Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA27645; Fri, 30 Apr 1999 21:41:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 21:41:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199905010141.VAA27645@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #66 TELECOM Digest Fri, 30 Apr 99 21:41:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 66 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Imminent Exhaustion of the NANP Should be a Wake-up Call! (Arthur Ross) Book Review: "A Guide to Virtual Private Networks", Murhamm (Rob Slade) A New SPAM Problem (Ben Bass) Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' (Patrick Burke) Re: Card Reader Type Public Phones (Stephen Geis) Re: Columbine and Cell Phones (was Re: Cell Phones in Schools) (Thor Simon) Re: Good Conference Phone? (Frederic Faure) Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? (Jan Ceuleers) Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools (Matt Ackeret) 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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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- 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: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 12:11:49 -0700 From: Arthur Ross Subject: Imminent Exhaustion of the NANP Should be a Wake-up Call! (Moderator's Note describing a method of using 'international' codes for various sections of the USA deleted). Pat - If I'm not mistaken, this is quite similar to the way France works now. Local calls are 8 digits, first nonzero. Leading zero indicates "not local". Country is divided into zones (6, I think). To get another zone internally is "0N"(zone) + eight digits. Outgoing international is something like "00"+country code+local number. Incoming international is your own international access code+33(France)+N(zone)+eight digits. BTW - I have been writing memos to some of my acquaintances at Lucent for some time now to the effect that "It is time to re-think network addressing," the general theme being that numeric, geography-based addressing in this age of 300 MHz processors and multi-gigabyte hard drives on every desktop, is an anachronism. While these memos are probably winding up in the circular "nut" file, I still believe it. There are, of course, a few small problems .... It is an interesting exercise to figure out, back-of-the-envelope, how much stuff would be needed for an electronic database ("white pages") for every human being on earth. My estimate puts it at about half a residential-sized closet of the dense disk drives that are now available on every street corner. What we do now is to associate the end of a pair, possibly a "virtual" pair, meaning a specific handset in wireless systems, with a 7-digit, 8-digit, 10-digit, or whatever, "phone number," with extensions for international delivery. The numbering is geography-based. It is that way because, historically, the network used such addresses internally. It was for the convenience of the network, not the customer. The equivalent of a database translation (name-to-address) was done by the end user. Problem is that the REAL destination, most often a person, is NOT stationary. Also, often the desired destination is NOT a particular person, but a FUNCTION, e.g. next customer service rep, maintenance supervisor, the office of such-and-such, etc. The traditional telephony solutions for this are a) call forwarding, b) voice mail, c) automatic call distributors, d) pagers, e) wireless roaming call delivery, etc. And the database translations often must be extended by the end user (and often considered, by him/her as a terrible nuisance) via the interminable "for this press one, for that press two" DTMF menus. My premise is that the network should locate, not the end of a 26 AWG copper pair, but the person, or more precisely some kind of electronic "proxy" for the person, e.g. something like a GSM SIM (subscriber identity module). This identity gizmo would fit into ANY telecom device and the network would do some kind of distributed database wizardry with it, that would result in calls, e-mail, whatever, going to whatever this device was plugged into, be it landline, wireless, mobile, or whatever. After some number of decades of evolution, every telecom device would have one of these standardized interfaces, maybe kindof like a mag stripe credit card reader. The physical implementation of some SIM cards is like that. Locating an endpoint would entail a distributed database query. The target might be a person, a function, a place (sometimes you DO want a geography-based delivery, after all). IP addressing is kindof partway there. While the internal addresses are these 32-bit, hardware-based things (to become far-longer in the next iteration of IP, I understand), there is a translation mechanism for alphanumeric mnemonic identities to the numeric: the DNS system. Right general idea. The logic of the addressing is geography-independent. Convergence (whatever that means!) of the voice network(s) with the IP-based networks is another aspect of all this, of course. The biggest problems: 1. Data entry. There are what, maybe a billion or more 12-button desksets out there in the world? If the database lookups are to be based on alphanumeric strings, where does the data come from? Laptops are not going to replace handsets any time soon. We used to have a good solution for this: Mabel the operator, who just listened to you and did the database lookup in her head. Not practical for the whole planet. I don't think PDAs are it either. They have a sortof techno-cult following, but would your grandma use one? Automatic voice recognition on a grand scale? It is getting to the point where it is close to useful. 2. Privacy and civil rights. This has serious implications for civil liberties, privacy, etc. Given that the "Personal Identity Module" would, mostly, be associated with an individual, this system would amount to a big-brother-ish thing that could locate anyone who used the system, at any time. Also, given that caller ID has been basically ruined as a useful service by the civil libertarians who have convinced a whole lot of state legislatures/PUCs that giving out identity of a callER to the callED party is somehow an invasion of the privacy of the callER, it would probably be a hard sell in that regard. And then there are those stories of a certain country's secret service who are supposed to have tried to assassinate someone by planting a bomb in his cellular phone .... In principle, you have the potential for abuse now with wireless roaming call delivery. The HLR/VLR combination knows, or is supposed to know, where each subscriber is at any given time (within a few cells). I have heard via the grapevine, that certain law enforcement & intelligence services DO, justifiably, try to take advantage of that to find the Godfather, drug kingpin, etc. 3. How does the schema for this giant distributed database, i.e. the contents of the PIM, get defined? And what is in it? What is forbidden? 4. Authentication? Authentication REALLY is the process of making sure that someone is going to pay the bill for the services being used. In my more exotic moments I imagine some gizmo that you stick your finger into that reads your DNA .... I know, this seems outrageous. So did using DNA for criminal identification, which is now recognized by many states, to the point where it need not be justified before use as an argument in court. I also note that someone now offers as a commercial product, a fingerprint-reading gizmo for security access. 5. Business/regulatory model? This is perhaps the biggest problem of all - a quagmire.... Who sells what? How do they make money at it? How is it regulated? IS it regulated? Would it be any surprise that management sends my memos to the "Nut" file? But this imminent exhaustion of the NANP should be a wake-up call, to say nothing of a golden opportunity! -- Best -- Arthur PS: Sorry ... got carried away - this just started out as a little note about the French numbering plan ... ! PPS: There is, I understand, a guy on the MIT faculty who has been preaching something similar to this for quite a while now. Name is not at my fingertips though. PPPS: An acquaintance of mine may be taking some concrete steps in this regard: Professor Leonard Kleinrock of UCLA. His company is called Nomadix, Inc, I think. He has been advertised by UCLA, with only a little hyperbole, as "the father of the internet." (My son, a recent graduate of UCLA, tells me "Didn't you know that UCLA invented the Internet? They have the Tee-shirts to prove it!" They actually have a lot more ...) -- Dr. Arthur Ross 2325 East Orangewood Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85020-4730 Phone: 602-371-9708 Fax : 602-336-7074 [Moderator's Note: Sorry to disappoint you, but your son is wrong. UCLA did not invent the internet ... *I* did. I remember distinctly how it happened. I was waiting on hold for a customer service rep at cableco to be available to come on the line and sass me personally. I always had thought it would be a good idea if people had a way to rapidly communicate their ideas on how to Make Spam Fast and how great it would be if all the people who liked having sex with chickens had a way to leave anonymous messages for each other. I would call my new concept a 'newsgroup'. So I thought up a scheme to hook computers together and a protocol for transferring data regards a user's preference for dark meat or white meat; and their default values for either passing along the spam they received to a million other users or generating a new scheme of their own. I wrote it all down in a notebook while I was waiting for the cableco rep to come on the line. Well somehow my notebook was stolen, with all my plans, no doubt by people at UCLA or possibly by my competitors at the {New York Times} or the {Washington Post} when they realized my new invention would would cut into their profits when the publishers were no longer able to appease the largest advertisers by controlling the kinds of scurrilous things the users would circulate widely about them in print. Then too, I have always wondered if Colonel Sanders might have stolen all my notes, having taken umbrage at the consequences of my idea that lovers of fine chicken would no longer have to be isolated in society. Or it might have been a Frightened Mother; I've lived next door to a few of those in my lifetime also. Well, you can imagine my horror to discover ten years later (I had been waiting at home all that time for the cable installer to show up) to find that all my ideas had been developed into something called the Internet and Usenet. So from now on, I want you to refer to me as the Father of the Internet. And you can be its Big Brother. Is that okay with you? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 08:20:06 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "A Guide to Virtual Private Networks", Martin Murhamm Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKAGTVPN.RVW 990321 "A Guide to Virtual Private Networks", Martin W. Murhammer et al, 1998, 0-13-083964-7 %A Martin W. Murhammer %A Tim A. Bourne %A Tamas Gaidosch %A Charles Kunzinger %A Laura Rademacher %A Andreas Weinfurter %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1998 %G 0-13-083964-7 %I Prentice Hall %O 800-576-3800 416-293-3621 fax: 201-236-7131 %P 174 p. %T "A Guide to Virtual Private Networks" You don't have to look very far to figure out that this book is by IBM, of IBM, and probably for IBM. All of the authors (even those that don't rate the front cover) work for IBM, and ... well, lookee here! IBM just happens to make products that relate to virtual private networks (VPNs)! Chapter one is a reasonable overview of the basic concepts behind VPNs. However, the level of the writing is inconsistent, some parts of the explanation are a bit confused (they tend to use the term "tunnel" a lot, even where "circuit" might be more fitting), and overall one gets the feeling that this should be presented on a big screen in a dark auditorium, with a suit droning on and on. There is a tendency to illustrate (with not very illuminating figures) rather than explain, when it comes to the technical bits. Either that, or just start to list off protocols. Encryption is explained fairly well in chapter two. There is some detail as to the actual operation of some algorithms. (I notice that DES [Data Encryption Standard] is not among them, and that it is claimed fully, and not just derivatively, for IBM.) The discussion of key and algorithm strength is weak, however, and there is no discussion of the basic problems or concerns of key management. Chapter three provides format details of the IPsec (Internet Protocol security) AH (Authentication Header) and ESP (Encapsulating Security Payload) protocols. References for the appropriate draft documents are given at the end of the chapter. The Internet Key Exchange (IKE) (also known as Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol [ISAKMP]) is discussed in chapter four. Chapters five to seven look at scenarios for branch offices, business partners, and remote access, respectively. There is little new content, and most of the material could be inferred from the text of earlier chapters. Showing admirable forbearance, most of the detail of IBM products is held for the appendices. While not all parts are particularly readable, the book does, at least, have the advantage of being short. The fundamental concepts of VPNs are given, enough so that a technical manager could get a basic grasp of what was required. Possible attacks, and the complexities of implementation, are not dealt with very well. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1999 BKAGTVPN.RVW 990321 ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@sprint.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com GOVERNMENT.SYS corrupted, reboot Ottawa? (Y/N) http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 10:18:58 EDT From: Ben Bass Subject: A New SPAM Problem Pat, A head up to your readers ... My employer received a number of unsolicited, junk faxes this morning. One was for a collection agency, another for a scheme to get on the Internet and the third was a solicitation for "1 Million + fax numbers! All area codes! That's right, one million fax numbers for the incredibly low price of $299. For details, call (800) 609-8221. Calls to that number get an auto attendent and an option to leave a message in a "full" mailbox. The number in the fax header is 407-201-9283. I called 877-259-3390 number on the one from the collection agency and informed them to remove us from their list and I also advised them we would never do business with any company who sends unsolicited faxes or e-mail. Efforts to reach the web page people, www.prosperitypromo.com (does that sound like a spamhaus?) at 800-741-1308, also reached a "full" mailbox. Ben Bass, N2YDM ben@broadcast.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A full mailbox? I wonder if a bunch of those nuts that use the internet all the time for news and email were calling in to lodge complaints? I would say just keep trying until you get through to someone there at the company. You have some important questions to ask them about their service. Now don't overdo it by calling six or eight times and allowing the phone to stay off hook until the voicemail times out and drops the connection. I mean, if everyone did that it would bankrupt the company when their next phone bill showed up; same as happened to little Jeffie Slaton a few years ago when Southwestern Bell delivered his hundred-thousand dollar phone bill in a cardboard box via Parcel Post a couple months in a row. I would not wait around at home either; use payphones, and do not forget to hang up the receiver when you walk away. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Patrick Burke Subject: Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 09:52:16 +0200 Organization: Ascom Switzerland, Bern, Switzerland L. Winson schrieb in im Newsbeitrag: telecom19.57.5@telecom-digest.org... >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know why card reader type >> phones never really caught on? [good points snipped] > Damn good question. I myself would rather have the security of > inserting a card and entering just my pin number rather than entering > (and remembering) a whole series of numbers. <...snip...> In Switzerland and Holland, at least, card phones are standard. In fact, it's sometimes impossible to find a coin phone. Cards can be purchased at many locations and I've never had a problem finding one. They come in various denominations between about $3 and $15 (local equivalent). For my usage a card lasts a couple of weeks, and then I buy a new one. In these schemes there is no PIN and the cards are transferable; i.e. anyone can use your card. I have never heard that theft is an issue. When I first arrived I was frequently annoyed to walk up to a phone with change in my pocket and find it only accepted cards. Eventually I grew accustom to prepurchasing phone time and keeping a card in my wallet, and now I prefer this approach. ------------------------------ From: Stephan Geis Subject: Re: Card Reader Type Public Phones Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 10:04:45 +0200 Pat's comment on the 24 Apr 1999 20:21:40 GMT posting Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines': > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know why card reader type > phones never really caught on? I think that type of phone would be > most useful in combatting fraud. If the caller had to insert the > actual pastic card in the phone -- as one does at a cash machine -- > and then punch in a pin as well, that would defeat the people with the > binoculars completely wouldn't it, as well as the eavesdroppers. No > physical plastic, no call. If you have the plastic, you still have to > know the pin, and three or four random attempts to find out the pin by > trial and error would result in the card being cancelled. Look at cash > machines: if the machine finds you to be a disagreeable person or > suspects you are a charlatan, it just swallows your card and won't > give it back at all, telling you to go see your customer service rep > at the bank instead if you have something to complain about. FYI in Europe (at least in Switzerland and France) card readers are standard on public telephones. In Switzerland the readers can now handle both magnetic stripe cards and the chip-bearing "smartcards" which are widely used not only for prepaid cards for phones, but for bank cards and electronic purses. The readers on phones (unlike those on ATMs here) are not able to swallow miscreant cards, however. Stephen Geis Geneva, Switzerland ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Columbine and Cell Phones (was Re: Cell Phones in Schools) Date: 30 Apr 1999 14:39:53 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Brad Ackerman wrote: > Jeremy Beal writes: >> 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 ... > Another problem -- if you're dealing with only slightly more > sophisiticated opponents, you need to worry about said opponents > eavesdropping on the phone call. Strangely enough, analogue > telephones are still being sold in the US, and only GSM phones have > any encryption worth mentioning. With analogue phones, listening in Oh, and to continue along our recent line of "a little bird told me" stories: a little bird told me that _that_ (and, mind you, GSM encryption itself isn't so hot) is because when Qualcomm was in the final stages of software development for the CDMA phones used in most non-GSM digital systems here in the US, the government dropped by and let them know that if their _phones_ did any kind of meaningful encryption in the USA, they would never get an export license for their base stations, whether the version they wanted to export had encryption or not. Nice, huh? Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your public serpents (err, I mean servants) can go off on a tangent like that sometimes and it ain't funny when they do. Back in CB Radio days, Motorola radios used a programmable chip called '02A' for frequency selection. Everyone knew how to program it, and all the guys would open up their radio, cut just a single very small little bit of the (solder) trace, add a tiny double-pole, double- throw switch on the side of the radio (part available from Radio Shack at the time for 89 cents) and bingo, their 40 channel *legal* radio became a 120 channel unit, with 40 channels above licensed CB and 40 channels below licensed CB, or 360 'channels' if you counted the upper and lower side of each frequency plus the center itself. Some of the crafty guys would peak their radio so they could get it to oscillate all the way up in ten meters. Some were even brazen enough to talk about it on the radio itself, and teach the other guys what to do. No matter how many times the FCC 'field auditors' would hit the streets around midnight on a hot summer night in Chicago, driving their van around, attempting to triangulate someone's signal, it was rare they would ever catch a guy using his radio like that. So instead, the FCC went to Motorola and told *them* to can the beans. Motorola said it was not their fault people misused their product and the government's res- ponse was then suppose we fix it so you are not in a position to sell any products at all? The government's next stop was in DFW, Texas, where Tandy/Radio Shack and their Chicago affilate Allied Radio were doing a land office business, a lot like ISPs do now, because in those days Citizens Band Radio was where things were at. Clerks in Radio Shack stores everywhere were eager to sell as many radios as they could, so many of them on their own prepared a little 'cheat sheet' with the technical instruc- tions for making the illegal modifications; and of course the couple dollars in parts needed were there in the store for sale also. Then when a customer bought a radio, the clerks would ask, 'do you plan on doing the mods yourself or do you want one of us guys in the store to help you for a couple dollars extra.' Just as brazen as could be. The corporate office never saw any of those 'couple dollars extra' and tried to defend itself by saying so, but the government told Tandy/ Radio Shack that they had also better shape up and fly right, or, 'there might be trouble getting those radios that you sell imported in here from the factory in Korea to start with. Then what would you do?' Radio Shack understood perfectly well what was being said, and within a week or so every store had a notice posted in the back room where only the clerks could see it saying that ANY discussion of 'mods' or or the distribution of unauthorized literature in their store which taught customers how to 'do the mods' would result in termination of employment. Radio Shack also had to pay a fine, but Motorola got out of paying the fine since they did not actually sell radios direct and it could never be proven they encouraged customers to 'do the mods', 'the way those brazen fools at Radio Shack were doing' said one VP of Motorola at the time. And of course Frightened Mothers everywhere would never allow their children to use the CB radio because, 'you just cannot be sure of who they are going to talk with or what they they are going to talk about; just last week some man tried to lure my son into meeting him at the corner of Oak and Polk at midnight.' As some prophet once said, 'there is nothing new under the sun, not a damn thing.' PAT] ------------------------------ From: ffaure@bigSPAMGAZETTAIDAMEfoot.com (Frederic Faure) Subject: Re: Good Conference Phone? Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 18:58:36 GMT Organization: What me, organized? Reply-To: ffaure@bigSPAMGAZETTAIDAMEfoot.com On Wed, 28 Apr 1999 13:28:01 GMT, cnavarro@wcnet.org (Carl Navarro) wrote: > They tell me the 3C/USR 1000's are MD'd too :-(. I have really good > luck with those. That makes POLYCOM the winner by default! > I have not used them, they're pricey. At 5X the price of a Panasonic, > it's not an item you bring into inventory for a demo :-). I already found the Panasonic kinda pricey for just an analog phone (close to FF2800/$500 sales tax included), so I'll try the cheaper models of Polycom. (What does MD stand for?) Thanks for the tip, FF. The system required Windows 95 or better, so I installed Linux! ------------------------------ From: Jan Ceuleers Subject: Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 20:53:19 +0200 Organization: the Experimenter Board Reply-To: jan.ceuleers@computer.org 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. These scaling issues are not minor. They are the difference between triggering the IN platform (and global title translation etc.) on only a percentage of calls (i.e. freephone calls), and triggering the IN for essentially _all_ calls. This has major repercussions on the dimensioning of the IN, the CCS7 network, and indeed on the dimensioning of the voice switching network itself. Expanding on this latter point: all calls would have to be routed to the nearest SSP (service switching point), an IN-enabled switch. Routing would therefore not be optimal at all. For example: lots of tromboning would take place. (The fact that each local switch knows its own subscribers only partly addresses this issue: the other part requires each local exchange to be directly connected to an SSP; that is: without intermediate transit nodes). Even if all switches were already upgraded to SSP functionality (which would first require all switches to be digital, second for all switches to be CCS7-enabled and -connected, and third for their SSP capabilities to be enabled), the cost impact might still be high, as an IN call requires more processing resources than an 'ordinary' call. Moreover, the call setup delays on IN calls are longer than on non-IN calls. If all calls suddenly become IN calls, the average call setup delay may become too large for the network to remain compliant with ITU-T requirements. (This is however pure conjecture on my part). Jan Ceuleers, Antwerp, Belgium To reply via e-mail, please insert a dot between jan and ceuleers ------------------------------ Date: 30 Apr 1999 01:33:04 -0000 From: Matt Ackeret Subject: Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools Organization: Area Systems in Mountain View, CA - http://www.area.com In article TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > How much worse are things going to become in the USA? We have a > president who tells parents they have to be careful about keeping > their children from seeing a lot of violent images; meanwhile he > continues throwing bombs with abandon at Yugoslavia. Does he not I think the US shouldn't be the "policeman to the world". Even in World War II, we did not get involved until our territory was directly attacked. However, "throwing bombs with abandon" is a silly way of describing it. Milosivec has been killing a particular group of people in his country (and don't come back with "would it be better if it were indiscriminate"!). This is completely unrelated to two insane kids with access to guns who go to school on a rampage. mattack@area.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But many historians believe that Franklin Roosevelt was just itching to get started. He could barely wait for his turn. The same people believe that not everyone was all that surprised by the attack on us; after all, the daily newspaper in Honolulu on Saturday, 12-6-41 -- the day *before* the Sunday morning attack -- did have a front page story saying 'Air Raids considered likely over weekend'. If Milosivec is the bogey-man here, Adolf Hitler re-incarnated and all that (or to paraphrase from 'Nightmare on Main Street' and Jason) ... Adolf is back, and this time he is really on a rampage ... then why not just go assasinate him, overthrow his government and start over. All that is really happening now is NATO is serving to validate Clinton's wishes. Yes, the same Clinton who tricked all the nerds into voting for him by visiting their hives in Seattle and California and telling all the wonderful things he would support for computers and the net; and the same Clinton who tricked all the gay guys into voting for him by giving them lies about his plans to change the way the military does things. Clinton no more controls the military than I do. And as for 'wonderful things for the net and computers', well you see how quickly he comes to our defense in things like the encryption battle and privacy rights. Enough about him and Mr. Adolf Milosivec. Goodnight. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #66 *****************************