Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA22945; Thu, 20 May 1999 16:45:22 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 16:45:22 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199905202045.QAA22945@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #91 TELECOM Digest Thu, 20 May 99 16:45:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 91 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Do You Feel Like a Number? (TELECOM Digest Editor) Private Personal Computing? (Monty Solomon) Re: Long Island Assigned 631 Area Code (Stan Schwartz) Re: Oregon's 971 Partial Overlay of 503 (David A. Jensen) Bell Atlantic Holders Approve $80.9 Billion Purchase of GTE (Monty Solomon) Re: DNA Dragnet (Richard Freeman) Re: Which Countries Use a-law vs. u-law Codecs? (Thor Lancelot Simon) Judge Freezes Funds In Internet Scam (Monty Solomon) Re: Siemens 2420 (support@sellcom.com) Gigaset 2420 Handsets - Different Volume Levels? (mikey94025@my-dejanews) Re: Some Good News to Report Today (Ernie Longmire) 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. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. 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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: Thu, 20 May 1999 15:33:33 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Do You Feel Like a Number? It used to just be a grim joke: one day all Americans would be issued numbers to use instead of names. Well, we are about half- way there. So far, we are still permitted to have individual names, but our social security numbers are rapidly becoming our national ID numbers. This not only expressly conflicts with what President Roosevelt and the Social Security Administration promised us, but is just one more step in the direction of total control of each person by the government. Social Security began in 1935, and the present numbering system for it began a year later in 1936. In 1962, the Internal Revenue Service began requiring it on all tax returns. Individuals get SSNs, while coporations and other employers get FEINs ... the same difference, it is the same database, just the way the number is parsed for the latter is different. Starting in 1970, all banks were required to obtain your number. In 1982, anyone receiving any sort of government handout was required to present their number. As a practical matter today, many states and and most educational institutions simply use your SSN as their identification number for you also. I am told that a federal law recently passed allows for federal takeover of birth certificates, death certificates and driver's licenses. Under this law, even if you choose to not identify yourself with your Social Security number, it still would have to be presented when you wish to obtain a driver's license or any form of state identification card. (Some states issue ID cards in lieu of driver's licenses to people who request it.) Numbers will be issued to new born babies immediatly as part of the process of issuing their birth certificates. But the best it seems, is yet to come. Starting October 2, 2000 you will need to present your SSN to *board any airplane or purchase any airplane ticket*, use *any government services* -- regardless if it is a welfare program or you just want to call the police and report some incident, although Medicare and welfare programs will definitly require the number -- or to conduct any bank transactions. Imagine your grandchildren growing up never knowing a time in which transactions were done without the need to present a national ID number so the government could snoop into your business. If indeed the government begins enforcing the 'show your SSN to buy an airline ticket or board an airplane' rule, watch for Greyhound's and Amtrack's business to pick up considerably. In these times, the phrase 'public servant' translates into 'public master', and surely they must be in their glory about now. Maybe with some effort, we can get Congress to repeal this law, but don't count on it. George Orwell was only a few years off in his book '1984', when Big Brother was just a teen-ager. Now he is coming of age. October 2, 2000 is the date. Do mark your calendars! PAT ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 01:48:59 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Private Personal Computing? Once it's connected to the Internet, the personal computer isn't very personal any more. In fact, it's becoming more and more like the "telescreen" in George Orwell's novel 1984. Computer servers throughout the Internet now collect and store information about you from the keystrokes you enter in perceived privacy at home and office. Government investigators and lawyers in civil cases are going after these computer records with warrants and subpoenas - and you may not even be notified when they look at yours. http://www.lawnewsnet.com/stories/A1544-1999May17.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 10:03:57 PDT From: Stan Schwartz Reply-To: stannc@no1spam.yahoo.com Subject: Re: Long Island Assigned 631 Area Code In TELECOM Digest V19 #89, Eric@AreaCode-Info.com (Eric Morson) wrote: > Suffolk County New York will be split from 516 and assigned area code > 631, with mandatory dialing and NXX activations beginning in the > Spring of 2000. Newsday http://www.newsday.com is reporting a tentative permissive date of 11/1/99. They have a large Q&A section on their site today, which looks like a graphic so I was unable to copy it here. Carl Moore wrote: > I recall reading it's Amityville, Farmingdale, and Cold Spring Harbor > which lie along the Nassau-Suffolk county line. Recall the 612/651 > split in Minnesota w/r to splitting a prefix, with the concerns about > things like: > local calls across the area code border (the old NYC message unit > zones included all of Long Island but did not include Fishers > Island). They'd need the area code (it's needed for calls in > either direction between NYC and current 516). I didn't think that 516/718 had any 'protected' cross-border exchanges anymore. AFAIK, the calls were rated as local, but 1+NPA+7D were required for cross-NPA local calls. > if prefix ABC is to split along the area code border, try going > as long as you can before having, say, ABC-wxyz occurring on both > sides of the split line. I have family who live in the 516-752 prefix (on the Nassau - not changing - side), so hopefully I'll be able to provide a blow-by-blow account of what works and what doesn't after the permissive and mandatory dates. I'm wondering if a call to their house using 631-752 will work for a period of time. About 15 years ago, when we moved to that area, we were asked to call 911 and make sure our calls were routed to the correct police department (Nassau or Suffolk) and to contact NYNEX (BA) if they weren't. Hopefully, they've improved the location tables since then. - Stan ------------------------------ From: David A. Jensen Subject: Re: Oregon's 971 Partial Overlay of 503 Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 13:49:18 -0500 Patty Winter (pwinter@best.com) wrote: > I hope this AC madness can get fixed soon ... There are almost 20 numbers for each man, woman and child in the NANP and we are running out of numbers? This is really silly. Here's my solution which semsibly retains the ten digit number: WW-XX-YYY-ZZZ where WW is the region code. This code is not limited to one state or country but covers a logical region. Extremely large regions can have adjacent region codes reserved and move wireless and/or data services in an adjacent region code (Example: the NYC region could have 69 as the region code and 60 as the wireless/data code, 68 reserved for growth, Chicagoland 24/25, LA 52/51, DC 32/31, etc.). XX is an optional subregion. Larger metro areas would just use this as part of the number, Smaller NANP countries or states would use these as their own sub-region code(s) instead of an entire area code. YYY would be the prefix assigned to carriers as it is today, but with only 1000 numbers at a time. ZZZ would be the final digits. Overlay/Split problems could go away until we actually need more than 6 billion numbers. Dave Jensen ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 23:12:19 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Bell Atlantic Holders Approve $80.9 Billion Purchase of GTE http://www.businesstoday.com/topstories/bell05191999.htm Bloomberg Wednesday, May 19, 1999 Atlanta -- Bell Atlantic Corp. shareholders approved the No. 1 U.S. local phone company's acquisition of GTE Corp. for $80.9 billion, leaving one major approval needed to create the largest U.S. phone company. At a shareholder meeting in Atlanta, Bell Atlantic said investors holding 64 percent of its outstanding shares voted for the transaction. GTE shareholders approved the sale yesterday. The combination faces a more challenging hurdle at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, where Chairman William Kennard has said phone company mergers will get tough scrutiny. If completed, the combination will vault the new company ahead of AT&T Corp. as the largest U.S. phone company with a third of the local U.S. phone market and the most wireless customers. Shares of New York-based Atlantic rose 11/16 to 56 9/16 in early afternoon trading, while GTE rose 3/4 to 65 13/16. Bell Atlantic and Irving, Texas-based GTE need approval from the FCC and regulators in about 12 states. Earlier this month, the combination won U.S. antitrust clearance when the Justice Department approved it after the companies agreed to sell wireless operations in 65 local markets, including Chicago; Houston; Dallas; Richmond, Virginia, and Tampa, Florida. The Justice Department said it's one of the largest such divestitures ever required in a merger. The FCC must determine whether Bell Atlantic-GTE can continue to offer long-distance service to GTE's 100,000 customers in Bell Atlantic's territory in the Northeast. Bell Atlantic is barred from offering long-distance service within its local phone markets until it opens those markets to competition. GTE, a major provider of Internet service, uses long-distance lines to transmit data. The FCC's staff has already found certain problems with another large local phone acquisition. The staff has said SBC Communications Inc.'s plans to buy Ameritech Corp. should be rejected as anticompetitive unless changes are made. Under the GTE acquisition, which was announced July 28, each GTE share will be swapped for 1.22 Bell Atlantic shares. ------------------------------ From: rfreeman@netaxs.com (Richard Freeman) Subject: Re: DNA Dragnet Date: 20 May 1999 14:53:51 GMT Organization: newsread.com ISP News Reading Service (http://www.newsread.com) On Tue, 18 May 1999 15:47:14 GMT, Free Spirit wrote: > My biggest concern for the new reliance on DNA evidence in criminal > cases is that it is much easier to 'plant' DNA evidence at a crime > scene than it is to fake a fingerprint. An interesting scenario ... Of course, chances are that the person doing the planting would leave some DNA himself. Then again, if the planted DNA turns out to be in the database, and the person doing the planting isn't, then guess which lead the cops will follup up on ... >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Police have long had the right to take >> is that fingerprints -- once years ago the latest technology in >> people identification -- are rather feeble when compared with DNA >> type-casting. DNA records are just a bit too-perfect for comfort Actually, in the manner in which they are currently used, fingerprints are still considered the best method of identification. They are considered unique for all practical purposes. Of course, a partial fingerprint is a lot more prone to error, but if you are dragged to court because your fingerprints are a perfect match to those found on a gun and they have good prints to show the jury, you are pretty much done for ... The main advantage of DNA is that with PCR technology you need virtually no sample at all to make an identification, and simply wearing gloves does little to keep you from shedding DNA. Unfortunately, the manner in which it is currently used is less able to make unique identification than a fingerprint is. There are ways of using DNA to make much more certain identifications, but because of how courts operate, they are slow to be introduced as evidence. I believe that they are also more difficult and expensive to use. Not that I am a forensic chemist or anything -- just a lowly biochemistry grad student ... Richard T. Freeman - finger for pgp key 3D CB AF BD FF E8 0B 10 4E 09 27 00 8D 27 E1 93 http://www.netaxs.com/~rfreeman - ftp.netaxs.com/people/rfreeman ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Which Countries Use a-law vs. u-law Codecs? Date: 19 May 1999 20:20:59 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Toby Nixon wrote: > Does anyone know where to locate a list of which countries use A-law > and which use mu-law G.711 PCM codecs in their national networks? I > searched the ITU web site and didn't find anything useful. Anything built under the influence of the European PTT-industrial complex uses A-law. Anything built by one of the tentacles of the Bell System (or, in some cases, the U.S. military) uses mu-law. No, it's not exactly a comprehensive list, but it's a good rule of thumb. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 21:51:08 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Judge Freezes Funds In Internet Scam WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge Tuesday froze the assets of a company that used bogus e-mail messages to trick people into making pricey $2-a-minute international telephone calls to an adult sex-line service. The order by Federal District Court Judge Richard Voorhees in Charlotte, North Carolina, will block U.S. telephone carriers from sending fraudulently obtained funds to a phone company in the tiny Caribbean island of Dominica, said the Federal Trade Commission, which brought the case. In the meantime, the U.S. government will try to track down the unidentified defendants, who have used false e-mail return addresses to hide their identity while sending out their bulk e-mail messages, which are commonly known as "spam." The FTC said American Online Inc. had received 20,000 complaints about the problem. The scam is a variation on the old practical joke by a Hollywood director, who sent a telegram that said simply: "Disregard previous wire." In this case, consumers received e-mails saying their orders were "received and processed" and their credit cards were billed for anywhere from $250 to $899. The consumers had ordered nothing. The e-mail helpfully suggested calling a representative in area code 767, which serves Dominica, an island in the Windward group of the West Indies about 375 miles (600 km) southeast of Puerto Rico. Consumers were not told the phone rates were up to $2 a minute. People who called were connected to what the FTC described as "an adult entertainment audiotext service with sexual content." Customers later received telephone charges for their international calls to Roseau, Dominica, from the Cable and Wireless (Dominica), Ltd., phone company. "This scam used low-down tactics and high-tech tools to rob consumers in their own homes," said Jode Bernstein, director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection. The FTC voted 4-0 to file the complaint. ------------------------------ From: support@sellcom.com Subject: Re: Siemens 2420 Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 03:48:21 GMT Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com bakie@my-dejanews.com spake thusly and wrote: > Any idea of what the price will be on the new 2402 or when it will > really be available? Does call bridging fix the annoying extension > problem (for residential use) that the 2420 has? I think I want the > 2402. I am not sure about the price yet. What do you mean by call bridging? Steve http://www.sellcom.com (Opinions expressed, though generally wise and accurate are not officially positions of SELLCOM) Cyclades / Siemens (May REBATE) / Y2K ODIU support / Zoom / Palmer Safes (Tech assistance provided without warranty express or implied) Check us out at http://www.thepubliceye.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think 'call bridging' usually means call conferencing, allowing three or more parties to all be on the conversation at the same time. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mikey94025@my-dejanews.com Subject: Gigaset 2420 Handsets - Different Volume Levels? Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 02:42:28 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. I purchased a Siemens Gigaset 2420 recently with two additional handsets. I noticed that the additional handsets had 5 volume settings, but the one that came with the base unit had only 3. It bugs me that I have handsets with different software. I called tech support and they said that the number of volume levels was the only difference, and that there was no way to "upgrade" my handset. - M ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 13:51:30 -0700 From: elongmi@basis.com (Ernie Longmire) Subject: Re: Some Good News to Report Today Reply-To: lazlo@studio-nibble.com In article , you say... > Every article, every title, every author, every subject, every phrase, > every word ... all the way back to August, 1981, now indexed and ready > for searching. Every bit of it with anchors you can click on to go > to old articles, etc. Here is what you can do to test it: if you > have ever written an article which appeared in TELECOM Digest since > 1981, or if you are mentioned in an article, or if you contributed a > file which is in the archives, use the link below to go to the search > page then enter your name as the search criteria. Hi, Pat! I gave this a shot, searching for "Lazlo", and brought up three hits. I don't think the indexing is complete, though, because the first result is a response to an article I wrote that appeared in V10#907 -- but the original article doesn't appear in the results list. The other two hits look like index entries to articles that also didn't turn up in the results list. Just a QA FYI ... ::: Ernie Longmire (elongmi@basis.com) ::: Online Services Coordinator, BASIS International Ltd. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, I am seeing the same thing. Some of the problem has to do with the way things were archived over the years. Oh! How I wish I could start over from years ago and know then what I know now, regards consistency in archiving, storage and retrieval, etc. Try also using the article name, or some phrase from the article name. Or if it says something like 'in reply to (name)' with a Usenet message ID of the form 'telecom-digest x.y.z@place then x is the volume number, y is the issue number, and z is the message within the issue. Pull the appropriate x and y file from the archives and ask your own browser to then find y and z within it. Truth be told, the whole archives is becoming a monster; I think about it now and *never* would have organized it as I did if I were starting over. And when I look at the archives now, and consider the overall needs of users plus what so many other telecom-related sites have to offer, there are times I have thought the best thing to do would be to login, take a seat on the telecom-archives directory and do some- thing like \rm -f * or something equally unsociable and let it all slide in the bit bucket. Then go have a good cry perhaps and tell myself it was all fun while it lasted, and find some other way to get on with my life. I think back to the 1980's when comp.dcom.telecom and this Digest were the only place on the net to get telecom infor- mation, period, and realize that now I could not begin to keep up with everything, even if I *really tried* ... I got email the other day from a lady who said, 'are you the fellow who puts lovely back- grounds on his web pages such as clouds.jpg and plays classical music midi files for users to compensate for the fact that he has no real information of any value to provide otherwise? ...' Yeah lady, that's me. At least I do not use frames and I have yet to yield to the temptations offered by the banner-message people, the click-here-to-Make-Money-Fast-on-the-Internet crowd, and those who believe pop-up advertising with windows you cannot close out of are the best way to attract new friends and customers. I will keep working on the search thing and see what can be done. In the meantime if you find it useful, enjoy it and let it help enhance your experience at http://telecom-digest.org or if you prefer to go directly to the search engine and by-pass Leon Boellman's Tocatta from the Gothic Suite and other French organ music, then set your browser to enter direct at http://telecom-digest.org/search instead. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #91 *****************************