TELECOM Digest Wed, 11 May 94 14:03:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 211 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson BT Announces Dialing Code Changes (Ted Dupont) What is the Mercury Button? (John Perkins) EFF Summary: May 3 1994 Clipper / Digital Telephony Hearings (M. Solomon) 'NNX' Area Codes? I Think 'NXX' is More Appropriate (Paul Robinson) Pager Schematics and POCSAG/GOLAY Protocols? (Joseph Jesson) Nationwide Name and Address Service (George Thurman) Information on Seminar Wanted (kchok@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu) Re: Cellular Phone Abuse (John Gilbert) Re: Cellular Phone Abuse (Bob Wilson) Re: Cellular Phone Abuse (Steven H. Lichter) 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 including Compuserve and GEnie. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 May 94 14:28:04 EDT From: usbma9ne@ibmmail.COM (Ted Dupont) Subject: BT Announces Dialing Code Changes The following announcement was distributed to U.S. and Canadian news media on Apr. 28, 1994: Contact: Jim Barron BT Corporate Communications 100 Park Ave. New York NY 10017 USA 212-297-2724 Ted DuPont Burson-Marsteller 230 Park Ave. South New York NY 10003 USA 212-614-4562 Starting April, 1995, New Dialing Codes For Calls To The United Kingdom NEW YORK, Apr. 28 - Starting Apr. 16, 1995, the 100 million-plus phone calls made annually from North America to the United Kingdom will be affected by the biggest change in the U.K.'s telephone numbering system in more than 25 years. The changes will result in a tenfold increase in the U.K.'s telephone numbering capacity and will meet requirements for many years to come. U.S. businesses should begin planning now to accommodate these dialing changes, according to BT (British Telecommunications plc). Starting Apr. 16, 1995, callers to most numbers in the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) will need to insert an additional "1" in the dialing code, directly after "44" (the U.K. country code). For example, a North American caller to London will dial "011-44-171" in front of the local number, instead of the current "011-44-71." (In the U.S., 011 is the international access code; 44 is the U. K. country code, and 71 is the London area code). All city codes, not just London, will have the number "1" added. In addition, also on Apr. 16, 1995, the following five British cities facing especially acute number shortages will be given completely new area codes: Current Area Code/Local Number Apr. 16, 1995 Leeds 532 XXXXXX 113 2XX-XXXX Sheffield 742 XXXXXX 114 2XX-XXXX Nottingham 602 XXXXXX 115 9XX-XXXX Leicester 533 XXXXXX 116 2XX-XXXX Bristol 272 XXXXXX 117 9XX-XXXX Starting Aug. 1, callers to the U.K. will have the choice of using the new dialing codes or the existing codes; that is, calls to the U.K. will go through whether or not the caller dials 1 after the U.K. country code (44). This "permissive" dialing phase will be in effect until Apr. 16, 1995, when all calls to the U.K. will require the additional 1. Callers in the U.S. can call 1-800-634-2485 for more information on the dialing code changes. Growing Need for New Numbers These dialing changes are needed to deal with a growing shortage of area codes caused by such new technologies as fax machines, computer data modems and the fact that there are now 150 licensed telephone operators in the U.K., said officials of BT, the U.K.'s largest telephone operator. The dialing changes will not affect calling rates. "It is important that U.S. businesses begin planning for these dialing code changes now," said James E. Graf, BT's vice president of regulatory affairs. "While these dialing changes may seem simple, they will actually require significant efforts by many companies to reconfigure automated dialing equipment, fax machines, telecommunica- tions software systems and PBX's -- in addition to changing signage and stationery." It will be especially critical to change preset numbers stored in phones or faxes, said Graf, because dialing of the old codes by automated dialing systems will mean that calls won't be connected after Apr. 16, 1995. Planning for these changes should begin now: Telecommunications equipment * Computer systems containing international phone codes * Phone numbers stored in any telephone or fax * Personnel records * Databases * Switchboard and PBX systems * Fax ID numbers Stationery and Signs * Business stationery, letterheads, invoices, business cards, address labels, etc. * Advertisements, sales literature, brochures, direct-mail pieces, new product information Phase-In of New Codes To provide ample time to make the transition, BT will be phasing in the new dialing codes according to this timetable: -- Until August, 1994: Current area code only (do not dial 1 after U.K. country code of 44). -- Aug. 1, 1994 through Apr. 15, 1995: Old or new code (users can make calls with or without 1 after U.K. country code). -- Apr. 16, 1995: New code only (1 must be dialed after U.K. country code). Calls dialed without the extra 1 will get a pre-recorded message informing callers of the change. The code changes will not affect cellular phone numbers or toll-free phone numbers; only geographic area codes will change. BT officials further noted that, on an international level, all European countries are moving towards a single international access code. In accordance with this change, the international access code from the U.K. will change from 010 to 00 -- like the other changes, on Apr. 16, 1995. BT is one of the leading global providers of telecommunications services. BT's main products and services are local and long-distance telephone services in the U.K., provision of telephone exchange lines to homes and businesses, international voice and data services to and from the U.K. and supplying telecommunications equipment to customer premises. BT's range of additional services includes private circuits, mobile communications and network outsourcing. ------------------------------ From: johnper@bunsen.rosemount.com (John Perkins) Subject: What is the Mercury Button? Organization: Rosemount, Inc. Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 15:47:23 GMT My parents in London (Chessington, actually) have just recently signed up with Mercury and have been persuaded (by Mercury, presumably) to have a Mercury phone set installed. This phone has a "Mercury button" on it to access the Mercury network. Will someone please tell me what the Mercury button is? I suspect that it simply sends out a hard-coded sequence of DTMF digits which accesses the Mercury network, and one could probably do this manually with any phone that generates DTMF if one knew what the sequence was. Am I right about this? And does anyone know what the access sequence for Mercury is? They have a perfectly good BT "Tribune" phone set that has some special attachments for the hearing impaired, but are under the impression that they can't use it if they want to use Mercury. (I have a feeling that they don't really need the Mercury phone set at all.) John Perkins ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 10:09:21 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFF Summary: May 3 1994 Clipper / Digital Telephony Hearings Forwarded FYI to the Digest: Begin forwarded message: From: mech@eff.org (Stanton McCandlish) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.news,talk.politics.misc Subject: EFF Summary of May 3 1994 Clipper and Digital Telephony Hearings Date: 4 May 1994 23:19:49 -0500 Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway EFF SUMMARIES ============= May 4, 1994 Contents: * Senate Subcommittee on Technology and the Law holds Clipper Hearing * House Subcommittee on Technology, Environment and Aviation holds hearing on Clipper and Digital Telephony proposals; EFF's Executive Director Jerry Berman and Board Member David Farber testify SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE HOLDS CLIPPER HEARING The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology and the Law held a hearing on Tuesday (5/3) to examine the Administration's "Clipper Chip" Key Escrow Encryption proposal. Witnesses included Asst. Atty. Gen. Jo Ann Harris (Criminal Justice Division), NIST Deputy Director Raymond Kammer, Whitfield Diffie (of Sun Microsystems), Stephen Walker (President, Trusted Information Systems), and NSA director Vice Adm. J. M. McConnell. The discussion touched on a number of key issues, including the necessity of the Clipper proposal for law enforcement; the privacy interests of network users; the costs associated with implementing the Clipper scheme; export controls; and whether those intending to use communications networks to break the law would actually use Clipper as opposed to other encryption schemes. Although a variety of views were offered, few new developments emerged in this controversial debate. Assistant Attorney General Harris and NIST's Ray Kammer both stated that the Clipper Scheme and Key Escrow system would not provide law enforcement with any new surveillance abilities. Rather, Harris argued, Clipper is analogous to a translator. Harris stated, "All Clipper does is, after a court has authorized interceptions of communications, is that we get the ability to understand the content of legitimately intercepted communications". The Administration continues to maintain that the market would accept the Clipper standard based on the assumption that it is the strongest encryption scheme, regardless of who holds the keys. When pressed by Sen. Leahy on this issue, as well as on the question of whether criminals or terrorist organizations would be willing to use the Clipper standards, neither witness offered any assurances, and admitted that this is still an open question. Senator Leahy expressed skepticism: "I have serious questions about whether any sophisticated criminal or terrorist organization is going to use the one code endorsed by the U.S. Government and for which U.S. Government agents hold the decoding keys. There are a multitude of alternative encryption methods commercially available. If Clipper Chip does become the standard encryption method used by Americans, criminals may be forced to use Clipper to communicate with legitimate outsiders. But this is a big 'IF' ". In what may prove to be a significant development, NIST's Kammer conceded that additional fiscal authorization may be needed to fund the implementation of the Clipper proposal. If this is the case, Congress would be required to consider legislation to authorize funding, and at this point passage of such legislation is at best uncertain. EFF will continue to closely monitor this development, and will pass along information as it develops. Sun Microsystems Diffie urged a slow and careful approach to the Clipper issue, cautioning that a rush to implement Clipper may create a bureaucracy that would be difficult to dislodge at a later time. Diffie stressed the need for international for information security, and cautioned against attempts to use the power of technology to increase the power of government. Diffie added, "Integrity of political speech is the root of legitimate laws in a democratic society. We are in a position where if we do not make it a national priority to make privacy available", this integrity may be compromised. Steve Walker, of Trusted Information Systems, stressed the need for the removal of export control restrictions. He also countered the Administration's contention that very few foreign encryption alternatives exist; noting that his company had found over 340. Walker displayed several of these applications, and noted that because of export controls U.S. manufactures of encryption technology face a significant disadvantage on the world market. Although the Senate Hearing did not produce many new developments, it is significant to note that no members of the Subcommittee expressed outright support for the Clipper Chip proposal. Chairman Leahy, the most vocal panel member at Tuesday's hearing, was also the most skeptical, and as such the fate Clipper proposal is still very much in doubt. HOUSE PANEL CONSIDERS CLIPPER AND DIGITAL TELEPHONY PROPOSALS Tuesday proved to be a busy day for Clipper on the Hill, as the House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Technology, Environment and Aviation also considered the Clipper and Digital Telephony proposals. Witnesses on the panel included James Kallstrom of the FBI, NSA's Clinton Brooks, NIST Deputy Director Ray Kammer, Dr. Dorothy Denning, Dr. David Faber, EFF Executive Director Jerry Berman (on behalf of DPSWG), and Chmn. Willis Ware of the Congress/NIST System Security and Privacy Advisory Board. The discussion centered mainly on the Clipper issue. Unlike the Senate panel, there seemed to be some support for the Clipper proposal on the House Subcommittee. Rep. Dan Glickman (D-KS), Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, declared his "cautious support", for the proposal, and stressed law enforcement's need for strong surveillance abilities. Subcommittee Chairman Valentine (D-NC), as well as Reps. Morella (R-MD) and Rohrabacher (R-CA) all expressed reservations. James Kallstrom urged full support of both the Clipper and Digital Telephony proposals on behalf of all law enforcement, citing the need to counter the increasing sophistication of digital communications technologies. Kallstrom painted a picture of a network populated by criminals, terrorists, and drug dealers which would pose a great danger to public safety, unless law enforcement is given the ability to intercept illegal communications. EFF's Jerry Berman countered this assertion by arguing that Clipper would only solve law enforcement's problems if criminals use it. The only way to do this, Berman added, would be to mandate the Clipper standard, something which the Administration does not claim to want to do. The only solution is for Congress to deny appropriation for Clipper and send the Administration back to the drawing board, Berman argued. Dr. Farber, appearing as an expert witness, stated that solutions to the Clipper issue will not come easily and will not come in one big step. Rather, a carefully considered and open approach is required. While stressing the need for encryption standards on communications networks, Dr. Farber cautioned against "smoke-filled-room standards" of encryption which are, in his view, likely to bead mistrust. Dr. Farber also argued for the removal of export controls on encryption technology. NSA's Clinton Brooks expressed support for Congressional Consideration of the Clipper issue. He argued that Clipper is a sound technological solution to a legitimate law enforcement and National Security dilemma, and that a public debate on its merits would eventually remove the misinformation and mistrust of government, and would prove Clipper to be in the public interest. Dr. Farber offered a strong caution to this, expressing the concern that a future administration may find it necessary to mandate the Clipper standard. Dr. Farber suggested that at the very least Congress weld into law a guarantee that Clipper remain voluntary, that the Judiciary be an escrow holder. He cautioned, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" *************** Written testimony & documents from the hearings are available as: ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/Policy/Crypto/Clipper/[filename] gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Policy/Crypto/Clipper, [filename] gopher://gopher.eff.org/11/EFF/Policy/Crypto/Clipper, [filename] http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Policy/Crypto/Clipper/[filename] where [filename] is: berman_eff_clip-dt.testimony - House testimony of Jerry Berman (EFF) brooks_nsa_clip-dt.testimony - House testimony of Clint Brooks (NSA) denning_clip-dt.testimony - House testimony of Dorothy Denning farber_clip-dt.testimony - House testimony of David Farber kallstrom_fbi_clip-dt.testimony - House testimony of James Kallstrom (FBI) kammer_nist_clip-dt.testimony - House testimony of Ray Kammer (NIST) ware_csspab_clip-dt.testimony - House testimony of Willis Ware (CSSPAB) clip-dt_hearings.docs - charter, witness list, diagrams. * Senate testimony and spoken testimony from both hearings will be made available from in the same directory when obtained. This material will also be available from the EFF BBS within a day or so, at +1 202 638 6120. Stanton McCandlish * mech@eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 05:39:19 EDT From: Paul Robinson Reply-To: Paul Robinson Subject: 'NNX' Area Codes? I Think 'NXX' is More Appropriate Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA In some prior articles, the term 'NNX' has been used to refer to the new format for area codes debuting in International Dialing Zone 1 on January 15, 1995. While this is the format that is being added to the current area code system is technically correct with respect to the additions, I think that this term is wrong and misleading. In area codes and prefixes, the term 'N' is used to refer to a digit space that permits any number from 2 through 9. 'X' is used to refer to an 'any digit' field which allows 0 and 1. Area codes currently permit 0 and 1 (and ONLY 0 AND 1) as the second digit. As of the above date, they will allow any digit for the last two digits of the area code. The first digit of an area code will remain required to be 2 through 9. Based on this, references to the new area codes should say 'NXX' area codes, and not 'NNX' area codes, as it might indicate that the old area codes with 0 and 1 as the middle digit are being replaced by the new area codes, which is not the case. ------------------------------ From: joe@netcom.com (Joseph Jesson) Subject: Pager Schematics and POCSAG/GOLAY Protocols? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 13:58:27 GMT At a Dayton flea market, I picked up several NEC and Motorola pagers in various non-working condition. I was impressed when you consider the sensitivity and selectivity is such a small space (the antenna loops are approx -20db when compared to a diople antenna). It has potential for a single channel 152 (approximately) or 932 Mhz receiver. Any idea where I can get a schematic for the Motorola Bravo, Sensar, or NEC pager? Also, has anyone built a capcode programmer or fully decoded all pager codes (Pocsag / Golay / Flex - 512/1200/2400/6400 rates)? Universal Shortwave, in Ohio, sells a M400 which only decodes POCSAG or GOLAY at 512 bps ... Joseph Jesson joe@netcom.com Day (312) 856-3645 Eve (708) 356-6817 21414 W. Honey Lane, Lake Villa, IL, 60046 ------------------------------ From: gst@gagme.wwa.com (George Thurman) Subject: Nationwide Name and Address Service Date: 11 May 1994 00:48:34 -0500 Organization: WorldWide Access - Chicago Area Internet Services 312-282-8605 I had a 900 number that if you called it and gave them a telephone number, they would give you the name and address of the person who had that telephone number. (In most cases) The 900 number, 1-900-884-1212 has been disconnected, and I think that the company that provided the service has gone belly-up. Does anyone know of any other 900 numbers that provide this same kind of service? GEORGE S. THURMAN (312) 509-6308 gst@gagme.wwa.com ------------------------------ From: KCHOK@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU Subject: Information on Seminar Wanted Date: 11 May 94 10:26:01 CDT Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services Hello out there, I am an exchange student graduating in December. As a part of my program I shall be paid to attend a seminar in the continental United States. I want to attend a seminar on data trasmissions/telephone networks sometime in the first week of August in New York City. If anyone out there knows of any such seminars please write to me at "ldorji@weber.ece.ukans.edu". Thanks for your time. ------------------------------ From: johng@ecs.comm.mot.com (John Gilbert) Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Abuse Organization: Motorola, LMPS Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 11:04:06 -0500 In article , jharan@cwa.com (Jeff Haran) wrote: > Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like an obvious solution to > an obvious problem. The thing that I can't understand is why this > service abuse wasn't anticipated by the cellular telephone founders. > Does anybody have any insights as to why it doesn't work this way > today? The VHF and UHF IMTS radiotelephones that were widely used prior to the introduction of cellular were much less secure than what we have today. These were programmed by opening the radio up and using wire jumpers to set the area code and last four digits of the phone number (only 10,000 phones were allowed per area code -- no exchange code was in the phone). These phones didn't have any electronic serial number. Signaling of phone addressing and calling numbers was by a ten pulse-per-second tone; so slow you could easily decode it with a tape recorder, if not by ear. As far as I know, IMTS wasn't widely abused. The planners would not have anticipated that the much more secure AMPS system would not have had adequate protection to deal with the threat which, at the time, was probably considered minimal. It is fairly clear that the designers of AMPS underestimated the sophistication of their adversaries, the availability of inexpensive test and programing equipment, and the advantages to the criminal underground of using altered phones. John Gilbert johng@ecs.comm.mot.com ------------------------------ From: bwilson@netcom.com (Bob Wilson) Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Abuse Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 11:27:17 GMT John R Levine (johnl@iecc.com) wrote: >> Does anybody have any insights as to why it doesn't work this way >> [with per-phone challenge-response passwords] today? > The AMPS system in use in the U.S. was designed over a decade ago, and > has become much more popular than even the most optimistic forecasts > predicted. There's a balance between cost and function, and ten years > ago the cost of adding the security features would have been quite > high, and the advantage, given the relatively modest popularity they > expected, low. Its my understanding that the reason better security measures were not implemented was because they were deemed "too secure" and instead the industry decided to wait until it would actually become a problem. I'm not so sure that the cost/function rational really applied. > On the other hand, if the next round of cell phones (CDMA or TDMA) > don't include effective security features, that's just stupid. Indeed. ------------------------------ From: co057@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steven H. Lichter) Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Abuse Date: 11 May 1994 08:51:22 GMT Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA) Air ouch (PacTel Cellular) has been testing a system that looks at the telephones finger like prints beside the EIN. That should slow things down, but also it can cause a problem when you have a loaner phone with your number since the way it operates will be different from you regular phone. I have not heard anything about the tests in sometime so maybe they are finished and being used or not. Sysop: Apple Elite II -=- an Ogg-Net Hub BBS (909) 359-5338 12/24/96/14.4 V32/V42bis ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #211 ******************************