Source
Automatically imported from: http://commons.somewhere.com:80/rre/1995/Internet.in.Poland.and.F.html
Content
This web service brought to you by Somewhere.Com, LLC.
Internet in Poland and France, plus Intuit & SSN's
``` [Here are some snapshots of people trying to get the Internet going full speed in Europe. Though I think that this whole privatization thing is unfolding in a pretty misguided way, many of the European PTT's (state owned post offices and phone companies) are making life unnecessarily miserable for Internet enthusiasts, who need everyone's assistance in helping these companies get a clue before it's too late. The second and third messages here (about the Internet in France and Intuit putting your Social Security Number on documents where it doesn't belong) are edited from the new issue of Computer Privacy Digest. I have kept all of the subscription information for this useful digest at the end.]
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 95 13:30 MET
From: Marta Dubrzynska
Dear Netpersonality,
This is a request for help on behalf of the Polish internet. We have one single internet provider in Poland: NASK. NASK has bacause of an agreement with the Polish Telecom a monopoly on lines connecting Poland with the rest of the world. University's schools and commercial internet providers have to get their acces from NASK. Prizes of internet are high. A complete account with SLIP etc. costs around 60 $ a month. Telephone costs are 3.7 $ per hour. If you take into account that wages of around 350 $ per month are considdered normal it is clear why internet is not used by so many people in Poland. And now NASK announced that too many people are using the internet and that they need more money to keep the lines open. They decided that from January they would raise the prizes, and that they would calculate costs per bytes sent or recieved. Yes that's right, we have to pay for letters you send us and we have to pay for WWW pages you download from us. This will mean the end of most internet activity in Poland. If you want to know the details you can find them at: http://galaxy.uci.agh.edu.pl/~szymon/protest-eng.html http://www.put.poznan.pl/hypertext/isoc-pl/battle.html protest@uci.agh.edu.pl
That's why we Marta Dubrzynska, Webmaster of the Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, (http://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/culture/csw/) and Michiel van der Haagen, Net user (http://www.atm.com.pl/COM/michiel/) ask your help. Can you make it clear to our Government and NASK that this policy is disasterous for Polish culture, economy and education? Please check out these WWW adresses and react.
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 95 10:42:02 EST
From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator
Computer Privacy Digest Wed, 20 Dec 95 Volume 7 : Issue: 052
---
Date: 18 Dec 1995 11:11:05 GMT From: JeanBernard_Condat@eMail.FranceNet.fr (JeanBernard Condat) Subject: Why Internet don't really work in France? Organization: FranceNet
Why Internet don't really work in France?
December 14th, France Telecom try to explain why all the Internet links in France are all busy. If you own an email address, you can use a Minitel terminal (X.25 gateway like 3616 ALTERN, 3617 EMAIL or 3619 USNET), an X-Windows terminal (Atlass X.400 messaging service from France Cables & Radio) or a poor little micro-computer (TCP-IP accesses via one of the 84 national Internet Service Providers [ISP]) to put a message to another email throughout the world. All the strikes were too hard and Internet become in some days the only way to transmit a document without any delay.
Choosing an ISP doesn't be an easy operation. The difference of quality and price are unpossible, it's the same Internet service: THE France Telecom's one. But the user have some uncredible way to choose between the CompuServe, AOL, FranceNet, WorldNet, Imaginet, InternetWay, Mnet, Xon-Xoff, Attmail or Simplenet access. The most use method is funny, crually funny.
Imagine a teen looking for an Internet connection via the Minitel terminal offer with the parents phone line. He try with Minitel to access to the best ISP. If you use the 3615 basic videotex access on the Minitel, the INTERNET service is a joke. A joke, because Mr. Valentin Lacambre, a lucky 29-years old business man, possess the 'Internet' trademark for all the French industry. When France Telecom try to use it, Valentin receive some money. When some journalists writte on the Internet media, Valentin note an increasing number of connections on the 3615 INTERNET service (= postmaster@altern.com). Valentin is one of my best friend, the only that really DO business with Internet in my country.
Imagine the same teen looking for a micro-computer connection to Internet. If this teen live out of Paris, he generally try to find the correct phone number for the connection. The first available in a teen head will be the transcription of the word INTERNET in a real phone number. In France, the transcription with ABC is 1, DEF is 3, GHI is 4, JKL is 5, MN is 6, PRS is 7, TUV is 8, WXY is 9 and OQZ is zero... permit to have for INTERNET, the phone number: 46837638. If you dial this phone number out of Paris, you never have an answer. My poor teen, dont have any chance... the phone line dont be an ISP, but a private one. The owner is Mr. Francois PERIGNON, living in an little village called La Beaupiniere in Bords, an Charente-Maritines nice place. He receive some hundreds of modem tunes pro days... and never answer!
Imagine the same teen living in Paris. The owner of the 46837638 phone line is a student on the Ecole Centrale campus in Chatenay-Malabry. This room have a credit-phone... but the owner of this room dont have money and forget to credit the #638 account. Half of the time, the credit expire and when you call the line, never answer because of the null-credit account. My poor teen (and all the journalist trying to do a connection on the INTERNET number) said all the time: I cannot have a connection.
MM. Valentin Lacambre, Francois Perignon and the student of room #638 of the Ecole Centrales campus are the three most influent and lucky persons in France that (dont) permit the unexperiment users to experiment Internet connections. Its the only reason why Internet dont really work in France...
---
Jean-Bernard Condat Computer fraud and security consultant (Paris, France) JeanBernard_Condat@FranceNet.FR
---
Date: 18 Dec 1995 19:10:07 -0800 From: michael@piglet.amscons.com (Michael Bryan) Subject: SSN Shown On Payments by Intuit's Banking Service Organization: none
Another user (Robert Mayo) discovered, and I confirmed, that Intuit's online bill payment service sends your payees a printout containing your social security number.
This applies to any person who is using Quicken for Windows or Microsoft Money for Windows to send payment requests electronically, using Intuit's service. It specifically does -not- apply to using Quicken with the Checkfree service, as the Checkfree service does not supply anybody with your SSN.
The details:
When the Intuit service sends a payment to a merchant, it will do one of three things. First, it will try to perform an EFT directly from your account into the merchant's. Most merchant's are still not setup for this, however. Second, if your payment is the only payment going to a given merchant on a given day, then they will print a check, drawn against your account, and mail it to the merchant. Both of these methods are ok, and do not result in your merchant receiving your SSN.
However, if there are multiple payments going to a single merchant on a given day (i.e., more than one customer has requested a payment to the given merchang), all of these payments are sent in a single envelope, and a summary sheet is enclosed. This summary sheet will have a field called "Control Number", which consists of your SSN, followed by two other digits. This summary also lists your checking account number, in addition to your name, account with the merchant, and the amount of your payment. (In my opinion, only these last three fields are called for. There is no need for the checking account number to be listed, even though it -is- printed on your check as part of the MICR encoding.)
I have contacted Intuit regarding this matter, and they have been decidedly less than helpful. I know at least three other people who have called them, and we have all been told the same thing:
1) "Most of your merchants already have your SSN". Perhaps this is true for some people, but it is not the case with me.
2) "The SSN is encrypted on the printout". Absolutely not true. It is printed under the label "Control Number", and has two extra digits appended, but this does not "encrypt" the number. Anybody who knows what the field contains has instant knowledge of your SSN.
Intuit is currently refusing to address this issue. Furthormore, when I called in, they tried to tell me I was the only person who was complaining. I immediately gave them the names of three other people who had called in, one of whom I knew had talked to this particular individual. So that little "divide-and-conquer" trick backfired.
Also, when I said that I would be forced to go to the media if they didn't address this issue, I was told that by doing so, I would be responsible for broadcasting this information to those who might then illegally use the information. I found this two-faced attitude particularly annoying. On the one hand, they are claiming it's not a problem, yet on the other they tried to keep me from going to the media because it might give criminals information they could then exploit.
Anyway, I've done all I can with talking to Intuit, so I am now pursuing other avenues. My bank (Union Bank) was particularly concerned that the SSN was being printed out and mailed with potentially every payment, and vowed to look into it and work with Intuit on my behalf to get this behaviour stopped. Also, I and a few others have contacted various media representatives, in an attempt to get them to focus a spotlight on Intuit, and let people know that Intuit is broadcasting their SSN, without their knowledge. And of course, I'm posting Usenet articles in the privacy newsgroups, as well as the newsgroup where most Quicken discussion occurs, comp.os.ms-windows.apps.financial.
If you are using Intuit's Online Bill Payment service, and are concerned about this, please call Intuit and express your displeasure. The number for the Online Bill Payment service is 708-585-8500. Also, call your bank, and inform them as to what's going on. Finally, write to your local (or national) newspaper, let them know about this, and ask them to cover this in their paper.
It appears that the only way Intuit is going to address this is by getting some negative publicity, since customer complaints don't seem to carry enough weight. I wish they were more reasonable, but that just doesn't seem to be happening here. So be it --- they want a fight, they've got one.
---
Date: 22 Nov 1995 14:25:54 -0600 (CST)
From: "Prof. L. P. Levine"
The Computer Privacy Digest is a forum for discussion on the effect of technology on privacy or vice versa. The digest is moderated and gatewayed into the USENET newsgroup comp.society.privacy (Moderated). Submissions should be sent to comp-privacy@uwm.edu and administrative requests to comp-privacy-request@uwm.edu.
This digest is a forum with information contributed via Internet eMail. Those who understand the technology also understand the ease of forgery in this very free medium. Statements, therefore, should be taken with a grain of salt and it should be clear that the actual contributor might not be the person whose email address is posted at the top. Any user who openly wishes to post anonymously should inform the moderator at the beginning of the posting. He will comply.
If you read this from the comp.society.privacy newsgroup and wish to contribute a message, you should simply post your contribution. As a moderated newsgroup, attempts to post to the group are normally turned into eMail to the submission address below.
On the other hand, if you read the digest eMailed to you, you generally need only use the Reply feature of your mailer to contribute. If you do so, it is best to modify the "Subject:" line of your mailing.
Contributions to CPD should be submitted, with appropriate, substantive SUBJECT: line, otherwise they may be ignored. They must be relevant, sound, in good taste, objective, cogent, coherent, concise, and nonrepetitious. Diversity is welcome, but not personal attacks. Do not include entire previous messages in responses to them. Include your name & legitimate Internet FROM: address, especially from .UUCP and .BITNET folks. Anonymized mail is not accepted. All contributions considered as personal comments; usual disclaimers apply. All reuses of CPD material should respect stated copyright notices, and should cite the sources explicitly; as a courtesy; publications using CPD material should obtain permission from the contributors.
Contributions generally are acknowledged within 24 hours of submission. If selected, they are printed within two or three days. The moderator reserves the right to delete extraneous quoted material. He may change the Subject: line of an article in order to make it easier for the reader to follow a discussion. He will not, however, alter or edit the text except for purely technical reasons.
A library of back issues is available on ftp.cs.uwm.edu [129.89.9.18]. Login as "ftp" with password identifying yourid@yoursite. The archives are in the directory "pub/comp-privacy".
People with gopher capability can most easily access the library at gopher.cs.uwm.edu.
Web browsers will find it at gopher://gopher.cs.uwm.edu.
---------------------------------+----------------------------------------- Leonard P. Levine | Moderator of: Computer Privacy Digest Professor of Computer Science | and comp.society.privacy University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | Post: comp-privacy@uwm.edu Box 784, Milwaukee WI 53201 | Information: comp-privacy-request@uwm.edu | Gopher: gopher.cs.uwm.edu levine@cs.uwm.edu | Web: gopher://gopher.cs.uwm.edu ---------------------------------+-----------------------------------------
---
End of Computer Privacy Digest V7 #052
--- ```
This web service brought to you by Somewhere.Com, LLC.