TELECOM Digest Thu, 2 Feb 95 16:45:00 CST Volume 15 : Issue 72 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "Protect Your Privacy" by Stallings (Rob Slade) International Alliance Service Liability (David Ujimoto) CFP: 3rd International Workshop on Feature Interactions (Nancy Griffeth) Canadian (Northern Tel) in India? (Rohit Sharma) Adoption of New Technologies (Seth Baum) NYNEX's Competition in the NY Metro LATA (Stan Schwartz) Atlanta Toll-Free Calling Zone Growing? (Paul Beker) Who Are the Telephone Pioneers of America? (Jonathan Prince) Cellphones on Your TV (Timothy D. Shoppa) Infrastructure for Internet Service Provider (Rustom Vachha) 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 America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available 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. 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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: Thu, 02 Feb 1995 12:47:47 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Protect Your Privacy" by Stallings [It didn't start out this way, but this seems to be the start of a "mini" series of reviews on the topic of PGP. Garfinkel's review is due to be sent in another two weeks, Schneier's a week after that; Peachpit has one due out in February while Zimmerman's own, I found out yesterday, is due out in April. - rms] BKPRTPRV.RVW 941214 "Protect Your Privacy", Stallings, 1995, 0-13-185596-4, U$19.95 %A William Stallings ws@shore.net %C 113 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 %D 1995 %G 0-13-185596-4 %I Prentice Hall PTR %O U$19.95 (515) 284-6751 FAX (515) 284-2607 camares@mcimail.com %P 302 %T "Protect Your Privacy" This is the first-released of at least three books on PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), the encryption and authentication package by Phil Zimmerman. It covers the concepts of encryption, public key encryption, authentication and key management, as well as the installation and operation of PGP on MS-DOS and Macintosh platforms. There is also some overview of front end shells for DOS and Windows, plus helpful supplementary information on password/phrase choice key servers, and where to get PGP. (The promise of coverage for Windows, UNIX, OS/2 and Amiga in the promotional literature is overkill, but these interfaces will be almost identical to those covered.) Stallings' material is generally very clear and well written. Many times, however, concepts are introduced early in the book but not explained until much later. This is particularly true of key management. In most cases, I can assure the reader not to worry -- all will be made clear, eventually. (In some few cases, the explanation may remain confusing until you actually run the program.) The book echoes the assertion by many that PGP has become the de facto standard in Internet privacy and authentication. Certainly no commercial product has anything like the same range of use. Full acceptance of PGP, though, has been hampered by the version incompatibilities and the legal difficulties caused by the US weapons (!) expert control laws. Given the touchy nature of this subject, it is not terribly surprising that both Stallings, and Michael Johnson in the access document, comment only briefly on the subject. These passages are somewhat calming, but hardly calculated to inspire confidence. Solid background on the technology, if sometimes disjointed. Terse, but serviceable documentation on the program. Readable and informative. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKPRTPRV.RVW 941214. Permission granted for distribution in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca User p1@CyberStore.ca Security Canada V7K 2G6 ------------------------------ From: ab261@torfree.net (David Ujimoto) Subject: International Alliance Service Liability Organization: Toronto FreeNet Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 20:25:53 GMT I have a question regarding liability and international telephone carrier alliances which hopefully someone can answer. Given the development of international telecom alliances and their provision of specialized services for business, I am wondering about the extent to which telecom carriers would be liable for lost messages, contracts, product ideas and the like. [I realize that in general, telecom companies are protected from such liability and that international tariff agreements also protect carriers. But given the fact that the carriers know or ought to know the importance of these networks to business, doesn't the carriers' exposure to risk increase?] Assuming that there is carrier liability for these problems, where would such liability be prosecuted? Would it be in the originating country? The terminating country? Or where the breach occurred? Or is this question redundant because service providers expressly contract out liability? Any help that can be provided in this matter would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance! David Ujimoto d.ujimoto@utoronto.ca ab261@freenet.toronto.on.ca [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A few years ago Illinois Bell had that awful fire in Hinsdale, Illinois which knocked much of their network off line for several days and some of it was off line for almost a month. They claimed they had no liability to subscribers for lost business as a result of the outage, and for the most part they were backed up in this opinion by the court when various subscribers sued them. I think telco's contract with you -- which is the tariff -- says telco's liability is limited to the amount of money you paid for service which they were unable to provide. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nancyg@thumper.bellcore.com (Nancy Griffeth) Subject: CFP: 3rd International Workshop on Feature Interactions Organization: Morristown Research and Engineering Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 20:35:51 GMT Call for Participation Third International Workshop on Feature Interactions in Telecommunications Software Systems Kyoto, Japan October 11-13, 1995 Description: This workshop is the third in a series, whose mission is to encourage researchers from a variety of computer science specialties (software engineering, enterprise modeling, protocol engineering, distributed artificial intelligence, formal techniques, software testing, and distributed systems, among others) to apply their techniques to the feature interaction problem that arises in building telecommunications software systems (see the back page for a description of the problem). We welcome papers on avoiding, detecting, and/or resolving feature interactions using either analytical or structural approaches. Submissions are encouraged in (but are not limited to) the following topic areas: - Classification of feature interactions. - Modeling, reasoning, and testing techniques for detecting feature interactions. - Software platforms and architecture designs to aid in avoiding, detecting, and resolving feature interactions. - Tools and methodologies for promoting software compatibility and extensibility. - Mechanisms for managing feature interactions throughout the service life-cyle. - Management of feature interactions in PCS, ISDN, and Broadband services, as well as IN services. - Management of feature interactions in various of the operations support functions such as Service Negotiation, Service Management, and Service Assurance. - Feature Interactions and their potential impact on system Security and Safety. - Environments and automated tools for related problems in other software systems. - Management of Feature Interactions in various other enterprises, such as banking, medicine, etc. Format: We hope to promote a dialogue among researchers in various related areas, as well as the designers and builders of telecommun- ications software. To this end, the workshop will have sessions for paper presentations, including relatively long discussion periods. Panel discussions and tool demonstrations are also planned. The first day of the workshop, October 11, is devoted to tutorials and discussions on areas related to feature interactions. Attendance: Workshop attendance will be limited to 100 people. Attendance will be by invitation only. Prospective attendees are asked to submit either a paper (maximum 5000 words) or a single page description of their interests and how they relate to the workshop. Proposals for tutorials and discussions are also requested (maximum 3000 words). About 16-20 of the attendees will be asked to present talks; a small number of tutorials and/or discussions will also be selected. We will strive for an equal mix of theoretical results and practical experiences. Papers will be published in a conference proceedings. Submissions: Please send five copies of your full original paper or interest description to: Kong Eng Cheng Department of Computer Science Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology GPO Box 2476V Melbourne, Victoria AUSTRALIA 3001 E-mail: kec@cs.rmit.edu.au Tel: +61 3 660 3266 FAX: +61 3 662 1617 Important dates are: February 28, 1995: Submission of contributions. May 15, 1995: Notification of acceptance. June 26, 1995: Submission of camera-ready versions. Workshop Co-chairpersons Tadashi Ohta (ATR, Japan) Nancy Griffeth (Bellcore, USA) Program Committee Co-Chairpersons: Kong Eng Cheng (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia) E. Jane Cameron (Bellcore, USA) Jan Bergstra (CWI and University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Ralph Blumenthal (Bellcore, USA) Rolv Braek (SINTEF DELAB, Norway) Bernie Cohen (City University of London, UK) Robert France (Florida Atlantic University, USA) Haruo Hasegawa (OKI, Japan) Dieter Hogrefe (University of Bern, Switzerland) Richard Kemmerer (UCSB, USA) Victor Lesser (University of Massachusetts, USA) Yow-Jian Lin (Bellcore, USA) Luigi Logrippo (University of Ottawa, Canada) Jan van der Meer (Ericsson, The Netherlands) Robert Milne (BNR, UK) Leo Motus (Tallinn Technical University, Estonia) Jacques Muller (CNET, France) Jan-Olof Nordenstam (ELLEMTEL, Sweden) Yoshihiro Niitsu (NTT, Japan) Ben Potter (University of Hertfordshire, UK) Henrikas Pranevicius (Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania) Martin Sadler (HP, UK) Jean-Bernard Stefani (CNET, France) Greg Utas (BNR, USA) Jyri Vain (Institute of Cybernetics, Estonia) Hugo Velthuijsen (PTT Research, The Netherlands) Yasushi Wakahara (KDD R&D Laboratories, Japan) Ron Wojcik (BellSouth, USA) Pamela Zave (AT&T Bell Laboratories, USA) Workshop Statement: The feature interaction problem is a major obstacle to the rapid deployment of new telephone services. Some feature communications system. Telecommunications software is huge, real-time, and distributed; adding new features to a telecommunication system, like adding new functionalities to any large software system, can be very difficult. Each new feature may interact with many existing features, causing customer annoyance or total system breakdown. Traditionally, interactions were detected and resolved on a feature by feature basis by experts who are knowledgeable on all existing features. As the number of features grows to satisfy diverse needs of customers, managing feature interactions in a single administrative domain is approaching incomprehensible complexity. In a future marketplace where features deployed in the network may be developed by different operating companies and their associated vendors, the traditional approach is no longer feasible. How to detect, resolve, or even prevent the occurrence of feature interactions in an open network is now an important research issue. The feature interaction problem is not unique to telecommunications software; similar problems are encountered in any long-lived software system that requires frequent changes and additions to its functionality. Techniques in many related areas appear to be applicable to the management of feature interactions. Software methodologies for extensibility and compatibility, for example, could be useful for providing a structured design that can prevent many feature interactions from occurring. Features are typically design to suit the purposes of a user or business, hence Enterprise modeling will play a role in the identification of certain classes of interaction, in particular the solution of an interaction in one enterprise may not be desired by another. Formal specification, verification, and testing techniques, being widely used in protocol engineering and software engineering, contribute to the detection of interactions. Several causes of the problem, such as aliasing, timing, and the distribution of software components, are similar to issues in distributed systems. Cooperative problem solving, a promising approach for resolving interactions at run time, resembles distributed planning and resolution of conflicting subgoals among multiple agents in the area of distributed artificial intelligence. This workshop aims to provide an opportunity for participants to share ideas and experiences in their respective fields, and to apply their expertise to the feature interaction problem. Workshop Announcement: 3nd International Workshop on Feature Interactions in Telecommunications Software Systems, October 11-13, Kyoto, Japan, Sponsors: IEEE Communications Society. In cooperation with ACM SIGCOMM and ATR, Japan. Contact Tadashi Ohta, ATR, 2-2, Hikari-dai, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto, 619-02, Japan, Tel: +81 7749 5 1230, Fax: +81 77495 1208, e-mail: ohta@atr-sw.atr.co.jp. ------------------------------ From: sharma@ee.ualberta.ca (Rohit Sharma) Subject: Canadian (Northern Tel) in India? Date: 1 Feb 1995 20:32:32 GMT úÿ Organization: University of Alberta Electrical Engineering Department Why is it that there is virtually no Canadian telecom equipment supplier (e.g Northern Telecom) trying to market any products in India? Northern's research arm BNR recently set up a joint software venture with TCS (an Indian Software co.) to produce software for BNR's cellular research, but there is no sign of N.T. making its presence felt along with the other telecom multinationals trying to get a piece of the rapidly expanding Indian telecom market? These multinationals include Alcatel, Ericssons, Siemens, Fujitsu. rohit sharma@trlabs.ca or sharma@ee.ualberta.ca Photonics Division, Telecom Research Labs - Edmonton, Alberta. ------------------------------ From: sb@interramp.com (sb) Subject: Adoption of New Technologies Date: 1 Feb 1995 21:23:48 GMT Organization: PSI Public Usenet Link I'm writing an article on how the average consumer will react to the proliferation of possible technologies, services, and products which he/she will be exposed to in the coming years as he attempts (or is forced into entering) the onramp to the information superhighway. What's gonna work: movies on demand? Internet access? HDTV? Home shopping? Specifically, what are the demand drivers for new technology products/services, and what combination of factors makes a product/serivce suceed or fail? Do any key drivers emerge as especially important for technology products, versus say consumer durables? As background, I would appreciate mail responses to "sb@interramp.com" which yield: 1) Pointers to other articles/books that deal with this topic; 2) Knowledge of any recent papers/study; 3) Internet links that might be of use; 4) Knowledge of any experiences that any users have had; 5) Anything else that springs to your mind regarding this topic; Thank you for your time. Seth Baum sb@interramp.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Feb 1995 03:16:23 EST From: Stan Schwartz Subject: NYNEX's Competition in the NY Metro LATA I received the new dial-in number for AOL's new AOLNet service today, which is in the 516-393 exchange. I did what I normally do when I don't recognize an exchange, which is to dial NXX-9901. In NYNEXland, this will usually tell me the name of the C/O, and I can then judge if it will REALLY be a local call. To my surprise, here's what I heard when I dialed 393-9901: "Hello, You have reached the Cablevision Lightpath 5-E switch, serving the 516-393, 439, and 465 Exchanges" Cablevision, the local cable tv operator was written up in Long Island Newsday last week as major local competition for NYNEX. While they said that Cablevision already had its own switch installed, I didn't realize that the changes were already made! Stan ------------------------------ From: pbeker@netcom.com (Paul Beker) Subject: Atlanta Toll-Free Calling Zone Growing? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 05:03:28 GMT I heard a very brief report on one of the local radio stations that Southern Bell was planning to increase the size of the "local Atlanta calling zone by 50%" by "adding 34 new exchanges" to it ... Of course, no further details were given, such as: will Southern Bell raise rates for everyone in Atlanta? (probably) ... where are these 34 exchanges (any 706 exchanges)? ... etc. I have a feeling that this is an effort to bring all of 404 into a single, toll-free calling zone, which it virtually is already ... there were several exchanges that were originally slated for 706 at the time of the 404 split, but were eventually brought back into 404 by public uproar. Perhaps this where the "34" figure comes from, although I didn't think there were so many. Anyone have more details? Thanks! Paul Beker - Atlanta, GA pbeker@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: Jonathan Prince Subject: Who Are the Telephone Pioneers of America? Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 02:16:08 EST I was at a meeting at the Ameritech HQ in Ohio the other day and I left the meeting for the rest room, and noticed that near the lobby/cafeteria there was a display of various Ameritech novelty items (T-Shirts, mugs etc and other corporate propaganda) and also in the case were a couple stickers for sale. All of these items were 'for sale' but no one around to buy from, so hence my question. I noticed a couple decals for sale that were in the shape of a triangle, wider than tall, blue with white lettering, seeming to commemorate (judging from the old style of graphics on the decal) some organization called the 'Telephone Pioneers of America' (I think that's what it was called). What is this organization, or was it, as the case might be? A boy/girl scouts for the telephone company?! Of what? As someone who has been getting a lot of hands on experience in the problems of rural internet connectivity these days (in SE Ohio for the South East Ohio Regional Free-Net) I have become fascinated with the history of the telcos, the history of the acceptance in our lives of a machine that we talk to (which in my opinion is almost as absurd as a machine that we watch for at least six hours a day!). Anyway, this looks to be an interesting bit of tele-trivia, if anyone has the answer. I didn't get the chance to ask Ameritech, I'll try to find out at the next meeting. Thanks, Jonathan Prince Rural Action - VISTA for the South East Ohio Regional Free-Net aa078@seorf.ohiou.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I will give you the answer, and it is not 'trivia' in any sense of the word. And please don't stand up at the next meeting to ask who are the TPA, because chances are everyone in the room would be embarrassed for you. I know I would be. For your information, the Telephone Pioneers of America is an outstanding organization with chapters at telcos all over the USA in the Bell Operating Companies and at AT&T. At the non-Bell telcos, the same organization exists known as the Independent Pioneers. TPA has been around for close to a century now. In the very early days, meaning the period up to about 1930, the TPA was composed of people who had been employed by (what was then) the Bell System since its beginning. They were, in effect, the 'charter employees' of the company, or 'pioneers' in telecommunications. They were the people who started what you take for granted today. As time went on into the 1920-30's, most of those old pioneers were either dead, retired or on the verge of retiring from Bell after forty plus years of employment with AT&T. The organization then amended its charter to allow membership by any employee of AT&T or (as they were called) a subsidiary company who had been employed by Bell (or an independent) for at least twenty years. I believe that rule still is in effect, although many chapters of TPA have associate membership programs for employees with less time on the job. What do they do? What is their purpose? They are very involved citizens in their communities. In their spare time they devise solutions to the problems encountered by differently-abled (I used to say 'handicapped' but this is now a politcally correct Digest, since I want to have it distributed on several major campuses) persons. They have developed methods by which someone who was completely paralyzed could 'talk' on the phone using a pencil they held in their teeth. They have developed all sorts of gimmicks and gadgets for very limited use applications by people who for whatever reason could not otherwise use the phone. Aside from their marvelous work in specialized telecommunications applications for handicapped people, they are good citizens in their community. They assist with voter registration. They work with people who have AIDS. They take food to old people who can't get out of their houses. They record books and newspapers on tape for people who are visually handicapped. They are helping to restore telecom links in Kobe. To be honest with you, I don't know what some chapter of TPA *doesn't do*. Most of their expenses come out of their own pockets. The telcos make corp- orate contributions, and they raise money through the sale of 'corporate propoganda' such as coffee mugs an T-shirts with their employer's logo on them. There are, you see, some people around who are proud to be employed by telco and who like having artifacts of that sort in their home, etc. And that's the Telephone Pioneers of America: a splendid bunch of people with a long and positive role as leaders in telecom. PAT] ------------------------------ From: shoppa@almach.krl.caltech.edu (Timothy D. Shoppa) Subject: Cellphones on Your TV Date: 1 Feb 1995 22:41:00 PST Organization: California Institute of Technology > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Channel 1 was gone from television sets by > around 1949-50 I guess. There is a national organization which provides > educational (but some say infomercial) television to school students on > closed circuit called 'Channel One'; you may have heard of them. I have > a General Electric portable color television which still goes up all the > way to Channel 83; so you can guess how old it is. Most folks are unaware ^^^^^^^^^^ > there is a HUGE gap in the frequency spectrum for television between > Channels 6 and 7. Where Channel 6 ends at about 88 megs, Channel 7 does > not start until about 175 megs, way up in VHF. About thirty years ago > when FM radios were still sort of new (they had been around for twenty > years, but not for over fifty years like now) a religious station called > WYCA went on the air in Hammond, Indiana, around 88-90 megs someplace. > We have discussed *them* here in the past, a few years ago when thier > station was the cause of many complaints to the FCC. In those days, around > 1962-63 they had the nerve to tell people, 'if you do not have an FM > receiver, you can still listen to the Word of God daily on this station > by putting your television set on Channel 6 then moving the fine tuning > dial until you hear our signal.' It is still the case that you can pick up the 88-90 MHz FM broadcasts on a TV with a good 'ol analog tuner. Similarly, you may be able to tune in many pager services and cellphone con- versations (or often, more precisely, their IF images) on the upper reaches of your old UHF TV. Here in LA the wide bandwidth of a TV tuner is a disadvantage when doing this, as many cellphone frequencies conversations fall in the bandpass at any given time. In more rural areas, this is not nearly as big of a problem. I'm waiting for the FCC/phone cops to discover this and ban the sale of older TV's at yard sales. I don't think they are currently banned, as they are not exactly "scanning receivers" -- or has the law been broadened recently? Tim Shoppa (shoppa@altair.krl.caltech.edu) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, well you can't really get cell phones on your television (in the upper UHF channels now abolished) very well. The innards of the television are different as you point out. You can set the dial up there on channel 81-83 for example and twiddle the fine tuner all you want. You just get bizzarre bits and pieces of things, not even as much as you get on a scanner. I realize you were to some extent joking but I'd not get too concerned. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rvachha@PrimeNet.Com (Rustom Vachha) Subject: Infrastructure for Internet Service Provider Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 01:08:15 MST Organization: Primenet Hi everyone! I am currently exploring the possibility of providing internet services in the Indian subcontinent, in the near future. What sort of infrastructure is required? I presume a high speed dedicated telephone line is a requirement. Are there different types of high speed lines? And more importantly, how can I get them from the telephone company (local/long distance)? Thanks in advance, Rustom rvachha@primenet.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V15 #72 *****************************