TELECOM Digest Wed, 11 May 94 15:41:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 212 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson USPS & IRS Mull National ID Cards, Clinton to Sign Orders (Monty Solomon) Book Review: Police Call / Beyond Police Call (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Cellular Call Forwarding (Matthew Scott Weisberg) Re: Cellular Call Forwarding (Kevin Bluml) Re: Internet White Pages (Lenny Charnoff) Re: Internet White Pages (John R. Levine) Re: Let Your Fingers do the Walking on the Internet (Seth Breidbart) Re: Let Your Fingers do the Walking on the Internet (Nevin Liber) 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. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, 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. 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: Wed, 11 May 1994 01:41:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: USPS & IRS Mull National Identity Cards, Clinton to Sign Orders Excerpt from EFFector Online 07.08 From: Mitch Ratcliffe Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 07:43:22 -0700 (PDT) Ever Feel Like You're Being Watched? You Will... Digital Media has learned that the Clinton administration is debating not if, but how, to create a card that every American will need in order to interact with any federal government agency. Combined with two potential executive orders and the Postal Service's designs on putting its stamp on personal and business electronic transactions, the card could open a window on every nuance of American personal and business life. The wrangling among the administration, the U.S. Postal Service, the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Defense, emerged into the public eye at this April's CardTech/SecureTech Conference. The gathering of security experts was convened to discuss applications for smart card and PCMCIA memory card technologies in business and government. The Postal Service, at the conference presented a proposal for a "general purpose U.S. services smartcard," which individuals and companies would use to authenticate their identities when sending and receiving electronic mail, transferring funds and interacting with government agencies, such as the I.R.S., Veterans Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services. President Clinton is also considering signing two executive orders that would greatly expand the government's access to personal records, including an order that would allow the I.R.S. to monitor individual bank accounts and automatically collect taxes based on the results, said sources close to the White House. The collection service will be presented as a convenient way to avoid filling out a tax return. The White House did not respond to requests for comments about this report. The Post Office: We deliver for you. The Postal Service's U.S. Card would be designed to use either smart cards (plastic cards with an embedded microprocessor carrying a unique number that can be read by a electromagnetic scanner and linked to computerized records stored on a network) or PCMCIA cards, which can contain megabytes of personal information. (You've probably seen this type card in AT&T's "You Will" ad campaign, which shows a doctor inserting a woman's card in a reader in order to access a recording of a sonogram). The Postal Service said it is considering AT&T and other companies' smart card technologies. In a slide presentation at the conference, Postal representative Chuck Chamberlain outlined how an individual's U.S. Card would be automatically connected with the Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Treasury, the I.R.S., the banking system, and a central database of digital signatures for use in authenticating electronic mail and transactions. The U.S. Card is only a proposal, Chamberlain insists. Yet the Postal Service is prepared to put more than a hundred million of the cards in citizens' pockets within months of administration approval, he said. "We've been trying to convince people [in the different agencies] to do just one card, otherwise, we're going to end up with two or three cards," said Chamberlain. He said in addition to the healthcare card proposed by President Clinton last year, various government agencies are forwarding plans for a personal records card and a transactions (or "e-purse") card. Chamberlain said the I.R.S in particular is pursuing plans for an identity card for taxpayers. Don't leave home without it. Though he did not name the U.S. Card at the time, Postmaster General Marvin Runyon suggested that the Postal Service offer electronic mail certification services during testimony before the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee in March. The proposal is clearly intended as a way to sustain the Postal Service's national role in the information age, since it would give the agency a role in virtually every legally-binding electronic transaction made by U.S. citizens. For instance: * When sending or receiving electronic mail, U.S. Card users would be able to check the authenticity of a digital signature to screen out impostors. * Banking transactions (notably credit card purchases) that depend on authentication of the participants identities and an audit trail, would be registered in Postal Service systems. * Veterans, or for that matter college students and welfare recipients, could check their federal benefits using the identification data on their U.S. Cards. * Visitors to an emergency room would have instant access to medical records at other hospitals, as well as their health insurance information. These examples may seem benign separately, but collectively they paint a picture of a citizen's or business's existence that could be meddlesome at best and downright totalitarian at worst. Will buying a book at a gay bookstore with a credit card that authenticates the transaction through the Postal Service open a Naval officer up to court marshall? If you have lunch with a business associate on a Saturday at a family restaurant, will the IRS rule the expense non-deductible before you can even claim it? "There won't be anything you do in business that won't be collected and analyzed by the government," said William Murray, an information system security consultant to Deloitte and Touche who saw Chamberlain's presentation. "This [National Information Infrastructure] is a better surveillance mechanism than Orwell or the government could have imagined. This goddamned thing is so pervasive and the propensity to connect to it is so great that it's unstoppable." Deep Roots; Deep Pockets; Long History. Chamberlain said the Postal Service has been working for "a couple years" on the information system to back up the U.S. Card. He said the project was initiated by the Department of Defense, which wanted a civilian agency to create a national electronic communications certification authority that could be connected to its Defense Messaging System. Chamberlain said the Postal Service has also consulted with the National Security Agency, proponents of the Clipper encryption chip which hides the contents of messages from all but government agencies, like law enforcement. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Laboratories in Mountain View, Calif. carried out the research and development work for Clipper. "We're designing a national framework for supporting business-quality authentication," said John Yin, the engineer heading up the U.S. Card- related research for NASA Ames' advanced networking applications group. "This is not specifically with just the Postal Service. We'll be offering services to other agencies and to third-party commercial companies that want to build other services on the card." For example, VISA or American Express could link their credit services to the U.S. Card. Yin, who works on Defense Messaging Systems applications, said his group has collaborated with "elements of Department of Defense" for the past year, but would not confirm the participation of the National Security Agency, a Department of Defense agency. The NSA is specifically prohibited from creating public encryption systems by the Computer Security Act of 1987. Yin also would not comment on the budget for the project, which other sources said was quite large and has spanned more than two years. A false sense of security? According to Yin, the cards would allow individuals or businesses to choose any encryption technology. "It's not our approach to say, 'Here's the standard, take it or leave it,'" he said. "We're not trying to create a monopoly, rather it's an infrastructure for interoperability on which a whole variety of services can be built." Yet, NASA, which is a participant in the CommerceNet electric marketplace consortium will "suggest" to its partners that they adopt the U.S. Card certification infrastructure, he said. The reality is that government agencies' buying power usually drives the market to adopt a particular technology -- not unlike the way the Texas Board of Education, the largest single purchaser of textbooks in the U.S., sets the standard for the content of American classroom curricula. Since, the administration has already mandated use of Clipper and its data-oriented sibling, the Tesserae chip, in federal systems it's fairly certain that the law enforcement-endorsed chips will find their way into most, if not all, U.S. Cards. Even in the unlikely event that one government agency should weather the pressure and pass on the Clipper chip, it's still possible to trace the source, destination, duration and time of transactions conducted between Clippered and non-Clippered devices. "Most of this shift [in privacy policy] is apparently being done by executive order at the initiative of bureaucracy, and without any Congressional oversight or Congressional concurrence, " Murray said. "They are not likely to fail. You know, Orwell said that bureaucrats, simply doing what bureaucrats do, without motivation or intent, will use technology to enslave the people." EDITOR'S NOTE: Digital Media has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for Clinton and Bush Administration, Postal Service, NSA, Department of Defense, NASA, I.R.S. and other documents related to the creation of the U.S. Card proposal. Mitch Ratcliffe Copyright 1994 by Mitch Ratcliffe and Seybold Publications. Mitch Ratcliffe Editor in Chief Digital Media: A Seybold Report 444 De Haro St., Ste. 128 San Francisco, Calif. 94107 415.575.3775 office godsdog@netcom.com ------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Don'tcha just *luv* our resident president now in power? If the above is true -- and honestly, I don't know what to think about some of the stuff EFF churns out from one day to the next; they seem to have their own axes to grind -- then I think Clinton has gained a few more enemies. Given the tremendous amount of heat on him now in the conservative media -- and even the mainstream liberal press has been unable to totally avoid Paula Corbin Jones, Whitewater and all the rest of it -- I strongly believe Clinton will be out of office in the next six to nine months. I think the scenario will be another Richard Nixon: when it is at the point that Congress is ready to impeach him (literally within a day or two in Nixon's case) he'll resign and split rather than go on the books as being impeached ... same as Nixon. And don't think for one minute that Hillary does not have him nailed down firmly in place. She has so much dirt on him yet unrevealed that he wouldn't dare double-cross her. I think before long they will have a marital spat and she will spill her guts on several topics including Vince Foster just to spite her husband. She's very dangerous. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 May 94 14:50:50 CDT From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Book Reviews: Police Call / Beyond Police Call Most readers of the Digest who are scanner enthusiasts are already familiar with POLICE CALL, a multi-volume set of reference books giving the frequencies for public safety radio communications throughout the USA, along with quite a bit of other useful information relating to the use of scanners. Broken down into volumes based on geography, each volume of POLICE CALL serves various parts of the USA. For example Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin make up volume 4, which is the portion I get each year. Published annually since sometime in the early 1960's, the 1994 edition includes numerous miscellaneous listings including some federal government entries, railroads, and aircraft. In addition to an alphabetical listing of license holders by state, a cross reference by frequency makes it easy to find out who is occupying a given spot when all you have is the frequency you are listening to without a name or location. Gene Hughes has been the editor of POLICE CALL since its inception. Published by Hollins Radio Data of Los Angeles, the book (or rather, the volume of the book relevant to your geographic location) is a very fine and comprehensive publication. In April, the first new publication from Hollins was released, and it also is proving to be a valuable reference tool for scanner enthusiasts. Entitled BEYOND POLICE CALL, the first (of what is promised to be annual editions) covers all sorts of other listings of license holders. Unlike the original, BEYOND POLICE CALL is a single volume publication covering the entire United States. Unlike the original, this new book only has an alphabetical listing of license holders, broken down first by state, then by type of service, the finally by license holder within the state and service categories. There is no cross-reference by frequency in this book, and that is its major drawback in my opinion. Richard Barnett, known to many people on the east coast for his scanner reference guides, collaborated with Gene Huges on this new book. Barnett is shown as the editor with Hughes as the publisher. According to Barnett and Hughes, nearly two years was spent gathering the information for the new book, and revisions are planned annually, apparently in the spring of each year. The original POLICE CALL usually comes out in the fall. Because it is a consolidated USA listing, the new book runs about 430 pages, (POLICE CALL tends to run about 200+ pages) and my suggestion to the authors would be that subsequent revisions need to be broken down geographically like the original, and most definitly a cross- reference by frequency needs to be included. The kinds of listings you will find in BEYOND POLICE CALL include: -- frequencies used at sports events -- frequencies used by public utilities (here to some extent it gets ridiculous; the authors apparently just did a dump of FCC records; the listings for 'Ameritech' and 'Illinois Bell' go on for better than a page of small type as do the listings for 'Commonwealth Edison') -- amusement parks -- resorts and casinos -- school districts -- newspapers, television and radio news departments -- shopping mall security forces (naturally, living a block and a half from Skokie's 'Old Orchard Mall' I put that one in my scanner right away) -- movie crews -- colleges and universities (their security departments, etc) -- stadiums -- hospitals -- hotels -- taxicab dispatching -- towing services for disabled and/or illegally parked cars -- ski resorts -- race crews -- state fairs -- conventions -- public transportation -- farm cooperatives -- private investigators -- neighborhood watch groups Some of the above makes for very interesting listening, as any scanner enthusiast will tell you. The thing with public safety radio is that it makes up only a small percentage of what is out there. Many people buy a scanner only to listen to the police and unwittingly they miss huge amounts of very good stuff they might miss otherwise. Where to get your copy: I got both of mine (RADIO CALL 1994 Edition Volume 4 and BEYOND RADIO CALL) at the local Radio Shack store here in Skokie. They are $9.99 each and go by RS 'part number' 62-1040 (Beyond) and 62-104x (POLICE CALL) where 'x' runs from 1 to 8 I think for the various regional editions. Our local Radio Shack had a dozen of the BEYOND books two days ago, now the manager is down to just a couple copies left so it is apparently going pretty fast and you may want to get your copy ASAP. I guess you could also order directly from the publisher, but be sure and specify *which state* you live in (or want listings for) if you order POLICE CALL so they know which one to send you. Hollins Radio Data PO Box 35002 Los Angeles, CA 90035 They don't list a phone number, 800 or otherwise, so my assumption is they prefer not to deal with phone call orders or inquiries. They do stress writing to them with suggestions and comments at their address shown above. I suggest just getting your copies from Radio Shack or some other book dealer. ------------------ On the same train of thought, whatever happened to that fellow out of Indianapolis, IN somewhere who published the NORTH AMERICAN RADIO AND TV GUIDE? It came out on a more or less annual basis for many years listing all the callsigns and frequencies of AM/FM radio and television stations in the USA, Canada and Mexico. I've not seen a fresh copy of it for many years now, and the last one I have is Volume 13. Is he still around? I think Sams published it. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: moodyblu@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Matthew Scott Weisberg) Subject: Re: Cellular Call Forwarding Date: 11 May 1994 13:34:40 -0400 Organization: UMCC, Ann Arbor, MI amg@panix.com (Alan M. Gallatin) writes: > In a previous article, bruce.mchollan@keystone.keystone.fl.us (Bruce > Mchollan) wrote: >> A person I work with has a cellular phone with call forwarding. When >> he forwards his calls to another number and then calls his own >> cellular number he is not charged for the call ($0!). This works even >> when he forwards his calls to a number within our LATA that would >> invoke toll charges if dialed by land line. He takes advantage to >> save the toll charges. Is this legal? > Legal? Yes. Believable? No. > I've seen a couple of different ways cell companies handle the > forwarding charges. Basically, they don't like to give unlimited > forwarding for free 'cause of the scenerio you described above. This is completely believable ... you do this in the Detroit Metro area. I have cellular service with Cellular One. I have call forwarding on my phone ($1.95 per month plus approx. 8 cents per forwarded call) ... I live in Novi, MI (in the new 810 area code). My girlfriend lives in Southgate (35 miles away, in 313). I simply forwarded my cell phone to her number, call my cell phone, and get untimed calls for 8 cents a call to her. Saved me over $35 on the last phone bill. Now, my question is, when the cut over to 810 becomes mandatory in August, will this no longer work? My cell phone has an 810 number. Is this a factor? One of my main motivations for getting the phone was for the call forwarding purpose (although, now that I have it, I can't imagine being without.. heh!). Matt Weisberg, CNE MILLIWAYS - Computer and Network Consulting PP-ASEL 21650 West Eleven Mile Road #202 Amateur Radio: KF8OH Southfield, MI 48076 Internet: moodyblu@umcc.umich.edu (810)350-0503 Fax:(810)350-0504 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 May 94 06:41:03 CDT From: kevin@gath.cray.com (Kevin Bluml) Subject: Re: Cellular Call Forwarding > In article amg@panix.com (Alan M. > Gallatin) writes: > In a previous article, bruce.mchollan@keystone.keystone.fl.us (Bruce > Mchollan) wrote: >> A person I work with has a cellular phone with call forwarding. When >> he forwards his calls to another number and then calls his own >> cellular number he is not charged for the call ($0!). This works even > Legal? Yes. Believable? No. > What company is it that doesn't charge anything on the forwarded call? Well, I can name two. US West and Cellular One in the Minneapolis/St. Paul calling area of Minnesota. Neither charge any air time for forwarded calls of either type, N/A or immediate. My bill will typically be three or four pages, half of which are forwarded calls with $0.00 as the cost. Also, when travelling to Wisconsin, I can still reach the home area (Non-roaming) for 20 miles in to WI. There is no toll charge for these calls, even though the last tower is supposedly IN Wisconsin. When I called 911 once 15 miles into WI for a stalled car, the bill showed a WI phone number and I reached the county sheriff in WI rather than the MN state patrol as I would on the MN side. (I was on the home system, and NOT roaming at the time). Kevin V. Bluml - Cray Research Inc. 612-683-3036 USmail - 655 - Lone Oak Drive, Eagan, MN 55121 Internet - kevin.bluml@cray.com UUCP - uunet!cray!kevin ------------------------------ From: charnoff@netcom.com (Lenny Charnoff) Subject: Re: Internet White Pages Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 02:50:24 GMT Jan Richert (jrichert@krefcom.GUN.de) wrote: > Could anyone email me the exact title of the Internet White Pages, > publisher and ISBN number? Publisher IDG Books ISBN # 1-56884-300-3 Lenny Charnoff Information Odyssey-Newsletter and Online Service BBS- 503-650-2992 charnoff@netcom.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 May 94 12:33 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Internet White Pages Organization: I.E.C.C., Cambridge, Mass. > Could anyone email me the exact title of the Internet White Pages, > publisher and ISBN number? Seth Godin and James S. McBride, "The 1994 Internet White Pages", IDG Books, 1994, US$29.95, C$39.95, UKL26.99. ISBN 1-56884-300-3. It's distributed in Europe by Transword Publishers Ltd. For info on availability outside the U.S., contact Christina Turner, +1 415 312 0633. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, jlevine@delphi.com, 1037498@mcimail.com Claimer: IDG has published several of my books, but I wasn't involved with this one, even though on the last page of it there's a nice ad for "The Internet for Dummies". ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 21:10:17 -0400 From: Seth Breidbart Subject: Re: Let Your Fingers do the Walking on the Internet Organization: Society for the Promulgation of Cruelty to the Clueless In article andrsonj@rtsg.mot.com writes: > andrsonj@rtsg.mot.com (John Anderson) writes: >> mail mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu > I have learned that to use the above service, it is preferable to mail > to: > "mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu" > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Just my curiosity -- why is it better or > preferable to write to the one address instead of the other? PAT] Because the name pit-manager may go away some time in the future; rtfm is the new official name. Seth ------------------------------ From: nevin@cs.arizona.edu (Nevin Liber) Subject: Re: Let Your Fingers do the Walking on the Internet Date: 11 May 1994 02:23:11 -0700 Organization: University of Arizona CS Department, Tucson AZ In article , John Anderson wrote: >> mail mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu > I have learned that to use the above service, it is preferable to mail > to: > "mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu" > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Just my curiosity -- why is it better or > preferable to write to the one address instead of the other? PAT] My guess would be that this would allow MIT to change the machine the service is on at will, without having to change the outside email address. For instance: my email address is nevin@cs.arizona.edu, yet I never send email from that machine (I don't even have an account on the machine). I'm planning on changing the machine I get email on later this month, yet I won't have to tell anybody that I'm doing it, since I'll still have the same external address (and the internal machines know to route mail to the right machine). (Actually, if I wanted to be even more generic, nevin@arizona.edu works; it is set up as an alias to nevin@cs.arizona.edu. Now if I could just figure out how to get nevin@edu to work ... :-)) Nevin ":-)" Liber nevin@cs.arizona.edu (602) 293-2799 +++(520) after 3/95 office: (602) 621-1685 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #212 ******************************