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TELECOM Digest Sat, 23 Apr 2005 17:07:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 180 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #478, April 22, 2005 (John Riddell) Lingo (Primus Telecommunications) Horror Story (Ed) For Sale: CATV Meters for Sale (WV Cable Guy) Brain Waves Used to Operate Computer (Lisa Minter) How We Made Our Own Carnivore (Lisa Minter) MARS Communications (zootwoman@gmail.com) Re: AOL to Block Identity Theft Sites (mc) Re: Getting Serious About the War on Spam (Fred Goldstein) Re: Study: Consumers Oppose Cell Phones in Flight (Dave Close) Re: SBC, Vonage Working on 911 Service Access Deal (DevilsPGD) Last Laugh! One Way to Get 911's Attention! (Patrick Townson) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #478, April 22, 2005 Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 17:47:59 -0400 From: John Riddell <jriddell@angustel.ca> ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 478: April 22, 2005 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** ALLSTREAM: www.allstream.com ** AVAYA: www.avaya.ca/en/ ** BELL CANADA: www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: www.cisco.com/ca/ ** ERICSSON: www.ericsson.ca ** MITEL NETWORKS: www.mitel.com/ ** SPRINT CANADA: www.sprint.ca ** UTC CANADA: www.canada.utc.org/ ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Cellcos Promise Number Portability ** Telus Increases Pressure on Union ** CRTC RFP Seeks Deregulation Experts ** Committee Reviews Do-Not-Call Bill ** Unlimited Canada-U.S. Calling for $30 ** Xplore Announces Satellite Internet Pricing ** Telehop Offers Wholesale LD ** March Networks Hit by Patent Suit ** Dragonwave Boosts Wireless Ethernet Power ** Microsoft Supports Wireless Instant Messaging ** Most Intercity Fibre Still Unlit ** Hamilton to Test Wi-Fi Hydro Meters ** SaskTel Adopts New Messaging Architecture ** Qwest Raises Bid for MCI ** Look Revenue Declines ** Avaya Sales Up 21% CELLCOS PROMISE NUMBER PORTABILITY: Canada's major cellular companies have agreed to let customers keep their numbers when they switch from one wireless carrier to another or between landline and wireless carriers. The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association says it will contract with an independent consultant to develop a project plan by September 1. No target date for implementation was announced. ** The wireless carriers, which have long opposed number portability, appear to be bowing to the inevitable: both the CRTC and the federal government have announced plans to move on the issue this year. (See Telecom Update #436) TELUS INCREASES PRESSURE ON UNION: Saying it wants to "resolve the impasse" between it and the Telecommunications Workers Union, Telus this week increased the pressure on the union to settle their five-year-old contract negotiations. ** On Monday, the telco announced a plan to implement "lockout measures" including freezing scheduled wage increases and suspending joint committees and grievance procedures, beginning next week. The TWU is asking the Federal Court of Appeal for an injunction against the move. ** On Thursday, Telus bypassed the union bargaining committee by releasing details of its latest contract proposal directly to employees. The telco says the offer would make its employees "among the best paid telecommunications team in Canada." CRTC RFP SEEKS DEREGULATION EXPERTS: The CRTC has issued an RFP for a team or consortium to provide economic, legal/analytic, and support services to the Commission for an upcoming proceeding on deregulating local phone service. The Commission expects to pay between $500,000 and $1 million. The RFP is number CABB-5-0051 on the Merx public tenders website; bids are due May 25. www.merx.com COMMITTEE REVIEWS DO-NOT-CALL BILL: The House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology is holding hearings on Bill 37, "An Act to amend the Telecommunications Act," which would set the basis for a mandatory Do-Not-Call registry, allowing the CRTC to fine violators. (See Telecom Update #462) ** This week's witnesses included CRTC Telecom Vice-Chair Richard French, as well as Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association. UNLIMITED CANADA-U.S. CALLING FOR $30: BabyTel, a Montreal- based provider of broadband IP-based phone service, has cut its price for unlimited calling in Canada and the U.S. for from $45 to $29.95 a month. The company also permits customers to have phones in multiple locations working on the same number for an extra $4.95 a month. XPLORE ANNOUNCES SATELLITE INTERNET PRICING: New Brunswick- based Barrett Xplore has announced pricing for the wireless broadband service it will begin offering across Canada in July, using Telesat's new Anik F2 satellite. Monthly rates range from $59.99 for 512 Kbps download and 128 Kbps upload to $199.99 a month for 2 Mbps download and 500 Kbps upload. TELEHOP OFFERS WHOLESALE LD: Telehop Communications now offers a Reseller Program that includes international calling, billing, and other services for long distance resellers. MARCH NETWORKS HIT BY PATENT SUIT: Vigilos Inc, a Seattle-based software maker, has sued March Networks for allegedly infringing on two patents for surveillance products. March Networks, whose chairman is Terry Matthews, is preparing an IPO that is expected to raise about $75 million. DRAGONWAVE BOOSTS WIRELESS ETHERNET POWER: Ottawa-based DragonWave Inc. has introduced a new wireless Gigabit Ethernet product that it says has 30% increased reach over the previous model. MICROSOFT SUPPORTS WIRELESS INSTANT MESSAGING: Microsoft says its Office Live Communications Server 2005 now supports Windows-based mobile devices, enabling Instant Messaging and presence-based applications for mobile workers. MOST INTERCITY FIBRE STILL UNLIT: A new report from TeleGeography says that despite huge traffic growth only 3% of the maximum possible intercity bandwidth in Europe and the U.S. has been lit. Despite that, carriers are running out of capacity on some routes, and face expensive upgrades. www.telegeography.com/products/ib/ HAMILTON TO TEST WI-FI HYDRO METERS: This year, Hamilton Utilities will test 100 "smart meters," which will automatically report customers' electricity usage via wireless LANs. SASKTEL ADOPTS NEW MESSAGING ARCHITECTURE: SaskTel is deploying a "next generation" platform developed by New Jersey-based uReach Technologies, as the basis for wireline and wireless voice mail, as well as for new IP-based messaging services. QWEST RAISES BID FOR MCI: Qwest Communications has increased its offer for MCI to $30 a share, 30% more than the rival offer from Verizon that has been approved by MCI's board. (See Telecom Update #476) LOOK REVENUE DECLINES: Look Communications had revenue of $9.7 million for the three months ended February 28, 15% less than for the corresponding quarter a year ago. Look's subscriber base decreased 5% from the previous quarter, reflecting mainly losses of dial-up customers. Net loss: $2.4 million. AVAYA SALES UP 21%: Avaya reports revenue of US$1.22 billion for the three months ended March 31, a 21% increase over a year ago. Sales declined 9% in the U.S. and increased 6% elsewhere in the Americas. IP product sales rose 30%. Net income: $36 million. HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-mail ianangus@angustel.ca and jriddell@angustel.ca HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web late Friday afternoon each week at www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: join-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: leave-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. We do not give Telecom Update subscribers' e-mail addresses to any third party. For more information, see www.angustel.ca/update/privacy.html. COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2005 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 500. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ------------------------------ From: Ed <poepauv@yahoo.com> Subject: Lingo (Primus Telecommunications) Horror Story Date: 22 Apr 2005 14:34:43 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Here's my VOIP phone story: I signed up for Lingo on August 13, 2004. They've never sent me equipment and they've never let me quit. Here's what has happened. I've kept very careful records. No equipment had been received by September 9, 2004. So I called to cancel. I was put on hold by the "cancellation team." Called numerous times to get through to the cancellation team. Finally got through to someone named Michelle after days and days of calling. This was on September 17. She put me on three way hold to see if she as an employee could get through to the cancellation team. She was not able to do so. Michelle put a note in her file saying I had been trying to cancel for weeks after she personally tried to get through to the cancellation team 3 times. By the time I spoke with Michelle, I had spoken to 7 different people all with one objective in mind, to cancel. Keep in mind that I never received equipment so I could not possibly make VOIP phone calls. On September 24, 2004, an employee called John tried to get me through to the cancellation team. He failed. I finally got a phone call from the cancellation team on September 28, 2004. Presumably this employee successfully cancelled me but this is when the horror really started. In early September, I wrote to my credit card company, MBNA, and disputed the charge on my card. The charge was 39.90 from August 14 and MBNA reversed it since I had never received equipment, had since canceled, and could not possibly make phone calls. In total, Primus Telecommunications has charged my card a total of 4 times successfully. In addition, it has made other unsuccessful attempts as well. Each time the charge on my card has been reversed by MBNA. So far, Primus Telecommunications has received zero dollars from me and has in turn given me zero telephone service. Today, I received a letter saying I've got 10 days to pay Primus Telecommunications 61.99 or they turn me over to a collection agency. Here's an excerpt from the letter: ********** Start of Excerpt ********** Our records indicate that some of your invoices with our company have still not been paid. We want to give you a final opportunity to pay your outstanding bills before we forward them to a collection agency. If we do not hear from you in 10 business days, we will have no alternative but to send your account to a collection service, which may influence your credit rating or result in legal action. ************** End of Excerpt *********** Any suggestions? Do I call a lawyer or the local television station to be interviewed? What would you do if you were in my situation? Ed [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is just my opinion, but I would say don't worry about the collection agency unless you feel like giving them a hard time as well. Remember, an agressive debtor is the best kind of debtor, and you are the 'debtor' in this situation. They (collection agency) are hoping to make at least _some profit_ from this account which was placed with them by the VOIP company. Let them see how unrealistic that idea is. Yeah, I would say call an attorney -- but don't file suit; let Lingo file the suit, which is doubtful, then you _counter sue_ which is always better. That action alone will blow them out of the water, if they are typical of most collection agencies, which frankly expect their bluster alone will convince you to cooperate. And if Lingo induced you to provide them with a credit card number but then had no intention of supplying you with an adapter, which it sounds like to me, that amounts to fraud. Do you have any tracking numbers from the shipment Lingo was supposed to send you? Insist that Lingo prove someone signed for the adapter, and how many times did you say they have attempted to charge your account? Three or four times? That's how many instances of attempted fraud they have committed if they cannot ever prove where they sent you the adapter. PAT] ------------------------------ From: WV Cable Guy <pc_guru_eric@yahoo.com> Subject: For Sale: CATV Meters for Sale Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 16:57:10 -0400 For sale: 1x Sadelco MiniMax 800 forward path meter, excellent condition. $600 negotiable including domestic shipping. 1x Trilithic RSVP2 reverse path meter, also in excellent shape. $300 negotiable including domestic shipping. Contact Eric at eric@eccd.net . No phone calls please. This ad will not be monitored, so please do not reply to it. Thank you. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: Using Brain Waves to Operate Computer Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2005 13:06:14 -0500 By Matthew Nagel, BBC Health Republished from BBC Health A paralysed man in the US has become the first person to benefit from a brain chip that reads his mind. Matthew Nagle, 25, was left paralyzed from the neck down and confined to a wheelchair after a knife attack in 2001. The pioneering surgery at New England Sinai Hospital, Massachusetts, last summer means he can now control everyday objects by thought alone. The brain chip reads his mind and sends the thoughts to a computer to decipher. Mind over matter He can think his TV on and off, change channels and alter the volume thanks to the technology and software linked to devices in his home. Scientists have been working for some time to devise a way to enable paralysed people to control devices with the brain. Studies have shown that monkeys can control a computer with electrodes implanted into their monkey brains. Mr. Nagle's device, called BrainGate, consists of nearly 100 hair-thin electrodes implanted a millimetre deep into part of the motor cortex of his brain that controls movement. Wires feed the information from the electrodes into a computer which analyses the brain signals. The signals are interpreted and translated into cursor movements, offering the user an alternative way to control devices such as a computer with thought. Motor control Professor John Donoghue, an expert on neuroscience at Brown University, Rhode Island, is the scientist behind the device produced by Cyberkinetics. He said: "The computer screen is basically a TV remote control panel, and in order to indicate a selection he merely has to pass the cursor over an icon, and that's equivalent to a click when he goes over that icon." Mr. Nagle has also been able to use thought to move a prosthetic hand and robotic arm to grab sweets from one person's hand and place them into another. Professor Donoghue hopes that ultimately implants such as this will allow people with paralysis to regain the use of their limbs. The long term aim is to design a package the size of a mobile phone that will run on batteries, and to electrically stimulate the patient's own muscles. This will be difficult. The simple movements we took for granted involved complex electrical signals which would be hard to replicate, Dr. Richard Apps, a neurophysiologist from Bristol University, UK, told BBC News. He said there were millions of neurones in the brain involved with movement. The brain chip taps into only a very small number of these. But he said the work was extremely exciting. "It's quite remarkable. They have taken research to the next stage to have a clear benefit for a patient that otherwise would not be able to move. "It seems that they have cracked the crucial step and arguably the most challenging step to get hand movements. "Just to be able to grasp an object is a major step forward." He said it might be possible to hone this further to achieve finer movements of the hand. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, BBC News. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: How We Made Our Own Carnivore Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2005 13:21:18 -0500 I assume you all know about the FBI and their 'Carnivore' program which spies on people by sniffing their computer packets and uses this ill-gotten information to get guys in trouble. Some fellows in New York City developed their own Carnivore thing based on information taken from FBI files. Don't ask me how they got into the FBI files. http://rhizome.org/carnivore/How_We_Made_Our_Own_Carnivore.txt If you like what they have to say, then you can build your own sniffer with this program. Just download the version which goes with your operating system: http://www.rhizome.org/carnivore/ We tried it here on Patrick's computer network and it is sitting here right now sniffing at his weather station stuff and some email on another computer. Of course, I presume you could also use this Carnivore to spy on people and their credit card numbers or things like that on the net, but why would you want to do something wrong like steal credit card numbers and passwords? If you administer a computer network at your school or company, I don't see any reason why you couldn't use this in the routine course of your duties at work, etc. Just use this tool in an ethical and honest way, as all guys do when they use their computers; the way the government does its business. Patrick said it should make a good worthwhile project for readers this weekend. Lisa M. ------------------------------ From: zootwoman@gmail.com Subject: MARS Communications Date: 23 Apr 2005 13:21:36 -0700 Has anyone does business with this Canadian company and were they happy with them? Did your AirWave phones work as you expected? ------------------------------ From: mc <mc_no_spam@uga.edu> Subject: Re: AOL to Block Identity Theft Sites Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 22:26:37 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) What I meant was block. <a href="xxxxx">yyyyy</a> WHERE BOTH xxxxx AND yyyyy ARE URLs but do not (even approximately) match. That is block HTML tags that tell you they are going to take you to one address and actually take you to another, e.g.: <a href="http://somephisher.blah.foo.cn">www.bankofamerica.com</a> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I suspect you could you Carnivore sniffers, like the one Lisa talked about in the other message in this issue to catch people when they are phishing like this. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 23:40:25 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein <SeeSigForEmail@wn6.wn.net> Subject: Re: Getting Serious About the War on Spam Pat replied to me, > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In other words, John Postel gave away > something he did not really own, and attorney Sims went along with > the scam. No, Jon Postel really did run the Internet, on federal contract. When he was alive, it (naming and numbering) was his baby (via USC ISI, his employer), and AFAIK nobody had a problem with him. He was a government-funded academic, a holdover from the good old pre-commercial days when the net was run by network engineers rather than financial engineers, and he had no personal pecuniary interests. He just took pride in a job well done. So nobody talked about a succession plan. Had he lived to a planned retirement, something could have been planned. But he died suddenly. The "alleged" scam began with Joe Sims, who quickly came out of the woodwork with ICANN, which nobody had heard of when Jon was alive. Sims, per some reports, claimed to be following Jon's will. It seemed like a pretty obvious bluff, but since all that matters is whose root servers the big ISPs point at, Joe managed to get critical mass behind himself. This was during the boom, when money flowed freely, and Joe got a lot of high-rate billable hours for his law firm out of the deal. That was probably what he was after! (You can get rich off of a non-profit organization.) > Fred, you mention ICANN is essentially a 'paper tiger' with no real > authority, but however they came to get their 'authority' from the > United States Commerce Department, in any event they have it now, > the 'authority', I mean. Well, no -- the Commerce Department can't order ISPs to point their root servers at ICANN's roots. That's voluntary. Commerce can thrown money at them though, so they can find ever-more-exotic locations for old-fashioned big meetings. Heaven forbid they try to conduct more business across that unreliable, newfangled Internet thingie! > Do you agree with my assessment that ICANN > is happy with the mess things are in now? They wouldn't want to > change anything at all, would they? I mean, was the construction of > the contracts now used totally an accident? I don't think it was. I suspect they're quite happy. > They could have said *something* about the ever present maliciousness > and malfeasance if they had _really wanted to_, am I right? If you mean spam and phishing, no. That's simply not part of their claimed area of authority, which is names (DNS) and numbers (mostly IP addresses). They don't deal directly with most ISPs, just with registrars and registries. They've tried to impose some "intellectual property" rules onto the national registrars (the two-letter ISO country-code TLDs) but that has met with limited success -- they haven't (that I know of) had a real big stare-down over a major country domain's ownership. A few spats with tinhorn governments, perhaps, but they've exercised some restraint. I think I've also answered Steve Sobol's questions at least indirectly. Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/ ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: Study: Consumers Oppose Cell Phones in Flight Date: 22 Apr 2005 22:58:58 -0700 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Marcus Didius Falco <falco_marcus_didius@yahoo.co.uk> quotes http://www.wirelessweek.com/index.asp?layout=3Ddocument&doc_id=3D1340004344 > Study: Consumers Oppose Cell Phones in Flight Banning cell phones will not stop telephone conversations in flight, at least so long as high-speed Internet access is available. Connexion by Boeing has already reported many customers using Skype to make phone calls via their laptop computers. There have also been a few reports of customers using the same connection to participate in a video conference. Indeed, when Internet access is sold at a flat rate for an entire flight, why would anyone pay a roaming charge to use a cell phone? It would be roaming, you know, as the aircraft microcell is not owned by a carrier, but operates as an agent for them. -- Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Greed is to the moralists of the dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 left what sex is to the moralists dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu of the right." - Cathy Young Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Politics is the business of getting dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 power and privilege without dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD <ihatespam@crazyhat.net> Subject: Re: SBC, Vonage Working on 911 Service Access Deal Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2005 05:06:39 -0600 Organization: Disorganized In message <telecom24.179.12@telecom-digest.org> Tim@Backhome.org wrote: > E-911 has one really invaluable feature known as called party trunk > and line sezure. No matter how briefly you're off-hook, once you dial > 911 you cannot release the connection. Only the call center can > release the connection. > I wonder if that is even technically possible via VoIP assuming > unrestrained cooperation of the LEC that holds the marbles, so to > speak? Sure it's possible if you implement the feature into the hardware and software. As it is, it's likely fully not possible, although a combination of rerouting all outbound calls to the E-911 operator and immediately redialing the number (and letting it ring indefinitely, without going to voicemail) would do the trick. ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson <ptownson@cableone.net> Subject: Last Laugh! One Way to Get 911's Attention Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:13:59 -0500 The Correct Way To Call The Police George Phillips of New York City was going up to bed when his wife told him that he'd left the light on in the garden shed which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things. He phoned the police, who asked "Is someone in your house?" and he said no. The dispatcher then switched him into a recorded message saying that that all patrol officers were busy, and that he should simply leave a message for them, then lock his door and an officer would be along to take a report when available. George said, "Okay," hung up, counted to 30, and phoned the police again. "Hello I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people in my shed. Well, you don't have to worry about them now cause I've just shot them all dead". Then he muttered "that will teach them to come on my property ... " as he hung up the telephone. Within five minutes five police cars, an Armed Response unit, a SWAT team and two ambulances showed up at the Phillips residence. Of course, the police caught the burglars red handed. One of the Policemen said to George: "I thought you said that you'd shot them!" George said, "I thought your recorded message said there was nobody available to help me right now!" ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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