TELECOM Digest Mon, 13 Dec 93 13:14:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 816 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson CFP - Home Informatics International Conference (Kresten Bjerg) History of Blue Boxes (Dave Emery) Nokia M10 Programming Manual Wanted (William Quinn) Prodigy-Nynex Online Yellow Pages (Les Reeves) Model-Based Diagnosis of Communication Protocols (Marc Riese) Comments Wanted From DECvoice Users (Rick Schofield) Call Return on Pay-per-Use Basis (David Leibold) Re: Roch Tel 716 Goes From 1 + 7D to 7D (Al Varney) Re: International Calls via Cable or Satellite (Weiyun Yu) Re: Emergency Services Will be Elsewhere in a Moment, Sir (Carl Moore) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks. The Digest is compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson Associates and redistribution is permitted only with unedited, complete copies of the Digest and associated mailing lists/news groups. Please obtain permission before reprinting the material herein. Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kresten@vax.psl.ku.dk (Kresten Bjerg) Subject: CFP - Home Informatics International Conference Organization: IFIP WG 9.3 Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 14:25:57 GMT A cross-disciplinary international conference HOME-ORIENTED INFORMATICS, TELEMATICS & AUTOMATION From 'State of the Art' through 'Prospects' and 'Blueprints' to 'Implementation' organized by IFIP Working Group 9.3 in cooperation with the University of Copenhagen University of Copenhagen, Denmark June 27 - July 1, 1994 BACKGROUND The home offers a great potential for new automation, information and communication technologies and related services. A wide array of innovations are already under way, with many more to come. They will transform the home and everyday life in the emerging information society. They will condition how private households will be enabled to function in changing social, economic and political structures. AIMS AND SCOPE The conference will assess and conceptualize perspectives and options, which attach to developments of domestic informatics, telematics and automation across the levels of - consumer hard- and software, - network infrastructures - storage & distribution media, - teleservices and - socio-cultural & economic structures. How can these new technologies - seen together - be used to empower consumers and private households? How can both users and suppliers get the optimal benefits from the possible new technologies? - and with which global impact? Can these technologies contribute to the emergence of a new home concept, an "Oikos", where the private household can reestablish itself in an experienced way as a living and production centre, embedded in and interacting with a larger community? Addressing such questions requires a multi-disciplinary approach. Therefore the conference aims to bring together experts from many fields and disciplines. Researchers and practitioners, designers and users, policy makers and industrialists, each with new knowledge and new questions from their experience of recent and expected development. The conference will not only serve as a forum to present and exchange experience, results of research and ideas, but also to explore and discuss strategic approaches and alliances for product research and development, and for prototyping and field experiments. MAJOR THEMES * The social construction of new domestic technologies. * Bridging between the various disciplinary approaches. * The changing position and importance of households in the new social and economic structure of the information and communication society. * Strategies for creating professional and public awareness of the converging potentials and implications of constructive innovations for everyday life and for social, cultural, educational, health, energy, and economic policies. * Ways of organizing relations between research and product development which can further the long-term interest of consumers, and save producers from waste of investments in development of products and services which are doomed to failure. * Relevance for developing countries, cultural diversities and the general goals of the UN year of the family 1994. MAIN AREAS Advanced Home Technologies (e.g. Intelligent home - Linking of TV, telephone, computer and VCR - Interactive multimedia and domestic virtual reality - Security-systems - Household appliances - Environmental control and ecology - Bio-electronics and health-monitoring.) Communication and telematics (e.g. Convergence of broadcast and telecom networks - Interactive teleservices and teletransactions - Tele-education - Telework - Evolving informal networks - Home-to-Home interfacing.) Economics and politics of HOIT (e.g. Interests of industry and service providers - Links between R&D and marketing - Prices and tarifs - Legal and regulatory policies on national and international level - The future of home economics.) Cultural and social impact on everyday life (e.g. Personal development and knowledge distribution - Intra- and interfamily relations - Functions for children, elderly, disabled and home-bound people - Community structure - Cultural continuity.) CONTRIBUTIONS We solicit: Research papers; Papers on experiments and case studies; Policy and strategy papers; Opinion and position papers; which will address State of the Art, Prospects, Blueprints or Implementation within these general areas. Besides full papers, short contributions like posters and statements papers may be submitted. SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS Notification of the intention to submit a full paper (including title and subject area) should preferably be sent as early as possible. Two page abstracts of full papers are due at latest January 15, 1993. Notification of acceptance March 1, 1994. Deadline for submission of final full papers and short contributions May 1, 1994. All accepted contributions will be published in the preceedings available at the conference. Selected papers will be published in the conference proceedings. PROGRAM COMMITTEE Felix van Rijn (Chair), Univ. of Amsterdam, Dept. of Communications (NL) Kresten Bjerg, University of Copenhagen, Psychological Laboratory (DK) Gunilla Bradley, Stockholm University, Inst. of Internatl. Education (S) Valerie Frissen, Univ. of Amsterdam, Dept. of Communications (NL) Karamjit Gill, Seake Centre, University of Brighton (GB) Leslie Haddon, University of Sussex (GB) Gisela Lehmer, Ministry of Telecommunications, Kln (D) Mara Gabrila Macra, IDAT, Montpellier (Fr) Kurt Monse, IWT, Universitaet Wuppertal (D) Bjoern Nake, University of Copenhagen (DK) Toomas Niit, Institute of Philosophy, Sociology and Law, Tallin (Estonia) Gerrit Noltes, Ministerie van WVC (NL) Yves Punie, Free University of Brussels (B) Andy Sloane, School of Comp. & Inf. Techn. Univ. of Wolwerhampton (GB) Alladi Venkatesh, Grad. Sch. of Management, Univ. of Calif., Irvine (USA) L.E. Zegers, European Home Systems Association, Eindhoven (NL) ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Kresten Bjerg (DK), Bjoern Nake (DK), Dan Melkane (DK), Poul Groenhoej(DK) REPLY FORMAT Please e-mail, fax or photocopy and mail to: HOIT-94, Kresten Bjerg, Psychological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, 88, Njalsgade, DK 2300 Copenhagen S. Tel.:+45 31541856 Fax: +45 32963138 E-mail: kresten@vax.psl.ku.dk ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] I/we consider participating. [ ] I/we intend to submit a full paper. Area: Preliminary title: [ ] I/we intend to submit a short contribution, poster or audio-visual demonstration. Topic: [ ] I/we want to exhibit/demonstrate electronic or mechanic equipment, taking max. m2 floorspace. Subject: Name: Institution: Street address: City / postal code: Country: Voice telephone: Fax: E-mail: ------------------------------ From: jjmhome!pig!die@transfer.stratus.com (Dave Emery) Subject: History of Blue Boxes Date: 12 Dec 93 22:12:33 GMT Reply-To: jjmhome!pig!die@transfer.stratus.com Organization: Opinion Mongers Incorperated... Someone posted an (unattributed) note to the effect that blue boxes had been around "10 or 15 years". This is wrong - try 40 years or so. For what it is worth, blue boxes have been around almost as long as the underlying MF in-band address signaling that they exploit (since 1948). And will probably exist until there is none of this left (we're getting there). The first one I am certainly aware of was built by an IBM engineer working on some sort of government telephone switching project in or around 1957. I have heard rumors of the devices being built by other engineers in the telephone R&D community significantly before that time but have never heard any definate proof one way or the other as to the actual existance of such or to their use for hacking. These early devices of course mostly used vacuum tube oscillators and relays rather than the software and sound board approach that is common now. The famous "Blue Box" which gave the device its common name was the fruit of a hacking project at MIT and Harvard in 1960 or 1961 and was in fact really a blue metal box. I suspect but do not know for certain that that this project which ended in criminal legal negotiations between the students involved and telephone security personel was the first time telephone company operating management became widely aware of the potential of such sophisticated (at least for its time) toll fraud. I was told at the time that the president of the New England Telephone Company was absolutely flabbergasted when he was told of the technology and given a demonstration -- before that time operating telco management has no idea whatsoever that such things were even remotely possible. One suspects that the spooks knew of the technology earlier than this and no doubt kept the secret classified just as they did many other holes in the security of society so they could exploit them for "purposes of national security". The first public discussion of blue boxes that I am aware of was an article in the {Boston Herald} in 1964 or 1965 that resulted from a political fight between the {Boston Herald} and the New England Telephone Company. Apparently the Herald felt that the Telco had screwed them in a legal battle over a story they had published earlier and got revenge by printing the blue box story which they had known about for some years (since 1961 or so) in order to damage the telco since it was known that it would take years to plug the holes that blue boxes exploited. By the time this article was published, the technology of telephone signalling and automatic billing and its weaknesses was fairly well know amoung the nascent MIT centered hacker community and blue box projects were common amoung students there. Blue boxes surfaced nationally in the media in 1971 when {Esquire} published an article about them. But by that time the telephone industry had mounted an aggressive campaign to prosecute and monitor blue box use and the whole matter had become one aspect of the ever present toll fraud problem rather than a marvel that stunned senior managment. David I. Emery - N1PRE - Lexington Mass. Former senior technical consultant (and currently unemployed drunken bum) Internet: jjmhome!pig!die@transfer.stratus.com (preferred) or die@world.std.com UUCP: ...uunet!stratus.com!jjmhome!pig!die Phone + fax: 1+(617)-863-9986 ------------------------------ From: quinn@austin.ibm.com Subject: Nokia M10 Programming Manual Wanted Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 05:26:21 GMT Reply-To: quinn@austin.ibm.com Organization: IBM Austin Does anyone know where I can get a programming manual for my NOKIA M10 cellular telephone? I would like to change the "default" lock code ... or am I stuck paying my cellular provider to reprogram it. Thanks. William Quinn ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 10:45:51 PST From: Les Reeves Subject: Prodigy-Nynex Online Yellow Pages Nynex announced plans to team with Prodigy in the first ad-supported on-line interactive Yellow Pages system. The database, consisting of some 300 on-line telephone books, is expected to be available by the end of next year. The service will be delivered over Prodigy's network and will be owned exclusively by Nynex. The listings can include photos, maps, menus and up-to-the minute information, such as interest rates at banks. Nynex plans for the system to eventually be interactive, whereby customers could make reservations on-line. Subscribers will not be charged for the service since it is supported by advertisers, and businesses would only pay for advertising beyond their name and phone number listing. The team plans to push other regional telcos to join them in listing and selling Yellow Page advertising on-line. The value of the agreement was not disclosed. (Wall Street Journal, "Nynex and Prodigy team up on Yellow Pages that will provide on-line listings and ads," 12/10/93, p. B1; New York Times, "So, let your cursor do the walking," 12/10/93, p. C4; USA Today, "Yellow Pages move on-line," 12/10/93, p. 6B ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 14:36:53 +0100 From: riese@litsun.epfl.ch (Marc Riese) Subject: Model-Based Diagnosis of Communication Protocols A recent doctoral dissertation entitled: "Model-Based Diagnosis of Communication Protocols" is now available by anonymous ftp at site: litsun.epfl.ch Once the ftp connection is established, change to directory: pub/Protocol_Testing_and_Diagnosis. Please feel free to contact me at: riese@acm.org if you have any problems. Marc Riese Swiss Federal Institute of Technology riese@acm.org EPFL-LIT IN-Ecublens CH-1015 tel +41.21.693.4672 Lausanne, Switzerland fax +41.21.693.4701 [Moderator's Note: Would you be so kind as to submit a copy of the paper for the Telecom Archives as well? Thanks very much. PAT] ------------------------------ From: schofield@trlian.enet.dec.com Subject: Comments Wanted From DECvoice Users Date: 13 Dec 1993 14:26:22 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corp. Reply-To: schofield@trlian.mko.dec.com In all the time I've been following this group, I've seen no mention of Digital's DECvoice product. Has anyone had any experiences with this product set? What were your impressions? Are you using it now? Rick Schofield DECvoice Product Support Digital Equipment Corp. Merrimcak NH ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Dec 93 16:49 WET From: djcl@io.org (woody) Subject: Call Return on Pay-per-Use Basis [from Bell News, Bell Ontario, 13 Dec 93] We get thumbs up for two pay-per-use services: Last Call Return and Busy Call Return Last Call Return and Busy Call Return -- two calling features normally available on a subscription basis -- are now available on a pay-per-use basis to individual-line residence and business customers. The features were offered on a three-week, free-trial basis starting November 8, in Belleville and Trenton, Ontario and Sherbrooke and Magog, Quebec. They became available in Ottawa-Hull and Quebec City as a full service on November 29. A charge of 50 cents applies for each use of last call return or busy call return, up to a maximum limit, or cap, of $6.00 per month (plus tax). Both capabilities have been available to Bell customers on a subscription basis. Customers can use Last Call Return and Busy Call Return for local or long distance calls within or between areas where the features are available. The features will be introduced in other Ontario and Quebec communities where calling features are now offered, on a phased basis during the first six months of 1994. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 08:14:11 CST From: varney@ihlpe.att.com Subject: Re: Roch Tel 716 Goes From 1 + 7D to 7D Organization: AT&T In article j-grout@uiuc.edu writes: > fybush@world.std.com (Scott D Fybush) writes: >> According to radio ads being heard by a friend in Rochester NY, >> Rochester Tel will change over this week from 1 + 7D for long distance >> in 716 to just 7D. >> This poses a few problems. First, almost any LD call from the >> Rochester exchanges is inter-LATA. 716 is divided into two LATAs. >> The Buffalo LATA encompasses all of 716 except the Roch Tel areas and >> a few other areas inside the Roch Tel zone which are still served by >> indies (including Ogden Telephone and a few Contel exchanges.) I >> suspect LD carriers will be upset about this one ... especially if Roch >> Tel tries to default customers to its own RCI long-distance service. Since the LATA boundaries aren't changing (only the dialing), why would the LD carriers be upset (assuming no IXC defaults are changed). Won't the same calls to the same inter-LATA numbers still use the same IXCs? The IXC sure can't tell that you dialed a '1+' at the beginning. > After divestiture, NJ Bell chose to continue to support the abbrevia- > tion of 7D (instead of the full 1 +609 + 7D) to place a DD inter-LATA > call, now with one's default LD carrier ... of course, to support > equal access, they also had to implement 10xxx + 1 + 609 + 7D (I am > guessing that Bellcore decided from the beginning to never permit > seven or eight-digit abbreviations after 10xxx). Bad guess -- first of all, Bellcore didn't exist when the 10XXX dialing plan was devised, but many folks from AT&T that worked on the plan became Bellcore employees in 1984. Secondly, 10xxx can validly appear in front of any standard numbers of 7, 1+7, 10 or 1+10 digits, assuming you could dial them without the 10xxx prefix. I just tried calling myself using: NXX-XXXX (IBT oops, I mean Ameritech) 1+708+NXX-XXXX (ditto) 10288+ 1+708+NXX-XXXX (AT&T) 10222+ 1+708+NXX-XXXX (you know who) 10333+ 1+708+NXX-XXXX (ditto) 10288+ NXX-XXXX (AT&T) 10222+ NXX-XXXX 10333+ NXX-XXXX These all rang the "second line" on my ISDN set. No form of 1+NXX-XXXX worked -- IBT intercepted. But if IBT permitted it, 10XXX could precede it. All the forms with 1+708 could also be 0+708. IBT doesn't support 0+NXX. The only form of 10XXX access that doesn't work are those where your presubscribed carrier would not be selected, such as 1+800 or 1+900 calls. Note these shorthands: 00 = 10XXX+0# IXC operator 0# = LEC operator Also, 10XXX+# is cut-thru to IXC dial-tone (sorta like 950-0XXX). There is no shorthand for this access, since '#' by itself is an error. Al Varney ------------------------------ From: weiyun@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Weiyun Yu) Subject: Re: International Calls via Cable or Satellite Organization: Information Services, Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 12:50:00 GMT Stewart Fist <100033.2145@CompuServe.COM> writes: > In Australia we use the access code 0011 for voice calls, and 0015 for > fax calls. The difference is primarily in the fact that the fax call > will always be placed via cable if cable is available. Correct me if I am wrong. Exactly the opposite happens. The 0015 lines primarily use the satellite route while the 0011 numbers has the cable route when ever possible to provide better voice quality (no echoes). Apparently the fax machines are immune to echoes. I got these from a telecom rep. > There are also some differences in the fact that bit-stealing is > turned off, and some modification to the time-out of the echo > cancellation. Can't comment :) Dr Weiyun Yu "Why Me?" | Internet: weiyun@ucc.su.oz.au Dept of Surgery, Uni of Sydney, Australia | Voice: 61+2-692-3851 Let there be light! And there was light! | Fax: 61+2-692-4887 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 13:06:21 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: Emergency Services Will be Elsewhere in a Moment, Sir I don't know what would be displayed if I had to call 911 from my present phone on 410-287; my mail (including my phone bills) goes to a PO box in another town. Utility companies need to know where you live, because that is where the physical connections for service (electricity, phone, etc.) go, even if the bills don't. (Perhaps you'd want to find out what exchange serves 820 Old Apex Road. I did find Apex Road and Street listed for zipcode 27707, and Apex Hwy. listed for zip code 27713, both in Durham.) Question: What about foreign exchange service? An old example in Maryland was someone in an area served by 287 prefix who brought in 642 Perryville (the next exchange to the west) as a foreign exchange because it is local to Aberdeen (272,273,278) and Havre de Grace (939). Another case (glaring because a state line is involved, and I recall seeing this at least once in the Wilmington, Del. directory), would be someone in the Wilmington or Holly Oak exchange area bringing in Chester Heights (Pa.) as a foreign exchange; that choice: -Keeps Wilmington, Newport, Holly Oak as local calls -loses local service to other parts of New Castle County, Del. and part of southern Chester County, Pa. -GETS LOCAL SERVICE TO ALL OF PHILADELPHIA METRO AREA Remote-forward, which I set up in Delaware, would not be involved in 911. No calls can originate on my Delaware number; it can only be activated by an incoming call, and can only automatically call the number I am forwarding to. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #816 ****************************** Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253