North Country Consulting

New RSS and Atom Feeds

2008-12-30T17:24:00.002-05:00

We've moved servers. If you have problems, let me know. (The physical move happened on 12/30, and now--12/31--DNS servers seem to be updated. There is one change you need to know about: the URLs for the RSS and ATOM feeds have changed. Sorry about that--it's related not just to the domain move but also to the move to WordPress (more on the blog at northcountryconsulting.com). Here's the new Atom feed. Here's the new RSS feed. This feed will no longer be updated; use the new feed URLs.

Burlington Free Press Article

2008-12-18T14:55:00.002-05:00

The BFP is reporting that the cutover could come any day to AT&T. As noted below, the period for responses to objections to the transfer ended 12/8. Would AT&T like to try to get it done in time for Xmas sales this next weekend?

Netvitalization: Identity

2008-12-18T10:12:00.002-05:00

What makes one community large or small more net-savvy than another? (And by community, I mean real, geographically-located communities.) As we explore the differences in communities, here's one of the key factors that is at play: identity.

One of the big accomplishments of social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook is that they have broken down the common net practice of masking people's identities. On Facebook, if you're Marie Queen of Romania, you are; with a few exceptions, if you're Big Red, you're just not on Facebook.

In the beginning, when the Internet was Arpanet, not only were identities not masked, but most of the users knew one another (they were at organizations--mainly colleges--working with DARPA). Although login names were often limited to 8 or even 6 characters, the identity of the organization pretty much identified the person with the login clue. (After all, at the beginning, there probably were no more than a dozen people on Arpanet at mit.edu.)

As the Internet grew, those 6-8 character user names along with large anonymous ISPs (compuserve.com, prodigy.com, aol.com) produced an online world in which, as the famous New Yorker cartoon went, "On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog." (This line was spoken by one dog at a computer to another sitting nearby.)

The reason for that limit was that in ye olden dayes, we were so worried about memory as well as the cost of managing strings, that we didn't use strings for login names but used single words which, in the prevailing character sets allowed only 6-8 characters.

So there we were, back in the beginning with no way of identifying people with their real names in most cases. "Handles" and "screen names" were born out technology limitations of the time, and the Internet became a place of anonymity.

The anonymity was breached in cases where real-life identity was necessary: credit card transactions, for example, and now social networking sites. There's been some retro-fitting (see Amazon.com reviews on the years-long push to turn anonymous reviews to signed and authenticated review), but we still have a great deal of anonymity.

Privacy is very important on the Internet and in real life for certain types of behaviors. If you walk into a public library, museum, or store, you don't have to identify yourself, and that is as it should be--and as it should be with browsing Web sites. But the moment you want to purchase something, take a book out of the library (rather than read it there), get a museum member's free admission, or enter a private club, you need to identify yourself, and that, too, is as it should be.

Based on a totally unscientific survey, it seems that the use of real names on the Internet spreads through the usual viral mechanisms of the Net. Cleaning up an old address book (it snowed yesterday), I noticed that a number of my friends have changed their emails over the last few years. Some changes reflect changes to ISPs, but along with those, I see fewer RDG1828 and more real names.

Now to the topic at hand, the notion that a community where the use of real names on the Web is a common social standard is a more Net-savvy community deserves consideration. In many public meetings, members of the public can stand up and say anything, but they must identify themselves. In many Web discussions, that is not the case. It doesn't matter in a productive discussion area on the Web that is not geographically-specific, but when it comes to blogs and discussions about a geographic community, doesn't the identity of the people matter in the same way it does on the street? For a common-interest Internet community, the discussions can proceed in anonymity, but for a local Internet community, it matters who is involved.

As with all the Netvitalization concepts, this isn't something that happens by mandate, it's just something that people in the community find of value. And, in evaluating a community, looking at the extent to which real names are used on the community blogs and discussions, seems to be an indicator of how effective the community--large or small-is.

P.S. Please don't misinterpret this. Privacy on the Web is one of its most important features. The question is whether community discussions are on the privacy side or the fency or on the real-identity side of the fence where we place important transactions that require identification. I think community discussions are important, and that fence is important, too.

AT&T Licenses

2008-12-11T13:43:00.003-05:00

Seth posted info about an AT&T Wireless ad in the Press-Republican today. That is consistent with the schedule of the AT&T/Verizon petition to actually transfer the Unicel licenses. That schedule concluded with replies due December 8 to oppositions which were due December 1. That suggests that the actual transfer is imminent--keep your fingers crossed.

Obama Stimulus Plan Includes Broadband Access for Underserved Areas

2008-12-06T08:52:00.001-05:00

Roads, schools, public buildings, and broadband.

Broadband is a key component of netvitalization to which we will return shortly.

Community Netvitalization

2008-12-05T09:39:00.002-05:00

For many of us, the first adventures on the Net were all about digital communities--far-flung communities made possible by the Internet. We played bridge with people half a world away, many of us continue to work on a daily basis with people we've never met, and many businesses large and small are looking to the Web for expansion (and, in some cases, survival).

Now it's time to turn back to our communities--our real communities where we live, work, play, and walk our dogs. When we started talking about digital communities (for some of us, 15 years ago) it was exciting to share our digital lives with those few friends and neighbors who also were plugged in. And there was a lot to share--remember dip switches on modems? I still don't know how we figured them out, but we helped one another.

Our neighbors have email addresses and Web sites, not to mention blogs and Facebook profiles. The Net is no longer something for the few initiates. It is a part of our lives and our communities...which brings us to the point.

Some of us are starting to realize that the digital side of our communities isn't really all it could be. When you visit a community and walk or drive through it, you quickly get a sense of what's going on. Does almost every building need a little work? Or does one building stand out because it's the only one that's not spruced up? Is it easy to find your way around--even if you're a visitor? What about those stickers on shop doors--the membership in the Chamber of Commerce, the Mastercard/Visa decals, member of trade organizations or downtown improvement groups--the signs of community (not individual) life. The notices on lampposts--everything from the lost pets to the yard sales and the posters in windows advertising community events...they all present a picture of what's happening in the community and why it is a community, not just a bunch of people camped out nearby.

Over the years, we've learned how to look at our communities, how to evaluate them, and how to revitalize them. But we haven't looked at the digital side of our communities until now. This post is the start of a periodic series about revitalizing the digital aspects of our communities. For the moment, it's called Community Netvitalization.

Here's a major preview. We know from our communities that revitalization doesn't come from one place or from the top down (except in very strictly controlled communities). People and organization do things that together help create and strengthen the sense of community. So far, most approaches to local communities on the Web have looked at a centralization model that we know doesn't work in the real world of communities. So how do we define and foster the myriad of informal connections that make our communities function?

Tune in next time (or subscribe to the RSS/Atom feed).

As always, comments, are welcome.

Jesse

Community Technology Evaluation

2008-11-30T13:00:00.003-05:00

If anyone is interested in thinking about and developing some metrics for ranking communities (particularly smaller ones) objectively on their technology, let me know.

This is a follow-up to several recent conversations nothing the wide variety in tech-savviness among communities. The challenge is to come up with some set of objective metrics that provide a snapshot of how the community as a whole (media, government, social networks, business, etc.) uses technology.

One suggestion that I find intriguing is to come up with some evaluation points and then share them. We're talking about the technology face that a community presents to the Internet, so the evaluation can be done by a third-party. If some kind of evaluation instrument could be devised, someone in Oregon could objectively evaluate the online technological face of a community in Virginia, and a Virginia could do the same for a community in Texas.

Does anyone know of such a project? Or is interested in developing one?

JF

Land of Opportunity: The American Response to Climate Change

2008-11-25T10:29:00.005-05:00

The Wild Center has sponsored two programs--one national, and one regional (Adirondacks). Good for them for the conference and good for them for posting the slides online along with some videos that will be coming soon (they're available for the national conference last summer).

It's an important topic, and using the Internet to disseminate the information quickly is wonderful for people who are time- and distance-stressed.

So what are we to think about our beloved local paper, the Press-Republican when it runs an article on the topic of local lawmakers not attending because they were too busy or not invited? Sure, that's a valid point. But to print an entire article about the busy schedules or long distances these people had to contend with and not to devote one sentence, one phrase, or -anything- to the fact that the Wild Center is making so much of the whole shebang available online is bizarre.

In all fairness, the P-R has run five recent articles about the conference. The online resources have been mentioned in several of them along with links to the Web site. Unfortunately, that information didn't follow along to this article.

Yes, one or more of the legislators who did not attend should have mentioned the online resources (and should have used them).

We have to keep reminding people that these new technologies exist to conquer time and space. We have to keep reminding the powers that be that the lack of broadband access in many areas of the Adirondacks prevents us from being virtually present. If a lawmaker (or anyone else) can't devote a day to attending a conference, the alternative is not necessarily skipping it: the alternative may be attending online. Online meetings are not the same as in-person events, but when you add up the pros and cons, sometimes the carbon footprint of the in-person meeting outweighs its value (note "sometimes").

Obama and Email

2008-11-19T10:52:00.004-05:00

As a number of us have pointed out, this issue of the Blackberry and email is significant.

The issue of how someone complies with laws and standards of transparency, security, and archiving in a public capacity has really not been resolved definitively--not for the President of the United States or for a trustee of a tiny public library operating under an open meetings law. Setting those standards and best practices once and for all would be a small but significant achievement. Nothing is solved by simply opting out of email.

And the bigger issue may also seem trivial, but it's important. The age group least comfortable with email and the Internet is people in their 40s-60s who grew up with the old technologies and in many cases still translate between email-think and typed-memo-think. Unlike seniors, they don't have the time to experiment because many of them are working.

When JFK became president, many photos appeared of him at his desk with that new-fangled Call Director at his elbow. (That was a phone with a dial and rows and rows of buttons to contact people.) In 1960, really senior executives didn't have Call Directors on their desks. They had telephones, and frequently there were no dials. They picked up the received and said, "Miss Jones, bring me a coffee and get Mr. Smith on the line." Executives didn't dial.

Kennedy's Call Director changed all that. If the President of the United States could dial and even buzz his staff directly, every Titan of Industry wanted a Call Director.

If President-elect Obama gives up his Blackberry and email, that sends a similar message: really important executives don't email. They have folders in file cabinets (where the good lord meant for them to be) rather than on a disk drive. Their calendar is on their desk ("Miss Jones, did you see my calendar?").

The solution is obvious: solve the security, archiving, and transparency issues (which need to be solved sometime or other for the President and the library trustees and everyone in between). And if President-elect Obama must give up his Blackberry, for the good of the country, make sure it's replaced with an iPhone--not a pack of 3x5 cards.

Obama and Social Networking, Part II

2008-11-14T09:09:00.002-05:00

Today's LA Times has an article about the internal discussions with regard to the future of the Obama network of names. Should it be merged into the Democratic National Committee or stand alone?

Meanwhile, over at the Washington Post, an article on Monday addressed a similar issue: how (and if) to merge the list into a governing entity.

There are lots of issues here, but the underlying one is as old as the hills: is the old-fashioned way (parties and mailing lists) the way to go, with this new-fangled Web and social networking just another way to conduct business as usual, or is the the old-fashioned way on the way out. (Bias in description is intentional.)

Plattsburgh Federal Building

2008-11-11T12:17:00.002-05:00

As the Press-Republican reported on October 27, the North Country Cultural Center for the Arts (NCCCA) has applied to be given the Federal Building in Plattsburgh to use as an arts center. Meanwhile, the City of Plattsburgh is hoping to obtain the building possibly for retail space so that the building will be returned to the tax rolls.

The decision rests with the federal General Services Administration (GSA). According to a specialist there, "GSA encourages the competing parties to work together to arrive at a mutually agreeable solution. In the event that is not possible, the GSA has the responsibility to determine which public re-use would be the highest and best use of the property."

So what's going on? Are the city and NCCCA working together? Is a combined plan about to emerge to revitalize downtown and make everyone happy? No news is not necessarily good news.

It may be time for individuals to get involved and to demand that a positive plan be developed for this cornerstone of our downtown area. Here's one suggestion, based on a variety of similar situations.

A mixed-use building that includes public and private entities along with taxable and non-taxable organizations can provide a stable anchor for a community. Precisely because it contains multiple organizations and types of uses, it is less vulnerable to weaknesses in one sector or another than a single-use building. What might such a mixed-use plan for the Federal Building look like? It might consist of four components.

1. Certainly an arts component would be useful. If properly planned and managed, it can not only serve the immediate community but also attract cultural tourists to the city. NCCCA could help in this component.

2. The mayor has suggested that retail uses might be appropriate, and they are. Those portions of the building would be taxable, helping the city with its financial difficulties. Some of those retail uses might be specifically tied to the arts component. For example, there is no reason why an art gallery or shop should be a tax-exempt entity. We have seen in many communities that privately-owned for-profit art galleries can be a key component both of downtown revitalization as well as a pillar of an arts community. The city has a good track record in this area.

3. Many communities have succeeded with business incubators that provide office space to small companies along with shared facilities such as meeting rooms and business development training. There could be a focus on arts-related companies (although not an exclusive one). Typically, small for-profit businesses provide resources for arts organization in areas from rehearsal space to services such as graphics, framing, metal casting, and traditional business services such as accounting. The many cultural and historic sites in the North Country need other support services, and they, too, could find a home here. Few small museums can afford to properly conserve its valuable and fragile collections--particularly those of paper and fabric. A conservation business could find a home in the Federal Building. Business incubators help businesses start out and grow; they may receive tax abatements, but the goal is to move them up to full tax-paying status as soon as possible.

4. Finally, the upper floors might provide a residential use--possibly even a small boutique hotel.

A plan such as this would require imaginative structuring of the building both in its physical configuration as well in its ownership and management. A community-wide discussion might be a good place to start to develop a serious and useful plan (the one presented here is just an example of the sort of thing that could be done).

Obama and the Internet in Transition

2008-11-05T09:12:00.004-05:00

What a welcome relief! Unlike recent elections, we had a definitive result by 11 PM Eastern time. A historic victory for those of us who are morning people.

We saw how technology can be used to make small efforts by many people work together. Whether it was raising a significant campaign treasury in many small donations (although a large part of campaign contributions came in traditional, large amounts), or in the technology and imagination that made virtual phone banks possible, we saw a new way of using technology.

Here's an example: an email message received from the Obama campaign at 8:13 PM on election night in the east:

Polls may have closed on the east coast, but we need your help to get out the vote in the west! We know how hard you've been working, but please help us for just two more hours. We know we can win Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico with your help!

Pick a state and get started now:

Colorado: http://my.barackobama.com/callco

Nevada: http://my.barackobama.com/callnv

New Mexico: http://my.barackobama.com/callnm

Thanks for all you do.

Judith

This wasn't a spur-of-the-moment email; it was built on months and months of imaginative work developing a technology infrastructure that made this and other messages (not to mention the victory!) possible.

This morning, there's an intriguing piece in a Washington Post article.

The transition team is exploring new approaches to communications that could undercut West Wing traditions such as the daily briefings to reporters, including making more announcements over the Internet to ensure that information reaches not only journalists but the millions of individuals who enlisted in Obama's campaign and consider themselves invested in his presidency.

Using the basic principles and technologies as a leadership tool would be an idea as powerful as FDR's Fireside Chats. We have seen how the Internet can be used to motivate and lead a wide swath of people. But if the transition team is truly worrying about trying to "ensure that information reaches not only journalists but the millions of individuals who enlisted in Obama's campaign and consider themselves invested in his presidency," we've got a problem. The transition team must be worrying not about reaching the campaign enlistees, but instead about reaching the public.

It would be possible to take the principles and ideas behind the campaign technology and apply them to a new leadership tool for the president--any president of any party. In addition to the temptation to blur campaigns and governance ("Let's see, which email account do I use for this message?"), the Obama transition team and administration will need to resist the temptation to take part of the massive campaign technology to use in public leadership, leaving the public version a pale imitation of the campaign technology.

Both efforts must be allowed to flourish--but separately. The innovations made in a governance model will be available to everyone, and those made on the campaign side, will be private, as they are now (although most people can easily figure out how things are designed). But neither should be better than the other.

This will be a great challenge. On the one side, the existing campaign may be hesitant to seed a public effort with their technology experiences; on the other side, it is likely that the Obama administration will be accused of using public money to build an even bigger campaign system. But if these challenges can be met (and they should be), we can begin to use our new technological tools as simply and with as much innovation as FDR did with his Fireside Chats.

The Bento Book

2008-10-16T10:41:00.002-04:00

The Bento Book is now in stock at Amazon and other retailers (online and real). It covers the latest features in Bento 2 (released just last Tuesday). There's also a Web site with some Bento Quickies being uploaded in the next day or two. Stop by and leave a note on the Web site or the book's Facebook Page.

This was a great book to write--Bento is a fantastic tool. And Bento 2 is a wonderful set of new features that actually make it even easier to use. (Sometimes, "feature creep" starts to add features as well as complications.)

(Bento is only for Mac OS X Leopard. It's built by FileMaker, a subsidiary of Apple.)

Roundtable, Monday 10/13, 11 AM

2008-10-10T09:17:00.001-04:00

On Monday, we'll be talking about the economy (what else?) and some of the ways in which you can use technology to help muddle through.

HB Studio at Library for the Performing Arts

2008-10-10T09:12:00.003-04:00

There's more to life than technology. With one of my other hats on, I'm on the board of HB Studio. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (Lincoln Center) is doing a series of programs on us this fall.

I'll be moderating the panel on HB Studio: The Early Years on Saturday November 8, 3 PM. Panelists are Ed Morehouse, Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach, and Mary Anthony. First-come/first-served for seats, and they're free.

Behind the Sarah Palin Poll

2008-10-10T09:10:00.001-04:00

Very interesting article about what happened with the Sarah Palin poll on the PBS Web site. It also describes the techniques used to make online polls a little more secure--and why they're used.

More of Vermont to ATT

2008-09-17T18:14:00.003-04:00

On September 4 and 5, AT&T and Verizon amended their application to transfer customers from Rural Cellular (Unicel), a subsidiary now of Verizon to Rural Newco LLC, owned and controlled by AT&T. (Don't you think Rural Newco is a clever name?)

The meat of the amendments is:

to comply with the government’s divestiture requirements, the recently filed amendments propose to transfer RCC's cellular and PCS licenses for the entire Vermont 2 CMA, rather than just the cellular license for only the northern portion of the CMA as originally proposed. Therefore, AT&T will also be acquiring customers located in two and one-half counties in the southern portion of the Vermont 2 CMA.

Slow, but it's moving...

Kindle Part 2

2008-09-14T16:01:00.002-04:00

In the last post, I promised further Kindle-specific info, and, after a brief delay, here it is.

Our adventures the last time around (Rocket eBook from Nuvomedia), showed that having to reformat a book even slightly for the eBook was a tremendous obstacle. Being able to flow the text automatically into a format that the Kindle can handle solves an enormous number of problems.

But it raises another issue: the flow is not perfect. An excellent example is in today's New York Times (Sunday, September 14). The Op-Ed page on the Kindle shows a relatively large number of short Op-Ed pieces. Having read the Times for years, I had a good suspicion after the third one that I knew what was going on. Periodically, the Times devotes all or part of the Op-Ed page to a single topic. A headline sometimes provides the clue; other times it's some boxed text. On paper or nytimes.com, you can see that this is exactly what is happening.

Experience. In the 2008 presidential election, it’s been a campaign slogan, a debating point and a subject of endless column inches and talk show hours. John McCain and Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin — whose life experiences offer the best preparation for the presidency and vice presidency? Does it help to be a naval aviator? A community organizer? A senator? A small-town mayor? Does one trump another? To answer those questions, the Op-Ed page asked people whose résumés overlap with the candidates’ to explain how the qualities they’ve needed to draw on for their jobs and their lives would come in handy in the White House.

Without this text, the multitude of short Op-Ed pieces is baffling.

The format of the Times on the Kindle is quite simple: section/article/headline/byline/summary or teaser. There is nothing between a section and an article. Normally Op-Ed pieces show up in a section devoted to email and Op-Ed pieces. Sometimes--as is the case today--an intermediate element is needed. Or, at best, a placeholder "article" that could contain the text cited here.

Similar problems occur with multiple letters to the editor on the same subject.

Going back to designing specifically for the Kindle would not be the answer. The answer probably is a bit more thought about the design of pages so that all possible recipients of the information (Kindle, Web, national edition, metro edition) have their own needs met. As it is now, paper is still primary. (You can see this particularly well in the photos that accompany many articles. Most of the time, they're not suitable for the Kindle. However, in the case of regular Op-Ed contributes such as David Brooks and Bob Herbert, the photo is of the contributor. These photos reproduce very well on the Kindle--perhaps because they were chosen for that purpose.) This is not just a NYTimes problem, but it's one that I notice because I read the Times daily on my Kindle.

There are two other specific issues that remain less than perfect. The first is that we really don't have the cues we have on paper about how far we are into an article or chapter. It's fine to see how much of a book you've read, but at least the option to change that display to a chapter basis can help decide whether or not to finish it before going to bed. Both with books and with newspaper, I find myself paging through a chapter or article to see how much is left. That's not great.

The second is the emphasis on mass media for newspapers and magazines. Regional newspapers (Press-Republican, for example), struggle with circulation and delivery. Are they the ones resisting the Kindle--just as their larger cohorts resisted the web and the first ebooks? Or is Kindle declining to handle regional newspapers? Perhaps the absence of ads has something to do with it--many regional papers have the barest minimum of news to support the local advertisements. The Times and other major papers can exist in the subscription-only world because their content is large and valuable. My guess is that moving to a subscription-based model on the Kindle for regional newspapers would be costly for them. They and their advertisers would have to find a new way of communicating locally. If only to save a few trees, we should have our regional newspapers on the Kindle.

On balance, the Kindle is a massive improvement over delivery of the Times on paper, and for fiction, I think it's great.

Cheers & Jeers to the Press-Republican

2008-09-08T08:22:00.002-04:00

LIke many papers, the Plattsburgh Press-Republican periodically uses its editorial column for a round-up of minor issues. This happens on Mondays under the title Cheers & Jeers.

Cheers & Jeers: Sept. 1, 2008

JEERS to drivers who still don't know how to properly use center turning lanes; JEERS to the City of Plattsburgh for its lackluster notification of a boil-water; CHEERS to improved traffic signs; CHEERS to the commissioner and president of Plattsburgh PAL Football.

Well, Jeers to the Press-Republican for greeting us on the Web this morning, September 8, with last week's entry. Many regional newspapers use Web publishing packages that are not great--fairly ugly, and not user friendly to readers or editors. But that's no excuse for just blindly flipping a switch and not checking what is published.

And it's not just regional papers. Later today, we'll have a review of some Kindle issues. As long as publishers view the Web and ebooks as distractions from their primary publications (you know--the ones on dead trees), there will be issues. My guess is that reading newspapers on the Web and newspapers or books on Kindle will not expand beyond a certain level because of this sloppiness. (That's not to say that paper-based publications are immune: I still remember fondly the headline on the front of one of the NY Times sections about "St. Parick's church.")

The old-fashioned solution is proofreading the publications in all of their forms. But the new-fangled solution has to be much more powerful software to prevent these issues.

See the Kindle posting later today for more...

Opposition to the Verizon/Rural Cellular (Unicel) Order

2008-08-29T08:41:00.002-04:00

This is the last week to file petitions for reconsideration of the Verizon/Rural Cellular (Unicel) ruling from the FCC. So far, one has been filed, and a letter in opposition has also been filed. Brief excerpts follow.

Chatham Avalon Park Community Council CAPCC) objects primarily on the issue of partial foreign ownership of Verizon.

CAPCC is a community based organization based in and around Chicago, Illinois, with hundreds of members who are consumers of telecommunications services, some of which are offered by Verizon Wireless. Our group has a long and proud history of advocating for our local citizens and we have a special interest in promoting the growth and economic development of the African-American and small business communities. ... Petitions and its members are disserved by the increasing consolidation in the telecommunications industry that threatens to produce fewer competitive services at higher consumer prices. While Petitioner is concerned about industry consolidation in general, in light of its interest in economic development and business activity, Petitions is particularly concerned when large entities have access to [foreign] sources of capital that are unavailable to smaller businesses and socially disadvantaged businesses that seek to compete with them.

Response from Nancy J, Victory and Thomas R. McCarthy, counsel to Verizon Wireless (excerpts):

I. Chatham lacks standing to maintain its petitions for reconsideration of the Commission's order. II. Chatham's failure to participate previously in this proceeding is also fatal to consideratin of its petition for reconsideration. III. Chatham's petition for reconsideration is meritless.

On to the next act of the drama...

Verizon Sale Completed

2008-08-08T09:13:00.002-04:00

Thanks to Beemer for noticing the press release that the sale has been completed. As noted previously, the settlement proposed by Verizon (and accepted by the FCC) described placing the Vermont and northern New York licenses in a trust until they are sold, and that has happened.

Presumably the trust will sell the licenses to AT&T.

No new documents have been filed with the FCC since approval on August 1.

Spam: The Next Generation

2008-08-05T17:14:00.002-04:00

We know that the amount of spam sloshing around the Internet is enormous, but anyone who has a good spam filter can examine what is caught and see how much doesn't get through (but uses up bandwidth). Many of us have multiple layers of filtering: the basic level is done at the ISP, often behind the scenes. In my case, for my main account, the company hosting the mail account uses Postini and I can see what is trapped there. I rarely bother to check it--the settings are good and what it catches--spam and viruses--is clearly bad stuff.

What gets through is then screened again by my spam rules in my email program--which is what most people do. At that level, I sort it automatically into two categories--the first is automatically deleted, and the second I look at manually. About half of it is not spam.

It's in that last category that I find examples of the new breed of spam about once a month. This is semi-bulk email sent not in the millions but in the scores or hundreds. It flies below the filtering radar in many cases, but it's still spam and it's still insidious.

I'm sure Plattsburgh is far from being the only place where the local Chamber of Commerce email list is circulated--legally or not. This week, I got an email message from a local hotel banquet manager invited me (and 904 other people on the list) to a tasting of their new hors d'oeuvres menu. The Chamber mailing list would be a likely set of prospects, but this was not marked as spam, and although there was information about RSVPs, there was no opt-out button--the usual violations of the CANSPAM Act.

But the icing on the hors d'oeuvres cake as the fact that the email was sent TO all 905 people. Yes, no BCC addressing, just TO 905 people. That's obviously how this list circulates.

I've seen these before, and I don't know how to stop it. The problem is that in a small community, these are not evil spammers, they're people you know (or who know people you know), and they're not so much evil and inexperienced. If you're sending millions of spam messages a day, you know how to do it. If you send one bulk email message a year--or ever--you are likely to do it wrong (such as by distributing the email addresses).

The FTC has enough to do going after the big guns, so this type of spam just falls through the cracks. How do we raise awareness of how to comply with the CANSPAM Act and of how wrong it is to distribute email addresses in this way?

Comments and suggestions needed.

The FCC (a/k/a The Fat Lady) Sings

2008-08-01T21:45:00.002-04:00

In a press release issued today, the FCC announces that it has agreed to the transfer of assets from Rural Cellular (Unicel) to Verizon. The FCC attached a condition to its order: "based on a case-by-case analysis which determined that there was a potential for competitive harm in the six markets listed below, the FCC is requiring that one of the two companies divest the licenses and related operational and network assets in those markets."

These include two markets in the State of Washington as well as the three in Vermont and one in New York (Plattsburgh/Franklin area). So either Rural Cellular (Unicel) or Verizon has to get rid of them--presumably to AT&T.

The order is effective today (August 1, 2008). Petitions for reconsideration can be filed within 30 days.

Verizon/Unicel FCC Update

2008-08-01T10:01:00.001-04:00

From this morning's document :

The following [the Verizon/Unicel issue] has been deleted from the list of Agenda items scheduled for consideration at the August 1, 2008, Open Meeting and previously listed in the Commission’s Notice of July 25, 2008. This item has been adopted by the Commission.

Border Policies for Laptops, etc.

2008-08-01T09:38:00.002-04:00

An article on the front page of today's Washington Post describes the policies announced two weeks ago that allow Federal agents at the border to take electronic devices (including laptops) away for "an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing."

The policies do seem rather broad (!), and the front page article is likely to generate more discussion, which is all to the good.

From a technology standpoint, this is just another reminder that we need up to date external backups at all times because in addition to theft and damage, we now have to worry about being relieved of our electronic devices at the border.