The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998

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== Phrack Inc. == Volume Three, Issue Thirty-five, File 13 of 13 PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN Phrack World News PWN PWN PWN PWN Issue XXXV / Part Four PWN PWN PWN PWN Compiled by Dispater PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN PWN The Media Monopoly ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ by Dispater As we all know, more technology means more and more legal questions. It is important not only to understand the economic but social impacts of the recent "Telco-TV" issue. I think technologically the idea of transmitting audio/video signals through phiber optic line is fascinating and a great technological triumph. However, how will society benefit by having an even smaller number of owners controlling the media? There is already a media dynasty due to policies established in Ronald Reagan's presidency. Today almost all of the media is controlled by 18 global corporations. That is down from 23 in 1990 and down from 50 corporations in 1983. The trend is very scary. In the United States there are around 25,000 different media voices. This includes newspapers, book publishers, television stations, radio stations, movie studios, and magazines. However we should not kid ourselves into thinking that there are 25,000 different owners. Is it fair to that 23 companies have so much power over our lives? It is incredibly dangerous to allow this trend to continue. We must stop this trend and "bust up" the media as it was done in the pre-Reagan era. If you are concerned about this issue I strongly urge you to read "The Media Monopoly" by Ben Bagdickian. It is published by Beacon Press and runs around 300 pages in length. _______________________________________________________________________________ Phone Companies Could Transmit TV Under FCC Plan October 25, 1991 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ by Edmund L. Andrews (The New York Times) In a surprising and controversial move to promote cable television competition, the Federal Communications Commission proposed today that local telephone companies be allowed to package and transmit television programming. The proposed rules, which were unanimously endorsed and are likely to be adopted within a year, would expose cable companies to the most threatening competition yet. But they could benefit cable television consumers, many of whom have seen their bills double and triple in recent years. The cable industry vowed to fight the proposals and threatened to challenge the rules in court if they are adopted. Telephone companies, eager to enter a lucrative new business, applauded. "Today's action will create competition and offer consumers more choices," said James R. Young, vice-president of regulatory and industry relations at the Bell Atlantic Corporation. "Let's hope it's a beginning to the end of turf wars." In essence, the commission recommended that telephone companies be allowed to offer "video dial tone" over telephone lines that would carry programming produced by outside companies. Consumers could view whatever programs they pleased and would be charged accordingly. Initially, telephone companies would serve primarily as a pipeline, not producing the programs. But the commission said telephone companies should also be allowed to organize and package video services, as long as they make their networks available to all programmers. The commission also opened an inquiry on whether to let telephone companies produce programs. The idea of allowing so-called video dial tone service has long been a favorite of the FCC's chairman, Alfred C. Sikes. Congress, which is weighing regulatory legislation to rein in cable process has shied away from the issue. Today's action makes it more likely that lawmakers will have to reconsider the role of telephone companies in television. Before cable companies would feel much impact from today's FCC proposal, however, most telephone companies would have to spend billions of dollars to install new fiber-optic transmission lines and switching equipment that could carry large volumes of television material. Analysts have estimated that the cost of converting every home in the country to a fiber-optic line would be $100 billion to $200 billion and that it would take at least five years. Most large telephone companies, including all of the regional Bell companies, already plan to replace their copper wires with fiber over the next two decades. The immense business opportunity posed by the $18 billion cable television market is likely to accelerate those plans. High-capacity communications lines that reach every home in America could radically alter the distribution of entertainment and enable people on home computers to tap distant libraries and obtain information in seconds. "Both program providers and consumers would have chances they don't have today, without the bottlenecks provided by cable companies and without the bottlenecks of broadcasting," said Richard Firestone, chief of the FCC's common carrier bureau. The move was immediately attacked by the National Cable Television Association, which threatened to challenge any new rules in court. "Until and unless the telco's monopoly in voice telephone is ended, no level of Government safeguards against cross-subsidies will be effective," said James P. Mahoney, president of the cable association. The most controversial issue, which the FCC raised for discussion without recommendation, is whether telephone companies should be allowed to produce programming, a much bigger business than transmission. Many Bush Administration officials favor such a move, but television broadcasters and producers bitterly oppose it. Officials noted that such a shift would require changes in the Cable Television Act of 1984. "Among the top two or three concerns of ever cable operator has always been head-to-head competition against local telephone companies," said John Mansell, a senior analyst at Paul Kagan Associates, a marketing-research firm that monitors the cable industry. For telephone companies, the move could be a windfall. Steven R. Sieck, vice president of Link Resources Inc., a market-research firm in New York, said, "It's by far the largest market opportunity among the whole collection of information services" for telephone companies. It remains unclear, however, whether the new rules will survive in court. The Cable Television Act of 1984 bars a telephone company from owning a cable television franchise in the same market. The FCC ruled today, however, that the law does not prevent a local telephone company from transmitting programs produced by other companies and that it does not bar long-distance carriers in any way. The Bell companies have lobbied strongly for legislation that would allow them to enter the cable business, and several companies have invested in European cable franchises. In addition, Pacific Telesis Group, which provides local phone service in California, already holds an option to buy a controlling interest in a Chicago cable franchise, which could be [sic] permissible since it is outside the company's telephone area. The commission also handed down a ruling that could give telephone companies an important price advantage in future competition with cable operators and could prompt protests from local governments, ruling that neither a telephone company nor a video programmer needs to pay franchise fees to local governments. Under the cable act, by contrast, local governments can charge cable operators a franchise fee as high as five per cent of revenues. Explaining today's ruling, Mr. Sikes said, "We have segregation laws, and these segregation laws should be ended." He added that some cable companies were already installing optical fibers in their own networks, and that some were exploring the option of using their networks to offer telephone service. The proposals mark the second major change in longstanding restrictions on the telephone companies' ability to move into new services. Less than three weeks ago, a Federal appeals court cleared the way for the regional Bell companies to begin providing information services, like news, stock and sports tables, immediately. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Phiber Optic or Twisted Pair? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ by John J. Keller (Wall Street Journal) October 28, 1991 Expanding the nation's telephone network into a vast television broadcast system is going to cost tens of billions of dollars and won't be finished before the end of the decade, say executives at some of the largest phone companies. But the scale of the project isn't stopping the phone giants, such as GTE Corp., Ameritech, Bell Atlantic Corp., and Pacific Telesis Group, from methodically exploring how to implement such a system. The Baby Bells and GTE have spent several million dollars testing new systems that carry cable TV shows into homes via the phone network. The phone companies will spend many million of dollars more before they are satisfied that they have a service that matches the current voice phone system and tops today's entrenched cable TV monopolies. Last week the phone companies were buoyed by a Federal Communications Commission plan to support a new technology called video dial tone, that would put the big phone companies into direct competition with local cable-television monopolies. Phone subscribers could use such a system to dial up and order video programs from an entertainment company through the same wire that connects a typical phone call. More important, allowing the phone companies could generate enough traffic to fund "broadband" upper-capacity information highways that could someday carry TV, medical information, and even FM stereo channels into a home through a single wire, say the executives. However, big hurdles remain. The FCC hasn't decided whether to let the phone companies participate in the programming end of the cable TV business. The phone companies argue that's a financial necessity, because cable TV companies would be reluctant to share the programs they now support and run them over a rival's network. In addition, the 1984 Cable TV Act, which prohibits phone company participation in the cable business, would have to be rewritten. "We're encouraged by the FCC action, but it's not as complete a step as there needs to be made," said Larry J. Sparrow, vice president of regulatory and governmental affairs at GTE Telephone Operations, Irvine, Texas. Adds Kathleen Ahren, Nynex Corp.'s director of federal regulatory policy: "For us to build facilities without anyone to use them would be irresponsible... programming is essential." There are also technical issues such as whether TV service to the home should be provided through a cable-TV-like coaxial cable or advanced fiber- optic line. Either would require pulling out existing "twisted pair" wiring that now binds the phones in homes and most small businesses to the local phone network. Moreover, the phone industry must still hammer out technical standards for melding video transmission, which requires tremendous transmission capacity, with voice traffic, which uses far less. The system that is finally built will require mountains of capital to transform the existing phone network into a high-capacity phone network of systems that pump signals digitally through fiber-optic transmission lines, which are glass wires. "We've seen figures that it would cost about $250 billion nationwide," says James R. Young, vice president of regulatory and industry relations at Bell Atlantic. Adds Ms. Ahern, "I don't think our plans would have us doing this in less than 20 years and if we do you're talking billions of dollars." Pacific Bell, which spends about $1 billion a year on new network equipment, would see that annual tab jump by two to three times in the first several years of constructing a broadband network, says Michael Bloom, customer premise, broadband applications at the San Francisco-based unit of Pacific Telesis Group. But he notices that as equipment purchases grow and the technology is perfected the annual cost should drop down to current levels after about four years. PacBell, like most other phone companies, already has installed fiber- optic "trunking" lines to carry bulk traffic between its switching centers. It has also begun replacing copper facilities in some neighborhoods, running optical fibers to the pedestal at the curb and then connecting to the regular phone home wires. Someday these lines will carry cable TV, but for now regulation restricts the phone company to voice and data transmission, says Mr. Bloom. Someday this will change, says the FCC, which envisions a service where phone customers would turn on their TVs and find a listing of TV shows, movies, news and other programs, supplied by the phone company and other programmers and accessible via remote control. Several phone companies are already testing such services. In Cerritos, Calif., GTE has built an elaborate network of fiber-optic and coaxial cables lines and advanced switching systems to deliver TV services to several thousand customers. One service, called "Main Street," allows a customer with a remote control to shop via TV, check a bank account and even seek information on colleges in the US. Another service, dubbed "Center Screen," lets 3,900 residential customers call for a movie or a TV show by dialling a special number. A third service lets some customers talk to one another through a videophone in the house. "We've found [from the Cerritos tests] that our customers like full-motion video and not still pictures," which is all that's possible over today's regular phone lines, Mr. Sparrow says. That's because regular conversation travels over phone lines at the rate of 64,000 bits a second. By contract, "reasonable quality" video, such as the kind that appears from a VCR tape, requires transmission capacity of at least 1.3 megabits to 1.5 megabits a second. High quality video will take capacity of 45 megabits to 90 megabits a second, he says. A megabit equals 1 million bits. To save money and get as much capacity out of the existing copper-based systems, Bell Communications Research, the Baby Bell's research arm, has developed "video compression" technology which uses existing copper wire to deliver TV to the home. With video compression, a microprocessor squashes video signals so they can be sent through a regular phone line at the rate of 1.5 megabits a second. The little chip, which is in an electronic box attached to the phone line, looks at an incoming video signal, and filters out the parts of the moving image that are redundant. The chip codes and sends the parts of the signal that are different through the phone line to a receiving box, which decodes and reconstructs the image before projecting it onto the TV screen. The cable companies hope to retaliate by providing phone service through their cable networks. They are funding research to develop switching systems that can pass phone calls from one cable subscriber to another and out to customers using the regular phone system. But the blood between the industries isn't all bad. Ameritech's Indiana Bell subsidiary and Cardinal Communications, an Indiana cable TV operator, are testing a fiber distribution system made by Broadband Technologies Inc, of Raleigh, NC. The system is being used to route video and phone signals over backbone fiber-optic lines and finally through coaxial and twisted pair lines attached to homes in Tipton Lake, a Columbus, Ind. residential development. Bell Atlantic is negotiating with Loudon Cablevision, a cable TV company in Loudon County, Va., to test the transmission of TV signals through phone company lines to 5,000-6,000 homes in The Cascades, a local housing development. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Baby Bells as Big Brother November 2, 1991 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >From The New York Times Two official decisions in October, one liberating and the other frightening, may shape telecommunications -- and America -- for decades. The liberating decision, by the Federal Communications Commission, proposes to allow the seven regional telephone companies to transmit TV programs. If implemented, that proposal for video-by-phone would free families to tell cable operators, if they misbehave, to get lost. The frightening decision, by a federal appeals court, unblocked the same seven "Baby Bell" companies from owning electronic yellow pages, video shopping and other information services. Unless Congress intervenes, this decision will allow the Baby Bells to exploit their monopolistic stranglehold over residential phone lines and dictate what information reaches nearly every home. The same principle ought to govern in both situations: democracy needs diversity. Technological advances have brought the nation to a regulatory crossroad. A single information pipeline -- perhaps fiber-optic cable, perhaps enhanced coaxial or copper wire -- may soon pour an unimaginable array of phone, video and data communications into homes. Whoever controls the pipeline controls access to American minds. The best protection against Big Brother is to separate control of the pipeline from the information. That could be easily enforced by requiring that pipeline owners, like the Baby Bells, serve only as common carriers and lease pipeline space to information providers on a non-discriminatory basis. Common carrier status is what the FCC proposal would achieve for video services but what the appeals court decision would foreclose for information services. Congress seems unwilling to impose common carrier status. But Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., offers a second-best remedy. As long as the Baby Bells retain monopoly control over local phone service, he would allow each to sell information only outside its own region. His bill also offers stringent safeguards against anti-competitive behavior. Yet the bill's provisions aren't as safe as common carrier status. The Baby Bells have frequently violated regulations; rules alone are unlikely to stop them from subsidizing forays into information services with funds extracted from captive rate-payers. Contrary to their claims, the Baby Bells have no special abilities to provide electronic services. If they could sell video shopping for a profit, so could hundreds of other companies -- not one of which has the power to intimidate ratepayers because not one has privileged access to their homes. Nor, as the Baby Bells claim, do they need to produce their own information services in order to fill capacity on fiber-optic cables they might lay. The strongest argument the Baby Bells offer is technological. Only a single company, they contend, will be able to marry pipeline and information. But there's no proof of this speculation and besides, there are better ways to manage the problem. The Cooper bill provides plausible protection against monopolistic Baby Bells, giving them ample room to compete but limited room to exploit. Newspapers, including The New York Times Co., support the bill for competitive commercial reasons. But there is a much more important reason for the public to favor, and Congress to adopt, the Cooper bill: to protect the free, diverse flow of information on which democracy depends. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Don't Baby the Bells November 10, 1991 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >From The New York Times Although the Bell companies are opposed by numerous groups, including the Consumer Federation of America, the cable television industry and existing providers of electronic information services, it is the newspapers that are its biggest opponents. The publishers argue that the telephone companies can compete unfairly by subsidizing their services with money from their regulated telephone businesses and by imposing technical obstacles to competing information suppliers. But one of their biggest fears is simply that the telephone companies could attract a large proportion of the classified advertising, a mainstay for newspapers, by offering cheap and easy-to-use electronic bulletin boards. The newspapers are pushing Congress to adopt a bill introduced by Representative Jim Cooper, Democrat of Tennessee, which would not allow a Bell company to offer information services unless those services are already available to at least 50 percent of the people in the area over an alternative network. As a practical matter, the bill would reinstate the information-service ban for all Bell companies for years, because of the difficulty in building an alternative network that reaches most customers. To defend their position as more than a simple bid to keep out competition, the newspaper association has crafted a blunt advertising campaign around the slogan "Don't Baby the Bells." In one ad, the association warns that the telephone companies could amass as much private information on customers as the Internal Revenue Service. But while many members of Congress are worried about giving new powers to the Bell companies, the Cooper bill has thus far attracted only 24 sponsors, and most experts doubt the bill can muster enough support to pass even the House. Meanwhile, the Bush administration strongly favors lifting the prohibition on information services and would probably move to veto a bill that kept it in place. The upshot is that newspaper publishers are in a difficult position. A stalemate in Congress amounts to a complete victory for the Bell companies, because court decisions have already given them precisely what they want. In Congress, however, aides to leading lawmakers say they are waiting in part to see how much popular and political strength each side can muster. "We want them to show us what they can bring," one staff member said about the publishers. One lobbyist allied with the publishers said opponents of the Bell companies were essentially trying to build up a bargaining position. "You could see this as the beginning of a minuet," he said. "The question is whether they will ever get into the middle of the floor and dance." _______________________________________________________________________________