Voice Mail

By Joanna Weiss When I interviewed Barney Frank last week about the dramatic evolution of gay rights, he was in the process of finalizing the guest list for his July wedding. He was also planning the ceremony: most notably, who would officiate. Frank wouldn't tell me who he had chosen, but he did tell me his first choice: Margaret Marshall, the retired chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, who wrote the Goodridge decision that legalized gay marriage in Massachusetts.

By Joanna Weiss When I interviewed Barney Frank last week about the dramatic evolution of gay rights, he was in the process of finalizing the guest list for his July wedding. He was also planning the ceremony: most notably, who would officiate. Frank wouldn't tell me who he had chosen, but he did tell me his first choice: Margaret Marshall, the retired chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, who wrote the Goodridge decision that legalized gay marriage in Massachusetts.

Breaking into someone’s voice mailbox - in the style of the hackers at the British tabloid News of the World - can be as easy in the United States as it is on the other side of the Atlantic. It is done using a readily available online service known as “caller ID spoofing,’’ which can make a call appear to be coming from any phone number. Hackers can use it to access someone else’s voice mail messages by fooling the system into thinking the call is coming from the owner’s cellphone.

WASHINGTON - Federal regulators are seeking $52.6 million from a billing company that they accuse of adding unauthorized charges to consumers' phone bills. The Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday it has asked a federal court to issue a civil contempt ruling against Billing Services Group and order repayment. The agency says Billing Services added charges for unauthorized services such as voice mail and streaming video to bills for about 1.2 million phone lines, a practice known as "cramming.

AT&T Inc. is changing the default method by which cellular customers check their voice mail, after reports that the company's policies made messages more vulnerable to hackers than on other cellphone carriers. The giant telecommunications company said yesterday it will start requiring users to enter a password to access their voice mails from their own cellphones. Until now, AT&T users calling from their own phones would immediately get access to their voice mails without entering a password.

The 83rd Annual Tour of the Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill will be held Thursday, May 17, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm (rain or shine). Tickets are $30 in advance - $40 the day of the tour. By Mail: Send check for $30 payable to the Beacon Hill Garden Club by May 8, 2012, along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Beacon Hill Garden Club 2012 Tour, Box 302, Charles Street Station, Boston, MA 02114. Purchase tour day tickets at: Corner of Charles and Chestnut Streets Corner of Charles and Mt. Vernon Streets Church of the Advent, garden entrance, off Mt. Vernon...

Lock it down If you can get your messages on the phone without entering a password, you’re vulnerable. So make sure your voice mail service is password-protected, even when accessed from your cellphone. Setup varies among carriers. Go to your voice mail system’s main menu for instructions, or visit your carrier’s website for more details. No dumb passwords Resist the temptation to use the last four digits of your own phone number in your password, or something equally obvious, like “1234.’’ Pick something that criminals can’t easily guess.

News Corp. slumped as its News of the World, the tabloid accused of hacking into a murder victim’s voice mail, is losing advertisers including General Motors Co.’s Vauxhall brand and Lloyds Banking Group PLC. Ford Motor Co. has already pulled its advertising. The exodus is expected to help rival Trinity Mirror PLC, which publishes Britain’s Daily Mirror, gain marketing dollars, analysts said.

A former Takeda Pharmaceutical International Inc. executive was accused of using inside information to make more than $63,000 trading in call options, according a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Brent Bankosky, a former director in Takeda's business development group, used non-public information to trade in advance of Takeda's announcement of transactions involving Cell Genesys Inc. and Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc., the SEC said in a civil complaint filed today in Manhattan federal court.

With the netTALK DUO, you can call any landline or mobile phone in the United States and Canada for free from anywhere in the world. Hook the device up to your laptop, modem, or router with Ethernet cable, or to your hotel room's broadband cable, and then plug it into the phone using a traditional telephone cord with an RJ-11 connector. Once you register your device, you will be given your own phone number and can then make and receive direct calls through your phone and Internet connection.

The 83rd Annual Tour of the Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill will be held Thursday, May 17, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm (rain or shine). Tickets are $30 in advance - $40 the day of the tour. By Mail: Send check for $30 payable to the Beacon Hill Garden Club by May 8, 2012, along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Beacon Hill Garden Club 2012 Tour, Box 302, Charles Street Station, Boston, MA 02114. Purchase tour day tickets at: Corner of Charles and Chestnut Streets Corner of Charles and Mt. Vernon Streets Church of the Advent, garden entrance, off Mt. Vernon Sq. Cash or checks only.

A former Takeda Pharmaceutical International Inc. executive was accused of using inside information to make more than $63,000 trading in call options, according a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Brent Bankosky, a former director in Takeda's business development group, used non-public information to trade in advance of Takeda's announcement of transactions involving Cell Genesys Inc. and Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc., the SEC said in a civil complaint filed today in Manhattan federal court.

INDIE ROCK Whether or not the title of the first Guided by Voices album since 2004 is a direct reference, it's hard not to see a parallel between the group's approach to songwriting and the mass-production technique that Andy Warhol employed at his Factory. In the venerable GBV tradition, the 21 lo-fi, psychedelic bar-rock songs here seem more like tossed-off ideas than fully formed wholes. That's by design, of course. A song such as "How I Met My Mother" seems ready to build toward a huge chorus, then abruptly ends with a shrug and a sigh.

Growing up in Carlisle doesn't offer a lot of opportunities for children to practice independence. With its narrow winding roads, distantly spaced houses, and lack of sidewalks beyond the town center, the fact that few children walk to friends' houses or school isn't a matter of laziness; it's logistics. The single standard rite of passage for a middle schooler is to be allowed to go to Ferns Country Store and the library after school with friends - exactly as it was when I was a middle schooler in Carlisle 30 years ago. So a mother like me, determined to renounce the...

JOB HISTORY? FORGET IT. To make your skills seem current (and avoid potential ageism), limit your work history to the last 10 to 15 years unless your experience is particularly relevant, advises Alison Doyle, a job search expert at About.com. KEEP TO A PAGE. The person reviewing your resume needs to "quickly see who you are, where you've been, what you've done," says Louise Kursmark, a resume writer and consultant based in Reading. Just because it's an electronic file, that doesn't make a second page OK. REWRITE IT. AGAIN.

AT&T Inc. is changing the default method by which cellular customers check their voice mail, after reports that the company's policies made messages more vulnerable to hackers than on other cellphone carriers. The giant telecommunications company said yesterday it will start requiring users to enter a password to access their voice mails from their own cellphones. Until now, AT&T users calling from their own phones would immediately get access to their voice mails without entering a password.

While I was in Egypt, my cellphone provider would have charged me $1.50 per minute for incoming and outgoing calls. But I had inserted a OneSIMCard into my BlackBerry (a GSM, or Global System for Mobile communications, phone), so I received all calls for free and paid just 55 cents per minute to ring the United States. The OneSIMCard, made by Belmont-based Long Distance POST, works in all unlocked GSM cellphones and offers significantly cheaper rates than most cellphone providers. Each card comes with its own unique mobile number, so you can be reached directly or at a toll-free or Boston number.

SAN FRANCISCO — Google’s Voice application has won approval to be on the iPhone after more than a year of haggling with Apple. The breakthrough, announced yesterday, resolves a standoff that triggered a Federal Communications Commission inquiry into whether Apple Inc. and AT&T Inc., the iPhone’s exclusive US service provider, were trying to stifle competition. Among other things, Google’s Voice application offers steep discounts on international calls and voice mail.

With the netTALK DUO, you can call any landline or mobile phone in the United States and Canada for free from anywhere in the world. Hook the device up to your laptop, modem, or router with Ethernet cable, or to your hotel room's broadband cable, and then plug it into the phone using a traditional telephone cord with an RJ-11 connector. Once you register your device, you will be given your own phone number and can then make and receive direct calls through your phone and Internet connection.

Lock it down If you can get your messages on the phone without entering a password, you’re vulnerable. So make sure your voice mail service is password-protected, even when accessed from your cellphone. Setup varies among carriers. Go to your voice mail system’s main menu for instructions, or visit your carrier’s website for more details. No dumb passwords Resist the temptation to use the last four digits of your own phone number in your password, or something equally obvious, like “1234.’’ Pick something that criminals can’t easily guess.