A Beginner's Guide to the Internet/INTERNET.ISO/text/telediag/tc13-111.txt

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TELECOM Digest     Fri, 19 Feb 93 00:10:00 CST    Volume 13 : Issue 111

Index To This Issue:                      Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (Adam Frix)
    Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (J. Hanrahan)
    Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (Hans Ridder)
    Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State (Conrad Kimball)
    Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State (Jeff Sicherman)
    Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State (Steven H. Lichter)
    Re: The War on Pagers (Maxime Taksar)
    Re: The War on Pagers (Adam M. Gaffin)
    The War on Freedom (Paul Robinson)
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Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 23:39:29 EST
From: [e-mail] (Adam Frix)
Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones


[e-mail] (Geoffrey P Waigh) writes:

> Whenever I have heard of this plan, I have wondered how Americans
> will continue to design radio equipment. Is there some clause
> that I missed that will allow RF engineers to continue purchasing
> spectrum analyzers, mixers and other simple to connect gadgets
> for the purpose of testing their equipment? If so, what is
> going to stop these devices from being used to scan cellular
> communications? It would be amusing if spectrum analyzers
> had to be kept under lock-and-key to prevent use by anyone
> other than a "certified, responsible entity."

> Much like printing presses and fax machines under current Chinese
> rule, or under the old Soviet Union.

Agreed.

I can't wait until law enforcement decides they want to communicate
with each other in, say, a certain color of blue.  There will be
special billboards along the roadside where cops can leave messages to
one another.  To ensure that Joe Public "can't" read these messages,
cops will pass laws stating that it is illegal for any
non-law-enforcement agent to see that particular frequency of EMR.
Because it's a law, by definition no one will "be able" to read these
messages, and therefore such communication will remain private,
privileged law enforcement communication.  Anyone who dares to see
that particular frequency can and will be put in jail, an obvious
menace to society.

Isn't it great to see what happens when ignorant old fogies, easily
boozed and swayed by special interests, are in charge of drafting laws
relating to and intertwined with basic laws of physics?


Aloha,

Adam

America OnLine: AdamFrix (okay)
Internet: [e-mail]. (convenient) OR
[e-mail] (if you must, but try CIS first)
Adam Frix via cmhGate - Net 226 fido<=>uucp gateway Col, OH
UUCP: ...!uunet.uu.net!towers!bluemoon!cmhgate!Adam.Frix
INET: [e-mail]
Please use bang path until my mail forwarding gets fixed.

------------------------------

From: Jamie Hanrahan <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones
Date: 17 Feb 93 21:32:52 PST
Organization: Kernel Mode Systems, San Diego, CA


[e-mail] (John Higdon) writes:

> Scanner laws will be just about as effective as gun laws -- only much
> sillier. The FCC is seriously deluded if it thinks it can win a
> technological war with anyone.

I know the basics of how cellphones work, but not the "internals", so
forgive me if I am displaying my ignorance by asking:

Can someone explain why cellphones couldn't gain increased security
simply by channel-hopping *within a cell*?  Say, every five seconds or
so?

If you only move one call at a time, you'd only need one free channel
in the cell.

Granted this would be no defense against a determined eavesdropper
(neither is the FCC's proposed rule), but it would certainly make it
more unlikely that someone with a standard scanner could hear anything
useful.


Jamie Hanrahan, Kernel Mode Systems, San Diego CA
Internet:  [e-mail], or [e-mail]
Uucp: uunet!cmkrnl!jeh

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Hans)
Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation - DECwest Engineering
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 17:32:39 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> John Higdon <[e-mail].
com> writes:

> Scanner laws will be just about as effective as gun laws -- only much
> sillier. The FCC is seriously deluded if it thinks it can win a
> technological war with anyone. The below-average moron outguns the FCC
> in the brain cell department.

Remember, the FCC is only doing what its told to.  The real
"below-average morons" are *your* elected officials who passsed the
law so no one could listen to their phone calls.

We have no one to blame but ourselves for putting these idiots into
office. :-(


Hans-Gabriel Ridder <[e-mail]>
DECwest Engineering, Bellevue, Washington, USA
Any opinions expressed are not those of my employer, honest.


[Moderator's Note: Actually here in the USA, people who bother voting
wind up only voting for less than one percent of the petty tyrants and
others who dominate our lives. The rest are appointed or hangers-on;
civil 'servants' we call them, but rebellious and willful servants is
more like it. That's why I always thought it was such a joke to hear
people say 'if you don't like things the way they are, then vote for a
new bunch.' When is the last time *you* voted for anyone in the
FCC/FBI/IRS/DOD/HUD/NSA/CIA/ETC?  I don't blame myself for putting
idiots in office. I didn't vote for any of 'em!   PAT]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Conrad Kimball)
Subject: Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State
Date: 18 Feb 93 07:02:04 GMT
Organization: Boeing Computer Services (ESP), Seattle, WA


In article <[e-mail]> John Higdon <[e-mail].
com> writes:

> Bob Longo <[e-mail]> writes:

>> Californians want CNID, but they also want per-line blocking to be
>> available (which is what PacBell is vigorously opposed to). That is
>> reasonable in a state where 40% of phone customers have unlisted
>> numbers.

> Perhaps you could site the surveys and studies that back this up? I am
> damn sick of people pronouncing what Californian's want (based upon
> absolutely no evidence) when trying to justify the stifling of yet
> another useful technology.

Perhaps you can site surveys that support _your_ desires?  It's hardly
fair to claim your position should be adopted by default in the
absence of evidence to the contrary.  The converse position is just as
defensible (but obviously _you_ don't like it).  I'm damn sick of
self-centered techno junkies writing off people that express privacy
concerns as being uninformed ignorant boobs.

> I, for one, do not much care what Californian's want; I know what is
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This says it all ...  Sounds like my four-year old: "Give me what I
want!!  Give me what I want!! (whine, whine, whine...)."  Fortunately,
most people's parents managed to properly socialize them.

> useful and desirable and what is available in most of the rest of the

"Aww, mom!!  All the _other_ kids get to do <xxx>, why can't I?".

> country. I also know that none of the doom and gloom, even in areas
> that have no blocking capability, has been demonstrated in any way.

Let's see ... absence of (reported) negative effects over an
observation period of a year or so, therefore: there _are_ _no_
negative effects ... first rate reasoning there.

> The CPUC is perfectly aware that its restrictions are not standard and
> that no other state has required default per-line blocking and
> per-call enabling. Please stop pontificating about how it is just the

> mean old telephone companies that are being unreasonable. The
> restrictions were passed with one purpose in mind: to eliminate the
> offering of CNID in California. It succeeded royally. The activists
> won this round.

Right on!!


Conrad Kimball       | Client Server Tech Services, Boeing Computer Services
[e-mail]   | P.O. Box 24346, MS 7A-35
[phone]       | Seattle, WA  98124-0346

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 00:50:34 -0800
From: Jeff Sicherman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State
Organization: Cal State Long Beach


In article <[e-mail]> John Higdon <[e-mail].
com> writes:

> Bob Longo <[e-mail]> writes:

>> Californians want CNID, but they also want per-line blocking to be
>> available (which is what PacBell is vigorously opposed to). That is
>> reasonable in a state where 40% of phone customers have unlisted
>> numbers.

> Perhaps you could site the surveys and studies that back this up? I am
> damn sick of people pronouncing what Californian's want (based upon
> absolutely no evidence) when trying to justify the stifling of yet
> another useful technology.

  This is a reasonable request, but restricting in the public interest
is not stifling by its definition. And in your business you hardly
represent the attitudes of the average consumer of telecommunications
services.

> I, for one, do not much care what Californian's want; I know what is
> useful and desirable and what is available in most of the rest of the
> country. I also know that none of the doom and gloom, even in areas
> that have no blocking capability, has been demonstrated in any way.

  Yes, the self-righteous rarely care what other people want, but,
John, I think you're a lot more intelligent and decent than this; you
seem to have a few hot buttons when your own 'expert' view of telecom
is challenged. Trouble is, this is not a technical issue at all, it's
a civil rights and privacy one; you're technical rights and desires
rank quite a bit below that.

> The CPUC is perfectly aware that its restrictions are not standard and
> that no other state has required default per-line blocking and
> per-call enabling. Please stop pontificating about how it is just the
> mean old telephone companies that are being unreasonable. The
> restrictions were passed with one purpose in mind: to eliminate the
> offering of CNID in California. It succeeded royally. The activists
> won this round.

  Please stop pontificating yourself. If you have any proof of this
grand conspiracy to stifle caller-id, please present it. Otherwise, we
may just take the situation at face value: that there is a difference
of opinion as to what privacy rights ought to be with respect to the
use of the telephone, and that the phone companies views didn't win.


Jeff Sicherman

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Steven H. Lichter)
Subject: Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State
Date: 18 Feb 1993 03:02:48 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)


It did not reflect the majority of the California public, it reflected
the few people that took time to go to the hearings or write plus a
couple of groups ran by a bunch of fuddy duddies that want us to go
back to a manual system. Those were the same people that raised a
storm when Catalina Island finally came into the 20th century. They
may do a lot of good, but in this case they blew it and people should
not support them unless they wake up. This service is available almost
across the US and Canada plus a few foreign countries and there has
not been the doom prodicted by these people. Besides the PUC has never
been receptive to either the companies they regulate or the public.
They should be elected or if they are appointed we should be able to
vote on them as we do with the Supreme Court in California.


Steven H. Lichter    COEI GTE Calif.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 14:08:36 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Maxime Taksar KC6ZPS)
Subject: Re: The War on Pagers


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Jeff Hibbard) writes:

>> [Moderator's Note: In the Chicago Public Schools, pagers are
>> considered verbotin and are confiscated from students.  This is part
>> of the War on Drugs.   PAT]

> It's not just Chicago, it's state-wide.  Illinois state law allows
> pagers and cellular phones to be confiscated from anybody (not just
> students) who brings them onto school property.  If I visit my son's
> school wearing my (employer-supplied) pager, they can keep it.  If I
> drive through the school's parking lot to pick him up, they can
> confiscate the cellular phone in my car.  An adult who gives a student
> such a device to take to school can do a year in jail and pay a
>$10,000 fine.

This sounds blatantly unconstituational, being seizure with due
process.  Has this law had to stand up in court yet?  Has anyone been
jailed or fined yet?  Or is it too new a law, still?  It would be
interesting to know how long this law has been around and if any other
states have it.

Just about every public school in the Bay Area that I know of forbids
pagers (and, I assume cellphones), and I think that anyone under 18 is
forbidden to carry a pager *anywhere*.

Sounds like it's time to start sending the ACLU money ...


Maxime Taksar     KC6ZPS    [e-mail]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Adam M Gaffin)
Subject: Re: The War on Pagers
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 00:15:51 GMT


Here in Framingham, Mass., administrators and teachers have
confiscated five or six beepers from students this year.  But the
principal doubts the students are using them to arrange drug deals.
He says his students are wearing them as status symbols -- if they
were selling drugs, they wouldn't be dumb enough to wear their beepers
where teachers could see them!


Adam Gaffin
Middlesex News, Framingham, Mass.
[e-mail]
Voice: [phone]. Fred the Middlesex News Computer: [phone].

------------------------------

From: Paul Robinson <[e-mail]>
Subject: The War on Freedom
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 01:00:02 -0500 (EST)


[e-mail] (Jeff Hibbard) on the Subject: The War on
Pagers In TELECOM Digest Volume 13, Issue 105 wrote:

>> [Moderator's Note: In the Chicago Public Schools, pagers are
>> considered verbotin and are confiscated from students.  This is part
>> of the War on Drugs.   PAT]

Let's call it what it is: the War on the Constitution.  Fifty years
ago, the U.S. Government used hysteria to put American Citizens in
U.S. Government operated Concentration Camps.  Now, it is aiming at
another group of people: those who have a profile of whatever it
doesn't like.  And, to add insult to injury, it is using every means
it can imagine to deny them any means in law to challenge these acts
of terror.  Anyone whose property is confiscated in 'civil forfeiture'
has essentially zero chance of recovering it; the fact that they are
totally innocent of any wrongdoing is irrelevant.

> It's not just Chicago, it's state-wide.  Illinois state law allows
> pagers and cellular phones to be confiscated from anybody (not just
> students) who brings them onto school property.  If I visit my son's
> school wearing my (employer-supplied) pager, they can keep it.  If I
> drive through the school's parking lot to pick him up, they can
> confiscate the cellular phone in my car.  An adult who gives a student
> such a device to take to school can do a year in jail and pay a
> $10,000 fine.

> Although text in the actual bill passed makes it clear the intent was
> to forbid cellular phones and pagers, all of the above actually
> applies to "communication devices", which the law defines as anything
> designed to receive or transmit radio signals outside of the
> commercial broadcast band.  For example, if I let my son take my Radio

> Shack "Time Cube" (which can only receive WWV) to show-and-tell, they
> could confiscate it, fine me $10,000 and lock me up for a year.

This sort of thing needs to be fought and stopped.  Write to the FCC.
This is a clear interference in interstate commerce since these radios
are operated by authorized users communicating with federally licensed
carriers.  Most people probably feel they don't have the time or the
money to mount a court fight but one aught to be made.  Laws like this
have the nasty habit of being used as a stepping stone for even worse
onslaughts on people's rights.  First it's $10K for giving someone a
pager; how long before it's the death penalty for posession of a
single-edge razor blade?  ("So what are you on death row for?"
"Giving my son a razor to use in arts-and-crafts.")  :(

The Interstate Commerce Commission might have an issue in this: if a
truck with a CB radio drives past a school in Illinois, the truck
might be stopped and its radio confiscated.  (Most laws prohibiting
posession of something in or near a school include as much as 300
feet.)  This could interfere with the efficient moving of material in
interstate commerce.

Try contacting the ACLU, however because they tend to approve of more
government controls on the public, they might think the law is a nice
idea.  Or try contacting the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Or get the media involved: Let them know about this.  You may have to
gore their ox and point out that this sort of thing could be used
against them:

Knowing how bad Chicago politics are, you might want to send a note
about this to the radio and television stations there: the next time a
reporter from a station or newspaper runs articles which are
unfavorable to the school board is at a school board meeting, or is
doing a report at a school, the security guard confiscates the
microwave transmit truck!

Think this is unlikely?  During the famous "zero tolerance" issues,
where the government was taking the policy of confiscating any vehicle
entering or leaving a U.S. Border, if it had even miniscule amounts of
drugs on it, it was noted that all that would have been necessary was
to find a couple of joints in a passenger cabin, and the U.S.
Government could have siezed the {Queen Elizabeth II}!


Paul Robinson -- [e-mail]

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End of TELECOM Digest V13 #111
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