TELECOM Digest Tue, 1 Feb 94
TELECOM Digest Tue, 1 Feb 94 11:11:00 CST Volume 14 : Issue 55
Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson
Telecom Like the Airlines? (Russ McGuire)
E-Mail Spying By Employers (Van Hefner)
Advertising by New York Telephone (James Joseph)
Internet Connection via Satellite (jey@davidsys.com)
Re: ISDN and Caller-ID (Al Varney)
Re: ISDN and Caller-ID (Fred R. Goldstein)
Re: ISDN and Caller-ID (Ketil Albertsen)
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From: Russ McGuire <russ_mcguire@wiltel.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 94 08:48:52 -0600
Subject: Telecom Like the Airlines?
The Travel Agency that serves The Williams Companies (the corporate
parent of WilTel) had an interesting and humorous article ("Us, Do
Business Like the Airlines?") in the most recent issue of their
_Wings_ newsletter. I have modified it slightly to convert any
pipeline references to telecom references ...
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
NOTE: THIS IS SATIRE AND NOT AT ALL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE WAY THAT
WILTEL REALLY DOES BUSINESS...
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
What if The Williams Companies sold gas transmission service or
capacity on our telecommunications network the way airlines sell seats
on their planes? Here's how a business deal might go.
Customer: I need to move 500Mb of data from Los Angeles to Kansas
City on Thursday.
Us: Just one way? It'll cost you.
Customer: OK, price it one-way and round-trip, please.
Us: Let's see, I'm showing that all of our free, less-than-half price
rates, and other discounted fares are sold out.
Customer: Hey, I'm a big customer. What about a volume discount or
some other consideration?
Us: I'm sorry, you'll have to pay full price, which hardly anybody
does -- except those people who really need to get their data somewhere.
If you can wait until Saturday to ship your data, I've got discounted
rates available at that time.
Customer: No, I can't wait until Saturday.
Us: So, should I go ahead and book you for Thursday at our full fare
rate?
Customer: OK.
Us: Now, let me tell you what the restrictions are on this data
transfer. You must pay us in advance. We may or may not get your
data there on time, depending on a number of factors. If the fiber's
not very full that day, we may cancel your data transfer because of
unscheduled maintenance. In the interim, we would put your data in a
nearby data repository. But rest assured, we are committed to getting
your data where it's going as soon as it's practical. Well, your
reservations are all made. Can I help you with any other data
transfer plans today?
Customer: No, I may start stringing up some tin cans for communications.
Us: Thank you for using America's best data network -- where our
customers are number one!
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
AGAIN NOTE: THIS IS SATIRE AND NOT AT ALL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE WAY
WILTEL DOES BUSINESS (although I can't speak for any other
carriers...)
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
I couldn't help posting this after my trip home from ComNet. TWA
cancelled my flight. Delta got me as far as Dallas, but wouldn't hold
my connecting Tulsa flight for five minutes after their DC-Dallas
flight was delayed by an hour by ground control. After spending the
night in Dallas, American finally got me back to Tulsa ...
In reality, WilTel provides high quality services across our
nationwide fiber optic network. We highly value our customers and
work closely with them to provide solutions that meet their needs.
For the scenario described above, our WilBand (T-1 or Fractional T-1
bandwidth on command) or WilBand 3 (T-3 bandwidth on command) products
may be excellent solutions. Reservations can be made up to a year in
advance and are non-preemptable. At ComNet last week we also
demonstrated a dialable wideband capability that we will be offering
in the near future. This service will provide bandwidth in any
increment of 64k up to T-1 on demand. Currently, none of our services
(including 1+ long distance) have more expensive rates during weekdays
than nights or weekends, providing excellent solutions for the
business customers we serve.
Russ McGuire Manager, Product Development
WilTel, Inc. russ_mcguire@wiltel.com
------------------------------
From: vantek@aol.com
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 94 03:36:30 EST
Subject: E-Mail Spying By Employers
When You Use E-Mail at Work the Boss May Be Looking In
By James McNair, {The Miami Herald}
Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News
Jan. 30 -- AMID the sterile drudgery of office work, a computer screen
beckons your wandering mind with the chance to escape. You send a
message to a friend elsewhere in the building. It could signal a
fleeting thought: After-work plans, an interesting new employee or a
dumb decision by a boss. Or it could open up a more riveting subject:
a smear campaign against the boss, a moonlighting venture on company
time, or stealing customer lists.
Whatever you drop into the electronic mailbox, it could come back to
haunt you. In many companies, what seems to be a private communications
network -- protected by passwords, no less -- is equipped with a back
door in the computer room.
In other words, your plots, your off-color barbs and your work-unrelated
digressions might be camped on a computer disk somewhere, waiting to be
read.
"It's pretty much on every network," said Edward Gomez, a consultant
for Byte Computers in Miami. "There are utilities that tell you what
people are doing, what files are opening up and how much time people
are spending on the computer."
Sounds like an invitation to employee rebellion, but corporations
insist they restrain themselves from systematic E-mail peeping. When
they do play back the disks, it's for legitimate business reasons,
such as investigating crimes, tracing security breaches or intercepting
customer inquiries when an employee is absent.
"Some people may say it's offensive and violates their privacy, but
the employer just wants to ensure that its interests are protected,"
said Mike Losey, president of the Society for Human Resource
Management.
For now, employers are having their way. The 1986 Electronic
Communications Privacy Act shields E-mail messages over public
telephone lines, but not the inter-office variety. In privacy-invasion
lawsuits across the country, courts have predominantly ruled in favor
of employers.
The false belief in E-mail privacy is so great that Congress is
considering a law requiring employers to post policies, spelling out
their E-mail access rights. Some South Florida companies such as
Blockbuster Entertainment Corp., Barnett Banks and First Union Corp.
have already taken this step.
Nearly 27 million U.S. workers will have an E-mail password in 1994,
up from 19 million in 1993, according to WorkGroup Technologies Inc.,
a research firm in Hampton, N.H. Given how E-mail is flourishing, the
conflict between employee right to privacy and employer right to
access was inevitable.
Technology gets the brunt of the blame. Ever since desktop computer
networks started popping up as a mainstream business tool ten years
ago, computers have become alarmingly more powerful. The delivery
speed of E-mail in a typical IBM-compatible or Macintosh network has
made intracompany phone calls an absurd waste of time, handwritten
memos a relic of the past.
But what turned sealed letters into open books on the E-mail system is
the new breed of networking software built into or added to computers.
Professional computer installers say the network's ability to call up
employee messages is now standard equipment.
"They never ask for it," said Tim White, a consultant for Technology
Solutions in Fort Lauderdale. "It's always something companies
discover after it's there." But maybe not.
According to a survey of 301 companies by Macworld magazine last July,
six percent said they read employees' in-house messages. One of five
companies said electronic monitoring is a good way to verify an act of
wrongdoing. Two of three don't bother warning their employees.
Alana Shoars, former E-mail manager at Epson America in Torrance,
Calif., was one of those who told employees that their messages were
secret. Then one day in 1990, she stumbled upon a supervisor's printer
cranking out every message sent on the network. She complained and was
fired.
Shoars and 170 employees sued for invasion of privacy, but lost the
case. Six months after leaving Epson, Warner Bros. hired her to run a
3,500-user E- mail system in which privacy would be guaranteed.
The same Los Angeles court that ruled in favor of Epson also sided
with Nissan Motor Co. in its defense of a privacy-invasion lawsuit
filed by two employees whose messages had been read by managers they
criticized.
Mentor Graphics of Wilsonville, Ore., settled a similar lawsuit filed
by two employees, even though it said the E-mail trail showed that the
employees had been stealing trade secrets.
Occasionally, corporations are the first to go to court. Last year,
Borland International of Scotts Valley, Calif., pressed charges
against a vice president who had been sending marketing plans and
product-release dates to the president of a cross-town rival. Both men
were indicted, but they defended themselves by accusing Borland of
violating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act ban on tapping
messages sent on commercial E-mail lines.
The charges and a related lawsuit filed by Borland are still pending.
Lawsuits are repulsive ways to settle differences, but they have
served a good purpose in fomenting a spirited debate between employee
and employer rights on the E-mail network. Privacy advocates take the
side of the Bill of Rights. On the other side is a well-entrenched
business lobby fighting for the plain right to use its equipment as it
sees fit.
Lewis Maltby, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's
Workplace Rights Project, said corporate E-mail systems should allow
for some, if not full privacy.
As it is, he said, the issuance of passwords and their suggestion of
confidentiality gives employees a false impression of privacy.
"Employers should think twice about reading messages because employees
will clam up," Maltby said. "No one's going to be candid if they know
someone's looking over their shoulder all the time."
Some companies actually share employees' desire for E-mail privacy.
Among those in South Florida, IBM Corp., Motorola, Siemens and the law
firm Greenberg Traurig all say they can't read or recall employees'
messages.
Companies that can tap the E-mail system say they do so with
restraint. "Managers don't have the ability to say, 'Print me out a
report of all the E-mail communications that went out of my group last
month,"' said Ken Smalling, a spokesman for Electronic Data Systems,
which has about 300 employees at its System One airline reservations
unit in Miramar.
Others ducked questions about their E-mail monitoring powers. "No
one's comfortable with saying something publicly," said Ryder System
spokeswoman Terri Kopec. "We don't want our employees reading about it
in the paper."
"We'll take a pass on this one," said W.R. Grace spokesman Fred Bona.
Government E-mail users have the least privacy of all -- even in the
Oval Office. Last year, a federal judge ruled that millions of E-mail
messages stored during the Reagan and Bush years must be preserved
under the same guidelines as paper communications.
In Broward County, all E-mail notes are public records. In Metro Dade,
the issue is moot because the computer system isn't capable of
recalling E- mail.
While lawmakers and courts have upheld employers' full access to
E-mail content, bills winding through Congress would ensure that
employees are explicitly warned. Sponsored by Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill.,
and Rep. Pat Williams, D-Mont., it would require companies to post
E-mail policy statements in the workplace.
Many companies -- partly at the urging of their attorneys -- are ahead
of the law, including First Union, Barnett Banks and Blockbuster
Entertainment. First Union's policy, released last August, lists when
the bank can rifle through E-mail files.
"We saw a need to put a policy into place so that everybody knew
exactly what we could and couldn't do," said First Union spokesman
Monty Hagler. "It's a big issue when you have 18,000 users. You don't
want to wait for trouble."
-----------------
Van Hefner Vantek Communications vantek@aol.com
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This topic has come up here in the past.
My personal belief is that employees should have no expectation of
privacy where their employer's communications equipment -- of any sort,
email, telephone, paper mail -- is concerned. You have every right to
privacy when you contract for the above services on your own time with
your own money and equipment, but not where someone else's equipment
is concerned. Obviously, if you are a subscriber on a 'free BBS' with
email, then whether or not you have an expectation of privacy depends
on how the system is operated, although a courteous thing would be to
tell users what to expect, even in an employee/employer relationship. PAT]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 94 16:13:39 -0500
From: joseph@c3.crd.ge.com (James Joseph)
Subject: Advertising by New York Telephone
New York Telephone has been spending truck loads of money advertising
that they are changing their name to NYNEX. These include:
1. A full page advertisement in the local paper ({The Times
Union}). I have to assume that they advertised in all
the newspapers in their service area, and possibly more
than once in each paper.
2. A barrage of TV advertisements, including at least two
during the superbowl. The frequency of advertisements
has been so substantial that, even a person like me who
spends very little time watching TV has seen their commercials
several times.
As a subscriber am *I* paying for these commercials? Or is it coming
out of their profits? (Yeah, get real, James!!) Why are they doing
it? Who cares what their name is? Couldn't they just have included
an insert in the monthly phone bills? If indeed I am paying for it,
what would be the best way to get them to be a little less extravagent
with my money?
james joseph joseph@c3.crd.ge.com
------------------------------
From: jey@davidsys.com
Subject: Internet Connection via Satellite
Date: 31 Jan 94 18:49:31 PST
Organization: DAVID Systems Inc, Sunnyvale CA
What is the best way to connect to Internet from a location (in Asia)
where there is no phone? A friend of mine is trying to setup via
satellite but he has no idea of anything that involves in this
connection. He is doing some research, and I am going to pass any
information I get.
Thanks to anyone who can give me any information.
Jey jey@davidsys.com
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 94 16:42:19 CST
From: varney@ihlpe.att.com
Subject: Re: ISDN and Caller-ID
Organization: AT&T
In article <telecom14.53.12@eecs.nwu.edu> Will Martin <wmartin@STL-06SIMA.
ARMY.MIL> writes:
> Exactly how does ISDN interact with the legal issues surrounding
> Caller-ID?
ISDN doesn't know anything about legal issues.
> It is my understanding that making an ISDN connection involves setting
> up a header packet or some such initial-connection datastream in which
> both the destination and the originator are identified, and that this
> identification can have several levels of detail, ranging from nothing
> more than the bare phone numbers to a more elaborate chunk of data
> that includes free-form text such as a name. If this is true, the
> following questions arise:
> 1) Is the content of this datastream totally under the control of the
> caller, or does the telco switch insert its own identifier of the
> caller in there somewhere?
The caller can send almost anything -- the switch will dispose of
total junk, and kill the line if it persists. Slipping in a false
number is handled by the switch, which has a list of "valid" numbers
that can be used by the line. Anything other than a valid number
results in a valid number being substituted (and the invalid number
may also be sent in another paramerter) or the call may be killed or
... (many options).
> 2) Can the caller put in false data to make the recipient believe that
> the call is coming from somewhere other than it is really originating,
> or does the callee use that originator data to establish the return
> path,
See above -- false caller/billing data doesn't leave the CO.
> 3) In states where caller-ID is illegal, is any of this changed? Or
> does the telco providing ISDN ignore that or claim that this ISDN data
> does not meet the definition of "Caller-ID" as far as the law is
> concerned?
Caller-ID via ISDN is usually tariffed differently than over analog
lines (because it does have other capabilities). But "calling number
delivery legal restrictions" (usually) apply to all forms of such
delivery, perhaps including having an Operator tell you the caller's
telephone number. COs exchange calling-party information in the same
manner regardless of whether the caller is ISDN or not.
Some areas permit intra-Centrex Caller-ID even if "outside" calls
can't be identified. This is probably viewed by PBX vendors as yet
another unfair form of competition.
In our area, we got intra-group ISDN Caller-ID (and calling names,
too) long before Illinois Bell won the Caller-ID argument. The day
after the announced beginning of Caller-ID, we started seeing
"outside" numbers on ISDN display sets.
Al Varney - just my opinion
------------------------------
From: goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein)
Subject: Re: ISDN and Caller-ID
Date: 1 Feb 1994 05:21:49 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton MA USA
In article <telecom14.53.12@eecs.nwu.edu> Will Martin <wmartin@STL-06SIMA.
ARMY.MIL> writes:
> Exactly how does ISDN interact with the legal issues surrounding
> Caller-ID?
The incoming SETUP message (switch-TE) includes a Calling Party ID field
if the user requests ANI or Caller ID service.
> 1) Is the content of this datastream totally under the control of the
> caller, or does the telco switch insert its own identifier of the
> caller in there somewhere?
I'm not sure what current generics implement. The standards are
pretty flexible. The data can come from the network or from the user.
If the user is a PBX, for instance, the PBX could insert the
originating extension number.
> 2) Can the caller put in false data to make the recipient believe that
> the call is coming from somewhere other than it is really originating,
> or does the callee use that originator data to establish the return
> path, and so providing false data would do nothing but make the
> complete ISDN circuit un-creatable? That is, the caller is calling
> from site "x", but falsifies the data to say he's calling from site
> "y". The callee then tries to respond to site "y" but they're not even
> up and on-line, so no connection ever gets established. (What would
> happen if site "y" WAS up and on-line, but already communicating with
> somebody else? Is there an ISDN equivalent of a busy signal that would
> be presented to him?)
They thought of this. There are screening indicators in the message.
The network can screen the user-provided message and validate it
against numbers that the user owns. It can pass it along and say it's
invalid. Or the network can insert a number by itself, instead of
relying on the customer. It is basically fraud-proof if everyone
follows the rules; you can say anything but the network will not
necessarily say it's valid.
> 3) In states where caller-ID is illegal, is any of this changed? Or
> does the telco providing ISDN ignore that or claim that this ISDN data
> does not meet the definition of "Caller-ID" as far as the law is
> concerned?
Without caller ID, the information just isn't delivered.
Fred R. Goldstein k1io goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com
Opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission
------------------------------
From: ketil@edb.tih.no (Ketil Albertsen,TIH)
Subject: Re: ISDN and Caller-ID
Organization: T I H / T I S I P
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 11:03:06 GMT
In article <telecom14.53.12@eecs.nwu.edu>, Will Martin <wmartin@STL-06SIMA.
ARMY.MIL> writes:
> It is my understanding that making an ISDN connection involves setting
> up a header packet or some such initial-connection datastream in which
> both the destination and the originator are identified, and that this
> identification can have several levels of detail, ranging from nothing
> more than the bare phone numbers to a more elaborate chunk of data
> that includes free-form text such as a name.
Essentially correct, but the "free format" data field is for arbitrary
use; it does not inherently serve any *identifying* function (it is
very similar to the "user data" field of almost all computer network
connection establishment procedures).
> 1) Is the content of this datastream totally under the control of the
> caller, or does the telco switch insert its own identifier of the
> caller in there somewhere?
Not totally. The format rules must of course be honored, and some of
the fields are supplied by the network. The caller ID field may be
supplied by you, but there is another field over which you have no
control: The indicator whether the caller ID is "network supplied",
"user supplied and verified by the network" or "user supplied, not
verified".
An ISDN number may have an optional "subaddress" field, which by
definition is outside the scope of the switch/network, so it cannot be
supplied or verified by the network but must be given by the
subscriber.
The telco switch does not insert its own ID in the message to the
reciving phone (it might be that it is present in the SS7 messages
between the switches -- I don't know SS7 very much). In principle, the
local office of the caller may be deduced from the caller ID, as long
as that info is reliable, but it might be very indirect (eg. if
subscribers are allowed to move their phone number to their vacation
home during summer it could change from one day to the next). And if
the caller ID is verified, there is no reason why you would want the
switch ID, is there?
> 2) Can the caller put in false data
If you try to forge your ID, the receiver will see it as "user
supplied, not verified", so he should be warned. I suppose that your
switch is also permitted to simply ignore your forged info, either
supplying its own knowledge, marked as "network supplied", or leaving
all caller ID info out. The caller ID info is not used for any sort of
callback-like mechanism; you still have to implement that yourself if
you need it.
If you run a PABX with direct dial-in, there is no way that the
network can supply the full caller ID. Eg. our college has 300
direct-dial lines, 300 subscriber numbers, all connected via the PABX
to the telco switch by a 30B+D PRI. Our PABX generates a caller ID for
outgoing calls, based on which of the 300 local lines originates the
call. That is a private PABX (an NT2, in ISDN terms) which we control
100% ourselves, so it cannot generate "network verified" IDs. The
telco switch can verify that the user supplied ID is one of the 300
subscriber numbers assigned to that PRI, but not which one of them. I
don't know if it marks the ID as "network verified" when it *might* be
the right one -- I would guess that the telco is responsible for
identifying the *subscriber* (which is our college), and so confirm
the ID. After all, even on a one-subscriber-number BRI, there may be
eight phones and the switch cannot distinguish between them -- the PABX
is just a scaled-up version of that situation.
> What would happen if site "y" WAS up and on-line, but already
> communicating with somebody else? Is there an ISDN equivalent of a
> busy signal that would be presented to him?
The Setup message arrives on the D channel in any case. "y" may then
decide to ignore it, it may open another B channel (if one is
available), it may disconnect an ongoing connection, or it may "park"
the ongoing connection temporarily, without disconnecting it.
Since there may be multiple devices (phones) on an ISDN interface, one
of them (usually) may not on its own return a "busy" signal- one of
the other devices may be willing to take the request. Even if all B
channels are busy, the Setup message is offered to all (relevant)
devices, so that they may disconnect to take the new call. However, I
believe that there is also a "reject - all resources busy" answer that
*may* be returned, but I left my Q.931 (there's the reference, if you
want to know the details!) at home so I don't have the exact formats
and names available here and now. Some calls do not use any B
channel, but exchange packets on the D channel, and there is no "busy"
concept at all (just like in IP).
> 3) In states where caller-ID is illegal, is any of this changed? Or
> does the telco providing ISDN ignore that or claim that this ISDN data
> does not meet the definition of "Caller-ID" as far as the law is
> concerned?
The caller ID is always (?) exchanged between switches in the network
(assuming that SS7 is used, which will be the case in an ISDN
network), *but* there is also a "non-disclosure" flag that prohibits
disclosure of the ID to the called party. The caller may set this flag
(and the network is obliged to honor it), or the switch may set it.
For now, the latter is the more common in this country (Norway) - a
user with an ISDN phone will see the caller ID of even POTS callers,
but since a POTS customer doesn't have any mechanism for setting the
non-disclosure flag (there isn't any official dialing sequence for
that, although rumours are that not all switches have disabled what
came with the US develped software...), the only way to obtain similar
privacy is to request the telco to *always* set the non-disclosure
flag for your phone.
Even if I did know something about legal implications in this country,
it sure wouldn't apply in the USA. From a technical point of view, the
ISDN caller ID is at least as "strong" as any POTS caller ID.
------------------------------
End of TELECOM Digest V14 #55
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