Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA13651; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 12:15:02 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 12:15:02 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199608151615.MAA13651@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #411 TELECOM Digest Thu, 15 Aug 96 12:14:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 411 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Internet Sleaze King? (Tad Cook) Call For Papers: AMAST '97 (Mehmet Orgun) AT&T Wants to Buy my Calling Card? (Andrew C. Green) Bellcore TAs and TRs (Stacey B. Lebitz) Clarification of What a T1 Does (john@a3bgate.nai.net) Newsgroup for CTI in Small and Home Offices (Michael Stanford) Video Capture/Compression PC-Board (Qi Li) For Sale: M8000 PictureTell Video Conference Bridge (Doug Neubert) Selecting Local Telco (Theron Derx) G.703 Card For PC Required (Lee Kok Seng) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: Internet Sleaze King? Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 00:25:37 PDT Irate Internet Clients Claim Florida Business Cast Worldwide Web of Deceit By James McNair, The Miami Herald Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Aug. 15 -- Steven West duped 50 FBI agents -- and thousands of others -- into paying $99 each for a plug in bogus Who's Who directories. He confessed, but didn't spend a single night in jail. House arrest, a federal judge in New York decreed last year. Prosecutors were flabbergasted. West was the ringleader of a $14 million scam and now he could sleep in his own bed. So West, 55, whose real name is Steven Samuel Watstein, went back to Florida -- to a $350,000 house in Weston Hills Country Club. Back to the home with the maid and the wife's leased Jaguar. Back to a routine in which his chauffeur drove him to work, to restaurants and, on Saturdays, to his psychiatrist. "I drove him all over the place," said Ronald Roth-Watts, the chauffeur. Even before he went to court, West had assumed a new career. The man who penned "How to Live Like a Millionaire on an Ordinary Income" in 1977 was on to a new way to make big money -- on the Internet. Through a succession of Fort Lauderdale-based companies, West has offered a full package of Internet services to get business people up and running on the World Wide Web. He conducts seminars and expos. He sells videotapes. He designs Web sites. For a while, money poured in, sometimes more than $200,000 a week. In his company's current Web site (http://www.internetworldwide.com), users are welcomed to the "nation's largest conglomerate of Internet services." But a lot of people believe that West's lifestyle came at their expense. In interviews with 34 suppliers, customers and former employees, West is consistently described as a con man extraordinaire. Creditors and government agencies have hit West's companies with a stream of lawsuits, default judgments and tax liens. Some don't even bother suing, believing that it would be a waste of time. "There's a lot of flim-flammers down here, but he makes them all look like pikers," said Chuck Meyer, who claims that West owes him $12,000 for public-relations work. "I look at him as the plague." Had people seen West's rap sheet, they might have spared themselves the grief. West pleaded guilty to fraud and income-tax evasion in the Who's Who directory scam that ran from 1988 to 1991. His 38-year-old wife Sherri, who fronted for West, pleaded guilty to income tax evasion. Facing U.S. District Judge Jacob Mishler in Uniondale, N.Y., West cited his work for charities and pleaded for leniency. Mishler responded with six months of house arrest, three years of probation and a $50,000 fine. Federal agents who cracked the case were outraged. It wasn't West's first brush with controversy. In 1992, after the Who's Who scam collapsed, West's brand-new, 19,800-square-foot mansion in posh Mill Neck, N.Y., burned down. Authorities called it arson. No one was charged, but the government seized West's $1.3 million in insurance proceeds on the grounds that the house had been bought with dirty Who's Who money. In the '70s, several West-owned stores in Detroit burned under suspicious circumstances, according to Newsday. West said he passed a lie detector test. He was not charged. In 1977, West made the front page of {The Wall Street Journal}, which called him an "illusionist, merchant and slow payer of bills." To this day, his critics note his uncanny ability to excite people on a "work now, get paid later" basis. "We gave him a check for 13 grand, and they did absolutely nothing," said Robert Soleau, president of Diversified Group Brokerage, a Marlborough, Conn., health insurance company. It won a $12,900 judgment against West's Internet Marketing Corp. last December, but hasn't collected. West made his move on the Internet in early 1995, when he ran a company called West Adams Christopher & Associates. The Internet, a network of computers around the world, was attracting businesses like flies. Companies were scrambling to establish a presence on the World Wide Web. To do that, they needed someone to create Web "pages" that would attract potential customers. West went into high gear. He obtained mailing lists and hired sales people to pursue prospects for seminars, videotapes and creative work. He contracted out the Web site design work, the videotape production and all of the printing, mailing, faxing and public relations vital to a marketing campaign. He booked meeting rooms in hotels around the country. The public loved it. The $99 seminars often drew more than a hundred a pop, while the $99 videotape, a poor rendering of the seminar, sold by the thousands. Companies like Bloomingdale's, Weight Watchers and Drake Beam Morin paid to have Web sites done. Some companies paid $500 for a Web address (as in www.xyzcorp.com), even though that was far above the going rate. One of West's crowning moments came last December, when he drew 10,000 people to a three-day Internet expo at the Broward County (Fla.) Convention Center. Visitors paid $7.50 each. Nearly 120 vendors set up booths. But the mood wasn't celebratory at the office. West's employees were upset because they weren't being paid in full. "Nobody knew where the money was going," said Pat Grady, a former Internet Marketing Corp. employee. "We dealt with hundreds of calls a day from unhappy customers." "We were getting thousands of video orders, and we weren't sending them out," said Frank Rocco, a salesman from October to July. "The excuse was that we were overwhelmed with orders, or that they had to be sent back to the factory." When customers did receive a Web site, the work didn't live up to its billing. Bob Sterling of Drake Beam Morin, a big consulting firm in New York, said he "wasn't terribly impressed" with West's preliminary work, so the firm dropped him. Peter Sardella, a vice president for Prometheus Information in King of Prussia, Pa., described the quality of West's Web sites as "weekend-beginner level." When West delivered Web sites, they would be "hosted" on computers run by Internet service providers, which sell telephonic access to the Internet. West made victims of ISPs, as well. Said Jim Rennie, president of Internet Gateway Connections in Fort Lauderdale: "This guy (West) all of a sudden doesn't pay his bill, he's got five or ten customers on our server, we shut it off, and they don't have Web sites anymore." Federal probation guidelines require defendants to tell third parties of their criminal records. In West's case, clients and creditors say they never heard a word about it. And if West was on house arrest last year, hardly anyone noticed. Then there were the acts of charity West spoke of in court. Right about that time, West was creating a free Web site for Goodwill Industries of Broward County. Actually, West recruited a Fort Lauderdale company called Proclus to do the work, said Proclus President Susan Wallach. She did a needs analysis, a site flow chart and a Web site for Goodwill, she said -- and West still owes her $2,700. "I'm assuming that if the court assigns you to do pro bono work, you're not supposed to hire someone else to do it for you," Wallach said. "That would be like having someone serve your prison sentence for you, wouldn't it?" Some of the bigger claims against Internet Marketing come from companies that printed, mailed and faxed its sales materials. Innovative Marketing Technologies of Pompano Beach, Fla., said it is owed $35,000 for printing and mailing services. M.O.R. Printing of Davie wants $20,000 for a job that ended in March. Sandy Gilmore, owner of Gilmore Associates in Davie, said she's out $10,000 for mailing out tens of thousands of letters to companies nationwide. West, in an interview by fax, said he will honor all valid judgments, but said nothing about all other debts. He said he has no reservations about courting new customers and vendors in the meantime. "Just like the Chrysler Corp. had its low ebb, this company continues to do this in an effort not only to serve new customers, but to discharge all valid obligations," he said. West doesn't deny having problems. But he takes issue with accusations that he's reneging on his debts at Internet Marketing Corp. West said he formed his new company, Internet World Wide, in an attempt to rebound from massive employee evacuations, poor management, a decrease in seminar attendance, greater competition and the theft of $50,000 worth of equipment at Internet Marketing. Unfortunately for West's creditors, judges don't enforce default judgments. Creditors can wave a judgment in a deadbeat's face and still not collect. "A judgment is kind of like a fishing license, and a lot of times you go fishing without catching anything," said Herbert Dell, a Plantation lawyer who won a $10,148 case last November for a California company that did advertising work. "If you can't find any assets, you go back empty-handed." Larry Farber, owner of the Farber Lewis & Paul collection agency in Coral Springs, said he stops at nothing when trying to collect unpaid debts. Shrewd debtors, however, run up smaller debts that aren't worth the cost of lawsuits or collection, he said. "He'll laugh at you and say, 'Come and get me,"' Farber said. West's financial dealings are not lost on the Internal Revenue Service. It already alleges that West Adams Christopher & Associates owes $29,534.51 in payroll withholdings from 1992 and 1993 -- a debt that West said he will pay. But West could be in big trouble -- much sooner -- from his federal probation officer. "If he's scammed people while he's on probation, he's certainly violated his probation," said Seth Marvin, the federal prosecutor in the Who's Who case in New York. "If you're on probation, a probation officer can get a warrant for your arrest, and you can go to jail." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 12:47:27 +1000 From: Mehmet ORGUN Subject: Call For Papers: AMAST '97 Reply-To: Mehmet ORGUN Preliminary Call for Papers Sixth International AMAST Conference AMAST '97, December 13-17, 1997, Sydney, Australia. Goals The major goal of the AMAST Conferences is to put software development technology on a firm, mathematical foundation. Particular emphasis is given to algebraic and logical foundations of software technology. An eventual goal is to establish algebraic and logical methodologies as practically viable and attractive alternatives to the prevailing approaches to software engineering. Previous meetings of AMAST were held in Iowa (1989 and 1991), Twente, Holland (1993), Montreal (1995) and Munich (1996). During these meetings, AMAST has attracted an international spread of researchers and practitioners interested in software technology, programming methodology and their algebraic and logical foundations. In addition, the first day of each conference has been dedicated to Mathematics Education for Software Engineers. Following this successful trend, the sixth AMAST International Conference will be held at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, from December 13 to December 17, 1997. Submissions As in the previous years we invite papers reporting original research in algebra and logic, suitable as a foundation for software technology, as well as software technologies developed by means of logic and algebraic methodologies. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: * SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY systems software technology, application software technology, concurrent and reactive systems, formal methods in industrial software development, formal techniques for software requirements, design. * PROGRAMMING METHODOLOGY logic programming, functional programming, object paradigms, constraint programming and concurrency, program verification and transformation, specification languages and tools, formal specification and development case studies. * ALGEBRAIC AND LOGICAL FOUNDATIONS logic, category theory, relation algebra, computational algebra, algebraic foundations for languages and systems, theorem proving and logical frameworks for reasoning, logics of programs. * SYSTEMS AND TOOLS (for system demonstrations) software development environments, support for correct software development, system support for reuse, tools for prototyping, validation and verification, computer algebra systems, theorem proving systems. All papers will be refereed by the program committee, and will be judged based on their significance, technical merit, and relevance to the conference. As in the past, we expect the proceedings to be published by Springer-Verlag in their Lecture Notes in Computer Science Series. Important Dates Submission of Papers: February 15, 1997 Submission of System Demo Proposals: March 15, 1997 Education Day: December 13, 1997 Conference Days: December 14-17, 1997 Further Information For bulletins on current status of the conference: http://www.comp.mq.edu.au/amast97 amast97@mpce.mq.edu.au For subscribing to the AMAST'97 mailing list: amast97@mpce.mq.edu.au ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 08:17:09 -0500 From: Andrew C. Green Subject: AT&T Wants to Buy My Calling Card? AT&T wants to send me $80 to sign up with them for long-distance service. Great, but there are some complications. Follow me closely here: We've been issued Ameritech long distance calling cards here at the office. The card number is the employee's direct office line (like mine, below) and a four-digit PIN, and is for use whenever we need to make a long-distance business call from somewhere other than the office. Fine. So about, oh, ten days ago I was at home and needed to call Atlanta on business. Consulted my Ameritech card, dialed 0+Atlanta-number, punched in my Ameritech number at my (home) AT&T ka-bong, and all went well. So yesterday an envelope arrives from AT&T, blaring "CHECK ENCLOSED" on the envelope. They would like to switch my _office_ number, listed on the check along with my _home_ address, to AT&T. Yes, this was send to my home address. I see no way for AT&T to figure out that my office number, in area code 312, has any connection to any particular home address in area code 847, though the 847 number I used to make the call is served by AT&T. So AT&T computers handled a call from an AT&T home using an enemy calling card, and this triggered a letter to that address on the theory that the enemy calling card resides there? If so, I could go from one house to another in this manner, making quickie long-distance calls somewhere and leaving a trail of $80 AT&T checks in my wake, sent to the happy homeowners, each of whom gets to temporarily lay claim to (312) 266-4431 until the next homeowner cashes in? This is an income opportunity I hadn't thought of. Perhaps someone here might offer some insight into what AT&T is thinking? Andrew C. Green (312) 266-4431 Datalogics, Inc. 441 W. Huron Internet: acg@dlogics.com Chicago, IL 60610-3498 FAX: (312) 266-4473 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 10:18:30 -0400 From: Stacey B. Lebitz Subject: Bellcore TAs and TRs Pat, I was just looking at the new-readers FAQ on your web site, specifically at the question "How do I contact Bellcore". You mention TAs and TRs. I just wanted to let you know that for new documents or older documents that are re-issued we are not using TAs and TRs anymore, but rather GRs (Generic Requirements). We used to produce TAs to share preliminary info. and to provide an opportunity to comment on documents to the industry. TAs were available at a nominal cost. The "final" requirements would then go into the TRs, which we hoped the industry would buy at a higher price. That wasn't always the case! Now we offer "Early Industry Interaction" (which is described in the "Bellcore Digest of Technical Information". Also, this publication tells you which Bellcore documents have been released and what plans for new/existing documents are.) to get industry input on a topic and then we publish a "GR" that can be subscribed to. With a subscription you would also get any "Issue Lists Reports" that would contain outstanding issues. Thus we are not giving our intellectual property away anymore now that we are trying to become a commercialized company. TAs/TRs would typically be numbered "TA-NWT-000778", while GRs would look like "GR-778-CORE" for the main document and "GR-778-ILR" for the issues list report. To order everything, it would be "GR-778". Just thought you might like to know. Stacey Lebitz Bellcore [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for the update. Readers can also contact Bellcore directly using the Telecom Archives web page by going to the section where 'other telecom-related links' are maintained and clicking on the entry for Bellcore. The archives URL is: http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives PAT] ------------------------------ From: john@a3bgate.nai.net (john) Subject: Clarification of What a T1 Does Date: 15 Aug 1996 03:11:30 GMT Organization: North American Internet Hi, When one gets a T1 line, can that line be used for a combination of data/voice/fax line? Can I use a T1 to call long-distance or overseas by voice/data? Please post or email your response. Thanks! John ------------------------------ From: Michael Stanford Subject: Newsgroup for CTI in Small and Home Offices Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 13:03:50 -0400 > Also, I'm wondering if there is a newsgroup for users of CTI or TAPI > (especially SOHO users such as myself). I was unable to find one. Please email David MacCallum if you are inter- ested in such a newsgroup. If we receive enough interest we will start one. ------------------------------ From: runner!qli@uunet.uu.net (Qi Li) Subject: Video Capture/Compression PC-Board Date: 15 Aug 1996 02:13:54 GMT Organization: The Unversity of Texas at San Antonio Hi folks, I'm anxiously looking for a PC plug in board (any BUS), which can capture AND compress PAL video under 2 Mb (about 10 frames/s, or other resolution frame rate trade-offs). And I needs about 100 of them. Thanks in advance! Gary ------------------------------ From: dougneub@ix.netcom.com (Doug Neubert) Subject: For Sale: M8000 PictureTell Video Conference Bridge Date: 14 Aug 1996 17:35:30 GMT Organization: Netcom If you are or know someone who is looking to buy one of these I've got one. Send me E-mail and we can go from there. Thanks, Doug Neubert dougneub@ix.netcom.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 12:17:48 -0700 From: xred@ix.netcom.com (Theron Derx) Subject: Selecting Local Telco Pat, Are you aware of any legislation pending, or in place now, that permits a person or a company to select their local telco? For example, if I live in Southwestern Bell country, but would prefer to have GTE, is there any legislation that would permit me to do that? If it is, (or will be in the future) will it work much the same way as the selection of an LD carrier? I would greatly appreciate any information you could send me. Thank you in advance for your time. Sincerely yours, T.A. "Tad" Derx [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If/when competition in local service becomes a real thing in your community, you will be able to choose between the companies providing it. Now in a sense, you have always been able to do that using a feature called 'Foreign Exchange Service', but typically a decision to use FX lines was not based on your interest in using a 'competing' telco so much as it was based on your traffic patterns and a decision that FX would wind up costing less than long distance *or* a decision that FX would allow your company a 'presence' in a distant location for the convenience of your customers. FX service -- or the right to use a telco from a distant community -- was never thought of as 'competition' for the local telco, but as noted above you did -- and still do -- have the right to pick a telco located in some other community as your service provider. Your phone number will be a number used by that distant community and generally you will *pay dearly* for the service. You can also at present get *incoming only* service from any telco of your choice by using 'remote call forwarding'. This is a procedure where the telco of your choice -- but normally we think of it as the geographic location of your choice, the telco being immaterial to the discussion -- provides a 'phantom number' in the distant community. The number just terminates on the switch in that town, and anyone who dials it is automatically forwarded to you at the location you specify at direct-dialed rates. This is a hardwired configuration; you cannot change the terminating point by dialing codes as you do with regular call forwarding. In general, if you are looking to do business with a 'local' carrier who is not part of your local community area you can do so, but it will cost you *big money*, and it is not defined as competition. Now if you are interested in doing business with another 'local' carrier or telco *in your community*, the 'laws' have already been passed. When a telco indicates it is accepting customers in your community, you are free to subscribe to their service in place of the service you have always had with the established telco. It is your choice now, and generally the rates will be similar to what you are paying now; probably very competitive. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kokseng@iss.nus.sg (Lee Kok Seng) Subject: G.703 Card For PC Required Date: 14 Aug 1996 01:33:47 GMT Organization: Institute Of Systems Science, National University Of Singapore. Hi Everyone, I need help to identify a source for purchsing a PC card that has a ITU-T G.703 interface (or E1). Please help if you know of the existence of such a card. I would appreciate if you can email any information to me at this address: kokseng@iss.nus.sg Thanks, Lee, Kok-Seng, Project Leader, Multimedia Networking Initiative Institute of Systems Science , National University of Singapore <==+ Work eMail: kokseng@iss.nus.sg Home eMail: leetan@singnet.com.sg Compuserve: 70313,2555 ------------------------------ 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 public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #411 ******************************