TELECOM Digest Sun, 17 Jan 93 22:41:30 CST Volume 13 : Issue 27 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson EFF ... Important Changes ... $ (Karim Saouli) Norway Goes Eight-Digit: One Week and Counting (Morten Reistad) You Didn't Accept a Collect Call, But You'll be Billed Anyway? (J. Decker) Cheaper Source of 66 Block Pads Wanted (Pat Turner) "Secret" Phone Codes (Kennita Watson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1993 11:08:36 +0100 From: Karim Saouli Subject: EFF ... Important Changes ... $ MAJOR CHANGES AT THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION Cambridge, Massachusetts eff@eff.org Wednesday, January 13, 1993 The Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded in July, 1990 to assure freedom of expression in digital media, with a particular emphasis on applying the principles embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to computer-based communication. EFF has met many of those challenges. We have defended civil liberties in court. We have shaped the policy debate on emerging communications infrastructure and regulation. We have increased awareness both on the Net and among those law enforcement officials, policy makers, and corporations whose insufficient understanding of the digital environment threatened the freedom of Cyberspace. But we've found that Cyberspace is huge. It extends not only beyond constitutional jurisdiction but to the very limits of imagination. To explore and understand all the new social and legal phenomena that computerized media make possible is a task which grows faster than it can be done. Maintaining an office in Cambridge and another in Washington DC, has been expensive, logistically difficult, and politically painful. Many functions were duplicated. The two offices began to diverge philosophically and culturally. We had more good ideas than efficient means for carrying them out. And an unreasonable share of leadership and work fell on one of our founders, Mitch Kapor. These kinds of problems are common among fast-growing technology startups in their early years, but we recognize that we have not always dealt with them gracefully. Further, we didn't respond convincingly to those who began to believe that EFF had lost sight of its founding vision. Against that background, the EFF Board met in Cambridge on January 7, 8, and 9 to revisit EFF's mission, set priorities for the Foundation's future activities, adopt a new structure and staff to carry them out, and clarify its relationship to others outside the organization. 1. EFF'S CAMBRIDGE OFFICE WILL CLOSE. We will be shutting down our original Cambridge office over the next six months, and moving all of EFF's staff functions to our office in Washington. 2. JERRY BERMAN HAS BEEN NAMED EFF'S EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR In December, we announced that Mitch Kapor would be leaving the job of Executive Director. He wanted to devote more time and energy to specific EFF projects, such as The Open Platform Initiative, focusing less on administrative details and more on EFF's strategic vision. We also said that we would conduct a search for his replacement, appointing Jerry Berman as our Interim Director. Jerry's appointment is now permanent, and the search is terminated. 3. CLIFF FIGALLO WILL MAINTAIN EFF'S PRESENCE ON-LINE, AND WILL DIRECT THE TRANSITION PROCESS. Cambridge Office Director Cliff Figallo will manage the EFF transition process, working out of Cambridge. He is now considering a move to Washington for organizational functions yet to be defined. In the meantime, he will oversee our on-line presence and assure electronic accessibility. 4. STAFF COUNSEL MIKE GODWIN'S ROLE TO BE DETERMINED We recognize the enormous resource represented by Mike Godwin. He probably knows more about the forming Law of Cyberspace than anyone, but differences of style and agenda created an impasse which left us little choice but to remove him from his current position. EFF is committed to continuing the services he has provided. We will discuss with him a new relationship which would make it possible for him to continue providing them. 5. COMMUNICATIONS STAFFERS GERARD VAN DER LEUN AND RITA ROUVALIS WILL LEAVE EFF. Despite the departure of the Cambridge communications staff, we expect to continue publishing EFFector Online on schedule as well as maintaining our usual presence online. Both functions will be under the direction of Cliff Figallo, who will be assisted by members of the Board and Washington staff. 6. JOHN PERRY BARLOW WILL ASSUME A GREATER LEADERSHIP ROLE. John will replace Mitch Kapor as Chairman of EFF's Executive Committee, which works closely with the Executive Director to manage day to day operations. Mitch will remain as Board Chairman of EFF. All of the directors have committed themselves to a more active role in EFF so that decisions can be made responsively during this transition. 7. EFF WILL NOT SPONSOR LOCAL CHAPTERS, BUT WILL WORK CLOSELY WITH INDEPENDENT REGIONAL GROUPS. We have labored mightily and long over the whole concept of chapters, but, in the end, the Board has decided not to form EFF chapters. Instead, EFF will encourage the development of independent local organizations concerned with Electronic Frontier issues. Such groups will be free to use the phrase "Electronic Frontier" in their names (e.g., Omaha Electronic Frontier Outpost), with the understanding that no obligation, formal or informal, is implied in either direction between independent groups and EFF. While EFF and any local groups that proliferate will remain organizationally independent and autonomous, we hope to work closely with them in pursuit of shared goals. The EFF Board still plans to meet with representatives of regional groups in Atlanta next week to discuss ideas for future cooperation. 8. WE CLARIFIED EFF'S MISSION AND ACTIVITIES In undertaking these changes, the board is guided by the sense that our mission is to understand the opportunities and challenges of digital communications to foster openness, individual freedom, and community. We expect to carry out our mission through activities in the following areas: POLICY DEVELOPMENT AND ADVOCACY. EFF has been working to promote an open architecture for telecommunications by various means, including the Open Platform Initiative, the fight against the FBI's Digital Telephony wiretap proposal, and efforts to free robust encryption from NSA control. FOSTERING COMMUNITY. Much of the work we have done in the Cambridge office has been directed at fostering a sense of community in the online world. These efforts will continue. We have realized that we know far less about the conditions conducive to the formation of virtual communities than is necessary to be effective in creating them. Therefore, we will devote a large portion of our R & D resources to developing better understanding in this area. LEGAL SERVICES. We were born to defend the rights of computer users against over-zealous and uninformed law enforcement officials. This will continue to be an important focus of EFF's work. We expect to improve our legal archiving and dissemination while continuing to provide legal information to individuals who request it, and support for attorneys who are litigating. Both the board and staff will go on writing and speaking about these issues. Our continuing suit on behalf of Steve Jackson Games is unaffected by these changes. RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT. We have started many projects over the years as their need became apparent. Going forward, EFF will allocate resources to investigating and initiating new projects. To ensure that our projects have the greatest impact and can reasonably be completed with the resources available, EFF will sharpen its selection and review process. IN CONCLUSION ... We expect that the foregoing may not sit well with many on the Net. We may be accused of having "sold out" our bohemian birthright for a mess of Washingtonian pottage. It may be widely, and perhaps hotly, asserted that the "suits" have won and that EFF is about to become another handmaiden to the large corporate interests which support our work on telecommunications policy. However plausible, these conclusions are wrong. We made these choices with many of the same misgivings our members will feel. We have toiled for many months to restore harmony between our two offices. But in some cases, personal animosities had grown bitter. It seems clear that much of the difficulty was structural. We believe that our decisions will go far to focus EFF's work and make it more effective. The decision to locate our one office in Washington was unavoidable; our policy work can only be done effectively there. Given the choice to centralize in Washington, the decision to permanently appoint Jerry Berman as our Executive Director was natural. Jerry has, in a very short time, built an extremely effective team there, so our confidence in his managerial abilities is high. But we are also convinced of his commitment to and growing understanding of the EFF programs which extend beyond the policy establishment in Fortress Washington. We recognize that inside the Beltway there lies a very powerful reality distortion field, but we have a great deal of faith in the ability of the online world to keep us honest. We know that we can't succeed in insightful policy work without a deep and current understanding of the networks as they evolve -- technically, culturally, and personally. To those who believe that we've become too corporate, we can only say that we founded EFF because we didn't feel that large, formal organizations could be trusted with the future of Cyberspace. We have no intention of becoming one ourselves. Some will read between these lines and draw the conclusion that Mitch Kapor is withdrawing from EFF. That is absolutely not the case. Mitch remains thoroughly committed to serving EFF's agenda. We believe however, that his energies are better devoted to strategy and to developing a compelling vision of future human communications than in day to day management. The difficult decision to reject direct chapter affiliation was based on a belief that no organization which believes so strongly in self-determination should be giving orders or taking them. Nevertheless, we are eager to see the development of many outposts on the Electronic Frontier, whether or not they agree with us or one another on every particular. After all, EFF is about the preservation of diversity. This has been a hard passage. We have had to fire good friends, and this is personally painful to us. We are deeply concerned that, in moving to Washington, EFF is in peril for its soul. But we are also convinced that we have made the best decisions possible under the circumstances, and that EFF will be stronger as a result. Please cut us some slack during the transition. And please tell us (either collectively at eff@eff.org or individually at the addresses below) when we aren't meeting your expectations. In detail and with examples. We don't promise to fix everything, but we are interested in listening and working on the issues that affect us all. The Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation: Mitch Kapor, mkapor@eff.org John Perry Barlow, barlow@eff.org John Gilmore, gnu@toad.com Stewart Brand, sbb@well.sf.ca.us Esther Dyson, edyson@mcimail.com Dave Farber, farber@cis.upenn.edu Jerry Berman, jberman@eff.org Cliff Figallo, fig@eff.org ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jan 93 15:57 +0100 Organization: Oslo Stock Exchange From: Morten Reistad Subject: Norway Goes Eight-Digit: One Week and Counting Thursday, January 28th 1993 at 16:00 local time, Norway will go through step one in the great number change towards uniform eight-digit dialing in the entire country, without any area codes. The area code 02, now used for Oslo and parts of surrounding Akershus will be affected. Other numbers will stay the same. The new numbers will be : 02 XX XX XX Within Oslo 22 XX XX XX (Postal codes 0100-1299) 02 XX XX XX Within Asker 66 XX XX XX (affects 02-78/79/84/90/98) 02 XX XX XX Within Baerum 67 XX XX XX (affects 02-12/13/53/54/58/59) 02 24 XX XX Within Baerum 67 14 XX XX 02 47 XX XX Within Baerum 67 57 XX XX 02 51 XX XX Within Baerum 67 56 XX XX 02 87 XX XX Within Baerum 67 15 XX XX 02 88 XX XX Within Baerum 67 80 XX XX 02 7X XX XX Within Nittedal 67 0X XX XX (affects 02-76/77) 02 70 XX XX Within Loerenskog 67 90 XX XX 02 82 XX XX Within Loerenskog 67 92 XX XX 02 97 XX XX Within Loerenskog 67 97 XX XX 02 XX XX XX Within Oppegaard 66 XX XX XX (affects 02-80/81/99) And, if dialing any of the above from abroad you dial +47 XX XX XX XX, while the rest of the country is still +47 A XX XX XX or +47 AA XX XXX. Doing such a thing at 16:00 is outragous. On a Thursday, when all shops have open late is even worse. Guess it's still "We don't care. We don't have to. We're The Phone Company". And there is NO permissive dialing period. Go figure. TV commercials are run at one-hour intervals now reminding us about this. So at least a lot of actors get paid. This will be part one of a five-stage change. Next change is April 15th, when the 09 and parts of 06 will change, covering parts of eastern Norway. There is a diskette available with the entrire numbering plan. I will try to get permission from the Telco to post in the archives. Morten Reistad ------------------------------ Reply-To: jack@myamiga.mixcom.com Subject: You Didn't Accept a Collect Call, But You'll be Billed Anyway? Date: 17 Jan 93 09:26:34 From: jack@myamiga.mixcom.com I'm sure this isn't the first time this has ever happened to a TELECOM Digest reader, but it struck me as a poor way to do business. The phone rang the other day and a young female voice asked to speak to my 15-year-old son. It was a friend of his from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where we used to live before our move to GTE country. Anyway, she was calling from a pay phone, and had deposited money to pay for the call (this was an inter-LATA call so it was handled by AT&T). But then the operator (or the automated equipment) let the call go on for several minutes without requiring another deposit. When the operator did come back on the line, the girl didn't have enough money to pay for the rest of the call, and because her parents don't currently have a phone (or so she claims), there was no number that the call could be billed to. So the operator stated that the remainder would be charged to the party she called. At no time did the operator converse directly with my son, although he could overhear all of this. After this the call was disconnected. I called AT&T back to inquire about this, and they basically said that they will bill the unpaid remainder of a coin phone call to the calling party, but only if the calling party accepts the charge. I told her that the charge had not been accepted, and that in any case my son (who is a minor) would have no authority to accept such a charge anyway. The AT&T rep then said that if the call appeared on my bill (and it probably would), I could call AT&T and they would issue a credit. That might be acceptable if I were still in Bell territory, but living here in GTE land I sure don't need anything else to foul up my bill. Then she had the nerve to start asking me why I didn't use AT&T as my long distance carrier! I just said it was because I'd had one too many billing screw-ups like this one from AT&T. I rather anticipate that Pat may comment that AT&T is just trying to collect their money, but I would counter that if I answer the phone and the call is not announced as collect (it would be refused in such a case), I should be able to hand it over to one of my children without worrying that an operator might try to stick them with the charge. In a way, this strikes me as deliberately fraudulent, in the same way as if I'd gone to a self-serve gas station and the car before me pulled out without paying, so they added his gasoline purchase to my credit card. In this case, I did nothing to induce that call, I did not agree to pay for it, and it shouldn't be appearing on my bill. The fact that I or someone in my family was a party to the call is irrelevent; unless it can be shown that we had somehow conspired with the caller to do this as a means of toll avoidance (which is certainly NOT the case here, since we had no idea this girl was even going to call), we should not be getting the bill for it, period. I know that we have all come to expect sleazy billing practices from third-tier carriers, but don't think for a moment that AT&T is squeaky clean either! Jack Decker --- 1:154/8.0 FidoNet, Jack@myamiga.mixcom.com Gated through a Linux system ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jan 93 13:14 EST From: rsiatl!turner@rsiatl.UUCP Subject: Cheaper Source of 66 Block Pads Wanted Reply-To: turner@dixie.com An orgnazation I am affiliated with uses a large quality of Larus pads. These pads are aproxmently 3/8"x5/8"x1" and replace the bridging clips on 66 blocks. They use a four resistor square pad configuration to provide a 600 ohm impedence fixed attenuation. The problem is that the total cost of these four resistors and the plastic shell runs about $18/ea. The pads are usually purchased in quantities of a hundred or more. I am wondering if anyone knows of a cheaper source for similar pads? Pat Turner KB4GRZ turner@dixie.com ------------------------------ From: kwatson@netcom.com (Kennita Watson) Subject: "Secret" Phone Codes Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1993 07:57:41 GMT At the end of the month I'm moving to a house that already has one phone line installed, and having a second line turned on. I have heard that there is a code I can dial into a phone that will tell me what phone number that phone is connected to. Would somebody please email me what it is? If there are other similar nifty codes, I'd love to know those too. I don't normally read this group, so please email me. Thanks in advance, Kennita Watson kwatson@netcom.com [Moderator's Note: No Kennita, obviously you do not read this group very often, if at all, or you would know we have covered this time and again here. The 'secret code' you are seeking changes from one town to the next, and from one phone exchange to the next. Sometimes they are changed after a few months to something else. There is no standard, and no clue at all as to what it might be without knowing *where* (what area code and exchange) the phone is located, and even then, there may be no difinitive answer except from some of the local guys in that town. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #27 *****************************