Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id JAA02107; Thu, 30 Oct 1997 09:28:05 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 09:28:05 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199710301428.JAA02107@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #298 TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 Oct 97 09:28:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 298 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FBI Chief Calls For Computer Crime Crackdown (Monty Solomon) FCC Proposes V-Chip For Computers, from Time/Netly News (Monty Solomon) BellSouth Boosts Pay-Phone Call Price to 35 Cents (Stan Schwartz) Re: Bell Canada Set to Announce New Area Codes (Scott Robert Dawson) Re: InTRA-LATA Carrier Verification (Greg Monti) Re: InTRA-LATA Carrier Verification (Stanley Cline) Re: Caller ID: GTE California to GTE Indiana? (Fred R. Goldstein) 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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 22:23:55 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FBI Chief Calls For Computer Crime Crackdown Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM FBI chief calls for computer crime crackdown ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - FBI director Louis Freeh said Tuesday that criminals were moving increasingly into cyberspace and without new laws ``drug dealers, arms dealers, terrorists and spies will have immunity like no other''. Freeh told the International Association of Chiefs of Police that software manufacturers should be required by law to include a feature that allows police to descramble encrypted communications. ``It could take a $30 million supercomputer a year to figure out the simplest encrypted message without this feature,'' Freeh said. ``And that message might be 'we have the victim and will kill him in an hour'.'' ``We're not opposed to encrypting. Encrypting is very important when transacting business but encrypting makes it very hard to enforce court orders for surveillance.'' Freeh said he supported a cyber surveillance law with these features which passed out of the House Intelligence Committee. That bill has the support of the FBI, Justice Department, Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal law enforcement agencies but does not have White House backing. ``Our own administration has not gotten behind this initiative. There are some very powerful industry forces opposing this,'' Freeh said. The ability of criminals to communicate with one another with computers is changing the face of law enforcement, Freeh said. ``All the boxes of evidence we used to bring back have been replaced by hard drives and discs. When we graduate our agents we give them in addition to a gun and a badge a laptop computer.'' ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 02:05:14 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Proposes V-Chip For Computers, From Time/Netly News Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 12:17:18 -0500 From: Declan McCullagh Subject: FC: FCC proposes V-Chip for computers, from Time/Netly News THE V CHIP, COMING TO A COMPUTER NEAR YOU Time Magazine November 3, 1997 Page 36 If you hated the idea of a V chip in your television, wait until you hear that the government wants to install one in your computer. TIME has learned that the FCC has proposed that new PCs be outfitted with a V chip to filter out video violence and sex. Still unclear is what Net broadcasts could be affected. The idea alarms free-speech advocates, who wonder why Americans need a Net-nanny. "What you get is a devolution of the First Amendment," argues lawyer Bob Corn-Revere. FCC chairman REED HUNDT says the high-tech industry can "be part of the process" as the agency sets rules. There's a low-tech alternative: the off switch. --By Declan McCullagh/Washington ********** For details check out the Netly News (netlynews.com) at: http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1528,00.html -Declan ------------------------------------------------ This list is public. To join fight-censorship-announce, send "subscribe fight-censorship-announce" to majordomo@vorlon.mit.edu. More information is at http://www.eff.org/~declan/fc/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 14:29:57 PST From: Stan Schwartz Reply-To: stannc@no*spam.yahoo.com Subject: BellSouth Boosts Pay-Phone Call Price to 35 Cents From the {Charlotte Observer} 10/30/97: BellSouth Public Communications, the largest pay phone provider in the Southeast, announced today that it will raise pay phone prices in its nine-state service area from 25 cents to 35 cents beginning Saturday. Company President Jim Hawkins said it will take about a month to convert all of the phones to the new charge. Several other companies have also raised rates the past few weeks. The rate increase will apply to the Carolinas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. BellSouth Public Communications, based in the Birmingham, Ala., suburb of Homewood, is the pay phone business of the BellSouth Corp. and operates 170,000 of the 300,000 pay phones in the nine states, Hawkins said. - end of story In the ruling that allowed the above to occur, the North Carolina State Utilities Commission on October 6th outlawed the practice of charging for 800 and 888 calls at public telephones. As of today, the COCOTs on Tryon Street in Charlotte owned by Tel-A-Leasing of Jacksonville, IL have been updated to reflect the new 35 cent local charge (although it's 25 cents a minute anywhere *else* in the country from these phones), but they still request a quarter for 800 and 888 calls. A call to their customer service (ha!) department connected me with a drone who didn't know what I was talking about. However, a call to the NCPUC in Raleigh got much better results! The owner of the COCOTS has been notified and has a couple of weeks to correct the problem (while still bilking customers a quarter at a time). - Stan (remove the obvious for return e-mail) ------------------------------ From: sunspace@interlog.com.antispamtext (Scott Robert Dawson) Subject: Re: Bell Canada Set to Announce New Area Codes Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 05:43:05 GMT Organization: Interlog Internet Services On Mon, 27 Oct 1997 00:47:28 -0800, Telecom@LincMad.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) wrote: > In article , Jeff Smith > wrote: >> Bell Canada is set to annouce 4 new area codes for the GTA. (New >> Metro Toronto). >> 1. Durham Region - will move to a new area code >> 2. Peel & Halton - will move to a new area code >> (these regions will share area code until split is needed) >> 3. York - will retain the current 905 area code >> - the rest of 905 not in the GTA will move to a new area code. >> 4. (new) Toronto - will either get an overlay or a split of >> the current area code or maybe wireless services to move to a >> seperate area code. Okay ... time for a lesson on the naming and geography of the Greater Toronto Area ... The GTA is the Greater Toronto Area, which includes the city of Toronto and all its surrounding cities, suburbs, and towns. "GTA" is an unofficial name which has nevertheless entered general usage (headlines in the papers, etc...). The GTA can be rather effectively defined as the areas with less than approximately two hours travel time to Union Station in downtown Toronto on "interregional" public transit, the green-and-white Government of Ontario trains and buses. This defines an area stretching roughly from Hamilton in the west to Bowmanville in the east to Newmarket in the north. Many people commute by car from areas further away, such as Barrie, Kitchener-Waterloo or the Caledon Hills, but these areas have not yet become "bedroom communities": they still have their own local economic and cultural identities. The city of Hamilton at the western end of Lake Ontario has its own identity as well, although it is well under two hours' travel time to downtown Toronto. As I grew up, I watched the town of Whitby change from being the county seat (population 15 000) of Ontario County to being just another bedroom community of 65 000 in Durham Region. But that's another story ... >> By 2002 the GTA - will be called Metro will compose of Five Cities. >> Namely: 1. City of Toronto >> 2. City of Durham >> 3. City of Peel >> 4. City of York >> 5. City of Halton >> People are saying Bell has applied for more area codes to get the >> regions ready now! > This is almost certainly incorrect. First of all, there is no "City > of Durham" in Toronto. Durham, Ontario, is a town north of Kitchener, > in the 519 area code. "Metro Toronto" consists of the City of Toronto, > York, East York, North York, Etobicoke, and Scarborough. Those six > cities currently share area code 416. The same six cities are being > proposed for merger into "Megacity Toronto." Jeff Smith's original post was referring to Durham Region, immediately to the east of Metropolitan Toronto, in area code 905. It is a regional municipality which includes the city of Oshawa as well as the towns of Whitby, Ajax, Pickering and others. > More importantly, York is not currently in 905, so it is absolutely > NOT going to be moved into 905 to the exclusion of all current 905 > communities. No way, no how. York is currently in 416. Again, Jeff's original post was almost certainly referring to York Region, which is a regional municipality immediately north of the current Metro Toronto, and is in area code 905. It includes the city of Vaughan, and the towns of Markham, Richmond Hill, Aurora, and others. The present City of York is in the regional municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, in area code 416. It will cease to exist along with the other cities in Metro (the city of Toronto, the cities of North York, Etobicoke, Scarborough, and the Borough of East York), and the regional municipality of Metropolitan Toronto itself, when they all vanish and are replaced by the new larger City of Toronto. > Lastly, there is no way that Bell Canada could possibly get NANPA > approval for four new area codes at once for the Toronto region, > especially if you are talking (as you appear to be) only about the > area that is currently in 416. > Relief proposals for 416 have focused along two principal alternatives: > (A) geographic split, probably along Yonge Street > (B) all-services overlay of 416 A lot of this confusion seems to stem from the name of "York", which has persisted around the Toronto area, vanishing from one area only to reappear in another. Originally there was the settlement of Toronto. In the early nineteenth century it was renamed to be the town of York. North of the town of York was a town called North York. East of York was another town called East York. Later, York was renamed to be Toronto again, but East York and North York kept their names. Other towns appeared in the area, and by the twentieth century some of the towns, such as Toronto, were becoming cities. The world wars came and went, and then the great postwar boom arrived. Cities began to grow together. In 1953 eleven surrounding towns, including the towns of East York and North York, federated with the City of Toronto to form the first regional municipality, known as Metropolitan Toronto. The boom continued. In the early seventies, other regional municipalities were formed around Metro Toronto. On the east there was the Region of Durham. North of Metro Toronto there was the Region of York (there's that name again!). On the western side, there was the Region of Peel, containing what became the cities of Mississauga and Brampton, among others. Further west, there was the Region of Halton, containing the towns of Oakville and Burlington, and others. The city of Hamilton was placed in yet another Region. Metro Toronto itself was never referred to as a "Region", although it is one. These are the Regions that the original poster referred to as becoming the City of Durham, the City of Peel, the City of York, and the City of Halton. This implies the amalgamation of all the smaller towns and cities within them, which would probably be bitterly resisted. However, strong popular resistance (70% against in a non-binding referendum) didn't stop the provincial government from amalgamating Metro Toronto ... The City of York referred to here is a future amalgamated Region of York, and has nothing to do with the current City of York in Metro Toronto. Most of the development in York Region is in the south, next to the border with Metro Toronto. This is commonly referred to as "South York Region", for instance on the local transit systems. South York Region is directly north of North York, the city in Metro Toronto... I still maintain that this isn't as confusing as the street layout in Kitchener-Waterloo. :-) There is no formal governmental body administering the GTA as a whole yet, but it's only a matter of time... some people have spoken of a new "Province of Toronto".or "Province of Southern Ontario" (that last would be larger than the GTA) but this is far from being even a coherent idea. What is true is that a formal GTA governing body would be all set to federate the regions with the new amalgamated City of Toronto ( the original Metropolitan Toronto) in the same way as the original Metropolitan Toronto federated the city of Toronto and its neighbours. This is what Jeff referred to as "New Metro Toronto". So Jeff's post seems to refer to four new area codes in the Toronto area: ** a new code for Durham Region and all areas in 905 east of Metro Toronto; ** a new code for Peel and Halton Regions in 905 west of Metro Toronto; ** a new code for areas in 905 west and south of Peel and Halton (this would presumably include the Hamilton area and the Nigara Peninsula as far as Niagara Falls and the northeastern shore of Lake Erie, which is now in 905; * *and a new additional area code for all areas in the current Metro Toronto (this would be the already-announced overlay of 416). The areas north of Metro Toronto would keep the 905 area code. This plan does seem to be overkill ... though admittedly once completed, no-one in the area would have to change area codes for a *long* time. And I'd get one of the cool new-style area codes! :-) Jeff, any word on when any official announcements might be? Scott Robert Dawson Note: remove the characters .antispamtext from this address to get my real address... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 00:13:24 -0500 From: Greg Monti Subject: Re: InTRA-LATA Carrier Verification On 27 Oct 97, Marty Tennant wrote: > I tried dialing only 700-4141 [in South Carolina]. No go, "your long > distance carrier cannot complete your call as dialed". > Anyone else with intralata presubscription out there with anything to > report on this new verification code? Yes. Here in New Jersey 700-4141 does tell you your intraLATA carrier. You can have three carriers on each line: local, intraLATA toll, and interLATA toll. Mine are: Voice Line Modem Line ---------- ---------- local Bell Atlantic Bell Atlantic intraLATA toll Bell Atlantic MCI interLATA toll Sprint LCI (result of a slam; going back to MCI) Greg Monti Jersey City, New Jersey, USA gmonti@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~gmonti ------------------------------ From: roamer1@pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: Re: InTRA-LATA Carrier Verification Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 01:51:48 GMT Organization: none -- too much spam! Reply-To: roamer1@pobox.com On Mon, 27 Oct 1997 20:35:47 -0500, Marty Tennant wrote: > I tried dialing only 700-4141. No go, "your long distance carrier > cannot complete your call as dialed". I then tried 1-803-700-4141, I have *never* seen the intraLATA PIC verification number work as only seven digits. It requires 1+NPA everywhere I've seen/used it, probably because of the old "1+ route to tandem/IXC" school of thought. > since I am in NPA 803. It worked, but said "thank you for using GTE". Many LECs still do not have the translations for the intraLATA PIC verification number right ... In some cases, the recordings simply go to the wrong carrier. For example, my parents, in the Rossville, GA/Chattanooga, TN CO, get their *IXC's* intraLATA recording when they dial 1-706-700-4141 -- their interLATA carrier is LCI, but their intraLATA carrier is BellSouth -- because the Rossville CO is treated as "Tennessee" by the Georgia PSC, and Tennessee doesn't allow intraLATA PIC yet. Yuck. (Then again, they don't make very many intraLATA calls; most of their calls are to the Atlanta LATA [me] ...) I've heard that in other areas, 1-NPA-700-4141 seems to go to AT&T regardless of the customer's intraLATA carrier. richgr@netcom.com (Rich Greenberg) wrote: > Doesn't work here in BellSouth 770 land. 700-4141 by itself doesn't work in Atlanta. Neither does NPA-700-4141 without a leading 1. As for 1-770-700-4141, it routes to REORDER when dialed from lines in "my" CO (Marietta Main) when the line is PICed to BellSouth, or if the call is forced through BellSouth from a line PICed to another carrier by dialing 1015124 -- BellSouth's intraLATA CIC -- first. OTOH, dialing 1-770-700-4141 from my lines, PICed to AT&T for both intra- and interLATA, works just fine; I get "Thank you for choosing AT&T for your LOCAL TOLL CALLING". And if I dial another carrier's CIC plus 1-770-700-4141, I get the right carrier's recording. Another oddity: On a phone attached to a BRI ISDN line in the Peachtree Place CO, in NPA 404, I had to dial 1-*770*-700-4141 to get the intraLATA PIC recording. With the NPA 678 overlay coming up, I wonder what those with lines in 678 will have to dial -- 678, 404, 770, or even 706. :) Stanley Cline somewhere near Atlanta, GA, USA roamer1(at)pobox.com http://scline.home.mindspring.com/ spam not wanted here! help outlaw spam - see http://www.cauce.org/ ------------------------------ From: fgoldstein@bbn.|nospam.|com (Fred R. Goldstein) Subject: Re: Caller ID: GTE California to GTE Indiana? Date: 30 Oct 1997 03:53:15 GMT Organization: GTE Internetworking - BBN Technologies In article , levin@acunet.net says: > I'm having a similarly annoying problem here in 617. Someone calls me > (I'm in 617 -- Boston) from Medford (until recently this was 617 -- > now it is 781). I always get "out of area" information for this call. > Just last week I got a flyer in my phone bill (from Bell Atlantic, > which just recently merged with NYNEX) which boasted that now that > NYNEX and Bell Atlantic were one company, Calling number AND name > would be delivered throughout Bell Atlantic's area (something like > Virginia to Maine). Seems strange that I can't get this calling > number and name data from a few miles away, in what was always NYNEX > area and in what was until recently the same area code. Anyone have > any ideas? You can't get it from Medford because Medford (actually, the Malden CO) is still on an analog CO switch (1AESS). NYNEX did not spend the serious money to upgrade its analog switches to have Signaling System 7, which is a prerequisite for Caller ID. Instead, they (I'd say correctly, in this case) decided to just replace them all with digital switches before the deadline for mandatory SS7, which is 1-Jan-1998. So it will be replaced within the next two months. Indeed, NYNEX scheduled several CO replacements for 31-December-1997! That won't solve the entire out-of-area problem. While non-SS7 COs are one cause, there are others. PBX trunks that terminate on what NYNEX called "Flexpath" (channelized T1), or on IXC switches, don't have Caller ID either. That's because trunk side ports on CO switches don't have regular numbers. They do have ANI numbers for billing, but ANI is not Caller ID. (Analog switches have ANI too. ANI lacks "*67" blocking capability, so it's not presented to sent-paid destinations, but it does go to 800 users, who are after all paying for the call.) We noticed this on our one residual Flexpath, whose outgoing calls were "out of area"; it was fixed by upgrading to ISDN PRI, which sends and receives Caller ID just fine. Of course PRI is only available in a small percentage of former-NYNEX COs, so it's not as if most PBX users have a choice in the matter. IXCs have PRI but no numbers to show. Fred R. Goldstein k1io fgoldstein"at" bbn.com +1 617 873 3850 Opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #298 ******************************