Duane, I have just received a very sweet and conciliatory letter from Chaim Geva at Tadiran. It transpires that my first letter did not make it sufficiently clear where the equipment actually came from, and also that Chaim intended to send his message only to the Tadiran personnel in the mailing list! As far as Tadiran and I are concerned, the matter is closed and we can have a good laugh.
However, this little incident does show all of us just how dangerous a tool e-mail can be. It is too simple to send a message to the wrong party, and the results could be the disclosure of one's own or another party's confidential material, a libel suit, or extreme personal or corporate embarrassment. Just imagine one of us placing a highly confidential internal technical message on TREG for all the competitors to read! Every so often I receive an e-mail message from acquaintances who mistakenly included me in the mailing list for material quite obviously meant for someone else. When this begins, it usually gets out of control, because the recipient sends mail using the "reply to all" setting, causing his reply to reach me too, and so on. I'm afraid I also fell into this trap once, and now try to be very, very careful. For anyone developing e-mail editors, the lesson ought to be to add an option in which the program *clearly* displays all recipients of a message and asks for the sender's confirmation, before the message is sent. Just for fun, it would be interesting to hear some worst-case real-life examples of e-mail addressing mistakes! Regards, David Message text written by INTERNET:[email protected] >David, This controversy sounds just like a situation I experienced in 1977. AT&T had designed the Bell 212A modem. The Bell operating were renting and installing them at customers sites. To installed them required 4 to 5 hours of technician time. These techs used Telecom Test Sets to make adjustments to a repeater on each line that had a 212A attached. During that time I was working for Vadic (later known as Racal-Vadic) Our chief scientist (J. Bingham) had designed and patented the Vadic VA-3400 (FDX 1200 bps modem) several years before and we did not require making adjustments to line to get maximum performance. We were curious about why a repeater was required and why 212A lines needed adjusting. We disconnect the 212A's and used a spectrum analyzer to check the line. We discovered the repeaters were used to adjust the high end frequency response and to provide better group delay across the telco band. We used this knowledge as a marketing ploy against our competitors, AT&T. This caused a number of problems. AT&T was sure we had reverse engineered the 212A and were going to tell the world how it was designed. They threaten legal action (Their 212A patents were still pending). All of this just because we looked at the freqency response and group delay adjustments made to the line. Nothing ever came of the situation, but we were a bit worried for a time. Regards, Duane _________________________________ On Thu, 1 May 1997, David Drori wrote: > Haim Geva of Tadiran asks: > > "Hello everybody It's nice to see our product detailed description from > third body. How did > he got our equipment at his office?" > > Well I never! I thought my letter was clear; however, I'm sorry if I left > anything open to misunderstanding. > > Once again: The Tadiran equipment to which I was referring is a line > doubling apparatus that the telephone company (Bezeq) installs on the > subscriber's premises. The telephone company installed this apparatus in > our office when we requested an additional telephone line a couple of years > ago! Nothing more sinister than that! > > As you can see from my previous letter, the apparent on-hook DC resistance > presented by the Bezeq-installed equipment is given by myself as a result > of a measurement that I made on the telephone line. The only reason I > troubled to make this measurement is that -- while I was trying out > subscribers' equipment -- it appeared that the telephone line was behaving > in a way that I would not generally expect. Rest assured that I did not > tamper with the device itself, or seek further information from any other > source. > > I personally do not agree that my statement regarding the results of a DC > line measurement constitutes "a detailed description" of your product. > > I hope that this is now crystal clear. Incidentally, another of these > devices was also installed by Bezeq at my home address. Undoubtedly, many > Israelis have line doublers on their premises, all put there perfectly > innocently by Bezeq. > > I wish to make one further important point: the sole purpose for my > original message on this subject was to attempt to justify the requirements > stated in BAPT 223 ZV 5 and TBR 21 relating to the behavior of subscribers' > terminal equipment at low DC currents, because other TREG members have > asked about this. Naturally, in case this was not already clear, I was not > claiming that the Bezeq-installed Tadiran apparatus was in any way > defective. > > I need to mention that we have enjoyed a long and very happy relationship > with Tadiran in several fields, and it seems that my completely innocent > mention of Bezeq-supplied equipment that happened to be manufactured by > Tadiran, raised some eyebrows. > > It is truly amazing to see just how easy it can be to create unease, and I > do hope that this note puts to rest any concerns that you might have. > > If this response is fully understood, then it would be very much > appreciated if you will send a short note to that effect, to all the > recipients of your message. I am asking you to do this because I'm afraid > your message seems to imply improper behavior on my part, and I am > perfectly sure that this was not your intention. > > Warmest regards to you Haim, to Amos Maor, and to all our other good > friends at Tadiran. > > David Drori > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > ------------------ > Novarex Enterprises Ltd., > POB 2833, > Jerusalem 91028, > Israel. > Tel: +972 2 581 0995 > Fax: +972 2 581 3750 > Mobile: +972 5 067 8686 > E-mail: [email protected] > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > ------------------ > <
