Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA21004; Mon, 26 Apr 1999 21:58:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 21:58:24 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904270158.VAA21004@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #60 TELECOM Digest Mon, 26 Apr 99 21:58:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 60 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools (Ryan Tucker) Columbine and Cell Phones (was Re: Cell Phones in Schools) (Jeremy Beal) Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools (Andy McFadden) Seeking Name/Place Database (Jim Weiss) Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? (Thor Lancelot Simon) Telcomine: Who's Who of Cost Saving Billing Systems (Seema Dhawan) Re: Who or What is Bell America? (William Brownlow) VOIP Switchboard Applications? (Anders) "Internet Pioneers" (David B. Horvath, CCP) 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 networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: rtucker+from+199904@katan.ttgcitn.com (Ryan Tucker) Subject: Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools Date: 26 Apr 1999 06:39:00 GMT Organization: TTGCITN Communications, Des Moines IA and Rochester NY Reply-To: rtucker+replyto+199904@katan.ttgcitn.com In , TELECOM Digest Editor spewed: > In an emergency conference call between administrators of large school > districts in the United States on Wednesday, in the aftermath of the > Columbine affair, the question came up, 'would the situation have > been worse than it was -- if that is conceivable -- if the students > who aided police by using their cellular phones inside the school to > talk to police officers who were gathering outside the school had > been unable to do so.' Do we need knee-jerk reactions? Suddenly changing laws without thinking them completely through, especially at times of high emotion like this, is dangerous. While adjusting cellular phone policy may not be that bad, there's some things which will most definately be proposed: - Metal detectors, locker searches, etc; - Increased gun control; - Restrictions on letting children buy certain music/see certain movies, etc; While I really don't want to drift too far off topic by explaining my views on the situation, I remind all of you -- there's lessons to be learned here, but they may not be the ones that are obvious right now. Furthermore, trying to do band-aid fixes in the name of "protecting the children" has been historically bad. It's not music's fault. It's not Hollywood's fault. It's not the Internet's fault. Those are merely information sources -- what one does with that information is where the fault lies. We'll never truely know exactly what they were thinking, but certainly, the fault lies there. Ryan Tucker http://www.ttgcitn.com/~rtucker/ President, TTGCITN Communications Box 92425, Rochester NY 14692-0425 Please keep public threads public -- e-mail responses will be ignored. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There probably should be restrictions on allowing children to watch or listen to President Clinton. After all, they may get the impression that it is okay to throw bombs when you do not agree with the way things are happening somewhere. I thought it was amazing that last week Wednesday in the aftermath of Columbine he was on television with a grim face telling parents to keep their children from seeing violent images. Uh, excuse me while I go throw another bomb at Yugoslavia, then I will be back and finish my speech. Police in Colorado now say that they found a large amount of explosives in the school and that after interviews with hundreds of students, many of whom said yeah, they had heard about 'some sort of plan by those guys', that apparently the intention was to kill at least 500 people. A spokesperson for the police said, 'quite of few of the kids knew what those guys had planned ... the adults sure did not know.' Wasn't it a few years ago the papers reported a study by some research institute saying that 'over the next decade, there will be a huge increase in *violent, and senseless* crime by very young children (at that time) as they went through their teenage years' (a few years later, meaning about now) ... I wish I could remember the source of that. In the past, crimes, although wrong, were 'reasonable' in the sense that there was some object in it. Someone was cheated, someone had a grudge, a romantic encounter which failed; you needed money very desparately and pointed a gun at the 7/Eleven cashier, or whatever. But, said the report, watch the next decade. Mass killings with no rhyme nor reason; extremly destructive vandalism (and we have seen that already; one elementary school in Chicago got a million dollars in damage over a weekend from two twelve year old vandals); other stuff. Each one planning to do 'better' than the ones before. Police in Colorado say that interviews with students have told them that the fellows involved laughed and made mock of other school violence in the USA over the past couple years, saying 'what a waste of time that was, we could surely do better.' Well, I guess they did do 'better'. In a particularly sad aftermath to Columbine, last Wednesday a fourteen year old boy used a hatchet to severely damage a neighbor's car. When the neighbor came out to stop him, the lad used his hatchet to chop off the head of a cat the neighbor was holding. Then it occurred to him to take the same hatchet and use it on his mother, but about that time the police arrived and restrained him. Says the kid, "when me and my friends get older, we are gonna do the same thing they did out there in Colorado." Good to know, isn't it ... NO, we do not need any more gun laws; NO we do not need any knee-jerk reactions as hard as they may be to control; NO, we do not need any more filters for internet web sites; NO, we do not need at least sixteen more supermax prisons in every state. But something, some evil that has been slowly gaining ground in the USA for a number of years has begun to accelerate. Translate 'evil' according to your own philosophical or religious beliefs. Things are going to get worse before they get better; much worse. In a few years we will view Columbine as a senior class prank in the last month of school. Thanks for reading! PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jeremy Beal Subject: Columbine and Cell Phones (was Re: Cell Phones in Schools) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 17:20:00 -0600 I live in Denver and feel deeply affected by the tragedy at Columbine. One note regarding the issue of cell phones in dangerous situations. I think generally that having the ability to communicate information quickly has the potential to save lives with quick thought and action. However, it might have potentially hurt the situation in this case. At one point fairly early in the situation, a local NBC television affiliate which was broadcasting the events from near the school gave out a telephone number for anybody trapped inside to call. A student called, and the station proceeded to place the caller on the air while talking with them. The student gave the television station information regarding where they were hiding and where they thought the attackers were located. The television station put it all on the air. It was only about 10 minutes later that they realized that there were televisions located in every classroom, and that there was a very good chance that the attackers had heard the information from the phone call. The station promptly asked anybody trapped to call 911 rather than the station. An unintended consequence to the rapid sharing of information ... Take care, Jeremy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 14:08:13 PDT From: Andy McFadden Subject: Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools Organization: Lipless Rattling Crankbait In article you write: > This past week the press reports that there have been dozens of > arrests all over the United States of teenagers who not only made mock > of the events in Littleton, which they are free to do I guess under > the First Amendment no matter how much it hurts others, but in > addition were making plans to act out the same scenario in their own > school. Now suddenly this past week, wearing a black trench coat has > become fashionable. What *is* going on in our society? Will someone > please tell me and help me to understand? Ever read Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar? One of the major themes is the effect of increasing population pressure on society. Brunner suggests that violent outbreaks are a natural outcome of the future society he envisions. "Muckers" (from "amok") attack crowds at random, and at one point a major character inadvertently starts a riot by wandering into the wrong neighborhood. The book, written in 1968, is part cyberpunk fantasy and part frightening reality; at times I find it impossible to believe that it was written 30 years ago. Much of it hits too close to home. (Heck, just this morning CNN was talking about a joint venture for hydrogen fuel-cell cars... based on the book's setting, we're right on schedule.) You probably won't find yourself disagreeing with his views on war, either. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345347870/ Andy Send mail to fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) CD-Recordable FAQ - http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/ (a/k/a www.spies.com/~fadden) Fight Internet Spam - http://spam.abuse.net/spam/ & news.admin.net-abuse.email [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I did not read that book. In high school we read Orwell's book '1984' (published in the 1940's ?) and thought it was a very frightening scenario. For us old Geezers, I think we sort of expect each act in the play called 'Life' is going to be a little more bitter and cruel than the act before it. I feel sorry for the young guys; the ones still in school who had a little bit more of their childhood ripped away from them last week. The ones whose own emotional maturity hasn't developed enough to prevent the event at Columbine from influencing their decision to act out in the same way, to our chagrin, and perhaps their own bitter disappointment in them- selves years from now. Anyhow, let's get on with telecom topics! PAT] ------------------------------ From: NBJimWeiss@aol.com (Jim Weiss) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:10:19 EDT Subject: Seeking Name/Place Database Reply-To: NBJimWeiss@aol.com Do you know of a database whereby I can enter an NPA/NXX and have it respond with the local service provider? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The best, most accurate source is to dial double-zero on the phone (assuming you are PIC'ed to AT&T) and ask the operator for 'name/place for NPA/NXX'. That will get you a correct answer about ninety percent of the time. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? Date: 26 Apr 1999 16:25:29 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Ralph Hyre wrote: > What's the real issue with Local Number portability? > 800 Number portability was achieved years ago (1993?), and the > technology and operational issues are basically the same, with some > minor scaling issues. That's just plain false. To begin with, LNP involves changes to the ISUP protocol itself, not just additional TCAP queries. And even if there were any real similarity aside from both processes involving TCAP queries, the scaling issues are not "minor". How many telephone calls are made per day? How many 800 calls are made per day? There's the magnitude of your scaling problem, and a small hint is that it's so large as to call for a completely different solution for that reason alone. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?" ------------------------------ From: Seema Dhawan Subject: Telcomine: Who's Who of Cost Saving Billing Systems Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 10:29:54 +0530 Hi Patrick, I would like to bring to the notice of the readers of this group, a most updated report by the 'Billing World' magazine detailing the top 40 telecom billing systems worlwide. Readers might find it useful as it has been designed to help telecom executives shorten the time necessary to evaluate a system. A full feature on this has been included in Telcomine - Infozech's newsletter on Telecom and Technology. The newsletter is 'free' and it goes out monthly to a select group of around 5000+ telecom professionals worldwide. Please allow me to include a brief extract of what the April'99 issue contains. The full issue is available at http://www.infozech.com/telcomine.html *****TELCOMINE************ Wealth of Information about Telecommunications Volume 2,No 4, April 1999 IN THIS ISSUE 1. INTERNET AS MASTER SPY IN WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA For the first time in history Internet proves to be a powerful, if surreptitious, war weapon to both sides in the NATO-Yugoslav War. 2. LANDMARK REPORT FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS :WHO'S WHO OF COST SAVING BILLING SYSTEMS In a most updated survey of Telecom billing systems which help service providers and other bulk users of telephone lines save huge amounts, Billing World comes out with the "1999 Telecom Billing System Functionality Report" detailing the top 40 billing systems worldwide. 3. INFOZECH AMONG CHOSEN 40 Infozech is among the companies covered in the prestigious "1999 Telecom Billing System Functionality Report". 4. COMPUTERIZED VOICES EXPRESS EMOTIONS A unique computerized voice synthesizer package called 'GALE' developed by a research student at University of Florida injects emotion into robotic sounding computer voices and makes them speak in four moods - sad, happy, fearful and angry. 5. COMPUTERS READ THOUGHTS TO HELP PARALYTICS TRANSMIT MESSAGES In a breakthrough discovery some German Scientists have developed a computer system which enables completely paralyzed people to communicate by "reading" their brainwaves. 6. INTERNET TECHNOLOGY TO MONITOR PATIENTS FROM AFAR A new Internet technology that allows doctors to keep track of chronically ill patients, 24 hour a day, from anywhere, is promising to fundamentally change the way long-term patients are treated and monitored in the next century. 7. UK COURT PUNISHES ISP FOR TRANSMITTING LIBELLOUS MESSAGE Demon Internet, Britain's largest dial-up Internet Service Provider has been hauled up by a British High Court for transmitting defamatory messages posted on its electronic bulletin board even after warnings from the victim. 8. EUROPEAN MOBILE USERS OVERCHARGED 300% ON PHONE BILLS: STUDY A new study on Roaming by the European branch of the International Telecommunications Group (INTUG) has revealed that mobile business users in Europe are being overcharged 300% on their mobile phone bills. 9. FREE INTERNET ACCESS SERVICE SIGNS HALF A MILLION SUBSCRIBERS Netzero- A Free Internet Access Service launched only last October is already claiming to have passed the half a million subscriber mark and estimates that it will have a full million by mid-year. 10. OUR MAILBOX See How Telcomine Saved a reader 45% in Phone Costs Best Regards, Seema Dhawan Infozech -- Software for Telecom Service Providers D-30 Press Enclave, Saket, New Delhi, India Fax: 91-11- 6287117, Tel: 91-11-6234664, 91-11-6283113 in US Contact: 408-490-2840, 2090 Hillsdale Circle, Boulder, CO-80303 Microsoft Certified Solution Provider Visit us at http://www.infozech.com Telcomine: A Telecom & Technology Newsletter http://www.infozech.com/telcomine.html Anything Telecom" discussion forum : http://www.infozech.com/forum.html Your answer to any telecom queries ------------------------------ From: wbrownlo@my-dejanews.com (William Brownlow) Subject: Re: Who or What is Bell America? Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 13:07:14 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion In article , Greg Stahl wrote: > Recently, radio ads for "Bell America" started playing up here in > northern NY. They are advertising Local and LD service. Has anyone > heard of them? My understanding is that "Bell America" is not a real company - as of yet. According to my sources it is to be the name of the company resulting from the merger of Bell-Atlantic and GTE. Now if someone named Bell has started a new little CLEC ... William "Bill" Brownlow "While my employer has their opinions, I have mine. Occasionally they converge" "Wise men are not wise at all time." Emerson, The Conduct of Life, 1860 ------------------------------ From: hurtigh@ancestor.se (Anders) Subject: VOIP Switchboard Applications? Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:45:57 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Hi, Our company's telephone switchboard must be replaced due to y2k-problems. Now, we're interested in running a LAN-based VOIP switchboard, using our client PC's as phone terminals with headsets or similar and a CISCO gateway to the public telephone network. Problem is, of course, that there doesn't seem to be any good software available yet. Anybody out there who knows about such applications or anything to be released soon? Regards, Anders ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 18:30:16 EDT From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: "Internet Pioneers" > The Telephone Pioneers began around 1900 when a couple dozen of the > people who had been with AT&T since Day One decided they should have a > club for themselves. In later years as all the old people died, the > rule was changed to say that members had to have at least twenty years > of employment with Bell. I wonder if the time has come for an 'Internet > Pioneers' organization? If enough people send me some sort of valid > evidence that they were active on the net at least 15-20 years ago and > express an interest in an association among themselves and a web page > or mailing list, perhaps I will start such a thing. It might be purely > social, or perhaps a mix of social and service to the net and the > newcomers who are arriving -- not quite at the rate people are fleeing > from Kosovo -- but pretty darn fast, to the net community daily. I'm interested and qualify ... I had (and used :-) ) free userid's on MIT's AI, Dynamic Modeling, and Macsyma (MIT-AI, MIT-DM, and MIT-MC) systems starting in September or October of 1980... That's back when we were all buddies and fellow students/researchers -- before the "unwashed masses" got on. I remember one day dialing into the TIP somewhere long-distance from Philadelphia (Washington DC? Cambridge Mass? Southern California?) and printing the Macsyma reference manual on a DEC LA-36. 300 baud, about 8 hours, a nice stack of paper (nice, not high). I won't admit how the phone call was paid for since the University toll-blocked the dial-out lines in the terminal room. I miss ITS (Incompatible Time Share - the MIT operating systems running on the DEC System/10's (KL-10 CPU if I remember correctly)). ARPAnet and domain names with only one level (no .com's, .edu's, .jp's, etc). David B. Horvath, CCP dhorvath@cobs.com Consultant, Author, International Lecturer, Adjunct Professor (also: dhorvath@arcnow.com, dhorvath@dca.net, davidh@decus.ca, and many other places) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, so far, you are the only person who responded to that item. I guess no one is interested. Of course one problem may be that I did not really play by all the rules around here in the old days (I still usually don't), and a lot of the old, old, old clique is still annoyed with me because of it. Yes, I remember the one-level addresses. Do you remember when instead of using the '@' sign we said 'at', as in 'username at mit' or 'username at berkeley' instead of ptownson@lcs.mit.edu like we do now? I have a shell on a machine at Berkeley that I have had for years; it has gone through more name changes and re-locations than I can begin to keep track of. I use it mostly for recreational purposes, for my own private chats, etc. Remember how so many of us used to be 'shell collectors', or Unix account collectors? I still have about six or seven shells on various boxes all over the USA from the old days. Now-days, you sign up with an ISP and ask him for a shell account and you get the strangest look from him, almost a sort of 'what are you trying to pull, anyway' attitude. Most will flatly refuse to give a shell account. One even said to me once, in a sort of joking way, "Why, I would not not even give a shell to my own grandmother if she asked for one, let alone some itinerant hacker like you who would probably wreck my network." Of course I thanked him for his courtesy, and offered to take employ- ment from him staffing his help desk, to buffer him from how many ever dozen calls he got each day from users trying to locate the 'any' key they had been told to press. I got a couple of shell accounts in the old days by pointing out to the sysadmin some potentially dangerous situation they had overlooked. One place, I found /etc/passwords had been left sitting in the open because the admin had forgotten to chmod it properly. I told him, and he said so what, it is an encrypted file. I said yes, but I do not need to know what root's password is, I *know* what my password is, have you never heard of cut-and-paste? The 'others read and write' permissions were gone on that file two minutes later when I went to check. Such innocent, naive times, weren't they? Perhaps you also recall the old 'bang address' style where we said something like 'ucbvax!username@mit' ... with those you read the address from the @ sign to the left. On the telecom mailing list, I used to have lots and lots of addresses ending in .ARPA, and quite a few of the bang style addresses which still mostly work, but I convert them now whenever I still see one on the list, which is very rare anymore. And remember the email to FTP gateways? Long before the web, when a file transfer meant FTP'ing to a site -- if you could get through the congestion, and if you were allowed to use FTP at your location -- many people were unable to obtain the files they wanted. This was especially true when the earliest BBS's started networking with us through Fidonet gateways. So we had scripts that would accept incoming mail and parse it looking for the requested files, gather up the files and send them back by email. It was a workaround when FTP was not available between networks, etc. The person got the requested files a couple days later, but that was better than not getting them at all. The Telecom Archives Email to FTP script used to get a hundred calls a day right after I put it up several years ago, now it gets maybe one or two inquiries weekly while the web site got two thousand hits today. You were the only one to respond David. That tells me where the inter- est is in that idea of mine. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #60 *****************************