TELECOM Digest Thu, 16 Feb 95 12:55:00 CST Volume 15 : Issue 101 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Kevin Mitnick Captured in Raleigh, NC (TELECOM Digest Editor) Security of Cordless Phones? (Jeffrey A. Porten) Area Code/Prefix Trivia (mstrandrew@aol.com) Is Origin Cell of Cellular Call Logged? (Chuck Cairns) Re: MCI Bureaucratic Blunder (Richard Wildman) Re: LD Termination Fees to RBOCs (Lars Poulsen) Re: Local Calling Areas (Linc Madison) Re: New Motorola Micro-tac Elite AMPS Cellphone (Marcus Lee) Directory Assistance Direct Connections (Kevin Bluml) US-MA-Boston Principal Technology Consultant, Recruiter (Beverly Kahn) 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: 500-677-1616 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, 16 Feb 95 11:59:10 CST From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Kevin Mitnick Captured in Raleigh, NC Kevin Mitnick, who had earned the unofficial title of 'America's Most Wanted Computer Hacker' was arrested Wednesday morning at his home in Raleigh, North Carolina. Mitnick had managed to evade authorities in both Los Angeles and Seattle during the past two years. He was caught through the efforts of one of his latest victims, computer security specialist Tsutomu Shimomura of the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Shimomura was robbed of security programs he had written when his computer was broken into on Christmas Day, about two months ago. But one thing Mitnick apparently had not forseen was that the programs he stole -- and then used -- would be used to help track him down. Shimomura was able to detirmine this past weekend that Mitnick, 31, was connecting through a modem attached to a cellular phone somewhere near Raleigh. Through the cooperation of telcos and cellular companies, authorities were able to track Mitnick to his home early Wednesday morning. Authorities say they hope this latest arrest brings to an end the career of a man who began hacking and phreaking when he was in high school. At one point Mitnick broke into a North American Air Defense Command computer in Colorado. Referring to Mitnick as a 'dangerous computer terrorist', Justice Department spokesman John Russell said the raid was conducted at 1:30 am on the apartment in Raleigh in which Mitnick was living alone under a false name. "His obsession was his downfall," said Deputy United States Marshall Kathy Cunningham in Los Angeles. "His obsession to hack and phreak using cloned cellular phones left us a good trail to follow." Mitnick, who is known by the hacker name 'Condor' says he took that alias after seeing the movie 'Three Days of the Condor' starring Robert Redford as a man on the run from the government. He grew up in Los Angeles, and was convicted there in 1988 after a series of phreaking and hacking incidents which included disconnecting the phone service to Hollywood stars and others. Although initially he was given just a short prison term followed by federal probation, he continued to act out in his self-destructive ways and when his probation officer threatened to revoke his probation and send him to prison, he disconnected her telephone to get even and then ran off! And he is supposed to be a smart guy? In 1989, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles portrayed Mitnick as a brilliant young man 'obsessed with junk food and computers' who infiltrated computer networks and telephone switching systems in the United States and England. Although federal authorities suggested that he had broken into National Security Agency computers, he was never charged with that crime. At one point however, they considered him so dangerous they got a judicial order denying him any use of telephones at all, for fear he would call up a computer and access it using the touchtone buttons on the phone. In the earlier 1988 case, Mitnick agreed to plead guilty to hacking the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) computer network and stealing a program. He also pleded guilty to theft of sixteen MCI long distance access codes and using them to make long distance calls. For this, the court's imposition of punishment included several years imprisonment with all but one year suspended, to be followed by federal probation for the remainder of his term. After release from prison, Mitnick began his probation. When his probation officer suggested she would revoke his probation because of his behavior and return him to the penitentiary, his response was to hack the appropriate computer and disconnect her phone service ... he then fled. In the fall of 1992, Mitnick was working for a private investigative firm in Calabasas, California when the FBI was conducting an investigation into the break-ins of Pacific Bell computers. Realizing they were about to close in on him, he fled again ... to surface only yesterday when a man he decided to trifle with -- Tsutomu Shimomura -- decided not to get mad, but instead to get even! Shimomura cooperated very closely with the government to pinpoint Mitnick's whereabouts. On Wednesday, February 15, 1995, Mitnick was taken before a Magistrate in Raleigh, North Carolina where he was arraigned on the charge of violating the terms of his probation in 1988, and new charges of computer fraud in North Carolina. Assistant United States Attorney David Schindler in Los Angeles said additional charges pertaining to Mitnick's actions in San Diego, Seattle and Colorado would also be presented. Citing its belief Mitnick was a danger to the community and likely to flee again if released, the court ordered him held without bail, and once again restricted his unsupervised use of telephones. Mitnick may be a smart man, but he seems to lack some common sense. One does not ever screw around with one's federal probation officer; you don't play with her telephone to get even; you don't run off when she calls you. And when you are on the lam or otherwise, you don't steal from someone like Tsutomu Shimomura. Speaking of whom, Shimomura attended the proceedings in Raleigh on Wednesday. At the end of the hearing as he was being led away, a handcuffed and shackled Mitnick turned to Shimomura, whom he has never met or seen before and said, "Hello, Tsutomu, I respect your skills." Shimomura nodded, then turned his back and walked away. It must be remembered that in the United States, our constitution requires a presumption of innocence on the part of Kevin Mitnick until his guilt is proven to the satisfation of a judge or jury in a court of law. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: jporten@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Jeffrey A. Porten) Subject: Security of cordless phones? Date: 16 Feb 1995 17:38:49 GMT Organization: University of Pennsylvania Having just gotten a new cordless phone (BellSouth 46mHz), and living in the paranoid environs of Washington, DC, I find myself wondering just how likely it is that the world is listening to my calls. The phone has ten channels, and a security code feature which, so far as I understand, exists mainly to prevent another cordless handset from tapping into my base unit, but does nothing to scramble the signal from the handset. I live in an apartment building, with a few others nearby, so consider this a high-density area. Should I go on the assumption that people are always listening in? Sometimes? Almost never? I have a corded set that I keep hooked up for confidential calls; as a stopgap, I sometimes scan channels on my cordless so any eavesdropper will at least have to fiddle to find me again. Does this help, or am I kidding myself? Thanks, Jeff [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Corded or cordless, the assumption should be that your telephone calls are never secure. In actual practice, it may not matter to you; if you are just in idle chatter with someone you aren't going to bother with the trouble of special precautions. My personal belief is the use of scanners to listen to cordless phones is still a relatively rare thing; how many people do *you* know that own scanners who are within range of your cordless phone? And of those, how many are sophisticated enough to know how to program the scanner for cordless? So my feeling is generally its not a big deal, and if you do have something very important and personal to say, you might want to go to a payphone anyway. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 11:26:45 -0500 From: MSTRANDREW@aol.com Subject: Area Code/Prefix Trivia A friend of mine recently sent to me some notices from the news group regarding changes in area code assignments. I observed that some trivia notes were also included regarding NPA assignments. I wanted to make you aware of another example pertaining to Port Roberts, Washington. Point Roberts is a six square mile section of land located on a penisula south of Vancouver, Canada. The Point is in the United States because the portion is south of the 49th. For many years, the local prefix 946 was assigned to the 604 area code and local coin phones were desinged to accept Canadian currency. Sometime in the early 1980s, the 946 prefix was reassigned to the 206 area. I have not been there since, so I cannot offer an update if the coin phones were transfered to accept US currency. I thought you would enjoy this. My friend asked that I reference his homepage for your reference. http://www.america.net/~mikef/mikef.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The last I heard, which was some time ago, 604-946 and 206-946 both got you the same thing in Point Roberts. I think directory assistance via 206 or 604 were both available also. Did you know it is impossible to travel from Point Roberts to anywhere else in the United States by automobile without going through Canada? School kids there go to school 'around the bend' in a nearby area in Washington State, but to do so, their school bus has to enter Canada, drive a few miles east, then drive back into the USA again, the same as anyone else wanting to drive to the next (USA) town over. PAT] ------------------------------ From: chuckc@hpfcla.fc.hp.com (Chuck Cairns) Subject: Is Origin Cell on a Cellular Call Logged? Date: 16 Feb 1995 16:52:46 GMT Organization: Hewlett-Packard Fort Collins Site Is the origin cell on a cellular call logged? Best Regards, cc [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To find out the answer to this, I turned to our resident expert, Kevin Mitnick ... ... he says they are, unfortunatly. Uh, I know this is a rude question to ask, but have you some reason to wish they were not? PAT] ------------------------------ From: rich@hpfcla.fc.hp.com (Richard Wildman) Subject: Re: MCI Bureaucratic Blunder Date: 16 Feb 1995 16:24:13 GMT Organization: Hewlett-Packard Fort Collins Site Here are two updates. After my original posting I received about 14 responses, most of which had similar horror stories to tell about MCI billing problems. As I mentioned previously, the bill was paid in full by credit card in January. This week (of 2/5), we had a phone call from MCI where we were told we had not paid our bill -- I interrupted and told the woman, "Yes, we had, by credit card." "We already have the credit card billing with the MCI payment on it" -- the exact amount she was saying we still owed! She hesitated a moment, and then said, oh yes, I see it now! Makes one wonder just how complicated a form she is looking at, and what is wrong with their programmers if such a field is not checked before the bill is flagged as not paid! In addition, yesterday, Feb. 9, we received notice in the mail warning us that our bill would go to a collection agency if we did not pay. [This is the second mail from MCI in the past week -- we did receive a listing of calls made, though it did not appear to be a bill -- my guess is that this resulted from an emailing to an MCI employee whose address I pulled off of a news group, and who faxed the original posting to MCI's Consumer Executive Customer Relations (Residential).] In any case, my wife called this time. She got ahold of a woman and explained the situation to her. But no, the woman said, her records did not show we had paid. She, in turn, called another office, who then told her, yes, we had paid! The woman assured my wife that the problem would be cleared up. We are not holding our breath. And the second update. We received a nice letter of apology from MCI's Denver office yesterday (2/14), along with a $25 check for local or MCI phone service! Unfortunately, also yesterday, two MCI bills arrived, both for the same exact amount we paid by credit card in January. And sure enough, one bill was to our old address (old by five years) -- the Post Office evidently caught it and delivered to our current address. My wife, glutton for punishment that she is, called the MCI number listed on the bills. Again, it was not clear to the woman she talked to that we had paid the bill. The MCI employee did say our account was being transferred. This did jive with what was stated in the apology -- that U.S. West had sold out their rural service (we have a cabin) to PTI, and that this had happened last October (fits month problem started), and then (MCI) had made a series of errors that we had been experiencing. It is interesting that MCI thinks they are transferring our service, since we terminated their service after paying the bill. The woman said she was going to flag our account so that we would not keep getting mail and phone calls (where have I heard that before). This situation must be an example of the notorious "corner case". Life goes on, RW ------------------------------ From: lars@spectrum.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: LD Termination Fees to RBOCs Date: 16 Feb 1995 10:07:46 -0800 Organization: Rockwell International - CMC Network Products In article Mikeboyd@voyager.cris.com (Mike_Boyd) writes: > .... Because of the way that the costs are separated jurisdictionally, > and given the subsequent wide discretion of the PUC in setting rates, intra- > state and interstate access charges for a given LEC may vary greatly. For > example, terminating a minute of switched traffic from IXC "A" to end > user "Z" may cost the IXC 3 cents if the call is interstate and 8 cents if > it is an intrastate call. I have always been amazed at the complexity of ratemaking. Looking from high above, the local access part of a long distance call is a local business call, and should be billed as such by the LEC. (Strictly speaking, if the call originates from a residence, the originating access segment is a local residential call.) Of course, this originating segment should be paid by the caller on the LEC bill. The IXCs do get some specialized services provided on their trunks, and they probably should be charged for those; obviously it is simpler for the IXC to get a validated originating billing number handed in with the call than to have to do their own subscriber authentication, but it seems to me that it should be optional for the IXC do make this "make or buy" decision. Since the cost of a timed local business call is about one or two cents per minute, the access charges should be in the range two to four cents. If that is what FCC sets for interstate access fees, it seems to me that they are staffed with people who can add and subtract. We should all lobby for some improved sanity in this area as we move into the "open network" where many subscribers want to get the same types of processing options that carriers have been getting. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@RNS.COM Rockwell Network Systems Phone: +1-805-562-3158 7402 Hollister Avenue Telefax: +1-805-968-8256 Santa Barbara, CA 93105 Internets: designed and built while you wait ------------------------------ From: lincmad@netcom.com (Linc Madison) úÿ Subject: Re: Local Calling Areas Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 22:23:37 GMT Mark Rudholm (rudholm@aimla.com) wrote: > Here in the Los Angeles area, GTE and Pacific Bell offer flat-rate > calling to residential customers for "Zone 1" and "Zone 2." > Basically, if you are calling anywhere inside about 18 miles from a > flat-rate line, the call is free and unmetered. If you live on or > near the shoreline, you could theoretically only have 50% the "free" > calling area of someone who lived at least 18 miles from the ocean, > since half of your 18 mile radius could be out on the Pacific. Well, first of all, it's approximately 12 miles, not 18. 0-8 miles is Zone 1, 8-12 is Zone 2, and 12-17 is Zone 3. Over 17 is "local toll," until you cross your LATA boundary. The distinction between Zones 1 and 2 is no longer meaningful. > Since the "basic monthly fee" is in theory supposed to cover those > "local" calls, aren't those of us on the shoreline getting cheated, > since we pay the same basic-rate? Should unmeasured service therefore > cost less if you live near the ocean? > I'm curious to know what everyone thinks of my idea. Well, in a word, dream on. There are other factors that you have neglected, like population density. Lots of people live near the coast, in far denser concentration than most places 24 miles inland. There's also the fact that even with half or more of your calling area consisting of open water, you still have more people within 12 miles than in the entire eastern half of the state. Besides that, if we gave you credit for the so-called useless open water in your local calling area, we would then have to charge you toll rates to call the local dolphins, porpoises, and whales when they get cell phones. Besides that, you get to have the pleasure of watching guys with unbelievable tans walk up to one another and say, "Duude, like, your surfboard is ringing. Are you gonna answer it?" Linc Madison * Oakland, California * LincMad@Netcom.com ------------------------------ From: e9321452@student.uq.oz.au (Marcus Lee) Subject: Re: New Motorola Micro-tac Elite AMPS Cellphone Date: 15 Feb 1995 05:13:31 GMT Organization: Prentice Centre, University of Queensland king@wildebeest.cig.mot.com (Steven King) writes: > aj.knox@auckland.ac.nz (Andrew Knox) publicly declared: >> Motorola New Zealand is apparently about to launch a new AMPS cellphone >> called the Microtac Elite. >> I would be quite interested to know whether anyone has any details >> about this phone or about pricing of it throughout the world. Motorola's MicroTAC Elite is the latest entry into the competitve pocket phone category and is one of the lightest phones available today throughout the world. At a mere 113 grams, the MicroTAC Elite actually weighs less than a D-cell battery. The MicroTAC Elite uses the new lithium ion battery technology offering great talk time from very small batteries and an optional headset jack to provide handsfree operations. The recommended retail price is between $1500 and $2000 AUS (Prob be $1500 when it is released here in Aust by the end of the 1st quarter, looking at how much I bought my GSM International 8200 for). "Only 113grams (with slim Lithium Ion battery). Revolutionary battery technology gives longer talktime Menu with icons for easy use. Data capable." "When the first MicroTAC went on sale in 1989, it was the smallest and lightest portable phone ever. The crown for lightest phone has rested on a variety of heads since then but Motorola intends to wrest it back. The contender is the 113g MicroTAC Elite. Although it's an analogue phone, the little Motorola has an optional digital answering machine which greets callers with your voice and allows them to leave short messages." LiIon Standard Battery LiIon XT Battery Weight: 113grams 163grams Batteries Standard LiIon Talk Time: 60mins Standby Time: 10hrs LiIon XT Talk Time: 120mins Standby Time: 20hrs Power Watts: 0.6W Battery Strength indicator: YES Charger: Internal fast charger, Two Pocket IntelliCharge rapid charger is incl. Memory Features/Positions Scroll search (list of no.'s): YES Alphanumeric: YES 99 locations Numeric: YES Scratchpad memory: YES Dialing Keypad: Large well spaced tactile keys. Selectable tones. Last number recall: YES remembers last 10 Auto Redial: YES on system busy Any Key Answer: Flip activates call Display Screen size: 2lines x 7 characters Call in absence display: YES Signal Strength Indicator: YES Other Features Data Capabilities: Can accept a variety of Motorola data acc. Ring volume control: YES Vibrating Capabilities: YES Extras Nine selectable ring tones to differentiate your phone from others Answering machine and internal charger, optional handset adaptor Security Lock: YES Heeeh. That was taken from a variety of publicatons. If you want more info, just ask, I've got more detailed details about the phone. Marcus Lee Ph: +61-7-395-1479 University of Queensland Australia +61-41-119-5358 Internet: e9321452@student.uq.edu.au Fax:+61-7-843-2937 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Feb 95 10:24:29 CST From: kevin@carina.cray.com (Kevin Bluml) Subject: Directory Assistance Direct Connections USWest now has an offering in MN where a business can set up to pay for the dialing of their number from 411 type services. I believe they also offer the usual caller pays to have them dial for you. I heard an ad the other day saying businesses could set this up and pay 35 cents to have the call connected directly to them when someone called for the number. Also saw MCIs new ad for 1-900-Callinfo (or whatever the letters were..) But it is now 900 and there is a note saying it is from MCI and I believe they even mentioned MCI in the voiceover. Still 75 cents and basically the same commercial otherwise. From: 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: ndt@world.std.com (New Dimensions in Tech.) Subject: US-MA-Boston Principal Technology Consultant, Recruiter Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 15:39:49 GMT PRINCIPAL TECHNOLOGY CONSULTANT JOB #00695 Our client, a very successful business/financial organization, located in the BOSTON area, is searching for a Chief Scientist/Principal Technology Consultant. S/he will have a very heavy background in all areas of COMMUNICATIONS: *High Speed Fiber Optic LANS *High performance Internetworking Routers *Frame Relay *ATM *Internet *FDDI *TCP/IP This position reports to a very senior person. We are searching for an executive who also has the ability to manage a small group of engineers. This position is RELOCATABLE. Salary in the six figures. All of our positions require that you have three or more years of professional working experience and that you be a U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident. At the current time, we have no entry-level part-time, or contracting positions available. If your qualifications match the above specifications, please forward your resume immediately, referencing Job #I00695, via fax, U.S. mail or email (ASCII only please) to: Beverly Kahn New Dimensions in Technology, Inc. tel: 617-639-0866 74 Atlantic Avenue, Suite 101 fax: 617-639-0863 Marblehead, MA 01945 email: ndt@world.std.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V15 #101 ******************************