News
According to the Norwegian Supreme Court, it's not a crime to attempt to breach a computer system. It's up to the person running the site to ensure its security. If, however, the system is breached and information is either tampered with or copied, that would still constitute a crime. Mapping out the holes in a system is perfectly legal in their eyes. Meanwhile in Canada, a bill is being considered that could hold a company liable for allowing sensitive information such as human resources or payroll information to be accessed in a security breach. This represents a far saner way of looking at things than we're used to.
People who were unlucky enough to participate in Canada's Air Miles program discovered that files containing their names, card numbers, home phone numbers, and addresses were left completely unprotected at the www.airmiles.ca web site. It's because of stupidity like this that things like the above bill are being considered.
The chairman of the House Commerce committee (Thomas J. Bliley, R-VA) says he doesn't believe we can go too far to prevent terrorism. He's proposing legislation that would make it illegal to publish reports on chemical plant safety on the Internet. All of this anti-terrorism hysteria seems a bit odd when, according to the U.S. State Department, incidents of international terrorism world-wide have declined 54 percent since 1987.
Overlay systems are becoming the wave of the future. What are they? A royal pain in the ass, according to most surveys that will lead to the eventual elimination of seven-digit dialing. The geniuses who already screwed up the United States phone system by destroying the somewhat sand code system (implementing a four-digit area code would have saved so much present and future grief), are now pushing mandatory dialing of area codes, even when the area code is your own. Los Angeles and Philadelphia are the latest victims, with San Francisco and New York likely to follow later this year. You may ask why it's necessary to dial your own area code when it's never been necessary before. The confused answer you will get is that it has something to do with fairness. Since your next door neighbor may get a phone number in a new area code, why should (s)he be the only one who has to dial 1 plus the old area code. Better that everybody be inconvenienced equally. At least in Philadelphia, Bell Atlantic made a concession to the dialing public. If you're dialing your own area code, you don't have to dial the 1! Whee.
Pacific Bell (now part of SBC Communications) has been engaging in deceptive sales practices through its telemarketer (Business Response Inc. of St. Louis) according to consumer groups. Since only 12 percent of Pac Bell's customers subscribe to Caller ID and 44 percent have signed up for the privacy feature that blocks their number from being sent when making calls, the pressure is on. After all, if too many people keep their numbers from being displayed, Caller ID becomes less of a value to those paying for the service. Recent calls from the telemarketer offered a "free upgrade" from complete to selective blocking. The absurdity of this is deafening. Switching to selective blocking means customers would have to dial *67 before every call if they wanted their number blocked. Complete blocking does this automatically. By changing the default setting, customers would be more likely to send their number even if they didn't want to. It seems obvious that Pac Bell was behind this little scheme since they provided the telemarketer with the names of those people who had selected complete blocking. Other examples of how Pac Bell has been trying to force this technology on consumers is bound in the numerous complaints of new customers not being told of the complete blocking option, as well as the introduction and aggressive pushing of Anonymous Call Rejection (which forces callers to unblock their number if they want to get through). In addition, the Public Utility Commission has gotten reports of customers being switched off of complete blocking without their permission. These are the tactics our phone companies resort to to make a buck.
The latest telco scam to afflict us here in New York is fairly common throughout the United States. It goes something like this phone company sends brochure about three-way calling saying it's the best invention since sliced bread. They emphasize how you can talk to both Joe and Jane at the same time! "You'll never have to say, 'Wait by the phone while 1 call her now. Then I'll call you back, OK?" (They really go out of their way to demonstrate the concept of talking to two people at time for their slow-witted customers.) Then the kicker: "Try Three-Way Calling now. You don't have to order it ahead of time. Just pick up the phone and use it whenever you want to talk to two people at a time." Before breaking out the champagne over this wonderful gift from the phone company, consumers should be aware that this little ploy results in all kinds of unexpected charges. On the third page of their brochure, they mention the fact that each use of three-way calling costs 75 cents plus the cost of the call! This wouldn't be so bad if you could simply choose not to use it, like *69 or *66. But it's very easy to accidentally use three-way. All you have to do is flash your switch hook while connected to another call and you're making a three-way call! Even if you're hanging up on one call and quickly making another, it's likely you will activate three-way calling and incur a charge, now that the service has been "automatically added" to your line. Our local company (Bell Atlantic) has a suggestion: "Please wait three seconds after every call... Your telephone needs to 'reset' itself to work properly for your next call." We have a suggestion. Call your local phone company and make sure they take such deceptive "services" off your line. Then call your local Public Utilities Commission or equivalent and make sure they warn the phone companies about such deceptive and sleazy practices.
AT&T, MCI, LDDS, IDT, and WilTel haven't been paying their phone bills. It seems they're letting their political views get in the way of their financial obligations. The phone bills, you see, are owed to the Cuban state-run phone company for phone service provided there. Apparently, the long distance companies have taken it upon themselves to withhold payment pending the outcome of a court case involving Cuban Americans who lost their lives when they flew a plane over Cuban airspace and were shot down in 1996. Our own State Department has even said that the long distance companies have no right to withhold payment because of this. Cuba will cut off service to the companies if they don't pay up. Meanwhile, Sprint and TLDI of Puerto Rico have kept their bills current.
In yet another incredible waste, a federal judge has sentenced 21-year-old Sean Trifero to a year and a day in prison. Trifero was allegedly the ringleader of a hacker group known as Virii and has been accused of nothing more than causing "disruption" to various online services as they tried to figure out who he was. The government claimed this amounted to damages of $67,500 but refused to disclose how they arrived at that figure. In what may be a significant development, Judge Patti Saris expressed serious doubt as to the accuracy of this figure. In addition, she also rejected the government's request that he be banned from the Internet upon his release, something the government seems keen on making a precedent in all hacker cases. She even suggested that he get a job using computers when he gets out, as opposed to the retail job he had before he was sentenced, which she described as a waste of his talents. This questioning of the party line is a refreshing change for a federal judge. We have to wonder why it wasn't enough to spare him a highly unnecessary prison term.
In case anyone's keeping track, PINs for Southwestern Bell calling cards can't begin with a 0 or a 1 for some reason. It might be interesting to see if other telcos have similar restrictions.
Still more stuff that's not allowed to be sent into prisons: photos depicting gangs/identifying hand signs or gang symbol/weapons/obscene or unlawful activity; metered envelopes; items that can't be searched without being destroyed; items made from metal, wood, plastic, cloth, or cardboard; and items larger than 8.5x11 inches. Additional unauthorized items include: hair, posters, jewelry, flowers/leaves, video cassettes, coins, stickers, lingerie, disks, confetti/glitter, brochures, computer magazines, catalogs, maps depicting area within ten mile radius of facility, magnets, wire, play money, lottery tickets, ID cards, laminated material, condoms, tattoo patterns, and hard cover books. Guess which one tripped us up?
If you neighborhood is getting an Enhanced 911 system anytime soon, you should know that a common "feature" of a lot of these new systems is a "built-in delay" of up to eight seconds before calls are answered. This happened to us recently in Suffolk County, NY. It seems Lucent never bothered to tell anyone that this kind of delay was possible. Phone company pamphlets attempted to make it sound like this obvious flub was actually a sign of progress: "These calls are processed by digital technology, which means they are routed quickly, reliably, and without static. It takes several seconds from the time a call is dialed to 911 and handed off to an emergency official. A caller should stay on the line during those seconds of silence. During this time, vital information about a caller is retrieved from a computer and then routed to the 911 system." In the old days, humans could give their own vital info in half the time. When we checked last, they were trying to figure out how to send a fake ringing sound down the line during those eight seconds so people would stop giving up.
Omnipoint continues to amaze us with their weird sales strategy. As if pricing GSM technology out of the reach of most consumers and practically handing the market over to Sprint PCS wasn't bad enough, now they seem intent on annoying whatever customers they've managed to keep. "Power On" is the name of an "exclusive rewards" program they offer to their customers. How does it work? Well, as the name suggests, all you need to do is keep the power on your phone on. That way you can "receive special messages delivered to your handset alerting you to unique offers, as well as chances to win some great prizes." That's right, unsolicited junk mail delivered right to your phone! They say they're doing this to say "thanks" to their loyal customers. We hate to think what they'll do when they get pissed off. Interestingly, when Omnipoint started service in 1996, they pledged that consumers would "pay only for the minutes they use" and that there would be no "packaged minutes." "Everyone gets the same low usage rate. No required commitments to high monthly calling plans in order to get 'lower' per minute rates." And, above all else, no contracts! A mere glance at their web page (www.omnipoint.com) will show at least seven packaged minute plans! And, yes, your local usage rate can vary from 0 cents to 71 cents a minute, depending on what packaged minute plan you select. And finally, you can get the lowest prices by, you guessed it, signing a contract. When these new services began, we were really hoping to see significant changes, not more of the same old crap with smaller phones.
Now you can "guard your kids against foul language on TV shows and videos" with a new invention called TVGuardian. For $300, this gizmo monitors the closed captioned signal and, if it sees a word it doesn't like, it mutes the audio. "Words are checked against an internal directory of over 100 offensive words and phrases.' Somehow we doubt that will be enough for the easily offended. While the service claims to protect everyone from today's "strong language and religious profanity," we have to wonder how this thing could possibly work at all in the many cases where the closed captioning appears a split second (or more) after the words are uttered. Plus, in order to play it safe, we imagine the device would have to block several seconds of material surrounding the nasty word which means that people using this thing may be protected but they're also going to be real confused.
In yet another example of corporate greed, the International Lyrics Server (www.lyrics.ch) was raided and shut down in early January at the behest of the National Music Publishers' Association. Apparently, the notion that people were reading song lyrics without paying for them distressed these people so much that they decided to take the site down. Of course, it doesn't take much to realize that more music is likely to be sold as a result of such sites being in existence. At press time, it seemed likely that some sort of deal would be worked out that would allow the site back up only if the NMPA was allowed to somehow make money off of it.
According to SÄPO, the Swedish Secret Service, it's possible for GSM phones to be used for industrial espionage, even when they are turned off. But, in an interview on Radio Sweden, SÄPO head Andres Erikson said, "I don't want to go into how this can be done, because I don't want to give people information about this matter. So, our recommendation is: you should not speak over the telephone about secret things, and you should not bring GSM telephones into rooms where you talk about secret things." This seems a rather sloppy attempt to create fear of a technology without any credible evidence. Predictably, members of the GSM industry strongly disagreed with SÄPO's assessment, saying that a phone that isn't even on can't be used for monitoring unless it has somehow been modified.
As more and more law enforcement agencies move to trunked communication systems, it seems inevitable that radio scanners will incorporate truck tracking as well. Unfortunately, H.R. 514 the "Wireless Privacy Enhancement Act of 1999" will make it illegal for manufacturers to sell such equipment, or to sell any devices that "convert protected paging service transmissions to alphanumeric text." This bill is what the Feds are offering to enhance our privacy in lieu of strong encryption systems that they would have difficulty cracking. In other words: they can listen to us, but we can't listen to them. The bill is currently winding its way through Congress and will almost certainly become law unless people make a fuss. You can read the bill at: thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c106:H.R.514 If you're incensed enough about this to write to your representatives but you've forgotten who they are, go to www.congress.nw.dc.us/c-span/elecmail.html And if you're interested in an anti-H.R. 514 site, check out: www.dimensional.com/~efricha/HR514
An example of how sometimes grassroots activism actually accomplishes something can be seen in the latest news from the FCC. Proposals are finally being considered for micro-broadcasting stations that operate between 1 and 1000 watts on the FM dial. Over the past couple or years, this form of radio has flourished around the country. But the corporate broadcasters and National Public Radio (NPR) have complained about these non-licensed upstart people who do everything from playing alternative styles of music to talking about community issues. Now it seems the FCC has finally seen the mistake it made in allowing corporations to own more than a handful of radio stations - there are now two of them that own more than 400 stations each! There are very few people left who don't see the danger of this kind of power in the hands of a single entity. Licensed micro-broadcasting is a step towards correcting this but it's only the first step. Great care must be taken to ensure that this spectrum isn't handed over to another powerful interest. And we mustn't give up on the FM spectrum as it currently stands. The airwaves are public, after all, and the public has the right to decide how they should be used. Companies that have taken over multiple stations in the same city should be compelled to give at least one of them back to the community. After all, they've probably made a ton of money off of the public airwaves already - it seems only fair to give something back. Those of you interested in commenting on the micro-broadcasting proposal should go to www.fcc.gov/mmb/lpfm. There are a number of issues which must be dealt with, in addition to the above. For instance, the current proposal for some reason leaves out stations between 10 and 99 watts, which is the most common power used by existing micro-broadcasters. The comment period ends on April 12, 1999.
All of these corporate mergers and takeovers have inspired us. After all, nobody seems to know who's controlling what anymore. That's why we strongly urge people to find out the real names of the companies running things and refer to the companies they control with the proper name. For instance, CBS is owned by Westinghouse. So call it Westinghouse, not CBS. NBC is General Electric and ABC is Disney. When you tell people you're watching Disney's World News Tonight, you'll begin to see how this can change people's perceptions of the media. Some of these companies are touching you on many levels. As one way of working all of this out, we've started a project to sort out who owns what which hopefully will become quite useful to the masses. It's called www.whoownswhat.net and we intend to use this to provide a quick guide to which companies are really in charge of the things you see every day. If people pool their knowledge, this can become an indispensable tool.