Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id JAA00796; Wed, 5 Nov 1997 09:28:31 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 09:28:31 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199711051428.JAA00796@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #303 TELECOM Digest Wed, 5 Nov 97 09:28:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 303 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FTC Announces Refunds in That Moldava s-x/Modem/Dialing Scam (D. Burstein) Alternic Founder Arrested? (Babu Mengelepouti) AOL Wins Restraining Order Against Spammer (Eric Florack) Voice Mail for Macrotel MT-16H (Bruce Wilson) Re: Switch Information Requested (Al Varney) 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. 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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, 5 Nov 1997 01:48:23 EST From: Danny Burstein Subject: FTC Announces Refunds in That Moldava s-x/Modem/Dialing Scam Background: earlier this year a s-x promotion on the internet asked people to download a special viewer. When they clicked it on, it disconnected the computer from the phone line, silenced the modem, and outdialed an international number in Moldava (formerly of the USSR). So people were hit with international calling costs on this. Also, the connection was _not_ broken when people were finished, so the clock kept running. Take special note of the FTC statement that these calls did _not_ actually complete to Moldava, but rather were terminated in Canada. Which is somewhat fascinating to think about ... FOR RELEASE: NOVEMBER 4, 1997 ___________________________________ VICTIMS OF MOLDOVAN MODEM "HIJACKING" SCHEME TO GET FULL REDRESS UNDER FTC SETTLEMENTS More than 38,000 consumers will get full credits totaling over $2.74 million for telephone charges they unknowingly incurred when their computer modems allegedly were hijacked and re-routed to expensive, international numbers, the Federal Trade Commission announced today. The refunds are included in settlements the FTC has reached with several firms and individuals charged by the agency with running the high-tech Internet scam, which used a purported "viewer" software program to disconnect consumers from their local Internet service providers and reconnect them to international numbers assigned to the country of Moldova. The FTC alleged that the defendants enticed consumers who visited their websites on the Internet to download the "viewer" software in order to access computer-stored images for free. Once the consumer downloaded and activated this software, the FTC alleged, it automatically disconnected consumers' modems from their local Internet service providers, turned off the speakers on the consumers' modems, and silently dialed international telephone numbers to reconnect consumers to the Internet through an expensive long distance telephone call. Once hijacked in this fashion, consumers' modems remained connected to those international tele phone numbers even when consumers left the defendants’ websites or left the Internet entirely to do word processing, spreadsheet or other computer work. As a result, many consumers received phone bills with international call charges totaling several hundred or several thousand dollars. The FTC received valuable assistance from AT&T's office of Network Security in spotting and investigating this alleged scam. The settlements are with defendants named in the case at the time it was filed in February 1997, as well as additional responsible parties the FTC has identified in its continuing investiga tion since that time. The first settlement, which requires the court's approval to become binding, is with original defendants Audiotex Connection, Inc., of Rockville Centre, New York; Promo Line, Inc., of Dix Hills, New York; William Gannon, an officer and owner of Audiotex Con nection and Promo Line, Inc.; and David Zeng, a computer programmer; as well as newly-named defendant Internet Girls, Inc., another corporation of William Gannon located in Rockville Centre, New York. All of these defendants, except David Zeng, did business as Electronic Forms Management. David Zeng did business as DaveZ@aol.com. The FTC asked the court to dismiss charges against Anna M. Grella, an original defendant, following the further investigation. The second settlement, being announced today for a public comment period before the Commission determines whether to make it final and binding, is with other newly-named respondents: Beylen Telecom, Ltd., of Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands; NiteLine Media, Inc., of Brooklyn New York; and Ron Tan (also known as Roeun Tan), an officer of NiteLine Media. According to the FTC's complaints detailing the charges against the defendants and the respondents, consumers who were surfing the Internet and stopped to visit one of the defendants' or respondents' websites for "free" computer images -- including sites named www.beavisbutthead.com, www.sexygirls.com, www.1adult.com, and www.erotic2000.com -- first had to download a special "viewer" program called "david.exe." Before allowing consumers to visit a selected site, this program surreptitiously disconnected them from the local telephone number of their chosen Internet service provider and reconnected their computer modems to the Internet through an international telephone call, all without their knowledge because the program also turned off their modem speakers so that they could not hear the disconnect or the dialing of the international number. Moreover, the FTC alleged, the calls never were connected to Moldova, but rather terminated in Canada, even though consumers still received telephone bills for higher- priced Moldovan calls. Initially, the FTC alleged, although the defendants advertised their websites as free, consumers racked up international calling charges of more than $2 per minute until they turned off their computers. Later in the life of the scheme, the defendants added some disclosures to their websites, but still failed to disclose that the calls would terminate in Canada or that consumers would continue to incur the Moldovan rates even after they exited the relevant websites, the FTC charged. The proposed settlements would require the defendants to redress consumer victims by paying funds to AT&T and MCI, which will issue credits to their customers who were billed for the calls, and to the FTC, which will issue refunds to customers of other long-distance carriers who were billed for the calls. In addition, the settlements would prohibit the defendants from: * misrepresenting that consumers can use a software program to view computer images for free when there are costs associated with downloading, installing, activating or using the program; * using any download program to generate modem calls on the Internet without clearly and conspicuously disclosing: 1) that the program will terminate the consumer’s local Internet connection; 2) that the program will dial an international telephone number and connect them to a location outside the United States; 3) that the international call will cost a stated amount per minute; and 4) that the consumer’s computer will remain connected to the international number for a certain period of time or until the consumer takes some action; * causing consumers to be charged for destinations that their calls never actually reach; and * distributing any program similar to "david.exe" to third parties. The settlements also would require the defendants to obtain written assurances from any billing entity that telephone bills consumers receive for the defendants’ services reflect where the international calls actually go. The settlements also contain various record keeping and reporting provisions that would assist the FTC in monitoring the defendants’ compliance. The Commission vote to accept the settlements was 4-0. The settlement with Audiotex Connection, Promo Line, Internet Girls, Gannon and Zeng was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, in Uniondale, this morning. A summary of the settlement with Beylen Telecom, NiteLine Media and Tan is being published in today’s Federal Register and will be subject to public comment for 60 days, after which the Commission will determine whether to make it final and binding. Comments should be addressed to the FTC, Office of the Secretary, 6th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580. NOTE: These agreements are for settlement purposes only and do not constitute an admission of law violations by the defendants. When the Commission issues a consent order on a final basis, it carries the force of law with respect to future actions. Each violation of such an order may result in a civil penalty of $11,000. Court-filed consent decrees also have the force of law when signed by the judge. ___________________________________ Copies of the settlements and complaints in these cases are available from the FTC’s web site at http://www.ftc.gov and also from the FTC’s Public Reference Branch, Room 130, 6th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580; 202-326-2222; TTY for the hearing impaired 202-326-2502. Consent agreements subject to public comment also are available by calling 202-326-3627. To find out the latest news as it is announced, call the FTC NewsPhone recording at 202-326-2710. MEDIA CONTACT: Victoria Streitfeld or Bonnie Jansen, Office of Public Affairs 202-326-2718 or 202-326-2161 STAFF CONTACT: Paul Luehr, Bureau of Consumer Protection 202-326-2236 Audiotex: FTC File No. X970021; Civil Action No. CV-97-0726 (DRH) Beylen: FTC File No. 972 3128 (audiot-2) _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Nov 1997 16:48:25 -0500 From: Babu Mengelepouti Reply-To: dialtone@vcn.bc.ca Organization: US Secret Service Subject: Alternic Founder Arrested? This came off the dc-stuff mailing list, and I use alternic's public DNS service so this may or may not be true. Take with a grain of salt ... By Janet Kornblum November 3, 1997, 1:30 p.m. PT update An FBI official confirmed today that AlterNIC founder Eugene Kashpureff was arrested Friday in Toronto on U.S. charges related to wire fraud. In July, Kashpureff hijacked InterNIC's URL, sending surfers trying to get to "www.internic.net" to his own site at "www.alternic.net" in what he called a "protest." Almost immediately, he knew he could be facing federal computer crime charges for his actions, he said. Authorities arrested Kashpureff after weeks of investigation, said Joe Valiquette, a spokesman for the FBI in New York. He did not immediately have more information. Marc Hurst, a spokesman for the AlterNIC, said Kashpureff was scheduled for a deportation hearing today. Hurst said he had been contacted a few weeks ago by Canadian immigration authorities who were looking for Kashpureff because he was wanted by the FBI on warrants for several counts of wire fraud. Network Solutions (NSI), which runs the InterNIC registry that Kashpureff was protesting, had taken Kashpureff to court, but the case was settled. Kashpureff apologized to the Internet community and tried to help inform it how to fix a program that would prevent someone else from perpetrating the same kind of domain name hijacking. But apparently his troubles did not end in August with the court settlement. Along with taking Kashpureff to civil court, Network Solutions had contacted law enforcement officials who were investigating whether Kashpureff had broken federal computer crime laws. A spokesman said at the time that Network Solutions originally had not been planning to file charges against Kashpureff. Kashpureff originally started rerouting pages on July 11. He stopped on July 14; but then he got angry and did it again on July 18. That's when officials from Network Solutions decided to take him to court, an official said. "What Kashpureff did was attack the Net," a Network Solutions official stated today in an email message. "He directly polluted cache in local servers that did not have an updated version of BIND." BIND is a program that controls the Internet's Domain Name System protocol. Alerts have since been issued to encourage system administrators to update their copies of BIND. Hurst said today that although he doesn't condone any alleged crime that Kashpureff may have committed, he was surprised by the vehemence with which he said Kashpureff was pursued. Hurst said he was originally contacted several weeks ago by immigration authorities looking for Kashpureff. When Kashpureff, a father of four, perpetrated the hack, he said he was angry and hadn't thought about the ramifications. Some in the Internet community applauded his actions, saying they were needed to draw attention to what they saw as Network Solutions' monopoly on the domain naming system. Others criticized Kashpureff, saying that he acted rashly, hurt the cause, and deserved punishment. But both Hurst and Richard Sexton, who also worked with Kashpureff on the AlterNIC, said that even those who disagreed with Kashpureff would likely find the charges to be outrageous. "The most you could have lost is two seconds and one mouse-click," Sexton said. "It is fraud, but the fiscal damage amounts to zero. He should be found guilty and fined a dollar." "I was surprised by the seriousness with which this was treated," Hurst said. "He's a computer guy. He's not a serial killer. He didn't cause any airports to black out. He didn't cause a blackout in a hospital. He redirected some Web pages." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 05:43:11 PST From: Eric Florack Subject: AOL Wins Restraining Order Against Spammer AOL Wins Restraining Order Against Spammer by Brian McWilliams, PC World Radio November 4, 1997 America Online today said it won round one in its battle against Over the Air Equipment, a firm that provides striptease shows over the Internet. AOL said a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order last Friday prohibiting Over the Air from sending bulk e-mail to AOL members. In a suit filed last month, AOL accused Over the Air of using deceptive practices, including falsifying e-mail transmission data, to avoid AOL's mail controls and to repeatedly transmit vast quantities of unsolicited e-mail to AOL members. But Over the Air's president Rick Lee told PC World News Radio today that while AOL may claim to have won round one, his company will be the victor at the final bell. Lee doesn't deny sending unsolicited e-mail to AOL members, but he said the judge didn't look closely at the details of the case. "We've always deleted members who requested to be deleted, [and] we have a delete list that's larger than our customer base list. So if we have a delete list somewhere in the area of 3 million people, you tell me that I'm not acting responsibly." Lee said Over the Air intends to appeal the ruling, and he vowed that when all the facts are out, AOL will be sorry it chose to make an example of his company to score public relations points in its fight against spam. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 08:50:14 -0500 From: blw1540@aol.com (Bruce Wilson) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Voice Mail for Macrotel MT-16H I'm hoping the knowledgable people frequenting this newsgroup can give me some help and guidance with respect to an ongoing problem. I'm the assistant director of a small inner-city IRS 501(c)(3) human service agency in Des Moines, Iowa. Our phone system is a paid-for Macrotel (MT-16H KSU) with 4 incoming lines, equipped for 10 key sets and 2 single-line phones, with space in the KSU for the addition of 4 more ports which could be either key sets or SLTs. We've got an ongoing problem in getting appropriate voice mail service. We tried a used Natural Microsystems Watson on one of the SLT ports, with the KSU programmed to ring that extension on all incoming calls, but found programming the Watson to be a daunting task and ultimately that it wouldn't do what we wanted it to do, so we've been paying through the nose (about $200/month) for US West's Business Voice Messaging, which still doesn't really meet our needs (and which is a PITA to reconfigure remotely). Another disadvantage to using the Watson was that it'd only handle one incoming call at a time, so second and third callers would get ring, no answer, while it was busy with the first call. (The other existing SLT port's used for a "public" phone in the reception area.) With the Watson's "card system" of announcements, I could make our outgoing announcement in 3 parts, determine how they'd play, and edit only the part which needed to be changed. For example: 1001 "Thank-you for calling ... closed Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays." jump to 1003 1002 "Unfortunately no one is available ..." record 1003 "... will be closed for the ... holiday." jump to 1002 If no holiday was impending, all I had to do was change the "jump" instruction with card 1001 to go to 1002 instead of 1003; and all I had to change for each holiday was the announcement associated with 1003. The only way to do this with US West's voice messaging is to re-record the entire announcement at the router. US West voice mail boxes are limited to one main mail box and 3 "guest" mail boxes, but we've got one program with over a dozen employees (seemingly subject to change from week to week as people come and go). We need to have unlimited branching from the main selections, so the "organizational chart" of the voice mail system can approximate that of the organization: General greeting and list of programs. Agency Administration Director Assistant Director Etc. Program 1 Staff 1 Staff 2 Staff 3 Staff 4 Etc. Program 2 Staff 1 Staff 2 Staff 3 Staff 4 Etc. Etc. (A bonus would be the ability to look up names if the caller weren't sure which program it is with which the person being called is associated.) Of course it's got to be possible for someone to call in from outside and retrieve his or her messages; and it'd be a bonus if messages could be forwarded from one mail box to another if employee A determined a message should go to employee B. It would also be a bonus if the system could be programmed to call a pager after recording an incoming message. In presenting this to various local vendors, we've been told our only option is to replace the phone system, for a lot more money than we're prepared or willing to spend. (Remember I said it's paid for; and it meets our needs except for the voice mail aspect.) The most I could justify spending would be in the $2,000-$4,000 range (a year or two of the anticipated savings from dumping the US West voice messaging); and it'd take us a while to figure out where we were going to get even that (grants or other fundraising). What I'm envisioning would be something PC-based (DOS or Windows 3.1) with up to 4 ports that could be connected to up to 4 SLT ports on the MT-16H which can be easily configured or reconfigured at the console. Used/refurb is just fine! It's the result (and cost) which counts. :-) Bruce Wilson Urban Dreams 1400 Sixth Avenue Des Moines, IA 50314 (515) 288-4742 [10 AM - 6 PM, Central, M-F] (515) 284-5886 [24-Hour Fax] ------------------------------ From: varney@ihgp2.ih.lucent.com (Al Varney) Subject: Re: Switch Information Requested Date: 4 Nov 1997 21:18:38 GMT Organization: Lucent Technologies, Naperville, IL Reply-To: varney@lucent.com In article , PB Schechter wrote: > Colorado is currently looking for ways to "conserve" numbers in the 303 > area code. One idea that has come up is the possibility of turning > Central Office Codes from NXXs to XXXs. This would add about two million > numbers, and is possible because Colorado is going to use an overlay in > the 303 area, so ten digits will need to be dialed for all local calls. So, the first question is: Why go to XXX CO codes, if you have a new overlay available? > Some people have claimed that this might "break" some switches > (particularly, outside of the North American Numbering Plan). It seems > to me that, once a switch sees that a call is going "somewhere else" > (i.e., to a different area code), it won't even look at the remaining > digits (or, if it does, it won't care what they are). However, I am > not a switch expert. Switches care very much about every digit you dial. Dialing an area code doesn't mean the call isn't local, or even intra-switch. While a Colorado switch may only use the first 3 digits to route calls to Chicago's 312 area code, it certainly knows which other digits are valid and how many must be dialed before sending the call towards Illinois. If the switch is sitting about half-way between Colorado Springs and Denver, it may even have some 303, 970 and 719 lines within the same switch, and thus need to examine far more than 3 digits. > So, the request: (1) Does anyone know if there are any switches that > would complain about a CO code beginning with a 0 or a 1, even if they > dialed digit string does *not* begin with a 0 or a 1? (2) Does anyone > know how I can find this out? When USTA asked us this question in 1994 (regarding the expansion from 800-NXX-XXXX to 800-XXX-XXXX, as a means of deferring the 888 NPA), we looked at several of the road-blocks involved in "D-digit unblocking", the industry term for removing the current restriction on the 4th digit of NANP telephone numbers. But we only examined those issues with regard to Toll-Free numbers. Unblocking the "D" digit for geographic numbers will impact areas we did not examine. (For example, there are no line-test systems for Toll-Free numbers. But real lines have test-support systems that are likely to reject 7-digit line numbers beginning with 0/1.) The following is a modified version of our response to USTA, just to give you an idea of the impact. To get a more complete answer, should you wish, the usual means is to request the PUC to ask service providers to determine the impact on THEM, which will then result in questions to the appropriate vendors. However, you should also contact the North American Numbering Council (NANC) to get their perspective, since only they have the ability to permit allocation of such office codes. I suspect a letter from the Colorado PUC to NANC would be appropriate. Letters can be addressed to: Alan C. Hasselwander Chairman North American Numbering Council 4140 Clover Street Honeoye Falls, N.Y. 14472-9323 The NANC Web site is at: http://www.fcc.gov/ccb/Nanc and the latest (from this summer) report to the NANC by the Carrier Liaison Committee regarding NXX Exhaust alternatives is at: ftp://ftp.atis.org/pub/clc/clc/adhoc.doc The report does not mention D-digit unblocking because, I understand, it is not considered a viable short-term answer. But read the following first. I personally believe the effort needed would take far longer (and cost far more) than just turning up your overlay NPA, which you'll need eventually anyway. ---------------------- IMPACT ON THE ENTIRE NORTH AMERICAN NUMBERING PLAN REGION A. D-digit unblocking affects every switch inside the NANP, including Canada and many Carribean islands. (This assumes you want folks in Toronto to be able to dial 303-1XX-XXXX, for example.) Many switches would require development to both remove craft input restrictions on 0/1XX office codes and add the ability to route/screen numbers with those office codes. C. Inter-exchange carriers (MCI, etc.) will require modification to their switches, support systems and billing systems in order to route calls to and correctly bill calls from the new office codes. Some real-time database changes would be required if 0/1XX-XXXX lines are to be allowed to have 900, 800, 888, 700 or 500 NPA calls terminate to them. D. PBX owners and cellular mobile carriers through-out the NANP would require changes to their equipment and support systems. Some of the protocols supporting cellular roaming may need enhancements. E. Billing agents (LEC, IXC and AOS providers) and systems (Bellcore LERG, etc.) must support rating of calls to 0/1XX office codes. Also, since such "pseudo-codes" are used today as a means of assigning 10-digit "line-based" calling cards by some IXCs, all such calling cards beginning with 303 must be recalled and re-assigned. (Card-holders of these numbers are spread out over the entire country, not just in the 303 NPA.) F. Operator systems would need modifications to support receipt of 7-digit ANI (of the I+0/1XX-XXXX form) over CAMA facilities. Changes would also be needed to support LIDB access for line-based services, such as 3-party billing verification, collect call acceptance, etc. Directory Assistance systems will likely need changes to permit such numbers into their databases. G. Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) that stores, transmits or uses NANP numbers might be affected. This could include Caller ID units, ISDN devices, Enhanced Service Provider systems using ISDN or ANI-based interfaces, private customer-owned coin telephones and alarm systems. ----- IMPACT ON THE 303 NPA AND NEAR-BY AREAS H. All the support systems used to provision, administer and test customer lines on 303 NPA switches must be altered to recognize the new CO codes. This effort and time is likely to take longer than item A. above. (In some cases, a 0/1XX code is recognized as a test code either between switches or from test systems to a single switch. Changes in the protocol exchanged from switch-to-switch or switch-to-test-system would be required, as well as coordination of the installation of those changes.) ----- This is not an exhaustive list of the impact, but gives you an idea of the wide-spread impact of the change. If the introduction of Interchangable NPAs can be used as a measure of the effort and impact, it took 5 years to introduce, and several more years before CPE/PBX equipment was changed to allow dialing of NPAs like 970. The local switch effort for D-digit unblocking will likely be more substantial than the Interchangable NPA effort. Al Varney - not speaking officially for Lucent Technologies ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #303 ******************************