Verizon - problems

"LA 6 Not created"

I have been having a problem for months with a very close friend not being able to call me at times because she gets a recording saying "LA 6 not created". She lives in Pasadena (AT&T) I live in Santa Monica (Verizon)

I have called Verizon and she has called AT&T - we have both reported the problem more than once. Both phone companies blame the problem as probably a problem with the other company.

Today I placed a call to my son - he lives not 2 miles away...
ARGHHHH - I get this recording: "LA 4 Not Created".

So I called 611. The Virtual Verizon Lady answers. I went through the electronic voice help - the list and trouble reports of course are so limited that I could confirm any of them - so "she" reluctantly passes me off to a human system - where I get a BUSY SIGNAL! So I hung up and tried again... (busy) and again... (busy)

Give me a break - these folks have enough money to have the kick-ass of ALL phone systms - and they don't have a load balancing system to manage call volume?

OR - is it that they are so lame the volume of calls just truly can not manage them?

AND/OR is the voice system so simplistic and inflexible that too high a volume of calls gets passed to human assistance?

Once in touch with a human (4th try) - she was very nice but a bit clueless...
She felt pretty certain that someone would need to come here and test the line, after trying to explain to her that this was really not a line problem from a few different approaches I stopped trying to get the pig to fly and said "sure sure sure Fine" and she made an appointment.

After my fun with Verizon's Virtual Help Lady and the sweet but silly girl who made the appointment for a service call I was able to get through to my son. (Of course) So I told him that he might be getting a call from Verizon - and why. While we were talking he got a call from Verizon. Shortly after that I got one.

I am impressed with the speed on this I must say!

All of this in under an hour!

The technician calls:

Another very nice and compassionate woman who seem very bright. Of course she can not duplicate the error, and also said what everyone else has said - "This is so odd. That is not one of our error messages".

I gave her the history and suggested that they allow folks to leave a brief message on the "Help" line for a technician to clarify problems.

I asked that she both document this error code - and check to see that the last records of similar problems were still documented in my account - they are.

RESOLUTION

All I want here is resolution...

I seem to recall learning years ago, when my brother worked for "the phone company", about how calls get from one place to the other.

[**cool link : http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/telephone-image.htm]
[***cooler link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_exchange]

An overview:

• I dial a number the information is carried over the telephone line from my phone to the pole.
• A local exchange is used to connect people in a small geographic are.
• With cell phone the difference is that the call travels to a cell tower.
• The local exchange routes the call to the main exchange.
• The main exchange routes the call on - either to another main exchange or - if need be to an international exchange.

What I remember from my brother is that sometimes your call gets routed really far away because a switch is overloaded. So of course tracking it may be very difficult.

That is why I put this on my blog!

Please leave a comment if this has ever happened to you.

Leave the area code and the first 3 digits of you number are calling from and the number you are calling as well as your phone company.

I do not know that this will solve anything - but it seems like a less futile waste of time than playing 20 questions with The Virtual Verizon Lady.

: )

You've got Spam!

First let me say that I am blessed by having a really good spam system in place that removes 90% of the spam from my "Inbox". Right now I have over 4,000 peices of junk in a temp folder automatically created for me on the mail server that I don't have to look at unless I want to see what I am missing. And that is not counting the thousands of emails that are so horriffic they don't even get that far. As I say I am blessed.

Okay but I still get spam and it makes me angry because those few stupid time wasters are now annoying little gnats! So I have this morning revenge tactic. I don't just get mad - I get active.

So I thought I should blog a primer!

SPAM Boot Camp!
Throughout this page the links are to additional resources.
Many are to wikipedia an excellent resource!


First Rule:
Know Your Email Headers!

What are email headers?

Email headers are the bits that carry the routing information of emails required to get it from a works station - to a mail server - to another mail server, and then on to the recipient.

How to view headers:
Each flavor of email software is different - so use the help files! Do a search in help for "headers" and if that comes up black do a search for "view details".

What do email headers look like?

Here is an example of an email complete with headers:

The notes in GREEN are my notes to explain what things mean!

X-Persona:  (Only means is it coming to that organization)
Return-Path:  ("suppossedly" the sender - 
they are lying - this is forged)

Received: from 206.117.168.17 ([202.104.235.68])(FORGED IP address of the sender)

From sfxdbyzh@kendrakessel.com  Tue Nov 28 22:32:12 2006

("suppossedly" who it is from - but they are lying - this is forged) 
Return-Path:  
(this is forged too) 
X-Spam-Flag: YES (My SPAM filters add all the stuff in BLUE)
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.0 (2005-09-13) on (I removed my mail server info here) 
X-Spam-Level: SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS (Oh yes - this is really SPAM see all those S's) 
X-Spam-Status: Yes, score=15.3 required=6.0 tests=BAYES_99,  (Above a score of 6 I don't see it in my INBOX)
(Next are the first tests that caught this bad boy)
     DATE_IN_FUTURE_12_24,EXTRA_MPART_TYPE,HTML_MESSAGE,RCVD_IN_DSBL, 
(About the tests above:
DATE_IN_FUTURE_12_24 means:
When spammers put the date in the future it stays at the top of you email folder until the date passes
EXTRA_MPART_TYPE means it had extra servings of crap in the headers
HTML_MESSAGE means - SPAMMERS like to hide behind bold and big fonts to try and get your attention fast before you hit the trash button
RCVD_IN_DSBL means  - well go here to see specifics on this email: http://dsbl.org/listing?59.92.60.221  OR go here to see the explaination of why this got flagged: http://dsbl.org/sender
)
     RCVD_IN_NJABL_PROXY,RCVD_IN_XBL autolearn=no version=3.1.0 
(Above means the sender machine is an open proxy  - either by design or a machine without a firewall that got hacked allowing it to spew this garbage - and the spam learning system is making notes or something)

The next report below is more of the same test and score information
X-Spam-Report:  
     *  1.1 EXTRA_MPART_TYPE Header has extraneous Content-type:...type= entry 
     *  2.8 DATE_IN_FUTURE_12_24 Date: is 12 to 24 hours after Received: date 
     *  0.5 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message 
     *  4.0 BAYES_99 BODY: Bayesian spam probability is 99 to 100% 
     *      [score: 1.0000] 
     *  1.0 RCVD_IN_DSBL RBL: Received via a relay in list.dsbl.org 
     *      [<http://dsbl.org/listing?59.92.60.221>] 

     *  2.0 RCVD_IN_NJABL_PROXY RBL: NJABL: sender is an open proxy 
     *      [59.92.60.221 listed in combined.njabl.org] 
     *  3.9 RCVD_IN_XBL RBL: Received via a relay in Spamhaus XBL 
     *      [59.92.60.221 listed in sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org] 

Received: from Media1 ([59.92.60.221]) (***** WOO HOO AN IP ADDRESS! ***** )

  (I removed my mail server & ISP information here) with ESMTP id kAT6W2OY007001

  for <my_email@my_domian.com>; Tue, 28 Nov 2006 22:32:06 -0800

Message-ID: <000b01c713f2$93378090$0e01a8c0@media1>

From: "vas" 

To: "ellen" 

Subject: ****SPAM**** Re: i think it is finally time

Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 12:11:37 -0800

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: multipart/related;

  type="multipart/alternative";

  boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0007_01C713F2.93378090"

X-Priority: 3

X-MSMail-Priority: Normal

X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200

X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200

X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.54 on 207.151.82.18

X-Spam-Prev-Subject: Re: i think it is finally time 

Content-Type: text/plain;

Low Cost Prescription Drugs - Without a Prescription

Vicodix, Sona, Hydroxodine, Levitna, Valtrix & more


http://www.megodsdepotes.biz/pharmexopexplace

OKAY LETS SLUETH!

59.92.60.221 
That is the ip address above that made me say  (***** WOO HOO AN IP ADDRESS! ***** ) 
Let's find out who owns that machine!

Go to: http://www.arin.net/whois/ 

copy and paste the number in the little search window and click the "Search WHOIS" button.

hmmm:

  Search results for: 59.92.60.221  
       

OrgName:    Asia Pacific Network Information Centre
OrgID:      APNIC
Address:    PO Box 2131
City:       Milton
StateProv:  QLD
PostalCode: 4064
Country:    AU

ReferralServer: whois://whois.apnic.net

NetRange:   59.0.0.0 - 59.255.255.255
CIDR:       59.0.0.0/8
NetName:    APNIC-59
NetHandle:  NET-59-0-0-0-1
Parent: 
NetType:    Allocated to APNIC
NameServer: NS1.APNIC.NET
NameServer: NS3.APNIC.NET
NameServer: NS4.APNIC.NET
NameServer: TINNIE.ARIN.NET
NameServer: NS.LACNIC.NET
NameServer: NS-SEC.RIPE.NET
Comment:    This IP address range is not registered in the ARIN database.
Comment:    For details, refer to the APNIC Whois Database via
Comment:    WHOIS.APNIC.NET or http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois2.pl
Comment:    ** IMPORTANT NOTE: APNIC is the Regional Internet Registry
Comment:    for the Asia Pacific region. APNIC does not operate networks
Comment:    using this IP address range and is not able to investigate
Comment:    spam or abuse reports relating to these addresses. For more
Comment:    help, refer to http://www.apnic.net/info/faq/abuse
RegDate:    2004-05-04
Updated:    2005-05-20

OrgTechHandle: AWC12-ARIN
OrgTechName:   APNIC Whois Contact
OrgTechPhone:  +61 7 3858 3100
OrgTechEmail:  search-apnic-not-arin@apnic.net

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2006-11-28 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

         

Okay - so we need to go to the next whois:
http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois.pl

And when we do the look-up here we get:

inetnum:      59.88.0.0 - 59.99.255.255
netname:      BSNLNET
descr:        NIB (National Internet Backbone)
descr:        Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
descr:        Sanchar Bhawan,20, Ashoka Road, New Delhi-110001
country:      IN
admin-c:      NC83-AP
tech-c:       CDN1-AP
status:       ALLOCATED PORTABLE
remarks:      Request for additional IP Addresses for NIB Phase-2
mnt-by:       APNIC-HM
mnt-lower:    MAINT-IN-DOT
mnt-routes:   MAINT-IN-DOT
remarks:      -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
remarks:      This object can only be updated by APNIC hostmasters.
remarks:      To update this object, please contact APNIC
remarks:      hostmasters and include your organisation's account
remarks:      name in the subject line.
remarks:      -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
changed:      hm-changed@apnic.net 20040906
changed:      hm-changed@apnic.net 20040906
source:       APNIC

route:        59.92.48.0/20
descr:        BSNL Internet
country:      IN
origin:       AS9829
mnt-lower:    MAINT-IN-DOT
mnt-routes:   MAINT-IN-DOT
mnt-by:       MAINT-IN-AS9829
changed:      routemaster@sancharnet.in 20060404
source:       APNIC

role:         NS Cell
address:      Internet Cell
address:      Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
address:      8th Floor,148-B Statesman House
address:      Barakhamba Road, New Delhi - 110 001
country:      IN
phone:        +91-11-23734057
phone:        +91-11-23710183
fax-no:       +91-11-23372252
e-mail:       cgmdnw@sancharnet.in
e-mail:       nib_abuse@sancharnet.in  (**** THIS IS THE ABUSE EMAIL ADDRESS ****)
admin-c:      CGMD1-AP
tech-c:       DT197-AP
nic-hdl:      NC83-AP
mnt-by:       MAINT-IN-DOT
changed:      dnwplg@sancharnet.in 20030120
source:       APNIC

role:         CGM Data Networks
address:      Lobby 1 , 4th Floor
address:      Mahanagar Doorsanchar Sadan
address:      9 CGO Complex , Lodhi Road , New Delhi
country:      IN
phone:        +91-11-24326781
phone:        +91-11-23737571
fax-no:       +91-11-24326783
fax-no:       +91-11-23737573
e-mail:       cgmdnw@sancharnet.in
e-mail:       dnwplg@sancharnet.in
e-mail:       nib_abuse@sancharnet.in
admin-c:      CGMD1-AP
tech-c:       DT197-AP
tech-c:       BH155-AP
nic-hdl:      CDN1-AP
mnt-by:       MAINT-IN-DOT
changed:      dnwplg@sancharnet.in 20030120
source:       APNIC
**********************************************************

SO WHAT NOW?

The Good NEWS:
We got some email addresses:

e-mail:       cgmdnw@sancharnet.in
e-mail:       dnwplg@sancharnet.in
e-mail:       nib_abuse@sancharnet.in

So I send them email and get back:
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 00:06:52 +0530 (IST)
From: Internet Mail Delivery
Subject: Delivery Notification: Delivery has failed
Your message cannot be delivered to the following recipients:

Recipient address: @nppa.sancharnet.in:cgmdnw@sancharnet.in
Original address: cgmdnw@sancharnet.in
Reason: "Possible Virus Detected HMlfCrQg6L.gif"
Recipient address: @nppa.sancharnet.in:dnwplg@sancharnet.in
Original address: dnwplg@sancharnet.in
Reason: "Possible Virus Detected HMlfCrQg6L.gif"
Recipient address: @nppa.sancharnet.in:nib_abuse@sancharnet.in
Original address: nib_abuse@sancharnet.in
Reason: "Possible Virus Detected HMlfCrQg6L.gif"

Message rejected: Conversion failure.



The BAD NEWS:
We got some email addresses IN INDIA - dang!
OKAY - I have friends from India and they are wonderful people, and mean no disrepect in my sorry exclamation.

The economic reality is that the people there are scrambling to make a living. Providing internet services as well as lame-ass call centers has provided jobs that pay well for those employed.
I can not blame them for this - but I do not have to like it!

Useful Terms (humor)

I love smart people!

Just last night my wonderful intelligent partner used this term!

He was tossing “Bad Ice” from the freezer and said it had sublimated.

Uh… what?

So he defines the term! "
Sublimation is the change from solid - gas or gas - solid without passing the liquid state."

Did I say I love smart people?

So it occurs to me that I can use this term the net time I hear a barking spider!

“ Excuse me – but did you just sublimate?”

: )

But wait - there is more!

The shrinks use it too!

So are they talking about turning crappy emotions to brain farts?

eh eh... sometimes I feel like I am 9 years old... and I like it.


This is almost as Useful as a term I came with:
Excusplanation

This is when you try very hard to make up an explanation regarding an undocumented feature.

It is almost an onomatopoeia because you can not say it without spitting and sputtering.


Sublimation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Sublimation has three separate meanings:

• Sublimation (physics) is the change from solid - gas or gas - solid without passing the liquid state, also known as deposition (meteorology)


• Sublimation (psychology) is the transformation of emotions


• Dye sublimation is the transference of printed images to a synthetic substrate by the application of heat.

a little background mind-whitenoise

my mind wandered....

The pro's and cons of new words...
I think I have a new word
If "conundrum" is
1.a puzzle or problem with a difficult or impossible solution.
Crossref. Syn. knot

then a
Pronundrum
1.a puzzle or problem with a realistic solution.
Crossref. Syn. known

Which raises the problem:
if Problem is
Definition1.a question or circumstance that involves difficulty or uncertainty

Then there should also be a Conblem
Definition1.a question or circumstance that involves ease and certainty


Here is where it gets confusing... the pros solve problems and the cons create them...

pro
Part of Speech adverb
Definition1.in favor of some proposal, decision, person, or the like.
Example They argued the subject pro and con. (Cf. con1.)
Crossref. Syn. in favor of

Part of Speech noun
Inflected Forms pros
Definition1.a factor, argument, vote, or the like in favor of something. (Cf. con1.)
Definition2.one who takes a position in favor of something, such as the affirmative side in a debate. (Cf. con1.)

con:

con opposing; against.
Part of Speech transitive verb

Inflected Forms conned, conning, cons
Definition1.to memorize.
Definition2.to study or examine with care.
Related Words coerce , canvass

adjective

Definition1.(informal) pertaining to trickery or deception that involves an abuse of confidence. Example a con game. Return to top of entryPart of Speech transitive verb Inflected Forms conned, conning, cons Definition1.(informal) to cheat by trickery; swindle.

noun
Definition1.(informal) a confidence game; swindle. Crossref. Syn. fraud , swindle Related Words gyp , cheat , trick , humbug , ploy , fake

By now you have to look confounded:
Part of Speech adjective View pronunciation guide Pronunciation
Definition1.confused; bewildered; befuddled. Definition2.(informal) damned (used as a mild expletive). Example The man is a confounded liar! Related Words disconcerted , lost Derived Forms confoundedly, adv. ; confoundedness, n.

whereas Profound
Part of Speech adjective
Definition 1.located at, reaching to, or coming from a great depth; deep.
2.having intellectual insight and depth. Example a profound thought.
3.going to, or as though to, a great depth; penetrating; intense.
Example profound anxieties;

Professor
1.a university or college teacher in the highest academic rank.
confessor
Definition1.one who makes a confession. Crossref. Syn. penitent
Definition2.a priest who hears the confessions of penitents.
Definition3.a person who confesses faith in and adherence to Christianity in the face of persecution.
confession
Definition1.one who makes a confession. Crossref. Syn. penitent
Definition2.a priest who hears the confessions of penitents.
Definition3.a person who confesses faith in and adherence to Christianity in the face of persecution.

profession
Definition1.an occupation or career requiring advanced training or study.

Now - isn't it interesting that the Christians corner the market on Cons-fessing?

Which takes us to prostitute
1.one who earns money by engaging in sexual relations with others for a fee.
Definition2.one who uses his or her abilities, reputation, or the like for unworthy purposes, usu. in exchange for money.
Part of Speech transitive verb
Definition1.to offer the sexual services of (oneself or another) for money.
Definition2.to sell or use (oneself, one's abilities, or the like) for an unworthy purpose.
and constitute
Definition1 .to form or compose. Example Seven days constitute a week.
Definition2. to establish; found. Example Her inheritance constituted a fund for her education.
Definition3. to nominate or appoint to a function or office.


Ah... now we get to the heart of pros and cons...

Cons are put in office and Pro's get fucked?
: ) Contemplate that!