MagicJack's next act: disappearing cell phone fees

LAS VEGAS -

The company behind the magicJack, the cheap Internet phone gadget that's been heavily promoted on TV, has made a new version of the device that allows free calls from cell phones in the home, in a fashion that's sure to draw protest from cellular carriers.

The new magicJack uses, without permission, radio frequencies for which cellular carriers have paid billions of dollars for exclusive licenses.

YMax Corp., which is based in Palm Beach, Fla., said this week at the International Consumers Electronics Show that it plans to start selling the device in about four months for $40, the same price as the original magicJack. As before, it will provide free calls to the U.S. and Canada for one year.

The device is, in essence, a very small cellular tower for the home.

The size of a deck of cards, it plugs into a PC, which needs a broadband Internet connection. The device then detects when a compatible cell phone comes within 8 feet, and places a call to it. The user enters a short code on the phone. The phone is then linked to the magicJack, and as long as it's within range (YMax said it will cover a 3,000-square-foot home) magicJack routes the call itself, over the Internet, rather than going through the carrier's cellular tower. No minutes are subtracted from the user's account with the carrier. Any extra fees for international calls are subtracted from the user's account with magicJack, not the carrier.

According to YMax CEO Dan Borislow, the device will connect to any phone that uses the GSM standard, which in the U.S. includes phones from AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA. At a demonstration at CES, a visitor's phone with a T-Mobile account successfully placed and received calls through the magicJack. Most phones from Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. won't connect to the device.

Borislow said the device is legal because wireless spectrum licenses don't extend into the home.

AT&T, T-Mobile and the Federal Communications Commission had no immediate comment on whether they believe the device is legal, but said they were looking into the issue. CTIA — The Wireless Association, a trade group, said it was declining comment for now. None of them had heard of YMax's plans.

Borislow said YMax has sold 5 million magicJacks for landline phones in the last two years, and that roughly 3 million are in active use. That would give YMax a bigger customer base than Internet phone pioneer Vonage Holdings Corp., which has been selling service for $25 per month for the better part of a decade. Privately held YMax had revenue of $110 million last year, it says.

U.S. carriers have been selling and experimenting with devices that act similarly to the wireless magicJack. They're called "femtocells." Like the magicJack, they use the carrier's licensed spectrum to connect to a phone, then route the calls over a home broadband connection. They improve coverage inside the home and offload capacity from the carrier's towers.

But femtocells are complex products, because they're designed to mesh with the carrier's external network. They cost the carriers more than $200, though some sell them cheaper, recouping the cost through added service fees. YMax's magicJack is a much smaller, simpler design.

Profiles of Famous Computer Hackers (unknown source)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_convicted_computer_criminals

As it was mentioned before, the history of hacking is intermixed with the history of computers. Many of the famous computer hackers of the past are the billionaires of today.

The most known hacker is Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft. Considered the richest person in the world for more than a decade, he became the most successful entrepreneur of the computer industry. His beginnings go back to the 1970's when he designed computer programs for the computer platforms of that era, and ended with the introduction of Windows in the world of personal computers.

After some time away from the media attention, Steve Jobs came back with the introduction of several new products in Apple. The most known of them is the iPod, which has revolutionized the music industry around the world. Jobs started nearly at the same time that Gates, founding Apple and introducing to the market the first home computer, the Apple II.

Although Linus Torvalds was known among the hacker community as the hero who created Linux, the open source operating system, it hasn't been until recent years that people started to wonder if there was another option apart from using Microsoft's operating system.
Profiles of Bad Hackers
Unfortunately, there are as many bad hackers as productive hackers. One of the most famous black hackers is Kevin Mitnick, who broke into the computers of several organizations, including Fujitsu, Motorola, Sun Microsystems and Nokia. He was imprisoned and even today can't use a computer due to a judicial restriction.

Another famous hacker is Vladimir Levin, a mathematician who led a group of Russian hackers and stole ten million dollars from Citibank. Until this day, no one knows how they did it.

Jonathan James case is a bit more complicated. He was the first juvenile from the teen hackers of the USA to be prosecuted for computer hacking. But that didn't stop him. Later, he was able to access the computer systems of NASA and the US Department of Defense. Finally, he was imprisoned.
Fraud for Sale
Years ago, before the coming of the internet, hackers around the world caused a lot of mayhem in organizations. But now that they have a potential market of hundreds of millions of persons, their options are almost limitless. That's why online fraud is considered one of the cancers of the internet. The only way to protect from it, is becoming an anti hacker ourselves, maintaining up to date with the most basic knowledge: firewall, antivirus, antispam, constant operating system updates and taking care of suspicious websites.

The effects of computer hacking in our history can't be denied. It is here and it won't disappear. But the most interesting thing about the history of hacking is that it was expected to happen. You only need to check old science fiction books to find it.

Most Famous Hackers & Crackers in the World
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_convicted_computer_criminals

Jonathan James. AKA c0mrade. James was the first juvenile that was sentenced to prison for cybercrime, being only 15 years of age at the time of the crime and 16 when he was sentenced. After some minor incursions into telecommunications networks, what brought him to the attention of the authorities was that James had gotten into computers at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an agency responsible for analyzing threats to the US, either native or from abroad. He’d done this by installing backdoor programs on a computer server in Virginia, which in turn allowed him to collect sensitive data, including the emails of many DTRA employees, detailing usernames and passwords to whole range of things, including military computers. Upon detection, NASA had to shut down their computers for a number of weeks in order to make sure everything was ok and to fix any damage caused, costing $41,000 in the process. Unfortunately for him, the good times were not to last long, as James’ house was raided on a January morning in 2000 and he was arrested, being sentenced to six months in prison and probation until the age of 18. Sadly, James died in the middle of last year, with suicide suspected of being the cause.

Adrian Lamo. Dubbed the “Homeless Hacker” due to the fact he usually did most of his “work” from internet cafes, abandoned buildings and libraries. What Lamo did was to do “penetration testing” on several major companies, including Yahoo!, Bank of America and Microsoft. He’d break into their computer systems via security flaws and the like and would then notify the companies that he’d just broken into about the flaws in their computer systems, with some of his targets even being thankful for the security advice that he provided. However, in February 2002, Lamo broke into the computer network of The New York Times, where he was able to view all kinds of sensitive information and was subsequently arrested. He was sentenced to 6 months of detention at his parents’ house, two years of probation and ordered to pay about $65,000 in restitution

Kevin Mitnick. AKA Condor. Whilst Mitnick’s feats are arguably not the most incredible, he is likely the most famous hacker in recent history and was – at the time of his arrest – the most wanted hacker in US history. Mitnick started on his life’s path at the tender age of 12, where he got around the LA bus punchcard system by buying his own punch, thus he was able to get free bus rides wherever he wanted. In later years he would then proceed to practice phreaking with cell phones, fast food speaker systems, amateur radios and drive-thru speakers. He would later be sentenced for hacking into the computer system for DEC, earning him some prison time and a period of supervised release. It was near the end of this release that Mitnick took it upon himself to hack into yet more computer systems and then fleeing before he could be caught. He went on an epic hacking spree that lasted for the next two and a half years, until his apprehension in February 1995. Ultimately, it was hacking into fellow (white hat) hacker Tsutomu Shimomura’s computer, after which Shimomura made it his personal mission to track down Mitnick. In total, Mitnick has served around 5 years in prison, with 8 months being in solitary confinement. The accompanying photo is Mitnick (middle) with Adrian Lamo (left) and Kevin Poulsen (right).

Kevin Poulsen. AKA Dark Dante. Currently a senior editor at Wired News, Poulsen was made famous with perhaps his best known hack, which netted him a $50,000 Porsche. An LA radio station was offering the Porsche as a prize to the 102 nd caller to the station, so what Poulsen did was to take over the station’s telephone line, block out all the other callers but himself, thereby ensuring that he was the 102 nd caller and winning the Porsche. However, it was his hacking into various Federal computer systems that attracted the attention of the FBI, leading to his arrest at a supermarket in 1991. In 1994, he was found guilty of mail, wire and computer fraud, as well as obstruction of justice and sentenced to almost 5 years in prison and forced to pay $56,000 in restitution. At the time, Poulsen was on the receiving end of the longest prison sentence a cracker had ever been “awarded”.

...if you could map the user space onto the system space so they both started at zero you would then gain the same power as the equivalent account to root. -etaoin shrdlu-