I run a telephone network in Canada, and I have somewhat of a Crude "ACL" for a system-wide blocklist. I have been using it for years, and it's pretty effective though not very efficient to manage.
I monitor incoming trunks and alarm on spikes. When I get a spike from a robodialer, I look up the number online to see if it's listed as a scam or generic robo call. If it is, I simply add it to my "ACL," and all further calls coming into my system are rejected with a short message. The message states that if they would like to phone anyone on our system they need to first call our main business office (the only number they are allowed to dial) and explain who they are.
I have a large list of obviously fake numbers that I reject (all zeros, 01234567890, 1111111111, etc )
Occasionally I will have a collection agency that phones in and complains that they are a valid business, and that they should be let through (using a number such as 1-000-000-0000. I explain that there is no valid reason why they would need to spoof their number, and that they should dial as PRIVATE or BLOCKED if they want to proceed. I simply do not allow them to phone in.
I'm not totally sure on the legalities of this, but customers love it, and I enjoy the satisfaction of blocking a tonne of calls. I have no way of dealing with companies that spoof local numbers, but I can at least block all of my exchanges as they would never be coming back in over the same trunk group as these robo dialers anyway.
This is one of those projects that I have slowly tweaked over time, but I am considering writing scripts that will go out and crawl those common telephone complain sites to build a list on the fly every week and add those numbers to my 'ACL.' It would be nice if there was an up-to-date 'spamhaus' equivalent for phone numbers.
I work for a telco, and this is our solution to the whole payphone and related maintenance cost situation:
Make the payphones *free*
Maintenance costs stemmed from people bashing the phones, sticking crap in the coin slots, tugging on the handset, taking the speakers out, etc.
We welded the coin slots shut, and made the phones entirely free (local calls obviously). There is no credit card slot, no intelligence. You need to use a calling card, or call collect if you want to make a long distance call.
It is just a steel case that makes free local calls. In years passed, we may go out and get a bunch of quarters from the phone, but then spend a couple of hours repairing it. We made virtually nothing. Now we make nothing, but we spend nothing. People are happy, we haven't had to go and fix or repair a phone since we made them free. People stopped wrecking them.
"Does you company do visual voicemail? Can I look at my voicemail queue on the web, and identify the callers.."
Yes.
"cross index with my address book or contact software? Does your Telco offer APIs to developers who want to tie in your service with other apps and services?"
No.
What I'm saying is that most of the technology already exists for this type of system, for far less than buying a company. Everything I listed in my previous post cost less than $400k in total, and that's including the switch to a whole heap of other things that aren't related to voicemail.
I'm not sure I understand this acquisition. I work for a small Telco, and we have been able to provide these services for a couple of years now.
We can make all your phones ring, or just one, or in a certain order. We can selectively block calls, or block anonymous calls, etc. This can be configured through the web, or through 'star codes' on your phone. Any number, or hop, can be redirected to your own voice mail, or certain numbers can go to their own voice mail. The voice mail system emails you your messages, and you can delete them via email, or through your phone.
What's so special about Grand Central? Why didn't Google just start their own service - all the tools are readily available to do this. Was it just to 'buy' the customers?
I put all my tax information (T4 slips, receipts, invoices, etc) into a big brown envelope and send it to the government. I let them do my taxes for me. I remembered reading somewhere years ago that the government couldn't force you to do your own taxes. It was then that I decided to let them do mine for me, and not pay someone, or bug someone else to do them for me. Also, I couldn't care less about following the tax changes each year.
This is why humans can never truly communicate. When two people have a conversation, and one person is explaining how they feel, or their opinion of something, all they can do is try as best they can to get the other person to feel, think, understand the same as they do. The other person may say they understand, or quote counter examples to try and further narrow down the subject until they both feel that they are in agreement, but they never truly *know.* They may think they have agreed on some point, but they don't - or maybe they do. The one person may think they have had the same experience as the other, but they can't be sure. They can convince themselves that they are sure (by the method I mentioned above, or others), but they will never know. All of life is like this.
On the level of your post above, yes I see people self-defining things, or not fully understanding a definition of something, yet using that definition to define whatever it is they are defining. This leads to others also 'understanding' the 'wrong' definition, until there ends up being many definitions for the same thing, or many things for a single definition.
This all relates to the above anyway. Even if everyone used a dictionary, and that dictionary had the globally accepted definitions for all things, one person would still not truly understand another person on the level of language. All definitions lead back to other words, which in turn are defined by other words, etc. Word end up just being perspectives in the end. If your perspective of something is somewhat shifted in comparison to another person's perspective, then you can fully agree, on the level of language, with another person, but not be in actual agreement - only perceived agreement.
If you guys were playing D&D that long back then, then I would have to say you guys-at least somewhat-lost touch of the reality around you.
The reality around them at the time was D&D, so they obviously weren't out of touch.
People have this idea that there is one reality, and all things have to jive with that reality. In actuality, everyone has their own version of reality.
I agree that people need to eat, drink, sleep, and defecate, but that is where our common reality ends. "To each their own" is a powerful statement, and one that isn't understood by the masses. There is nothing wrong with playing WoW 15 hours a day. If you can pull off the "common reality" that I mentioned above, and ALL your other time is dedicated to WoW, then that is fine. Yes, you won't be aware of current events, and worldy things, but those aren't your realities. Those are the realities of the people that are partaking in them.
Sorry, I'm at work, so I don't have time to elaborate, but you can do that on your own - however you wish to.
I don't mean any offense to you personally, but I would say that almost every (or every) soldier is "dumb."
Of course, in your reality, what your doing is not dumb, and so it isn't.
In my reality, what you are doing is very dumb, and so it is.
Any person who follows some government interest by invading other people (who are just like you - they have their own realities, and you have yours), and forcing their reality on others is either dumb (if they can't see the true reason that they are there), or evil (if they fully understand why they are there). Again, this is all my opinion - the only thing that counts for me.
So again, no offense to you personally - I just don't agree with your profession (or former profession), and would prefer that your job didn't exist.
Exactly, and if he was saying "everyone," he would be partially correct. For the "people" (the few and powerful) to do what they did, an awful lot of other "people" had to stand aside and let them do it.
I spend at least 8 hours a day in a loud-ass server room. It has phone switches, as well as servers, so it's quite loud. My solution is to crank up the stereo.
Works pretty well, though people walking by outside can hear it better than I can when I'm on the far side of the room.
What we need is more user education. We need people to actually take responsibilities for their actions. All of us sysadmin/netadmin folk that are running around with our heads cut off trying to patch mail servers, buy more hardware for more scanning, yada yada, are not helping the problem. Yes, we are curbing spam a little. As spam increases, we will add more hardware, and more "intelligent" processes of dealing with it, but the problem won't go away. If anything, the general public is starting to realize (slowly) the issues that we actually face when dealing with spam.
When I read this headline about how botnets are responsible for the surge in spam, I almost laughed. Sure they are! They have been for a long time. The spam issue stems from "joe computer user" who has their machine infected, and does nothing to fix it, or doesn't know the problem exists. We need to educate these people. Should we punish them? Maybe. They didn't cause the problem, but they aren't doing anything to fix it either. Should we take away peoples "email rights" for a month if they are caught with a virus that is sending out junk mail? Should they lose internet access entirely for a period of time? I don't know. Would they still want to be a customer of yours? Would the ISP next door treat them the same way?
This siutation requires ISPs and Corporations to communicate with eachother. We all need to share best practises, and enforce decent network policy. I monitor email output on my network regularly. I sniff for virus signatures, etc. Alas, I am on a shared network where ses the other customers thaveral ISPs use the same mail servers. We get listed on blacklists because, unfortunately, the other ISPs do not enforce the same practises that we do.
I agree that secure communication from user --> server and server --> remote server needs to be in place, not just for spam protection, but for privacy issues. Perhaps there needs to be server registrations like the telephone system. Can we model email like the voice system today? Every server gets their unique ID handed to them from some organization (like ARIN, or ICANN) that you need to prove your worthiness to? I don't know.
If we all had IDs, and there was a distributed database of IDs, then we could verify that a sending mail server is legit, and we can therefore accept traffic. That's fine, but users are still not under control (I hate promoting control:)). We can fix the problem of open relays, and servers set up specifically to spam, but we can't seem to curb the ignorance of "joe computer user."
Should ISPs take a more active role in specifying limitations and requirements for being a customer? Perhaps. Should we force every user to have a client/server relationship with security scanners on the ISP side? These could be looking for vulnerabilities every time a user connects to the network. Traffic can be monitored for signs of "trouble," and the user can be notified, or the problem resolved automatically.
Do I like how a lot of this sounds? No. It sounds like a government trying to control the general population by limiting their freedoms because its 'good for them.'
Should we just give in and have 2 systems of email communication? One that is limited, regulated, controlled, and one that is our current 'anything goes, your on your own' system? I'm not sure.
I do believe that general education of exactly what the issues are, and how users are contributing to the problem would be beneficial. I don't want to play the 'Evil ISP Admin' that is punishing my users because of what I deem to be bad behavior, and I don't think many of you do either, but honestly, what are we supposed to do about the personal resposibility of the users?
This was accurate a couple of years ago, but perhaps not today.
They have Motorola Canopy radios stuck on the CN tower facing the waterfront. At the watrfront, I don't know whether they sell you Subscriber Units for access, or whether they have one set up, and then plug that into a wireless router to provide access for the marina. I know the marina had wireless access at one point though...
Toronto Hydro has a LOT of experience doing this. Not necessarily with Wireless Access, but that's not exactly the most difficult thing to figure out. Toronto Hydro has a HUGE data network, and many smart people taking care of it. I know because I've met with several of them, and discussed their network design/implementation.
I do agree that they should be repaying their debt, and hopefully they will when classy business folk from out of town show up and are willing to pay whatever it takes to have WiFi access.
I wonder if a particular username can only be logged in on one device at a time?
Yes, I imagine that is the case. These guys would be ridiculous not to have something like that set up. This is how I have my hotspots configured.
What I am wondering is what is the protection mechanism against running a script that sends mad txt messages out to random phones (by trying to sign up new accounts repeatedly). I wonder if Toronto Hydro would be getting a large bill for 10,000 txt messages sent out every 30 minutes.
I don't know of anything that is representative of all of Canada. Do you?
I also don't know why you think I am speaking for all of Canada, or even how I could speak for all of Canada if that was my intention.
And why would I call you if I was trying to speak about something representative of all of anywhere? Do you wish to be notified if I decide to speak up about something?
Thanks for the reply, but I'm not sure I understand it. I mean, I think your just being a nob, but I'll need you to clarify.
That's true, but that one thief needs to decide to steal *my* (insert possesion here), as opposed to the many other things around me that are left open and unlocked.
There is a real community feeling where I live. On the 30min drive to work every day, I probably wave to 5 or 6 people that I know (passing on the hwy). People know that my Jeep is mine. If they see it, they know who's it is. If someone was poking around it, I am fairly certain that someone would be paying attention to that person. If people saw it and some random person was driving it, I would probably get a phone call.
I enjoy the freedom that I feel here.
Don't get me wrong, I have had vehicles broken into before (in Toronto), but that hasn't made me worry about it whatsoever.
Yeah I agree with you, though I seemed to have had a bit of a snotty attitude at the beginning of my post.
I still think that rural service can be profitable (or they wouldn't have phone service). Yes, its a loss at the beginning. Yes, it may take years to recover. In the long term, they will break even, and eventually make a profit. As they phase out ADSL (for ADSL2+) in the cities, they could be moving out more ports to rural areas.
The main point of my post was just to say that there's not enough "heart" in the communications industry, and that's really to bad. It shouldn't just be about the business. I can see that with selling , but not with communications. Communications allow people to have better education, more creativity, explore more interests and desires, etc. It sucks when companies just decide to exclude a huge portion of the population.
I am in a rual area.. I'm sitting in a CO (Central Office) in a town that has maybe 850 people. I provide SIP, MGCP, ADSL/ADSL2+, soon Video, etc. We have a Metaswitch (http://www.metaswitch.com), and we use Occam gear (http://www.occamnetworks.com). We have fiber that links a bunch of local towns around here, and everywhere in between we stick little remote terminals to feed people with highspeed internet access. I can get 27mb DSL service here. My buddy that is 6km outside of town.. literally by himself on a farm, can get 7.6Mbps down.
You see, the problem in the USA is not that you have too much land, or any other excuse that you want to make up (do you guys all work for Verizon, or AT&T or something?). The problem is that your country is mainly run by a handful of LARGE CORPORATIONS that control the telco networks. They don't give a shit about rural customers because they can just concentrate on the cities. We have that same issue here in Ontario, Canada.
I work for an independent telco. We are a co-operative, so I guess I'm not comparing apples to apples. Whenever I see an area that does not have access to highspeed services, it is almost always run by BELL CANADA. Bell is the major telco for this province. They bring DSL into a small rural town, but kill it at the edge of town, so people may only be 3km from the office, but they cannot get service - this is due to load coils. Bell could replace these coils, but it costs money. Not too much money to be profitable, but too much money to care about.
When companies grow to the size of Bell Canada, everyone suffers - except the people in large areas. I challenge anyone to ask a Bell customer if they have ever run into ridiculously shitty service with Bell Canada - my experience is that 100% of the people I ask can rhyme off a horror story to me right away. The response time is horribly slow, services are expensive, and things break often. Support is a nightmare, every department is horribly unorganized and slow to respond, and there is utter conufsion when any department attempts to communicate with any other department. Orders get lost, or the wrong data gets entered - in short, the whole thing is a nightmare.
This is what I think is wrong with the state of communications in the USA. The telcos simply don't care about you rural folk, and if you had, or have an independent telco, it will was either bought, or will soon be purchased by one of the large telcos. Small town customer service will be replaced with one of a handful of national offices where you can't actually go and make a complaint. You will be kept at a distance so they can provide you with shoddy service, and not see your face in their office. People have different needs in different areas, but you won't get that service any more. They will strip down their services into bundles, which you either take, or pay through the nose for individual services. Everything will be a "1-size fits all" mentality. There are no "tailored" services for certain areas anymore.
Any other excuse that you give, in my opinion, is false. This is simply a market that is slowly being amalgamted into a stagnant industry that provides the bare minimum service to you, and nothing more, because you simply can't get service from anyone else.
If this lady wants ESRB to be more comprehensive and more consistent (I don't disagree with her either), then the ESRB is going to have to include a little booklet taped to the side of the box, OR:
The ESRB could have an M-rating, and then give a brief summary of things it *could* contain. They could link to the ESRB website to show things that M-ratings *may* contain. I don't think they necessarily need to break down every little thing that happens in a game. They should just say "This is an M-rated game, it is possible that this game will contain any or all of the following: realistic violence, adult situtations, adult language, etc. For details on this specific game, please visit http://www.thegamemanufacturerswebsite.com./" Make it a rule that a game manufacturer has to state which specific things in their game would trigger an M-rating. I'm not talking about having them say "on level 3, when you go into such-and-such a room, there will be a naked woman." I just want them to list the M-rated "features" of their game, on their website.
If parents want to know the details of a game, they can Google the game, find one of many review sites, and flip through a few pages. They can see screenshots, video clips, full descriptions, storyline, etc.
I also get a kick out of all this security stuff. My house is *never* locked. I don't even think the locks work, but then again, I've never tried them. My Jeep is sitting outside in the driveway of my office right now - the keys are in the ignition. I have no windows in my office - the Jeep could have been stolen 45min ago, but I know it's still there. If its a nice day out, it has no doors or top on, and they keys are still in the ignition. My friends the same way.
If you were a thief, you could come to our house in the middle of the night, and have your pick of 4 vehicles to drive away in, or anything you want in the house.
I dig the fact that we don't have many thieves around here.
I often wonder if the issue is that governments are just too large. Not the government entity itself (though that is part of it), but the sheer size of the area they govern, and the amount of people being governed. I mean, is it realistic to believe that 200 million+ people will ever fully (or close to fully) agree?
I wonder if governments need to be split up. The USA should perhaps have two or three governments, and the people can then move to the areas that they agree with.
I know this idea would probably never fly, and its not necessarily fair, but I think that a lot of countries will never agree, will never be happy, and will always have governments coming into power who blame everything on the previous government, and then proceed to fuck things up even more.
I just don't think that a group of people can effectively manage a country as large as the USA, or even as large and diverse as Canada. The solution is always to grow the government, but we know that never works.
I recommend TC:E, which you can grab here. It is a mod for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, so it's free. The graphics aren't as snazzy as CS:Source, but they are as good as, if not better than, the original CS. The gameplay is where TC:E really shines. IMO, it's far more realistic than CS:Source. TC:E lacks the extra physics, such as shooting a barrel and watching it roll around, but it is a FAR more fun game to play.
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I run a telephone network in Canada, and I have somewhat of a Crude "ACL" for a system-wide blocklist. I have been using it for years, and it's pretty effective though not very efficient to manage.
I monitor incoming trunks and alarm on spikes. When I get a spike from a robodialer, I look up the number online to see if it's listed as a scam or generic robo call. If it is, I simply add it to my "ACL," and all further calls coming into my system are rejected with a short message. The message states that if they would like to phone anyone on our system they need to first call our main business office (the only number they are allowed to dial) and explain who they are.
I have a large list of obviously fake numbers that I reject (all zeros, 01234567890, 1111111111, etc )
Occasionally I will have a collection agency that phones in and complains that they are a valid business, and that they should be let through (using a number such as 1-000-000-0000. I explain that there is no valid reason why they would need to spoof their number, and that they should dial as PRIVATE or BLOCKED if they want to proceed. I simply do not allow them to phone in.
I'm not totally sure on the legalities of this, but customers love it, and I enjoy the satisfaction of blocking a tonne of calls. I have no way of dealing with companies that spoof local numbers, but I can at least block all of my exchanges as they would never be coming back in over the same trunk group as these robo dialers anyway.
This is one of those projects that I have slowly tweaked over time, but I am considering writing scripts that will go out and crawl those common telephone complain sites to build a list on the fly every week and add those numbers to my 'ACL.' It would be nice if there was an up-to-date 'spamhaus' equivalent for phone numbers.
I work for a telco, and this is our solution to the whole payphone and related maintenance cost situation:
Make the payphones *free*
Maintenance costs stemmed from people bashing the phones, sticking crap in the coin slots, tugging on the handset, taking the speakers out, etc.
We welded the coin slots shut, and made the phones entirely free (local calls obviously). There is no credit card slot, no intelligence. You need to use a calling card, or call collect if you want to make a long distance call.
It is just a steel case that makes free local calls. In years passed, we may go out and get a bunch of quarters from the phone, but then spend a couple of hours repairing it. We made virtually nothing. Now we make nothing, but we spend nothing. People are happy, we haven't had to go and fix or repair a phone since we made them free. People stopped wrecking them.
"Does you company do visual voicemail? Can I look at my voicemail queue on the web, and identify the callers.."
Yes.
"cross index with my address book or contact software? Does your Telco offer APIs to developers who want to tie in your service with other apps and services?"
No.
What I'm saying is that most of the technology already exists for this type of system, for far less than buying a company. Everything I listed in my previous post cost less than $400k in total, and that's including the switch to a whole heap of other things that aren't related to voicemail.
I'm not sure I understand this acquisition. I work for a small Telco, and we have been able to provide these services for a couple of years now.
We can make all your phones ring, or just one, or in a certain order. We can selectively block calls, or block anonymous calls, etc. This can be configured through the web, or through 'star codes' on your phone. Any number, or hop, can be redirected to your own voice mail, or certain numbers can go to their own voice mail. The voice mail system emails you your messages, and you can delete them via email, or through your phone.
What's so special about Grand Central? Why didn't Google just start their own service - all the tools are readily available to do this. Was it just to 'buy' the customers?
Note, I am Canadian.
I put all my tax information (T4 slips, receipts, invoices, etc) into a big brown envelope and send it to the government. I let them do my taxes for me. I remembered reading somewhere years ago that the government couldn't force you to do your own taxes. It was then that I decided to let them do mine for me, and not pay someone, or bug someone else to do them for me. Also, I couldn't care less about following the tax changes each year.
Yes, I see this all the time.
This is why humans can never truly communicate. When two people have a conversation, and one person is explaining how they feel, or their opinion of something, all they can do is try as best they can to get the other person to feel, think, understand the same as they do. The other person may say they understand, or quote counter examples to try and further narrow down the subject until they both feel that they are in agreement, but they never truly *know.* They may think they have agreed on some point, but they don't - or maybe they do. The one person may think they have had the same experience as the other, but they can't be sure. They can convince themselves that they are sure (by the method I mentioned above, or others), but they will never know. All of life is like this.
On the level of your post above, yes I see people self-defining things, or not fully understanding a definition of something, yet using that definition to define whatever it is they are defining. This leads to others also 'understanding' the 'wrong' definition, until there ends up being many definitions for the same thing, or many things for a single definition.
This all relates to the above anyway. Even if everyone used a dictionary, and that dictionary had the globally accepted definitions for all things, one person would still not truly understand another person on the level of language. All definitions lead back to other words, which in turn are defined by other words, etc. Word end up just being perspectives in the end. If your perspective of something is somewhat shifted in comparison to another person's perspective, then you can fully agree, on the level of language, with another person, but not be in actual agreement - only perceived agreement.
Or I may be crazy, that's up to you.
You see, you just hit the nail on the head.
If you guys were playing D&D that long back then, then I would have to say you guys-at least somewhat-lost touch of the reality around you.
The reality around them at the time was D&D, so they obviously weren't out of touch.
People have this idea that there is one reality, and all things have to jive with that reality. In actuality, everyone has their own version of reality.
I agree that people need to eat, drink, sleep, and defecate, but that is where our common reality ends. "To each their own" is a powerful statement, and one that isn't understood by the masses. There is nothing wrong with playing WoW 15 hours a day. If you can pull off the "common reality" that I mentioned above, and ALL your other time is dedicated to WoW, then that is fine. Yes, you won't be aware of current events, and worldy things, but those aren't your realities. Those are the realities of the people that are partaking in them.
Sorry, I'm at work, so I don't have time to elaborate, but you can do that on your own - however you wish to.
I don't mean any offense to you personally, but I would say that almost every (or every) soldier is "dumb."
Of course, in your reality, what your doing is not dumb, and so it isn't.
In my reality, what you are doing is very dumb, and so it is.
Any person who follows some government interest by invading other people (who are just like you - they have their own realities, and you have yours), and forcing their reality on others is either dumb (if they can't see the true reason that they are there), or evil (if they fully understand why they are there). Again, this is all my opinion - the only thing that counts for me.
So again, no offense to you personally - I just don't agree with your profession (or former profession), and would prefer that your job didn't exist.
Exactly, and if he was saying "everyone," he would be partially correct. For the "people" (the few and powerful) to do what they did, an awful lot of other "people" had to stand aside and let them do it.
I spend at least 8 hours a day in a loud-ass server room. It has phone switches, as well as servers, so it's quite loud. My solution is to crank up the stereo.
Works pretty well, though people walking by outside can hear it better than I can when I'm on the far side of the room.
I love OpenBSD, and now its time to build a couple of new, shiny pfsync boxes!
Congrats on a great new release!
What we need is more user education. We need people to actually take responsibilities for their actions. All of us sysadmin/netadmin folk that are running around with our heads cut off trying to patch mail servers, buy more hardware for more scanning, yada yada, are not helping the problem. Yes, we are curbing spam a little. As spam increases, we will add more hardware, and more "intelligent" processes of dealing with it, but the problem won't go away. If anything, the general public is starting to realize (slowly) the issues that we actually face when dealing with spam.
:)). We can fix the problem of open relays, and servers set up specifically to spam, but we can't seem to curb the ignorance of "joe computer user."
When I read this headline about how botnets are responsible for the surge in spam, I almost laughed. Sure they are! They have been for a long time. The spam issue stems from "joe computer user" who has their machine infected, and does nothing to fix it, or doesn't know the problem exists. We need to educate these people. Should we punish them? Maybe. They didn't cause the problem, but they aren't doing anything to fix it either. Should we take away peoples "email rights" for a month if they are caught with a virus that is sending out junk mail? Should they lose internet access entirely for a period of time? I don't know. Would they still want to be a customer of yours? Would the ISP next door treat them the same way?
This siutation requires ISPs and Corporations to communicate with eachother. We all need to share best practises, and enforce decent network policy. I monitor email output on my network regularly. I sniff for virus signatures, etc. Alas, I am on a shared network where ses the other customers thaveral ISPs use the same mail servers. We get listed on blacklists because, unfortunately, the other ISPs do not enforce the same practises that we do.
I agree that secure communication from user --> server and server --> remote server needs to be in place, not just for spam protection, but for privacy issues. Perhaps there needs to be server registrations like the telephone system. Can we model email like the voice system today? Every server gets their unique ID handed to them from some organization (like ARIN, or ICANN) that you need to prove your worthiness to? I don't know.
If we all had IDs, and there was a distributed database of IDs, then we could verify that a sending mail server is legit, and we can therefore accept traffic. That's fine, but users are still not under control (I hate promoting control
Should ISPs take a more active role in specifying limitations and requirements for being a customer? Perhaps. Should we force every user to have a client/server relationship with security scanners on the ISP side? These could be looking for vulnerabilities every time a user connects to the network. Traffic can be monitored for signs of "trouble," and the user can be notified, or the problem resolved automatically.
Do I like how a lot of this sounds? No. It sounds like a government trying to control the general population by limiting their freedoms because its 'good for them.'
Should we just give in and have 2 systems of email communication? One that is limited, regulated, controlled, and one that is our current 'anything goes, your on your own' system? I'm not sure.
I do believe that general education of exactly what the issues are, and how users are contributing to the problem would be beneficial. I don't want to play the 'Evil ISP Admin' that is punishing my users because of what I deem to be bad behavior, and I don't think many of you do either, but honestly, what are we supposed to do about the personal resposibility of the users?
Your friend should look up the CEO of said telco, get his/her name, address, date of birth, and switch both phones over to that account.
Heck, switch all your friends over to the CEO account - that should make them pay attention to their large security hole.
This was accurate a couple of years ago, but perhaps not today.
They have Motorola Canopy radios stuck on the CN tower facing the waterfront. At the watrfront, I don't know whether they sell you Subscriber Units for access, or whether they have one set up, and then plug that into a wireless router to provide access for the marina. I know the marina had wireless access at one point though...
Toronto Hydro has a LOT of experience doing this. Not necessarily with Wireless Access, but that's not exactly the most difficult thing to figure out. Toronto Hydro has a HUGE data network, and many smart people taking care of it. I know because I've met with several of them, and discussed their network design/implementation.
I do agree that they should be repaying their debt, and hopefully they will when classy business folk from out of town show up and are willing to pay whatever it takes to have WiFi access.
I wonder if a particular username can only be logged in on one device at a time?
Yes, I imagine that is the case. These guys would be ridiculous not to have something like that set up. This is how I have my hotspots configured.
What I am wondering is what is the protection mechanism against running a script that sends mad txt messages out to random phones (by trying to sign up new accounts repeatedly). I wonder if Toronto Hydro would be getting a large bill for 10,000 txt messages sent out every 30 minutes.
I don't know of anything that is representative of all of Canada. Do you?
I also don't know why you think I am speaking for all of Canada, or even how I could speak for all of Canada if that was my intention.
And why would I call you if I was trying to speak about something representative of all of anywhere? Do you wish to be notified if I decide to speak up about something?
Thanks for the reply, but I'm not sure I understand it. I mean, I think your just being a nob, but I'll need you to clarify.
That's true, but that one thief needs to decide to steal *my* (insert possesion here), as opposed to the many other things around me that are left open and unlocked.
There is a real community feeling where I live. On the 30min drive to work every day, I probably wave to 5 or 6 people that I know (passing on the hwy). People know that my Jeep is mine. If they see it, they know who's it is. If someone was poking around it, I am fairly certain that someone would be paying attention to that person. If people saw it and some random person was driving it, I would probably get a phone call.
I enjoy the freedom that I feel here.
Don't get me wrong, I have had vehicles broken into before (in Toronto), but that hasn't made me worry about it whatsoever.
Yeah I agree with you, though I seemed to have had a bit of a snotty attitude at the beginning of my post.
I still think that rural service can be profitable (or they wouldn't have phone service). Yes, its a loss at the beginning. Yes, it may take years to recover. In the long term, they will break even, and eventually make a profit. As they phase out ADSL (for ADSL2+) in the cities, they could be moving out more ports to rural areas.
The main point of my post was just to say that there's not enough "heart" in the communications industry, and that's really to bad. It shouldn't just be about the business. I can see that with selling , but not with communications. Communications allow people to have better education, more creativity, explore more interests and desires, etc. It sucks when companies just decide to exclude a huge portion of the population.
Sorry for the previous defensive post.
I'll spell it out for you - no, no, and no.
I am in a rual area.. I'm sitting in a CO (Central Office) in a town that has maybe 850 people. I provide SIP, MGCP, ADSL/ADSL2+, soon Video, etc. We have a Metaswitch (http://www.metaswitch.com), and we use Occam gear (http://www.occamnetworks.com). We have fiber that links a bunch of local towns around here, and everywhere in between we stick little remote terminals to feed people with highspeed internet access. I can get 27mb DSL service here. My buddy that is 6km outside of town.. literally by himself on a farm, can get 7.6Mbps down.
You see, the problem in the USA is not that you have too much land, or any other excuse that you want to make up (do you guys all work for Verizon, or AT&T or something?). The problem is that your country is mainly run by a handful of LARGE CORPORATIONS that control the telco networks. They don't give a shit about rural customers because they can just concentrate on the cities. We have that same issue here in Ontario, Canada.
I work for an independent telco. We are a co-operative, so I guess I'm not comparing apples to apples. Whenever I see an area that does not have access to highspeed services, it is almost always run by BELL CANADA. Bell is the major telco for this province. They bring DSL into a small rural town, but kill it at the edge of town, so people may only be 3km from the office, but they cannot get service - this is due to load coils. Bell could replace these coils, but it costs money. Not too much money to be profitable, but too much money to care about.
When companies grow to the size of Bell Canada, everyone suffers - except the people in large areas. I challenge anyone to ask a Bell customer if they have ever run into ridiculously shitty service with Bell Canada - my experience is that 100% of the people I ask can rhyme off a horror story to me right away. The response time is horribly slow, services are expensive, and things break often. Support is a nightmare, every department is horribly unorganized and slow to respond, and there is utter conufsion when any department attempts to communicate with any other department. Orders get lost, or the wrong data gets entered - in short, the whole thing is a nightmare.
This is what I think is wrong with the state of communications in the USA. The telcos simply don't care about you rural folk, and if you had, or have an independent telco, it will was either bought, or will soon be purchased by one of the large telcos. Small town customer service will be replaced with one of a handful of national offices where you can't actually go and make a complaint. You will be kept at a distance so they can provide you with shoddy service, and not see your face in their office. People have different needs in different areas, but you won't get that service any more. They will strip down their services into bundles, which you either take, or pay through the nose for individual services. Everything will be a "1-size fits all" mentality. There are no "tailored" services for certain areas anymore.
Any other excuse that you give, in my opinion, is false. This is simply a market that is slowly being amalgamted into a stagnant industry that provides the bare minimum service to you, and nothing more, because you simply can't get service from anyone else.
I admit it - didn't read the article.
If this lady wants ESRB to be more comprehensive and more consistent (I don't disagree with her either), then the ESRB is going to have to include a little booklet taped to the side of the box, OR:
The ESRB could have an M-rating, and then give a brief summary of things it *could* contain. They could link to the ESRB website to show things that M-ratings *may* contain. I don't think they necessarily need to break down every little thing that happens in a game. They should just say "This is an M-rated game, it is possible that this game will contain any or all of the following: realistic violence, adult situtations, adult language, etc. For details on this specific game, please visit http://www.thegamemanufacturerswebsite.com./" Make it a rule that a game manufacturer has to state which specific things in their game would trigger an M-rating. I'm not talking about having them say "on level 3, when you go into such-and-such a room, there will be a naked woman." I just want them to list the M-rated "features" of their game, on their website.
If parents want to know the details of a game, they can Google the game, find one of many review sites, and flip through a few pages. They can see screenshots, video clips, full descriptions, storyline, etc.
Lol, hello there fellow Canadian!
I also get a kick out of all this security stuff. My house is *never* locked. I don't even think the locks work, but then again, I've never tried them. My Jeep is sitting outside in the driveway of my office right now - the keys are in the ignition. I have no windows in my office - the Jeep could have been stolen 45min ago, but I know it's still there. If its a nice day out, it has no doors or top on, and they keys are still in the ignition. My friends the same way.
If you were a thief, you could come to our house in the middle of the night, and have your pick of 4 vehicles to drive away in, or anything you want in the house.
I dig the fact that we don't have many thieves around here.
I often wonder if the issue is that governments are just too large. Not the government entity itself (though that is part of it), but the sheer size of the area they govern, and the amount of people being governed. I mean, is it realistic to believe that 200 million+ people will ever fully (or close to fully) agree?
I wonder if governments need to be split up. The USA should perhaps have two or three governments, and the people can then move to the areas that they agree with.
I know this idea would probably never fly, and its not necessarily fair, but I think that a lot of countries will never agree, will never be happy, and will always have governments coming into power who blame everything on the previous government, and then proceed to fuck things up even more.
I just don't think that a group of people can effectively manage a country as large as the USA, or even as large and diverse as Canada. The solution is always to grow the government, but we know that never works.
tees. I have two tees worth of data
Exactly.
I recommend TC:E, which you can grab here. It is a mod for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, so it's free. The graphics aren't as snazzy as CS:Source, but they are as good as, if not better than, the original CS. The gameplay is where TC:E really shines. IMO, it's far more realistic than CS:Source. TC:E lacks the extra physics, such as shooting a barrel and watching it roll around, but it is a FAR more fun game to play.