DISQUS

Good words. My other bit of advice - DO NOT give personal information to anyone that does not need it. Is that video rental club asking for your social security number? Dont give it to them. Is that store asking to see your drivers license in order to expedite a return? Dont give it to them. If they must see the license, cover the license number. If this is a problem, LIE! Protecting your identity by opposing privacy intrusions is hard; protecting your identity by massive misinformation is a solution.

"These policies would become part of the Communications Act, but as all lawyers know, Congressional declarations aren’t enforceable"

What??? What about that favorite line from the Communications Decency Act, 47 USC 230 "It is the policy of the United States— (2) to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation"

47 USC 230 is entitled "Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material" but FCC Ch Powell morphed this into something somehow somewhere relevant to VoIP. This has become the lead line in almost half of any filings or court deliberations dealing with VoIP. Not sure what the work, "enforceable" means - it sure became policy.

B

Cybertelecom

No no no. Not far enough back. Elisha Gray may be colorful. After all, he did teach at Oberlin. But you have to look FURTHER back. Can you say "Antonio Meucci" http://www.cybertelecom.org/notes/telephone.htm Funny thing. Meucci got ill and had to abandon his lab and his working models. And then Western Union said those models went missing. And then Mr. Bell started working on his invention - according to the story - in the same lab that Meucci had used.

Meucci was too poor to patent his work. So he filed a Caveat way before Bell, according to the stories. And according to a US Congress resolution, had Meucci been able to cough up the $10 to renew his Caveat, there never would have been a Bell patent.