caught on. Digital AMPS is either CDMA or TDMA, with some carriers choosing TDMA (mostly "A" carriers) and others (mostly "B" carriers) choosing CDMA. The digital phones are always dual mode so that you can fall back to analogue when outside the areas served with Digital sites. The digital sites use the same frequencies, allocating some channels to analog and others to digital. NEXTEL has managed to gather together the frequencies just below 850MHz in a nationwide system which only serves major metro areas and major highways between them. It's digital only, using IDEN/TDMA technology. Their Canadian partner's name is Clearnet. The 1900 MHz spectrum is to be divided among as many as six carriers in each geographic area. The A/B bands are 30MHz wide; the C/D/E/F bands are 10MHz wide. Carriers will be able to offer a variety of incompatible services in these bands. Omnipoint, Sprint-Spectrum-APC, BellSouthDCS, VoiceStream, Pacific Bell, Western Wireless, Aerial, Microcell (in Canada), and a few others will be offering SIM card based GSM service. Other carriers (including notably SprintPCS) are offering incompatible, non SIM card, non GSM services. It will certainly take these carriers at least five to ten years to reach the level of coverage that the current AMPS companies have. While they will quickly be able to provide superior service in cities, when driving out in the countryside, only AMPS will be acceptable for quite some time to come. In summary, the North American market continues to be characterized by the presence of so many different carriers and different systems that we will remain behind the rest of the world in both market penetration and coverage quality for quite a while. /john ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 07:09:18 PDT From: Eric Florack Subject: AOL For FREE Scare, TAX 264, Etc, etc, etc. I posted the following note to my group in response to RFI's on AOL4FREE.COM We had an attack a while back of the mail-note scares, and I was forced to deal with it. However, this particular situation has developed a bit differently, as you will see. I'll pass this on as an FYI. Feel free to distribute this to your own orgs, if you feel the need. /E ---------- You will recall I posted a note about this previously, in response to a note being circulated among our group. Since that time, it's been found that we are dealing with three separate problems, all of them using the AOL4FREE name, thereby causing some degree of confusion. Here's the facts: First there was actually a program called AOL4REE, which was intended to run on MACINTOSH systems, and thereby doesn't affect PC's at all. Then, there was a hoax about an E-MAIL virus by the same name. Finally, there is the AOL4FREE.COM which comes as an attachment to mailnotes. I have reason to *suspect* that what happened, here, was that the first few people who got hit with this mis-identified the Trojan Horse (which AOL4FREE.COM is) as a Virus. It's a fairly common error, since most people don't understand the difference.You see, a Trojan Horse is a real program, not a virus. While it is a real program it does not do what it purports to do, much like the Trojan horse of Greek legend ... thus the name. In this case, instead of giving you what the title implies, it formats your hard drive ... and in the process, commits suicide by erasing itself. (Thus preventing re-distribution of the file, as you will see) I also suspect that this file is written by someone who knows very little about programming. (To the techs: the file appears to be compiled in BAT2EXE, meaning all this clown knows is batch language, which he then compiled with Boling's program to cover his tracks.) Since it's not a virus, it won't be detected by virus detectors. The lesson here, is this: If you are not absolutely sure of the origin of the software, don't use it. Final note: Since this program, by it's nature, needs to be sent ctly to you by the author, or at least by someone who has not run the program, the chances of your actually seeing a copy of this horse in the wild seems remote at worst. This is not likely to be something one of your friends will send to you. With those facts in mind, I'd not worry overmuch about this one. If you see it, of course don't run it. If you DO run it, call tech support right away before attempting anything, because they MAY be able to undelete your files. I've taken the liberty of attaching the text from the web address mentioned in the TAX. Make particular note, please, of the last paragraph. -=-=-= =1= H-47a: AOL4FREE.COM Trojan Horse Program Destroys Hard Drives April 17, 1997 23:00 GMT PROBLEM: A Trojan Horse program called AOL4FREE.COM that deletes all files on a hard drive is circulating the Internet. PLATFORM: DOS/Windows-based PCs DAMAGE: When the AOL4FREE.COM program is executed, all files and directories on the users C: drive are deleted. SOLUTION: DO NOT execute this program. If the program starts executing, quickly pressing Ctrl-C will save some of your files. VULNERABILITY Users who download the trojaned AOL4FREE.COM program and ASSESSMENT: executes it will destroy all the files and directories on their DOS C: drive. CIAC has obtained a Trojaned copy of AOL4FREE.COM that destroys hard drives. ***NOTE: This is different from the AOL4FREE Virus Warning hoax message.**** CIAC has obtained a Trojaned copy of the AOL4FREE.COM program that, if run, deletes all the files on a user's hard drive. If you are e-mailed this file, or if you have downloaded it from an online service, do not attempt to run it. If the program was received as an attachment to an e-mail message, do not double click (open) it. Opening an attached program runs that program, which in this case deletes all the files on your hard drive. The original AOL4FREE was a Macintosh program for fraudulently creating free AOL (America Online) accounts. Note that any attempt to use the original AOL4FREE program may subject you to prosecution. NOTE: Most antivirus programs will not detect this or other Trojan Horse programs. Detection ========= AOL4FREE.COM is a Trojan program that is 993 bytes (2 sectors) long. The following text is readable in the AOL4FREE.COM file if you display it with the DOS TYPE command or the DOS EDIT program. Compiled by BAT2EXEC 1.5 PC Magazine . Douglas Boling Note that this text may appear in any program compiled with the BAT2EXEC program and has nothing to do with the Trojan Horse. If you open the AOL4FREE.COM file with a disk editor or with the Windows Notepad program, the following text is found at the end of the second sector of the file. PATH COMMANDC earc /C C: /C CD\ DELTREE /y *.* ECHOOYOUR COMPUTER HAS JUST BEEN F***ED BY *VP* F*** YOU AOL-LAMER Where F*** is a common vulgar explicative. Recovery ======== Pressing Ctrl-C before the Trojan Horse finishes deleting all your files will save some of them. If the program runs to completion, all the files on your root drive will have been deleted. The files are deleted with the DOS DELTREE command, so the contents of the files are still on your hard disk, only the directory entries have been deleted. Any program that can recover deleted files will allow you to recover some or all of the files on your hard disk. While attempting to recover files, be sure to not write any new files onto the hard disk as the new files may overwrite the contents of a deleted file, making it impossible to recover. You will probably have to boot your system with a floppy and run any recovery programs from there. If you happen to have one of the delete tracking programs installed on your system (a program that keeps track of deleted files in case you want them back) the recovery operation will be relatively simple. Follow the directions in your delete tracking program to recover your files. If not, you will probably have to recover each file individually, supplying the first character of the file name, which is overwritten in the directory when the file is deleted. Most DOS/Windows disk tools programs also have the capability for recovering deleted files so follow the directions included with those programs to do so. Background ========== The original AOL4FREE Macintosh program was developed to fraudulently create free AOL accounts. The creator of that program has pleaded guilty to defrauding America Online for distributing that program. Anyone else attempting to use that program to defraud AOL could also be prosecuted. ***(Eric notes: That program won't run on PC's, in any case.) The AOL4FREE Virus Warning message has been circulating about the Internet and warns of an AOL4FREE virus infected e-mail message that infects and destroys a system when the message is read, but that warning is a hoax and not about this Trojan horse. 1. The AOL4FREE.COM program is a Trojan Horse, not a virus. It does not spread on its own. 2. A Trojan Horse must be run to do any damage. 3. Reading an e-mail message with the Trojan Horse program as an attachment will not run the Trojan Horse and will not do any damage. Note that opening an attached program from within an e-mail reader runs that attached program, which may make it appear that reading the attachment caused the damage. Users should keep in mind that any file with a .COM or .EXE extension is a program, not a document and that double clicking or opening that program will run it. Macintosh users have the additional problem that Macintosh programs do not have readable extensions, and so are more difficult to detect. Extra care should be taken to insure that you do not unintentionally execute an attached program. CIAC still affirms that reading an e-mail message, even one with an attached program, can not do damage to a system. The attachment must be both downloaded onto the system and run to do any damage. -0- ------------------------------ Subject: 10 Cent Calls to England! Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 17:57:39 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Report: Sprint cutting international telephone rates ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) -- Sprint is set to lower weekend rates for telephone calls abroad as consumers benefit from the elimination of trade barriers and increased traffic on the international network, USA Today reported today. Sprint's announcement today will cut rates to as low as 10 cents per minute on the weekend, making a call to England as cheap as a domestic call, according to the report. Sprint had been charging 45 cents a minute. Weekend calls to Germany, Italy and France will fall to 30 cents a minute, from 45 cents now. Weekday rates are higher. AT&T and MCI charge 12 cents a minute for calls to Britain, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. All three carriers impose a $3 monthly fee for discount rates. "The difference between domestic and international rates will diminish," said Daniel Alcazar, Sprint's director of international marketing. Among the reasons for the cuts are a World Trade Organization pact in February, which is opening the $580 billion global market. State-owned monopolies are lowering rates charged to foreign carriers connecting to their networks. Also, traffic on the global network is growing, allowing big phone companies to buy access to other countries at lower bulk rates, Alcazar said. ------------------------------ From: davet1979@aol.com (Davet1979) Subject: Another Interesting Site Connected With Spamford Wallace Date: 25 Apr 1997 02:39:50 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com I thought this might be somewhat on topic, and possibly when you make your contact with CyberPromotions/AGIS, you might mention the other 'interests' that CyberPromotions hosts. A note: Maybe someone has mentioned this on the list before, but I just heard about it today on GloRadio's "Daily Dose" (http://www.gloradio.com/): http://www.godhatesfags.com/ I can't believe someone even let them register that domain name. Did you actually look at the page? It is a very fearsome thing. A church is supposed to be a place of community where all can worship if they choose to honor that particular god -- it's not about the pure hatred and petty name-calling I saw on that page. I sent them a civil email asking why they're doing this (you basically get one shot to email them because they have filters set up and a whole lot of email protection). ---------------- Now, look at the InterNic record of whom owns this domain name ... Westboro Baptist Church GODHATESFAGS-DOM 3701 Southwest 12th Street Topeka, KS 66604 Phone: (913)273-0325 USA Domain Name: GODHATESFAGS.COM Administrative Contact: Phelps, Benjamin BP1521 wbc@EPLEX.COM 913-233-4162 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: ==> Wallace, Sanford SW1708 domreg@CYBERPROMO.COM <== ==> 215-628-9780 <== Billing Contact: Phelps, Benjamin BP1521 wbc@EPLEX.COM 913-233-4162 Record last updated on 12-Apr-97. Record created on 22-Jan-97. Database last updated on 22-Apr-97 06:32:10 EDT. Domain servers in listed order: NS7.CYBERPROMO.COM 205.199.2.250 NS9.CYBERPROMO.COM 207.124.161.50 NS8.CYBERPROMO.COM 207.124.161.65 NS5.CYBERPROMO.COM 205.199.212.50 NS10.CYBERPROMO.COM 208.5.10.100 ---------------------- Doesn't THAT seem appropriate for a company who spams people every day? Very professional, eh? Dave [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes indeed, isn't that a very professional attitude? I thank you *very much* for calling this to the attention of our readers. When contacting AGIS, you might want to discuss this other 'venture' of Spamford Wallace. God hates Fags, huh? Amazing ... maybe its time to raise a little hell with Internic on that one. Oh well, a lot of good that would do I suppose. I pity the folks at Westboro Baptist Church if a few hackers decide to re-arrange their web page, as was done with the Department of Injustice not too long ago. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #102 ******************************