You haven’t done anything wrong, so why should you worry about surveillance? It was Cardinal Richelieu who said, “If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him.” The United States doesn’t hang innocent people any more, but it certainly does imprison them by the millions, and occasionally does kill them.
Telecommunications
Bush gets surveillance “blank check”
Posted: August 11, 2007 12:17 am
Last weekend the Bush administration pushed through Congress a law to bolster the government’s ability to intercept the electronic communications of foreigners and other “persons reasonably believed to be outside the U.S.” without a court order.
NSA spying program tip of iceberg
Posted: August 2, 2007 12:35 am
In late 2001, President Bush signed an executive order authorizing a controversial National Security Agency program, and on Tuesday, director of national intelligence Mike McConnell revealed that the executive order authorized not only the “terrorist surveillance program” whose existence was revealed in 2005, but a series of other programs as well.
The news just keeps breaking
Posted: July 10, 2007 4:24 pm
Updates to stories previously covered at Homeland Stupidity include spying, spying and more spying.
Mobile devices to change people’s interactions with government
Posted: May 22, 2007 3:20 am
Technology is changing how people interact with government forever, says a prominent homeland security consultant.
FBI audit finds improper use of national security letters
Posted: March 11, 2007 11:53 pm
The Federal Bureau of Investigation repeatedly broke the law in order to obtain personal information about tens of thousands of Americans, much of which was never related to any sort of investigation, according to an inspector general’s report released Friday.
Terrorist surveillance program to require warrants
Posted: January 18, 2007 3:40 am
The Bush administration will stop conducting warrantless surveillance on Americans with suspected ties to terrorism, and will give the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court jurisdiction over the so-called terrorist surveillance program run by the National Security Agency since shortly after 9/11 and first disclosed in December 2005.
The down side to GPS tracking your children
Posted: January 3, 2007 9:41 pm
As you probably aren’t aware, your cell phone can be used to locate you whenever the phone is turned on, even if you aren’t on a call, and even if you think you have the GPS function disabled. The government has long taken advantage of this ability, tracking people even without probable cause.
To make it more palatable, several wireless carriers are now offering this functionality as a service to parents to track their children.
TracFone wants unlocking phones to be a crime
Posted: December 6, 2006 11:56 pm
TracFone, a wireless phone carrier in the U.S. which offers low-cost prepaid wireless service, does not want people to be able to purchase phones it puts up for sale and use them with other wireless carriers. That’s fine, as far as it goes. But now TracFone is trying to use force against people who want to do this.
Until today, I had an affiliate relationship with TracFone and offered its products for sale. A few minutes ago, I ended that relationship and sent the program manager the following letter:
Bits of homeland stupidity
Posted: December 4, 2006 1:27 am
Updated: December 4, 2006 2:22 am
Some of the news headlines you might have missed over the last week range from the simply inane to the truly frightening.
Privacy Is Dead: Get Over It
Posted: November 27, 2006 12:08 am
Federal agents arrested private investigator Steven Rambam on July 22 on trumped-up charges, just before he was scheduled to give a talk on privacy at the HOPE Number Six conference in New York City, and attendees who had hoped to hear him speak about the intersection of commercial and government databases and the resulting loss of privacy left disappointed, confused and more than a bit fearful.
But on November 16, he returned and gave a three-hour presentation to a standing room only audience at the Stevens Institute in Hoboken, N.J.
Government tries to stop AT&T surveillance lawsuit
Posted: November 9, 2006 1:02 pm
Updated: November 9, 2006 1:28 pm
A federal appeals court on Wednesday agreed to hear arguments from the government as to why a lawsuit against AT&T for its alleged cooperation in a terrorist surveillance program should be dismissed due to state secrets.
NSA surveillance OK pending court appeal
Posted: October 4, 2006 9:52 pm
The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency can continue eavesdropping on Americans’ overseas telephone calls and e-mail messages pending the outcome of the government’s appeal of a district court decision which had ruled the program illegal.
Judge rules NSA surveillance program illegal
Posted: August 17, 2006 4:38 pm
A federal court judge ruled Thursday that a National Security Agency surveillance program conducted since shortly after September 11, 2001, is unconstitutional.
15 government programs we don’t need
Posted: August 16, 2006 9:31 pm
The Government Printing Office on Wednesday published the 2006-2007 U.S. Government Manual, which “provides comprehensive information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches” as well as “information on quasi-official agencies, international organizations in which the United States participates, and boards, commissions, and committees.”
It makes a great indicator as to how the federal government is growing out of control and desperately needs to be scaled back.
Homeland Security censors government secrecy watchdog
Posted: August 15, 2006 8:24 pm
The Federation of American Scientists removed an unclassified report on anti-missile technology from its Web site after receiving a letter from the Department of Homeland Security warning of “further appropriate actions” if the report was not removed.
How safe do you want to be?
Posted: August 11, 2006 1:06 am
Because of the reaction of the American people to heightened security at U.S. and other airports in response to the United Kingdom’s Thursday announcement that it had broken up a terrorist plot to blow up planes en route from the U.K. to the U.S., the Homeland Stupidity threat level has been raised to HIGH (orange).
NSA needs more electricity to spy on you
Posted: August 8, 2006 6:02 pm
The National Security Agency is running out of power at its Fort Meade, Md., complex, causing it to delay installation of new computer equipment and implement power conservation measures.
Carnival of Liberty LVI
Posted: August 1, 2006 10:20 am
Welcome to the 56th Carnival of Liberty, celebrating the principles of Life, Liberty and Property, a weekly whirlwind tour of the blogosphere’s best writings on these principles.
Surveillance bill would reduce court oversight
Posted: July 28, 2006 7:27 pm
“President Bush’s electronic surveillance program has been a festering sore on our body politic since it was publicly disclosed last December,” wrote Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). His solution? Sweep the whole mess under the rug of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and out of the public eye.
Free software, the hacker community, and libertarianism?
Posted: July 21, 2006 5:53 pm
Updated: July 30, 2006 6:05 pm
Richard Stallman launched the GNU Project in 1984 to create an operating system and utilities and make it possible for people to use computers in freedom, that is, free from the power and control proprietary software vendors exert over their users.
Stallman spoke Friday at the Hackers On Planet Earth conference in New York City on free software and the hacker community, explaining how free software arose from hacking and how computer users benefit from hackers hacking free software. He also surprised many in the audience with a number of distinctly libertarian statements.
Connecticut emergency warning sent in error
Posted: July 13, 2006 12:14 pm
“A civil authority has issued a civil emergency message for the following counties/areas: Fairfield CT, Nassau NY, Suffolk NY, Suffolk NY, New Haven CT, Middlesex CT, New London CT, Suffolk NY, Suffolk NY, Fairfield CT, New Haven CT, Middlesex CT, and New London CT at 8:45 AM on Jul 12, 2006 effective until 2:45 PM.”
This is your federal government’s Emergency Alert System in action.
Homeland Security emergency alerts for cell phones — but not yours
Posted: July 12, 2006 6:49 pm
The Department of Homeland Security is revamping a little-used, decades-old system for alerting the public to emergencies so that it can push alerts to Web sites, e-mail boxes and wireless phones, and customize alerts based on location, assuming anything other than “This is a test” gets sent at all.
Chinese hackers hit State Department
Posted: July 12, 2006 2:08 pm
The U.S. State Department said Tuesday that hackers from China and other areas of Southeast Asia broke into the department’s computer network in June and stole files, resulting in the department shutting off Internet connectivity for several days.
FBI proposes new Internet wiretap requirements
Posted: July 10, 2006 1:43 pm
Updated: July 10, 2006 4:38 pm
The Federal Bureau of Investigation wants to expand wiretapping law to cover your Internet connection and force ISPs and other providers to build in back door wiretapping capability into their networks.
Hackers hit Pentagon; NSA struggles to keep up
Posted: July 5, 2006 12:26 pm
Updated: July 5, 2006 1:53 pm
A National Security Agency program to provide advanced cryptography for use by the Department of Defense and other government agencies, begun in 1999, has been delayed to at least 2012, with most of the substantive security improvements being delayed as far as 2018, according to a Baltimore Sun report Sunday.
BellSouth, Verizon not involved in NSA phone record database
Posted: July 1, 2006 8:55 am
Updated: July 1, 2006 9:32 pm
While the National Security Agency has collected a massive database of domestic telephone calls, BellSouth and Verizon do not appear to have participated in the program, according to a new USA TODAY report Friday.
Who restarts the Internet after a cyber Katrina?
Posted: June 28, 2006 1:10 pm
The Department of Homeland Security can barely protect its own computer systems from outside attack. Yet a group of business leaders wants to turn over their responsibility for coordinating with each other after a catastrophic disaster affecting the Internet to the department.
Is this line secure?
Posted: June 17, 2006 8:33 am
The biggest problem with homeland security as it’s been presented to us is this: How do you know you’re secure if you can’t even provide a coherent definition for the word?
That’s the question that comes to mind as I consider several so-called secure phone lines run by the Department of Homeland Security.
Cryptanalysis of phone numbers stations
Posted: June 16, 2006 7:28 am
Over the past month or so, a person or persons unknown have posted three messages on the popular Craigslist web site with telephone numbers which, when called, played automated recordings of long strings of numbers reminiscent of numbers stations which had been heard on shortwave radio for decades.
Many amateur cryptanalysts have tried their hand at cracking the code in these messages, and since they seem to be stumbling all over each other and missing things, I’m going to try to gather what I think is the best available information here.
AT&T disaster recovery awes Homeland Security
Posted: June 12, 2006 3:12 am
To a government employee, for whom efficiency is something one hears about but is rarely able to achieve, the efficiency which the market can provide can seem like magic: mysterious and forever out of reach.
So it was on June 7, as 24 AT&T Network Disaster Recovery trailers rolled in to the parking lot at FedExField, normally the home of the Washington Redskins, and began setting up for a disaster recovery exercise, George Foresman, undersecretary for preparedness at the Department of Homeland Security stared slack-jawed and commented that government needs “to really begin to understand how these [communications] networks — that were like magic — work.”
D.C. Court of Appeals rules VoIP subject to wiretap law
Posted: June 11, 2006 12:15 pm
The District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 Friday in favor of upholding a Federal Communications Commission policy that treats interconnected VoIP providers and broadband Internet service providers the same as traditional POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) providers with regards to government wiretaps.
Third phone numbers station: 678-248-2352
Posted: June 10, 2006 3:44 pm
For those of you following the mystery of two phone numbers stations found from postings on Craigslist, I have interesting news: A third posting, and a third message, have appeared.
Not your father’s Internet
Posted: June 5, 2006 5:34 pm
Updated: June 5, 2006 6:41 pm
The Internet has come a long, long way since the early days, when it was closed to the public, just sending an image through e-mail required the use of several command-line utilities, and there was no such thing as the World Wide Web. Those of us who were online anytime from the start through the early 1990s look back nostalgically on an Internet which had no spam and relatively few idiots, but had no web either.
Some people want that Internet back. Strangely, one of them seems to be Vint Cerf, the so-called “father of the Internet.”
Another phone numbers station: 415-704-0402
Posted: June 1, 2006 12:55 pm
Yesterday I reported on what appeared to be a numbers station which, instead of being on shortwave radio, was located on an ordinary telephone line. These shortwave numbers stations, should you tune one in on the radio, read endless strings of numbers or letters, frequently in foreign languages. Most people believe that they are coded messages, but it’s not always clear for whom they’re intended. That’s certainly the case with the odd telephone numbers stations. Now there’s a second one.
The 212-796-0735 mystery
Posted: May 31, 2006 4:18 am
Updated: May 31, 2006 1:39 pm
Back in the days of the Cold War, spies found ingenious and unusual ways to communicate with each other, hiding their communications in plain sight, whether encrypted or not. For instance, an intelligence agency case officer might contact one of his agents (spies) by placing an ad in the personals section of the local newspaper. This practice, it seems, continues today.
U.S. uses state secrets privilege in two more NSA lawsuits
Posted: May 28, 2006 11:51 am
The United States filed papers Friday in two federal lawsuits filed over the National Security Agency terrorist surveillance program, invoking the state secrets privilege to have the lawsuits dismissed.
NSA collected pre-9/11 phone calls for analysis
Posted: May 25, 2006 4:41 am
If you received a phone call from the Middle East and, when done, proceeded to make telephone calls to other people within the U.S., you just might be a terrorist, according to a report on the National Security Agency’s telephone record collection program.
The news just keeps breaking
Posted: May 20, 2006 4:31 am
Updating stories previously covered at Homeland Stupidity in computer security, worker identification, and smoking bans.
BellSouth asks USA TODAY for retraction of NSA story
Posted: May 19, 2006 9:34 am
On Thursday, BellSouth sent a letter to USA TODAY asking the newspaper to “retract the false and unsubstantiated statements” that it printed May 11 regarding the company’s alleged cooperation in a National Security Agency program to collect telephone call detail records of ordinary Americans.
How telephone call detail record collection works
Posted: May 17, 2006 9:34 am
Updated: May 17, 2006 6:43 pm
Last Thursday, USA TODAY published a story saying that AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth have been providing customer telephone call detail records to the National Security Agency, an allegation which BellSouth and Verizon have vigorously denied. Verizon even went so far as to say that it does not record local telephone calls, a claim I personally know to be false.
This is how telephone companies record the details of your calls, including local calls. In this case study, I use BellSouth as an example, though I have verified that AT&T, Verizon and Qwest record calls in a substantially similar manner (though Qwest does not seem to record unmetered local calls). Where there are significant differences, I note them.
Verizon: We didn’t do it
Posted: May 17, 2006 7:03 am
Updated: May 17, 2006 10:03 am
On Tuesday, Verizon issued a second statement to news media regarding its alleged role in a National Security Agency program to collect telephone call detail records for most Americans. Verizon denies turning over any call records to the NSA.
Collected intel on the NSA collecting call records
Posted: May 17, 2006 6:25 am
Much has been written over the past week about last Thursday’s USA TODAY story about the National Security Agency collecting call detail records from AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon for all of their customers, allegations that BellSouth and Verizon have denied. I’ve collected some of the best news updates and analysis from the last week:
BellSouth denies giving NSA phone call records
Posted: May 16, 2006 3:01 am
On Monday, BellSouth issued a statement denying that it passed bulk phone records of its customers to the National Security Agency, joining Verizon, which issued a denial Friday. AT&T has yet to issue a denial of the allegations.
FBI tracking reporters’ phone calls
Posted: May 16, 2006 1:32 am
A disturbing report from ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross says that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is collecting the telephone records of ABC News reporters, as well as reporters from the New York Times and Washington Post, in order to root out their confidential sources.
Verizon sued over NSA phone record data mining
Posted: May 13, 2006 10:21 am
Updated: May 14, 2006 2:50 am
When the National Security Agency approached the largest telecommunications carriers in the U.S. for their assistance in compiling a database of every call ever made, most of them readily cooperated. Qwest, however, reportedly told the NSA to go pound sand, noting that the company would face legal liability if the scheme ever became known. Indeed, the program was revealed Thursday, and the first complaints were filed Friday.
Please spy on us, say Americans
Posted: May 12, 2006 2:42 pm
“As a Signals Intelligence officer it is continually drilled into us that the very first law chiseled in the SIGINT equivalent of the Ten Commandments is that thou shall not spy on American persons without a court order from FISA,” said former National Security Agency employee Russell Tice. “The very people that lead the National Security Agency have violated this holy edict of SIGINT.”
“It’s drilled into you from minute one that you should not ever, ever, ever, under any fucking circumstances turn this massive apparatus on an American citizen,” another member of the intelligence community said. “You do a lot of weird shit. But at least you don’t fuck with your own people.”
It seems that the rules have changed.
The NSA can see your phone records, but you can’t
Posted: May 12, 2006 12:52 am
One of the best-kept secrets in the American telecommunications industry was revealed in USA TODAY on Thursday and then splashed across the front page of virtually every newspaper in America Friday. But unless you paid close attention, you might easily miss the secret. The secret is something I first got an inkling of in 2004 while working for a large telecommunications company, though at the time I didn’t know what it meant or what all the implications were.
NSA collects call records for most Americans
Posted: May 11, 2006 4:41 am
The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting call traffic data for most telephones in the United States, without warrants, since shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to reports published Thursday.
U.S. asserts state secrets privilege in AT&T lawsuit
Posted: April 29, 2006 2:52 pm
Updated: May 1, 2006 12:09 am
The U.S. government will use the state secrets privilege to interrupt a class-action lawsuit brought against AT&T by the Electronic Frontier Foundation alleging that the company illegally cooperated with the National Security Agency in implementing President George W. Bush’s terrorist surveillance program.
AT&T cooperated with NSA surveillance
Posted: April 9, 2006 11:34 pm
AT&T installed specialized surveillance equipment in its digital switching centers to allow the National Security Agency to conduct surveillance on telephone calls and Internet traffic, according to a former AT&T employee.
Don’t save the wildlife
Posted: February 22, 2006 4:01 pm
Updated: February 23, 2006 4:09 pm
If you’re a small wild animal in West Virginia, your life is in danger. From the government.
ADVISE: Now everyone can be a terrorist, or a crime victim
Posted: February 10, 2006 12:34 pm
Updated: February 10, 2006 1:20 pm
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is developing a vast data-mining system which would crawl the Internet and combine data from the Internet with other sources of information to look for potential terrorists.
Known as Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE), the system would use data-mining and semantic visualization techniques to look for suspicious activity, especially with respect to weapons of mass destruction.
Congress to receive briefings on NSA surveillance
Posted: February 8, 2006 9:18 pm
The Washington Post is reporting that the White House agreed to give more detailed briefings to Congress on the National Security Agency’s “terrorist surveillance program” after members of Congress, among them several Republicans, called for a full Congressional inquiry.
NSA likely had help with fiber-optic wiretaps
Posted: February 8, 2006 8:41 pm
Updated: February 9, 2006 6:48 pm
Virtually all the world’s long haul communications now travel over fiber-optic lines, which are extremely difficult to tap. So just how does the National Security Agency do its job of intercepting electronic communications, when they are, for the most part, no longer easily captured from traditional radio, satellite and microwave sources?
Specter: NSA program violates law
Posted: February 5, 2006 6:19 pm
Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said Sunday that he believes the so-called terrorist surveillance program conducted by the National Security Agency under authorization from President George W. Bush is illegal. Specter, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will begin holding hearings on the program Monday.
Hayden: NSA still not spying on Americans
Posted: January 26, 2006 11:16 am
Gen. Michael Hayden, Deputy Director of National Intelligence, spoke Monday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and for those who follow the intelligence community closely, the speech was eye-opening. In addition to defending President George W. Bush’s “terrorist surveillance program,” Hayden confirmed and denied several details of NSA’s operations which had previously been a matter of wild speculation among such groups as conspiracy theorists.
Is it legal or not?
Posted: January 20, 2006 5:25 pm
That’s currently the central question surrounding the revelation a month ago that the National Security Agency is conducting signals intelligence operations on Americans on U.S. soil. The program, which the Bush administration describes as targeting suspected terrorists and their allies, has been running since 2002, according to the New York Times.
The Department of Justice has released its own legal analysis of the program and asserts that the program does indeed fall within the law and provide appropriate protection of civil liberties.
FBI officials: NSA tips led nowhere
Posted: January 17, 2006 3:24 pm
Shortly after September 11, 2001, the National Security Agency began sending intelligence data on people suspected of ties to terrorist groups to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We now know that that data came from a controversial surveillance program in which people in the U.S. were placed under surveillance. What is new is that virtually all of this data is junk.
Shocker! Terrorists use prepaid cell phones
Posted: January 15, 2006 7:54 am
Updated: June 26, 2006 8:37 am
Someone find me a good conservative blog where people are actually sensible and have more than half a clue what they’re talking about when it comes to security, especially national security, and don’t go off on hysterical rants every other post. I’ve searched and searched and come up empty. It would seem that the conservatives who know what they’re talking about in this field don’t publish on the Internet.
Despite finding myself agreeing with her much of the time, it’s the times when Michelle Malkin posts something stupid that really get me, because they turn out to be really stupid.
Case in point:
NSA lives on the network
Posted: January 15, 2006 1:27 am
A recently declassified National Security Agency document from early 2001 states that the “worldwide proliferation of strong encryption” and the “explosion of global telecommunications” networks threaten NSA’s core mission of signals intelligence collection.
Go to jail for being annoying online
Posted: January 9, 2006 9:31 am
Updated: June 26, 2006 8:44 am
Well, it looks like George W. Bush has done it again. On Thursday, Bush demonstrated once again that he has no respect for the Constitution by signing into law H.R. 3402, the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005.
NSA shared domestic intercepts with other agencies
Posted: January 1, 2006 12:00 am
Happy New Year!
The National Security Agency, authorized by executive order shortly after September 11, 2001, to conduct intelligence activities against Americans on American soil, shared information from those intercepts with other government agencies and the military, who then went on to correlate the data with other databases and conduct operations, according to sources familiar with the operations.
Your briefing on NSA domestic surveillance
Posted: December 21, 2005 2:10 pm
Holy crap, where to start? The revelation Friday that President George W. Bush authorized the National Security Agency to monitor telephone calls originating or terminating in the U.S. with “clear links to al-Qaeda” or other terrorist organizations has sparked so much commentary, outrage, and happenings, that I can barely keep up. Today I’ll try to bring you the highlights.
New Orleans vs. BellSouth
Posted: December 5, 2005 1:51 pm
Updated: December 15, 2005 7:06 pm
This story is getting way too much attention for how completely stupid it is. I wasn’t even going to comment on it, but after seeing it all over the net, I think at this point I have to say something.
The story goes like this:
Study: Law enforcement wiretaps easy to evade
Posted: November 30, 2005 5:53 pm
A study published in the November/December 2005 issue of IEEE Security and Privacy shows that many wiretapping systems used by law enforcement agencies are vulnerable to countermeasures that may be employed by the target of the wiretap.
The news just keeps breaking
Posted: November 10, 2005 1:17 pm
Here’s another set of updates on stories previously covered under Homeland Stupidity. Not only stupid, we’ve got shocking surveillance, political posturing, and some really bad advice.
Military radios give generals the jitters
Posted: November 8, 2005 12:40 pm
Updated: November 9, 2005 2:01 pm
The Defense Department’s $6.8 billion Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS, pronounced jitters) is in serious trouble. Mainly because it doesn’t work.
Homeland stupidity updates
Posted: October 26, 2005 9:54 am
Updated: June 26, 2006 8:17 am
In what will probably be the first of many, this short article keeps you up to date on happenings from previous homeland stupidity postings.
All Writs Act: Writs of surveillance or writs of assistance?
Posted: October 15, 2005 7:11 am
Something really interesting has come out of the USA v. Pen Register case. It turns out the government has admitted for the first time using the All Writs Act to conduct real-time surveillance on people.
FBI to control what software you can run?
Posted: September 30, 2005 10:35 am
Updated: September 30, 2005 11:17 am
In an obscure policy decision published last Friday, the FCC decided that the FBI would have veto power over what software Americans can run on their computers.
Law enforcement to track everyone via every method without oversight
Posted: September 28, 2005 4:52 pm
Updated: September 29, 2005 12:43 pm
Over at Phone Watch are two stories of interest to my readers regarding VoIP wiretapping and tracking cell phone users via GPS.
FCC expands wiretapping to VoIP
Posted: August 6, 2005 11:29 pm
The Federal Communications Commission ruled Friday that providers of interconnected VoIP services must provide wiretapping capabilities for law enforcement, citing its authority under the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act.
MCI Premier Customer Disservice
Posted: July 30, 2005 11:38 pm
Updated: July 30, 2005 11:59 pm
In February 2005 MCI Mass Markets started a project called Premier Customer Service, to provide specialized customer service representatives to targeted segments of its residential customer base. The project is a failure.
New York City cuts off cell phone service in Holland, Lincoln, Midtown and Battery tunnels
Posted: July 11, 2005 11:10 pm
Updated: July 12, 2005 6:52 am
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has interrupted cellular phone service in the Holland and Midtown Tunnels indefinitely. The Metropolitan Transit Authority today restored cellular phone service to the Midtown and Battery Tunnels.
Spanish-American War tax on telephone service continues today
Posted: July 2, 2005 12:36 pm
Updated: July 27, 2005 12:27 am
In 1898, Congress passed a levy of one cent per telephone call to help raise money for the Spanish-American War. By 1990, the tax had become three percent (3%) of your overall telephone bill.
Watching the VoIP revolution
Posted: June 26, 2005 3:51 pm
Updated: April 19, 2006 8:53 pm
For quite a while now I have been interested in VoIP and the effect it is having and will continue to have on telecommunications and society at large. But I have a little problem keeping up with VoIP news: I have so many newsfeeds in my feed reader now that I can barely keep up [...]
Jamaica phone blockage continues for some
Posted: June 6, 2005 2:44 am
On Saturday I wrote about the Jamaica Government establishing a levy on incoming international calls, and blocking several major long distance carriers.
If this is all new news to you, go read the original posting and then come back.
Today I made another round of test calls, and of the affected carriers, only calls made through MCI [...]
Jamaica cuts off incoming overseas calls
Posted: June 4, 2005 2:25 am
Updated: June 9, 2005 12:26 am
Beginning 1 June 2005, Jamaica has begun assessing a tax (er, they call it a levy) on incoming minutes from overseas. To enforce the levy, Jamaica’s Ministry of Commerce, Science and Technology has blocked incoming calls being carried by AT&T, MCI, Sprint, and British Telecom.
The levy is US$0.03 per minute on calls terminating to land [...]
Day 47 with Qwest
Posted: March 19, 2005 8:39 am
Updated: December 5, 2005 5:50 pm
Last night I came home to a DSL connection which kept dropping out and retraining, and running very slowly when it would stay connected more than a few seconds, and a phone line full of static. Since it rained last night, I figured this probably had something to do with it. So I call up Qwest, and they tell me they’ll send someone out today.
Day 3 with Qwest
Posted: February 3, 2005 12:16 pm
Updated: December 5, 2005 5:49 pm
My hot new DSL connection from Qwest.net has now officially exceeded my expectations. I consistently get the full available bandwidth both ways at any time of day or night, and I can run gnutella again without taking a performance hit on other connections — gnutella even runs more smoothly and can handle more open connections! So does BitTorrent. And so does this Web server. Overall you can rate me quite impressed.
Day 2 with Qwest
Posted: February 2, 2005 12:49 pm
Updated: December 5, 2005 5:46 pm
And now it’s time to tell you a story of an ISP gone terribly wrong. I signed up for DSL through a local company, Iowa Network Services, about seven months ago. Out of the ISPs available, this appeared to be the least expensive one which would provide me with static IP addresses and not mind too much if I hosted my own services. The circuit, of course, was provided by Qwest, the local telephone company.
Day 1 with Qwest
Posted: February 1, 2005 12:36 pm
Updated: December 5, 2005 5:48 pm
As you’ve probably noticed, we have been down for just about a week. I decided, because of problems with my previous ISP which they were unable or unwilling to resolve, to change Internet services. Well, at the time I did this last Tuesday, the previous ISP decided to have a nice big network outage. And then, when they got their network back up and running, failed to get me back up and running. And their tech support was utterly useless… I’ll say more on them later.
