TELECOM Digest Thu, 2 Mar 2000 16:38:47 EST Volume 20 : Issue 6
Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson
Telephone-Pole Battle: Steel Takes On Wood (Mike Pollock)
Traffic Exchange (Sergey Mosienko)
Stop Missing Calls While You're Online! (Mike Pollock)
Re: NXX by NPA (Ben Schilling)
Re: NXX by NPA (Michael G. Koerner)
Re: NXX by NPA (Joe Jensen)
Re: NXX by NPA (Fred Daniel)
Re: NXX by NPA (Eli Mantel)
Re: NXX by NPA (Michael Sullivan)
U.S. Wants Less Web Anonymity (Monty Solomon)
New '10-10' Call Ads Coming (Monty Solomon)
Re: DoubleClick Looks to Regain Surfers' Trust (Ryan Shook)
Re: DoubleClick Looks to Regain Surfers' Trust (A. E. Siegman)
Re: F.C.C. Debates Changes to Cell Phone Fees (Maxime Flament)
Record Telephone Calls (Stephan Lux)
Re: 7D Dialing Across NPA Boundaries (Michael G. Koerner)
Should Your Boss Know About Those Visits to The Shrink? (Monty Solomon)
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From: Mike Pollock <itsamike@yahoo.com>
Subject: Telephone-Pole Battle: Steel Takes On Wood
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 10:24:36 -0500
Organization: It's A Mike!
By ROBERT GUY MATTHEWS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
March 2, 2000
How many wood poles do woodpeckers peck, since woodpeckers do peck poles?
In a typical midsize city, roughly 1,000 telephone poles have to be replaced
every year because birds -- and then rain -- cause them to rot. That annoys
utilities and sets them back about $200 a pole.
It's a needless expense in the opinion of the nation's steel industry, which
has decided that the telephone pole is an important niche for steel. Not
only are steel poles woodpecker-proof, the industry says; they also don't
break as easily -- there are fewer down wires -- and they are better for the
environment. One junked car can make four utility poles.
Better yet, they come in colors. Places in Texas, Arizona, California and
Ohio, among other states, have put up decorator steel poles.
Pole Camouflage
"We can even make them look like trees," says Richard Favreau, the president
of U.S. operations for International Utility Structures Inc., in Calgary,
Alberta, which makes steel poles. "There is tree-bark applique that we have.
It's bloody expensive, but if you want to hide a steel pole, this is the
way."
Tree-bark applique, which is an inch-thick plastic coating that can be
melded onto steel poles, has yet to catch on in the U.S. But it is big in
England, where steel poles resembling tree trunks are a far more common
sight. In weather-beaten places like Puerto Rico and the Philippines, steel
poles work out much better than wood did.
But steel poles face the concerted opposition of the North American Wood
Pole Coalition. The group, which represents the big wood-pole manufacturers,
mainly concentrated in the Northwest, notes that wood poles don't glare and
that linemen who climb poles prefer wood. Every year, there is a Lineman's
Rodeo (last year, it was in Kansas City, Mo.) where pros race up wood poles.
It isn't as easy to climb a steel pole unless you use clip-on stairs or a
cherry picker.
The wood-pole people also scoff at the claim that steel poles are good for
the environment. "You don't get much greener than a tree," say brochures for
the wood poles. Adds Dennis Hayward, chairman of the coalition and also
executive director of the Western Wood Preservers Institute in Vancouver,
Wash.: "Wood poles soak up carbon and help reduce the accumulation of
greenhouse gases." As for the fact that creating a wood pole involves
killing a tree, the group says a new tree (Southern pine, Douglas fir or
Western red cedar) matures during the life of every wood pole.
Sign of Progress
But the biggest plus, at this point, is history and market dominance. Wood
poles have predominated since 1897, when American Telephone & Telegraph Co.
put a line from Washington, D.C., to Norfolk, Va. They were cheap, plentiful
and durable. Wood poles up to 50 feet tall were planted in cities, towns and
neighborhoods all over the country and fed wires into individual houses.
Sure, they were ugly, but they were a welcome part of a new era of comfort.
Not much has changed, except that more wires than ever are strung up.
Electrical, telephone and even cable-television lines move from pole to pole
throughout the U.S.
Burying wires might seem like a good way to avoid the eyesore, but it can
cost three or four times as much. Because utilities are reluctant to cough
up the money, buried lines are reserved mainly for dense commercial areas
and expensive new residential neighborhoods.
The U.S. currently has about 90 million wood telephone poles. Steel poles
have tripled since 1997, but they still represent less than 2% of the
market. The key, the steel industry believes, is in the telephone-pole
replacement market: Four million wood poles each year need to be replaced
because of routine maintenance, accidents, construction, and steel's friend,
the woodpecker.
George Manning has had a lot of experience with woodpeckers. "Those little
fellows can make one heck of a lot of damage. There isn't much that you can
do that is environmentally friendly," says the executive vice president of
Licking Rural Electrification Inc., Utica, Ohio.
Despite the best efforts of utility companies to distract woodpeckers in the
past, the birds almost always came back. Companies plugged holes. They
sounded loud alarms to scare off birds -- to no avail. Various chemical
coverings were tried, but sometimes they seeped into the ground and risked
contamination or endangered animals. The average wood pole lasts about 35
years, though a few pampered ones survive from their earliest days at the
end of the 19th century.
Mr. Manning's company eventually switched to steel. "Woodpeckers are no
match for steel," he says.
A true believer in steel poles, Mr. Manning, of the Licking utility, has
stumped for the steel industry in seminars held in Illinois, Georgia and
Texas. He tells developers, utility executives and mayors that steel poles
can be resistant to renegade snow plows and to ice storms. They are a little
more expensive -- about $266 a pole, compared to $205 for wood -- but will
last longer, he says.
The debate over wood vs. steel isn't confined to the industry. At Mohican
State Park, in north-central Ohio, and other state park lands, steel poles
have been tinted greenish and "sky gray" to better blend with grass and
trees. In Arizona, industrial plants have painted their poles white to match
their water towers.
A Texas housing developer says that his company won't take free wood poles
that electric companies offer because they are unattractive. Instead, he
pays to install steel poles. "Aesthetically, the wood poles wouldn't work.
Steel looks cleaner," says Robert Long, director of a Texas company called
MK Development.
In Austin, at Steiner Ranch, a huge new development west of the city, three
neighborhood meetings were held to discuss telephone poles. The utility
company presented a slide show of other neighborhoods around the city, some
with new steel poles, others with newly replaced wood poles.
Consensus couldn't be reached among the people along Koenig Lane, a major
thoroughfare in Austin. Residents wanted a nice, soothing brown steel pole
that doesn't look like a tree but blends in with the trees. To many an
untrained eye, the coating, which over time turns brown as it oxidizes,
resembles the color of an old rusty car. Smooth and shiny gives too much of
a sterile feeling, residents argued. Businesses, on the other hand, liked
smooth and shiny, because it looks clean and sterile. So half the street is
shiny and the other half is brown.
Claire Barry, an Austin activist, is perplexed by all the fuss over the
color or kind of poles. She wants the telephone lines and electricity lines
buried, and she has pushed her government representatives to force the
electric company to pay for it. "My ultimate goal is to get shade trees,"
she says.
Write to Robert Guy Matthews at robertguy.matthews@wsj.com
Copyright Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
From: Sergey A. Mosienko <mosienko@inncom-svyaz.ru>
Subject: Traffic Exchange
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 20:25:22 +0300
Organization: TOR-Info Ltd.
Hi,
Pls,
Where I can find the references for an IPT traffic exchange ( WWW) ?
Soon we shall have Moscow - Nakhodka ( Russia ) min E1 ( max 36 E1 ),
Router - Tigris AXC-711 ( Ericsson ) and Gateway AXI-511 ( Ericsson ).
Best Regards,
INCOM
Telecom and Datacom Networks
Sergey A. Mosienko
Deputy Director on Business Development
Tel / Fax. +7 - 095 - 795-3323
E-mail: mosienko@incom-svyaz.ru
Web: http://www.incom-js.ru
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Would a couple of our readers please
correspond with Sergey in Russia and see if his questions can be
answered. Thanks very much. PAT]
From: Mike Pollock <itsamike@yahoo.com>
Subject: Stop Missing Calls While You're Online!
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 09:40:31 -0500
Organization: It's A Mike!
This is sort of interesting.
----- Original Message -----
From: "CallWave News" <news@callwave.com>
To: <itsamike@yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2000 12:58 AM
Subject: Stop Missing Calls While You're Online!
> Dear Mike Pollock,
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> Internet! CNET calls IAM "a brilliant alternative to a second
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> to your FaxWave service.
>
> Get it now by clicking here: http://www.callwave.com/?r=FaxWave2
>
> What is it?
>
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> hear who's calling while you are surfing the Internet. You no
> longer need to order, install and pay for a separate telephone
> line to make sure you don't miss important calls while online.
> IAM also eliminates annoying busy signals for callers trying to
> reach you when you are on-line. Instead of getting a busy signal,
> the caller can leave a voice message WHICH YOU HEAR
> INSTANTLY OVER THE SPEAKERS ON YOUR PC! It
> also displays incoming calls, plays messages, and saves messages
> for later retrieval.
> Installing IAM is easy. All you have to do is click here:
> http://www.callwave.com/?r=FaxWave2
>
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> includes a demonstration and easy-to-follow instructions.
> Why not join the 1 million other IAM users who are surfing the
> Internet without worrying about missing important phone calls?
> The CallWave Team
> FREE ALTERNATIVES TO EXPENSIVE PHONE LINES!
From: Ben Schilling <Ben.Schilling@oci.state.wi.us>
Subject: RE: NXX by NPA
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 07:49:29 -0600
You can get the lists from http://www.nanpa.com/ . They are under Central
Office Codes (Prefixes). There are sixteen zip files in the entire set.
From: Michael G. Koerner <mgk920@dataex.com>
Subject: Re: NXX by NPA
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 02:22:37 -0600
Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
Reply-To: mgk920@dataex.com
Robert M. Bryant wrote:
> Do you know where I can get a list of NXX's by NPA or by City or State??
> Robert M. Bryant
> DNAE IBM Team
> 440 Hamilton, 12th. fl.
> White Plains, NY 10601
> (914) 397-8451
> Pager: 888-858-7243, pin 116852
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It would be a humongous list to say
> the least, on several CD Roms, and printing out to hundreds of pages.
> And the list never ends, and is never entirely up to date. PAT]
The best thing I can think of is a copy of the 'NPA-NXX Active Code
List' ('NNACL'), available from the TelCordia (formerly 'BellCore')
website http://www.trainfo.com. Click on the 'catalog' and look for the
product. It is issued quarterly and costs $150/issue. Monthly updates
to that list are called the 'NPA-NXX Activity Guide' ('NNAG'), and are
also available via the website.
Regards,
Michael G. Koerner
Appleton, WI
From: Joe Jensen <jjensen@cablesystem.com>
Subject: Re:NXX by NPA
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 07:42:49 -0500
> Do you know where I can get a list of NXX's by NPA or by City or State??
Try www.nanpa.com
Joe Jensen
Buckeye TeleSystem
Toledo, Ohio
From: Fred Daniel <fdaniel@home.com>
Organization: @Home Network
Subject: Re: NXX by NPA
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 03:21:57 GMT
Robert M. Bryant wrote:
> Do you know where I can get a list of NXX's by NPA or by City or State??
Look at www.stuffsoftware.com for a program called COFinder.
Good luck.
From: Eli Mantel <mantel@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: NXX by NPA
Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 21:11:49 PST
Robert Bryant wrote:
> Do you know where I can get a list of NXX's by NPA
> or by City or State??
Check out my "area code links" page at
http://cageyconsumer.com/areacode.html which contains several links to web
pages that provide the prefixes that exist in each area code. These are
generally unofficial lists, so use them at your own risk.
Eli Mantel
From: Michael Sullivan <avogadro@bellatlantic.net>
Subject: Re: NXX by NPA
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 05:55:34 GMT
"Robert M. Bryant" wrote:
Go to http://www.nanpa.com and click on the appropriate link, by state
or whatever.
> Do you know where I can get a list of NXX's by NPA or by City or State??
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It would be a humongous list to say
> the least, on several CD Roms, and printing out to hundreds of pages.
> And the list never ends, and is never entirely up to date. PAT]
But the NANPA (North American Numbering Plan Administrator) site is
relatively up to date and has the files in usable form.
Michael D. Sullivan, Bethesda, Md., USA
avogadro@bellatlantic.net (also avogadro@well.com)
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 00:04:41 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: U.S. Wants Less Web Anonymity
by Declan McCullagh
3:00 a.m. 1.Mar.2000 PST
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government may need sweeping new powers to
investigate and prosecute future denial-of-service attacks, top law
enforcement officials said Tuesday.
Anonymous remailers and free trial accounts allow hackers and online
pornographers to cloak their identity, deputy attorney general Eric
Holder told a joint congressional panel.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,34659,00.html
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 00:11:52 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: New '10-10' Call Ads Coming
Reuters
7:25 a.m. 1.Mar.2000 PST
WASHINGTON -- The government will announce new advertising guidelines
Wednesday for long-distance phone companies, to rein in promotions that
bombard consumers with confusing promises about the terms of "10-10"
services, also known as "dial-around."
The rise in the use of the services, which offer an alternative to a
consumer's chosen long-distance carrier, has been accompanied by a
rising tide of complaints.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,34663,00.html
From: Ryan Shook <rjshook@uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Re: DoubleClick Looks to Regain Surfers' Trust
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 10:54:54 -0500
Organization: University of Waterloo
On Wed, 1 Mar 2000, it was written:
> I've set my Netscape cookies.txt file to read-only as was suggested
> here some time ago and this works ok. But the IE 4.72... that I
> sometimes use has a folder that contains these cookies. (NT's
> windows\profiles\username\cookies folder with files named
> username@domain.txt <mailto:username@domain.txt> ) I've tried to set
> this folder to read-only but that permission gets changed back. Is
> there any way to make it stick?
There are several possibilities to get around doubleclick.net.
1) most computers have some sort of hosts file where the TCP/IP drivers try
to lookup domain names there before consulting with a DNS. Insert the
major doubleclick servers and set their IP address to 127.0.0.1. This
makes your browser think that you are doubleclick.net and try to retrieve
the banner from your computer which it obviously won't provide. The gotcha
is that with IE5 you get sent to "this page can't be loaded" far too
often, there is something fancy going on where doubleclick seems to be
executing a script or something.
2) because 1) is flawed I found another solution. in IE5 there are security
zones set. Tools | Internet Options | Security. You can add domains to a
security zone. By default most everything is considered in the internet
domain. Instead ad *.doubleclick.net to the restricted sites list. I have
*.doubleclick.net and *.ads.*. Then go through the list of rights given to
restricted sites and make sure they can't play with cookies. I believe it
is set that way by default.
The trouble with solutions that completely turn off cookies (you can do
that in the above mentinoed "internet domain" is that they are truly
useful and sometimes necessary. By the nature of the web it is not really
connection based. You make and break hundreds of connections as you surf
instead of making a connection when you start at a website and break the
connection when you go elsewhere. For this reason it is difficult for web
servers to have a sense of state. Cookies allow a sense of state. They
allow a server to recognize you and serve content appropriately based on
information they saved in their databases. This is used by banks,
airlines, car companies that let you "build" a car online, and yahoo
finance so it can remember your customizations and many other groups who
use the technology properly. Unfortunately it is hard to control abuses.
The "security domain" settings in IE4 & 5 are tricky, I'm still trying to
find a combination that lets me get what I want productively from websites
while not letting me become too much of a statistic.
Ryan Shook Mechanical Engineering | RJShook@uwaterloo.ca
Amateur (HAM) Radio Lic.:VE3 TKD | www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/u/rjshook
Your mouse has moved, reboot required for the changes to take effect.
From: siegman@stanford.edu (A. E. Siegman)
Subject: Re: DoubleClick Looks to Regain Surfers' Trust
Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 21:31:58 -0800
Organization: Stanford University
In article <telecom20.5.2@telecom-digest.org>, Douglas Dunlop
<ddunlop@nortelnetworks.com> wrote:
> Rather than bother with manually accepting and rejecting cookies, I
> set Netscape to accept all cookies. I also deleted everything below
> the "do not edit" line in the cookies.txt file and set the file
> properties to read only. All cookies are accepted, none are stored ...
I'm guessing this is a Unix system. Is there a way to do the
same thing with the MagicCookie file in Netscape on a Mac?
(Email cc of any replies to siegman@stanford.edu appreciated.)
From: Maxime Flament <maxime.flament@s2.chalmers.se>
Subject: Re: F.C.C. Debates Changes to Cell Phone Fees
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 14:26:14 +0100
Organization: Chalmers University of Technology
Monty Solomon wrote:
> By SETH SCHIESEL
> A debate is raging at the Federal Communications Commission about whether
> cellular telephone customers must continue to pay to receive calls as
> well as to make them.
> http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/biztech/articles/22phon.html
During the CTIA Wireless 2000 a few days ago there was interesting
debates about this issue, and especially about the advantage of
caller-pay systems:
> From PC Week Online, February 28, 2000 3:42 PM ET
[snip]
Sharp words from Vodafone chief
Next Tachikawa, NTT, up was Chris Gent, CEO of Britain's red-hot
Vodafone Airtouch, which, with several major alliances in the past few
months, including its acquisition of Mannesmann, is arguably the largest
wireless network service provider in the world. While Tachikawa
concentrated on his own company's success, Gent talked more about U.S.
shortcomings.
Aside from there being too many competing networks in the States,
compared with the pervasive GSM standard in Europe, Gent said the U.S.
doesn't offer enough in the way of cell phone services where only the
calling party pays. Right now, most cell phone customers pay for
incoming calls, so they tend to leave their phones off a lot.
"When people leave their phones on all the time, because they don't have
to pay for incoming calls, it becomes an integral part of their lives,"
Gent said. "That hasn't happened in America."
In terms of standards, he said, the U.S. may be in trouble there even
after everyone begins to adopt 3G. (3G is supposed to be a combination
of several network standards.) While that should make things more
uniform in the U.S., it may not make things globally uniform because
"even now, we're looking at a 3G U.S. and a 3G rest of the world," Gent
said.
Vodafone, for its part, intends to adopt a WAP (Wireless Access
Protocol) platform in July, with plans to move up to GPRS later this
year and, eventually, 3G next year.
[snip]
----
It is true that since we don't pay for being called we leave the phone
always on - even at night - even at meetings (without ring)...
A few weeks ago, the Swedish mobile operator started to even pay back
people when then answer
(http://www.comviq.se/tjanster/abonnemang/kontant.html in Swedish). This
holds for only the prepaid card subscription, you get money on your
calling account every minutes you spend answering your phone (0.25 re:
3cents/minute). not that much but it is quite amazing!!
Regards,
Maxime Flament
Doktorand Maxime Flament, M.Sc. mailto:Maxime.Flament@s2.chalmers.se
Department of Signals and Systems Tel work: +46-31-772 1764
Communication Systems Group Tel home: +46-31-16 38 17
Chalmers University of Technology Tel fax: +46-31-772 1748
SE-412 96 Gteborg - Sweden http://www.s2.chalmers.se/~maxime/
From: Stephan Lux <stephan.lux@pylon.de>
Subject: Record Telephone Calls
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 13:42:27 +0100
Hello.
I am a student and write even my thesis with the title "
development and evaluation of a concept for voice recognition in a
call center ". I hang even something firmly, since I cannot to be
implemented white as I it that the telephone call can be stored
separately according to caller and called person as a sound file.
My considerations are so far:
1. I handle me into the cable of the Head set and lead the cables in
the sound cards from there - input and take up then the discussions
separately from each other.
2. I put a PC with ISDN card, with the call center agent with
telephone-software telephoned and try the discussions there to separate.
3. I examine the ISDN Protokol and try on the basis of the header the
packages there to partition.
Those are my considerations, which are however so far only grey
theory. Perhaps someone can help me, and to me say whether at all one
of these possibilities to be implemented would be and perhaps how. Of
course I am to be had also for new suggestions.
I am grateful for each tip or each assistance.
Stephan lux
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Will you please see what advice can
be given to Stephan. Thank you. PAT]
From: Michael G. Koerner <mgk920@dataex.com>
Subject: Re: 7D Dialing Across NPA Boundaries
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 02:34:58 -0600
Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
Reply-To: mgk920@dataex.com
Blake Droke wrote:
> Arthur L. Rubin wrote:
>> Ed Ellers wrote:
>>> Um, I would suggest that Louisville, Kentucky is also a major city!'
>>> We still have 7D dialing between parts of the 502 and 812 NPAs, and
>>> since the state (wisely IMHO) changed the 270 addition from an
>> overlay
>>> to a split I expect we'll have it for some time to come. (The state
>> decision came during the permissive 10D dialing period, and -- guess
>>> what? -- permissive 10D hasn't been turned off. Not that it does any
>>> harm, of course.)
> Memphis might also be called a major city and still has 7D cross-NPA
> dialing between local numbers in 901 (TN), 662 (MS) and 870 (AR).
> Unlike Louisville, however, no 10D calling is allowed. Of course there
> are only 13 Mississippi 662 NXXs local from Memphis and 5 Arkansas 870
> NXXs.
> I noticed a potential problem in the Neustar database recently. 901-739
> has been assigned to a CLEC in 901, while 870-739 is assigned to
> Southwestern Bell and is a local call from Memphis 901. Might not be a
> problem since Tennessee is a toll alerting state. It depends on which
> rate center will get 901-739. If its in the Metro Memphis area, there
> will be a dialling conflict.
According to my recent NNAG issues, effective 10-Feb-2000, '901-739' was
assigned to a local landline carrier in 'Huntingdon, TN', located about
20 km north of I-40 (about halfway between Memphis and Nashville) and,
apparently, WELL outside the local calling area of Memphis.
Regards,
Michael G. Koerner
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 01:40:35 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Should Your Boss Know About Those Visits to The Shrink?
salon.com > Technology March 1, 2000
URL: http://www.salon.com/tech/books/2000/03/01/database_nation
Employers sniffing through medical records, would-be forgers having UPS
deliver your signature -- Simson Garfinkel reveals a world rife with
privacy violations in "Database Nation."
By Thomas Scoville
When the Berlin Wall came down in October 1989, there was, of course, a
lot of gloating in the West. We'd won; capitalism and free markets had
triumphed over the dark forces of Soviet tyranny and centralized
control, conspicuously vindicating the American way.
But what about the age-old advice: Ignore at your peril the ominous
shadows cast by the creepy glow of hubris; if there's any time the gods
love to strike you down, it's during your victory lap. I was haunted by
a half-formed notion that, despite all the economic chest-thumping and
political high-fiving in the so-called Free World, we were converging on
our own reckoning, a day when we would realize our own failures beneath
the weight of unacknowledged Western tyrannies.
I had no good idea how this might actually come to pass. But reading
Simson Garfinkel's new book, it's starting to become clear: The
combination of free markets and ubiquitous information technology
imposes its own kind of tyranny, the end results being often as scary as
a KGB nightmare.
"Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century" is a dense
treatise on electronic identification and surveillance technology, as
well as a guide to the workings of the modern consumer tracking complex.
Garfinkel, a technology writer who runs an ISP on Martha's Vineyard,
outlines the laws and policies that make these mechanisms possible and
explains the commercial appetites that motivate the relentless corporate
mining of the mountains of consumer data.
The picture is more than a little hair-raising. Take, for instance, the
hazards of corporate credit-tracking databases: In the tangled web of
electronic repositories that chronicle your personal credit history, a
single mistake or false report can be propagated to multiple agencies,
ensuring that you'll never be approved for a credit card or a mortgage.
Worse, errors can never be expunged, but only mitigated with
supplemental reports. Of course, the burden of proof is on the
individual. Equifax, Inc. may have made the mistake, but the consumer
suffers the consequences, which can last for years.
Then there are the hidden perils of those ubiquitous enticements to give
up a few shreds of your identity to the commercial data sphere. Think
that supermarket discount card was a bargain? Tell it to the man who
slipped and injured himself while shopping, then sued the store. His
corporate grocers used his consumer profile against him, courtesy of the
discount card. A history of large liquor purchases undermined the
credibility of the customer's claim.
Then there are the databases tracking your medical history: Garfinkel
reports that 35 percent of Fortune 500 companies acknowledge that they
have drawn on personal health records to make employment decisions.
Think you're in line for a big promotion? Not with your record of
psychiatric treatment, or that one-time abnormal T-cell count after a
nasty virus. For HMOs, controlling costs also means the permanent
suspension of patient confidentiality; the ramifications of this are
nightmarish. Suddenly insurance companies, marketers and mass-mailers
have access to the most intimate details of your flesh and blood.
The deeper Garfinkel digs, the more ghoulish the picture becomes: Near
the bottom of the pit, there's the Medical Information Bureau, a widely
used clearinghouse of patient data for medical insurers, which cloaks
itself as would any sinister covert agency: unlisted phone numbers, a
profile so low as to approach invisibility, concentric layers of codes
and obfuscation in reporting procedures. And though its data remains
invisible to consumers, its effects do not; with the wrong codes affixed
to your name in the MIB data cores, you'll never get health insurance
again. And you may never know why.
Corporate databases also greatly increase the individual's vulnerability
to fraud, identity theft and a host of other criminal abuses. I was
surprised to read, for instance, that United Parcel Service stores
customers' digitized signatures as proof of delivery. UPS will fax you a
receiver's signature if you supply them with a package tracking number.
It appears to be relatively easy for someone to arrange for UPS to
deliver a facsimile of my signature.
Garfinkel makes the infuriating revelation that much of the most
promising technology that could decrease consumer jeopardy isn't
implemented because of the marginal costs to corporations; profits are
more important than individual welfare, apparently. Indeed, this
inversion of corporate over individual rights emerges as the dominant
theme of "Database Nation."
Certainly, Garfinkel finds corporate disdain for consumer privacy rights
is right out in the open. Most incensing is the attitude of a
mass-mailing maven, the kind of marketer who upholsters your mailbox
daily with unwanted catalogs: "There is no such thing as 'junk mail' --
only junk people." In other words, corporation ber alles.
Starting to sound a little like tyranny?
Of course, resistance doesn't seem to be coming from the technology
sector -- the Internet's masters of the universe are too busy pawing
through your e-commerce cookies and profiling your Web surfing to take
much notice. The onslaught of corporate privacy abuses has been resisted
by only a few: whistleblowers like Garfinkel, underground groups like
the Cypherpunks and -- in a most un-Orwellian turn -- by the federal
government, which has passed legislation to slow the invasion.
There are a few problems with "Database Nation." At times Garfinkel
seems to wander outside the implicit charter of the book. For instance,
his extended taxonomy of surveillance techniques veers away from
credibility and dangerously close to "X-Files" territory with accounts
of thought-tapping and remote viewing experiments. At other times he
seems to want to write a completely different book on spy technology,
more appropriate for, say, Jane's Defense Weekly.
Garfinkel also has an annoying habit of creating shocking anecdotes of
privacy abuse out of whole cloth, not telling the reader until afterward
these horror stories only represent possible portraits of the future. He
opens one chapter with an account of his e-mail correspondence with a
person who turns out to be a program sucking data about his shopping
habits and movie preferences -- then reveals that the scenario is
make-believe. This sensationalist technique is more suited to National
Enquirer than anything else, and serves to subtly undermine his
audience's trust.
Overall, though, "Database Nation" is well worth the read. In the face
of escalating corporate incursions onto our fundamental liberties,
popular opposition is in alarmingly short supply; those determined to
galvanize public indignation are performing a valuable service, and
deserve to be heard.
salon.com | March 1, 2000
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writer
Thomas Scoville is either an Information Age Savant or an ex-Silicon
Valley programmer with a bad attitude. He is the author of the Silicon
Valley Tarot.
Copyright 2000 Salon.com All rights reserved.
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