AT&T is seeking the return of technical documents presented in a lawsuit that allegedly detail how the telecom giant helped the government set up a massive internet wiretap operation in its San Francisco facilities.
In papers filed late Monday, AT&T argued that confidential technical documents provided by an ex-AT&T technician to the Electronic Frontier Foundation shouldn’t be used as evidence in the case and should be returned.
The documents, which the EFF filed under a temporary seal last Wednesday, purportedly detail how AT&T diverts internet traffic to the National Security Agency via a secret room in San Francisco and allege that such rooms exist in other AT&T switching centers.
Sears Chairman Works on Selling Skills
For 90 minutes on Wednesday, the investor, Edward S. Lampert, the normally reclusive chairman of Sears Holding, spoke expansively about the need to change attitudes and work habits at the merged company.
One effort is already under way: assembling the company’s top 500 managers here for marathon training sessions, where a film clip from “Miracle on Ice,” about the United States hockey team that won the gold medal at the 1980 Winter Olympics, is used to promote team work and improve customer service.
“In the past, we had a situation where people worked here but could not get results,” Mr. Lampert said during the first shareholder meeting for the newly formed retailer. “We need to invest in those people.”
Sears owns nearby Lands End
IRS Examines Paypals Records to Uncover Tax Fraud
Interesting article this afternoon on Bloomberg: IRS Reviews PayPal Purchase Records to Find Offshore Accounts, by Ryan J. Donmoyer: The IRS is examining some electronic-payment transactions processed by EBay’s PayPal unit to find U.S. taxpayers who keep unreported income…
More B-Schools Add Sales Courses
A company’s sales force is its lifeblood. But you’d never know it by looking at the typical M.B.A. curriculum.
Because they’re lighter on theory and research than other academic subjects, sales courses are surprisingly scarce in M.B.A. programs. “It’s sad that something as important to the economy as sales shows up as a footnote in the principles of marketing course at most graduate business schools,” says Andy Zoltners, a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, which has long offered a sales-force management class.
But the sales function seems to be slowly gaining more respect as a few other major schools, including Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of North Carolina, create M.B.A.-level sales courses. Harvard Business School has taught sales management for many years, but lately it has been focusing more on the selling process itself, with lessons on making sales presentations to corporate customers, influencing people and closing the deal.
“Many people view selling as tactical and haven’t taken the broader view that you will need sales skills even if you aren’t managing a sales force,” says David Godes, an associate professor at Harvard. “If you’re going into banking or consulting, how do you get clients and how do you raise money?”
It’s about time. Superior salespeople are always in short supply. They succeed based on solid, long term relationships.
Pens as Style Statements
Virginia Postrel, writing in Southwest Airlines’ Spirit Magazine [pdf].
Whitepaper on Telco Promises
Here’s a very well-written report of the Bell’s trail of Rate Relief and Broken Promises. It is funded by Broadband Everywhere, a consortium that’s openly funded by small cablecos and the NCTA, who are fighting back against the Bell-flavored franchise reform law moving through Congress. It relies heavily on the work of Bruce Kushnick, but it also cites many relevant local press stories from, e.g., Enid OK (where a promise of 500 jobs led to rate relief and a net loss of jobs), Austin TX (where a new Texas law that assumed “competition” would lead to lower prices and granted rate relief actually led to rate caps), etc., etc., etc.
Really good stuff on a bad story that demands more attention! Mainstream reporters, attention please!
The Great Quake – 1906 to 2006
San Francisco, the ‘Paris of America,’ was booming with industry and culture — a Gold Rush city built in an instant. It was also a calamity waiting to happen.
This is the first of a 10-part retelling of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake — and its aftermath.
Samuel Dickson was 17 years old, almost a man, that April night in San Francisco 100 years ago. He and a friend had gotten standing-room tickets for the opera and heard the great Caruso sing.
The night was clear and beautiful, so after the opera they went to the top of Telegraph Hill to look at the city — the lights of the Barbary Coast, the steeple of Old St. Mary’s Church on California Street, the rounded domes of Temple Emanu-El on Sutter, the alleys of Chinatown and the distant gilded dome of City Hall.
Somewhat related: I wrote about my Loma Prieta (The “Pretty Big One”) experience here.
Godin on Financing Your Startup
I’m frequently asked (by friends, and sometimes, aggressive strangers) to help them find someone to fund their company. Often, but not always, these people are happy to hear the following answer.
1. If you fund your company, even a little, you’ve just sold it. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but one day. That’s because rational investors are funding your company in the expectation that you are going to sell it and make them a profit. (sure there are exceptions, but not many). So, if you don’t expect that your company will be easy to sell for a big profit, or you don’t ever want to sell your company, it’s not a smart idea to raise money for it.
AT&T Forwards ALL Internet Traffic to the NSA
Via Dave Farber; Ryan Singel:
AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers’ phone calls, and shunted its customers’ internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s lawsuit against the company.
Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF’s lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants.
The Mishap at Mammoth
My inbox and voice mail are filling up with questions/concerns re the tragic accident at Mammoth Mountain today.
With 79″ of new snow, the ski patrol had to do a great deal of maintenance work to make the hill safe for skiing. In clearing up the Face of 3, a group of ski patrollers went to adjust a fence around a volcano vent on the far side of the slope. The ground collapsed and they were trapped and the latest report is three people died. It is not clear whether the fall killed them or the lack of oxygen or the volcanic gases.
It was very strange. One started to hear whispering. And then the upper lifts were running but they wouldn’t let anybody board. And then they stopped the upper lifts completely.
Different stories were circulated. One, that the snow just collapsed. Two, that by covering up the vent previously, the gases found a new exit and a larger area was rendered unstable.
Usha Lee McFarling notes the risks for those who work and play atop one of the nations largest active volcanic systems. Steve Hymon and Amanda Covarrubias have more.
Mammoth has had 638 inches (!) of snow this year. The lifts will be open until July 4th!