Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id UAA22972; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 20:46:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 20:46:14 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199710030046.UAA22972@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #268 TELECOM Digest Thu, 02 Oct 97 20:46:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 268 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Spamford Leaving Won't Solve the Problem (Todd) Re: Spamford Leaving Won't Solve the Problem (Anthony Argyriou) Spammer Tollfree Number (Babu Mengelepouti) Re: Slammed - Fraud? (jseder@syntel.com) Re: Slammed - Fraud? (eddyj@agcs.com) TCX128 Help!!! (Derek Uttley) Re: Help With Line Noise Please (Jonathan I. Kamens) Re: Help With Line Noise Please (Brian Elfert) Re: Suspense: Sorry, Wrong Number - Yesterday and Today (Leonid Broukhis) Newbridge 8230/31 Component Source (shickle@concentric.net) Wanted: Power Supply for Vodavi TelPlus 1648 (Gerry Wheeler) Voicemail to E-Mail (W. Hughes) Re: Major Phone Cut in Mississauga, Ontario (David Leibold) 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: * telecom-request@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 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. 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 21:20:38 -0400 From: Todd Subject: Re: Spamford Leaving Won't Solve the Problem J.D. Baldwin wrote: > In article , Jim Youll > wrote: > I hope you're right, but the early indications aren't good. Barnes > & Noble and amazon.com are "real" companies and engage in spamming. > And over the weekend, I got spam from Bell South. Grrrrrrrr. FWIW, I e-mailed Amazon regarding spam and received this canned (no pun intended) response: Subject: Amazon's spam policy? Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 16:14:11 -0700 (PDT) From: info@amazon.com To: Todd Dear Todd, Thanks for writing to us at Amazon.com with your comments. I want to assure you that Amazon.com does not spam. Spamming is bad for the Internet, and it's against our policy (and has been since our inception). We use email to communicate with our customers and subscribers about their orders, new services, and other newsworthy information. We have never obtained email addresses from newsgroups or other sites: we believe that's unethical. We communicate only with Amazon.com customers and Amazon.com visitors who have given us their email addresses of their own accord. In every email we send -- whether it's an Editors mailing to which customers have subscribed or a news update -- we include an unsubscribe option to allow customers to remove themselves from future mailings. We are very sorry if our recent announcement was in any way unwelcome to you. If you would prefer not to receive such announcements from us, please send a blank email message to no-news@amazon.com. We do not want our customers to receive anything from us that is not entirely satisfactory. [ I don't know what the previous paragraph is about--that's why I assume this is a "canned" response. --Todd] Again, please accept our apologies, and thank you for shopping at Amazon.com. Best regards, Richard Berman Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/ Earth's Biggest Bookstore ========================= >Subject: Amazon's spam policy? >To: info@amazon.com >X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en] (WinNT; U) >From: Todd >Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 16:32:19 -0400 > >There's been a lot of discussion on news.admin.net-abuse.email >regarding Amazon's spamming policy. Some claim that Amazon used to >spam, some claim that you still do. Please let me know your current >stance on unsolicited commercial e-mail. > >I've used Amazon several times and have been very happy with your >service. I'd hate to have to find another online bookstore--one that >doesn't spam. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:25:57 -0700 From: Anthony Argyriou Subject: Re: Spamford Leaving Won't Solve the Problem Jeremy Radlow wrote: > I really doubt that a typical user needs to send more than 1,000 mail > messages per day, so restricting users to that level of traffic > wouldn't get in the way of non-spammers, but would stop spammers > before they could get started. 0.5% of 1,000 (and I bet the response > rate isn't anywhere near that high) is pretty insignificant. Most of us "typical" users won't need to send 1000 e-mails per day, but what about mailing-list maintainers? There may be other users who have _legitimate_ need for mass e-mailing. > This idea seemed impractical a year ago, because there was no lack of > places for Joe Spammer to go if he got kicked off one ISP. With ISP's > consolidating, and spam factories being kicked off the net, asking > ISP's to keep their users in check seems a lot more reasonable now. Whatever happened to the idea of requiring a valid e-mail return address? If forging addresses and headers were made a _crime_ (a subspecies of wire fraud), then even allowing spam factories to exist would not be as bad as it is now, because people would be able to complain to (and retaliate against) the spammer. Also, whatever happened to using reverse DNS for screening? I don't remember any technical objections to the idea, only a complaint that a very popular mailing-list refused to use it. With the spam factories temporarily out of business, ISPs should be able to enforce this on all customers, so that when spammers return, they have to identify themselves, even without criminal sanction. Anthony Argyriou ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 19:07:31 -0400 From: Babu Mengelepouti Reply-To: dialtone@vcn.bc.ca Organization: US Secret Service Subject: Spammer Tollfree Number I got the following spam today in my box: Return-Path: Received: from vcn.bc.ca (root@opus.vcn.bc.ca [207.102.64.2]) by m-net.arbornet.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id FAA27749 for ; Sat, 27 Sep 1997 05:14:26 -0400 (EDT) From: Ganda@crushnet.com Received: from mail.crushnet.com (mail.crushnet.com [151.196.87.10]) by vcn.bc.ca (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id EAA12376 for ; Fri, 26 Sep 1997 04:47:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by mail.crushnet.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id PAA12751; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:27:32 -0400 Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:27:32 -0400 Message-Id: <199709251927.PAA12751@mail.crushnet.com> To: Mail.Delivery@crushnet.com Subject: Test Players/Avid Golfers Wanted (com/msg) Reply-To: Jeffg@crushnet.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Spam deleted, just information on how to contact the 'company'. PAT] For more information visit our web site at: http://www.smartsport.com Or, call TOLL FREE 888-2GOLF-12 MON-FRI 10:00AM-5:30PM PACIFIC and ask for information on our test play program or you may email me at michele@smartsport.com. THANKS. ... more locations scheduled! 1-888-2GOLF 12 Don't forget to bookmark our web site! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe this should read, "don't forget to pollute our phone lines and mailboxes the way we have done to yours ..." PAT] <><><><><><><><><><><><><> This offer brought to you by Electronic Direct Marketing, Inc. Responsible targeted marketing is an extremely effective method for marketing your products and services. Call us for rates on targeted marketing at 1-888-551-7600 or email us at Ganda@greatoffer.com If you wish to be removed from our email distribution lists, send a removal request to remove@greatoffer.com ------------------------------------------ You'll note that it includes a toll free number to which everyone can call to inquire about their spam services. Maybe inquire several times, to compare rates, or whatever. Maybe just call to talk. They never learn... ------------------------------ From: jseder@remove.this.syntel.com Subject: Re: Slammed - Fraud? Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 11:37:19 -0700 Organization: All USENET -- http://www.Supernews.com Reply-To: jseder@remove.this.syntel.com Complain to Informal Complaints and Public Inquiries Branch Enforcement Division, Common Carrier Bureau Federal Communications Commission Mail Stop 1600A2 Washington DC 205545 Send copies of the documents in the case with a brief statement of facts. Also, write to your local telco and tell them not to switch your long distance carrier without written authorization. It may just have been a goof, or it may be fraud - if it's the latter, the FCC will see it in the large number of complaints (which is why it is _important_ to write to the FCC), and they will act. I got slammed and wrote the appropriate letters (and wasn't the only one to do so). The FCC imposed a $200,000 fine on the slammer, and my state's PUC fined them another several hundred thousand dollars and pulled the plug on them for 40 months! ------------------------------ From: eddyj@agcsarmy.com Subject: Re: Slammed - Fraud? Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 09:39:26 -0700 Organization: Sherwood Forest. Delete 'army' to reply by email Charles Beatty wrote: > We were recently slammed. The story is a little more unusual and > disturbing than simply being slammed though. Last month a service > charge from Accutel of Boca Raton, FL showed up on our bill. I finally > got through to a vice president at Accutel. She told me that they had > purchased the cutomer base of a company called Christian Communications > Group of Savannah, GA. The owner of Christian Communications is one > Pastor Ralph Davis. He may also be doing business as Least Cost > Routing. > Now I don't believe for a second that Davis is a pastor, or that > Christian Communicatons is anything but a scam. The disturbing part is > that they have my wife's social security number. This is apparently > sufficient to authorize a switch of LD carriers. > Has anyone heard of Christian Communicatons? Least Cost Routing? > "Pastor" Ralph Davis? Is there anything we can do to limit the > distribution of my wife's SS# ? Do we have any kind of legal recourse? > This is particularly upsetting since my wife's mother was just the > victim of credit card fraud because someone got her SS#. There's been a lot of heated discussion about SS# abuse in the misc.legal ng recently (if you have access to it.). I don't know if it's winding down or still going full steam, but you could post to the group and see. Bear ------------------------------ From: Derek Uttley Subject: TCX128 Help!!! Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 10:45:58 -0400 Organization: Newbridge Networks Corporation Reply-To: duttley@spamnewbridge.com My church installed a donated TCX128 telephone system by Tie Communications when it was built about 4 years ago. It is working fine. However, programming manuals were not provided and I am having difficulty locating one. I want to inhibit long distance access to some of the extensions, which I am aware can be configured using the dial pad of one of the phones. Without the manual ...? If anyone can help I would appreciate it greatly. Thanks in advance. D. ------------------------------ From: jik@cam.ov.com (Jonathan I. Kamens) Subject: Re: Help With Line Noise Please Date: 02 Oct 1997 15:07:31 GMT Organization: OpenVision Technologies, Inc. Reply-To: jik@kamens.brookline.ma.us My wife and I just bought a house, and in the process of undoing the phone-wiring madness the previous tenants inflicted on it, I've learned a few important tricks for reducing noise on phone lines (I've tried to list them in order from most to least important, as I see them): * If you're using the standard flat "quad" cable, don't use both wire pairs in the same cable when one of them is a modem line. In the days when phone lines were really used for voice, it didn't matter much that there would be a little crosstalk between the two pairs in the cable. However, if you're using one of those pairs for a modem, then you *will* get enough crosstalk from the modem tones on the voice line to be annoying, and you *will* get enough crosstalk from the voice calls on the modem line to interfere with good performance. Either use separate quad cables for your voice and modem lines, or use cable with some sort of crosstalk cancellation. For example, you can use Category-5 network cable for your phone lines with no trouble. Since I'm planning on having our electrician pull network cables into a number of the rooms in our house, I'm going to have him pull extra cables into the rooms we want to have phones in and use those for our phone circuits. * Unwire *every unused wire in the house*. After buying our house, we discovered that there were six phone cables ascending from the basement into various parts of the house, and the wires in those six cables were all twisted together (i.e., all six green wires were twisted together, all six red wires were twisted together, etc.). Worse, some of the jacks at the ends of those six wires had additional cables attached to them with additional jacks at the ends of them. It was a real mess. Any cable segment that is wired into your plant, even if it is currently unused, can cause problems. The more cable you have wired in, the more chance there is that there will be a short or noisy cable somewhere. Furthermore, the more cable you have wired in, the more of an "antenna effect" you're going to see -- your cables will act like an antenna and pick up radio stations, random atmospheric radio noise, or whatever. I unwired both ends of every single cable in the house, and then wired only three jacks -- to with our voice line, and one directly up to my office with our modem line. The voice and modem lines do not share the same cable anywhere. * If the phone cables in your house are old, test them for noise and/or just replace them. Old cable wears down for various reasons (e.g., the sheathing gets worn and the wires end up closer together or even intermittently shorted) and acquires more noise as it gets older, and besides, old phone cable is often crap. Buy some high-quality quad phone cable and replace the old cable with it; if you do it carefully (e.g., don't make any sharp bends in the cable, don't pierce the cable with staples when fastening it down), you will almost certainly reduce noise. * Check all your connections. Make sure that the connections are solid at the junction box and at other locations where wires are twisted together. It wouldn't hurt to undo connections that have been around for a long time, clean off rust and other accumulated coatings, and redo the connections. Also, make sure that there are no exposed connections -- if you've got wires twisted together anywhere, put wire nuts on them. Of course, it goes without saying that you should minimize the number of connections that are necessary. * Make sure your phone cables aren't running parallel to power cables. If they are, you probably want to relay them with a different path or replaced them with cable with noise cancellation (e.g., Category-5 cable). ------------------------------ From: belfert@citilink.com (Brian Elfert) Subject: Re: Help With Line Noise Please Date: 02 Oct 97 17:06:11 GMT Tony Ward writes: > I currently have two phone lines, one for voice and one for my modem. > My question is this: I have line noise on both lines (local radio > station). I have installed a noise supressor on both lines (close to > modem and phone). I currently have a 28,8 modem (connect at 26,4 or > 24) and was wondering wether the supressor inhibits modem connection > speed (actually I can not connect without the supressor being there). > Is there anything else I can realistically do to stop the interference > and is it worth my while getting a k56flex modem? Would it be better > to put a line supressor where my telco box comes into the house (if so > how?). Are you using a line noise suppressor or a RF suppressor? I think they make RF suppressors that should work better for your case. Isn't the phone company required to help in cases like this? Exactly how close are you to the radio transmitter? I am within 1/3 mile of a tower with no phone problems. Brian ------------------------------ From: leob@best.com (Leonid A. Broukhis) Subject: Re: Suspense: Sorry, Wrong Number - Yesterday and Today Date: 02 Oct 1997 15:07:16 -0700 Dave Stern writes: > According to the internet movie database (http://us.imdb.com) there > was a tv movie in 1989 that is described as a remake of the 1948 > movie. There was also a hit for a 1977 French movie (Prostite, ne tot > nomer...!) aka SWN. The phrase "Prostite, ne tot nomer" is in Russian, not French. The movie, judging by the director filmography, is most likely Czechoslovakian-Soviet coproduction. Leo ------------------------------ From: shickle@concentric.net Subject: Newbridge 8230/31 Component Source Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 14:31:17 GMT Organization: Concentric Internet Services Can someone point me to a source for used Newbridge equipment? I'm looking for components for the 8230 and 8231. Thanks, Steve Hickle ------------------------------ From: gwheelerX@gate.net (Gerry Wheeler) Subject: Wanted: Power Supply For Vodavi TelPlus 1648 Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:45:40 GMT Organization: SpectraFAX Corp. Reply-To: gwheelerX@gate.net Our key phone system (Vodavi TelPlus 1648) has bitten the dust. There is an external power supply that produces 24VDC, and a supply inside the cabinet that uses this to produce +/- 5VDC. The internal supply has quit. I got an estimate of $850 (!) for a used one, because they're so hard to find. Any ideas on how I can get this beast running again? Gerry Wheeler gwheelerX@gate.net (remove the X) SpectraFAX Corp. Phone: 941-643-8739 Naples, FL Fax: 941-643-5070 ------------------------------ From: W. Hughes Subject: Voicemail to E-Mail Date: 29 Sep 1997 07:59:50 GMT Organization: Devon County Council I run voicemail on my PC at home, and I would like it to attach any messages that come in through the day to an E-Mail and have it sent to my PC in the office automatically. Does anyone know of any software that can do this for me? I am currently running Cheyenne Bitware to manage my voicemail, I have a 33.6 modem and run on Windows95. BiLLY ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:10:55 EDT From: David Leibold Subject: Re: Major Phone Cut in Mississauga, Ontario A new report appeared a few days ago (30 September) in the {Toronto Star}, after I posted the original Digest blurb about the Streetsville phone interruption. In that report, a contractor's association insists that the company doing the Mississauga digging called Bell regarding cable locations before making the dig. There will now be words between contractors and Bell. Meanwhile, I retract any suggestion in my post that the contractor did not call Bell. It's just that calling before digging is a wise thing to do in general. Meanwhile, a Toronto radio report today indicated about half of the affected phone customers should have their service restored by now. The repairs continue ... Ref: www.thestar.ca website, back issues to 30 Sept 97, article entitled: "Contractors blame Bell for Streetsville phone woes -- But telephone company insists it acted properly" David Leibold aa070@freenet.toronto.on.ca ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #268 ******************************