Blog Archives
P2P security bill clears House committee
By Kenneth Corbin | September 30, 2009A bill to protect users from inadvertently sharing files through peer-to-peer networks is headed to the House floor after clearing the Energy and Commerce Committee today in a markup session.
The Informed P2P User Act would require file-sharing network providers, such as Limewire, to provide clear and meaningful notice before making the files on users' computers available to share, and to make it easier for users to block or disable peer-to-peer software.
"Too many people aren't aware of the risks associated with using popular peer-to-peer file-sharing programs," Republican Mary Bono Mack, the bill's sponsor, said in a statement. "When users login to these P2P programs, they could be inadvertently sharing ALL of their personal information with everyone else on the network, including tax returns, financial records, personal messages and family photos."
The issue of inadvertent file-sharing gained prominence after it was discovered that the schematics of a [U.S. warplane](/security/article.php/3808086/Sikorsky+Feds+Hunting+Down+Marine+One+Leak.htm) and information about a [safe house for the president's family](/government/article.php/3818906/Stolen+Fighter+Plane+Plans+Still+on+P2P+Network.htm) had surfaced on peer-to-peer networks.
The Lime Group has testified in Congress that it addressed the vulnerabilities Bono Mack's bill is designed to prevent in the most recent version of the Limewire application.
The bill would allocate enforcement authority to the Federal Trade Commission.
Google clears regulatory hurdle in On2 acquisition
By Kenneth Corbin | September 29, 2009Google has moved a step closer to finalizing its purchase of On2 Technologies, a firm specializing in video-compression technology that figures to improve the quality of its online video content.
The search giant announced today that the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have each granted an early termination of the waiting period required under federal antitrust law.
The early wrap-up of the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period removes one significant barrier to finalizing the $106.5 million deal, though On2 shareholders have filed at least two lawsuits in an attempt to block the deal.
On2 has said the suits are "without merit," and plans to contest them.
On2 will need to secure approval from its shareholders through a vote later this year before the transaction can close.
Matsui introduces USF reform bill to cover broadband
By Kenneth Corbin | September 25, 2009At a House oversight hearing on the Federal Communications Commission last week, Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) [announced her plan](/government/article.php/3839651) to introduce a bill to reform the agency's subsidy program for providing low-income Americans with telephone service to include broadband.
On Thursday, she made good on that promise.
The Broadband Affordability Act would expand the FCC's Universal Service Fund to include Internet service, advancing an idea that has been getting a lot of consideration in the broadband debates that have dominated the tech-policy scene throughout the year.
Bringing Internet under the fold of the USF would get at one of the stumbling blocks on the adoption side of the broadband equation.
EFF scores a victory in campaign against telecom spying
By Kenneth Corbin | September 25, 2009The Electronic Frontier Foundation has scored a victory in its [ongoing crusade](/government/article.php/3779006/Watchdog+Group+Takes+On+Telecom+Immunity+Law.htm) to wrest information from telecoms about their involvement in the government's warrantless wiretapping program.
On Thursday, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered the government to disclose lobbying records detailing the telecom industry's efforts to press for immunity about their participation in the program.
EFF attorney Marcia Hoffman praised the ruling as "a major victory for government transparency."
The court's decision upholds the EFF's Freedom of Information Act request seeking records about the lobbying campaign, which DoJ and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had sought to suppress under FOIA exemptions.
In an amendment bill updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act enacted last year, [Congress upheld immunity for the telecoms](/security/article.php/3772641/EFF+Sues+Feds+to+Stop+Domestic+Spying.htm), though a bill introduced in the Senate last week seeks to reverse that protection.
Obama names IP czar
By Kenneth Corbin | September 25, 2009President Obama today announced his pick to oversee copyright enforcement, putting an end to a nearly year-long guessing game in the intellectual property community.
Obama named Victoria Espinel, a lawyer and veteran Hill staffer with experience in the nonprofit and academic communities, to serve as the nation's first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, a position created by the PRO-IP Act signed into law last October.
In the shorthand of the day, Espinel will be generally known as the "IP czar."
The role is designed to coordinate IP enforcement across the multiple federal agencies that have a hand in fighting piracy, including the Justice Department, the Patent and Trademark Office and the U.S. Trade Representative.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who authored the PRO-IP Act, praised Obama's choice.
DHS privacy report downplays laptop searches
By Kenneth Corbin | September 25, 2009The Department of Homeland Security has released to Congress a report detailing its privacy activities from 2008 through 2009, offering a glimpse into the department's work on a variety of privacy fronts, including the searches of laptops and other electronics devices and the government's gradual embrace of social media.
The 99-page report (PDF available here) reads as a laundry list of DHS privacy initiatives during the past year and a half, containing a helpful appendix of three pages of acronyms.
In the area of border security, the department defended its use of RFID technology in developing enhanced drivers licenses to facilitate border crossings under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection unit has [come under fire from civil liberties groups](/security/article.php/3800876) for searching the contents travelers' electronic devices, particularly laptops.
Facebook scraps Beacon, teams with Nielsen for ad data
By Kenneth Corbin | September 22, 2009Advertising success hasn't come easily for Facebook.
The social network, the world's runaway leader in the category, has agreed to shutter its controversial Beacon as part of a settlement of a lawsuit over the privacy complaints stemming from the service.
Separately, Facebook today is announcing a multi-year major partnership with market research firm Nielsen Company to make the social network a more desirable and accountable advertising buy for marketers.
The first product, dubbed BrandLift, will bring opt-in polls to Facebook's home page in an effort to gauge consumers' reaction to various display ads and brand placements that appear on the site.
Facebook and Nielsen are scheduled to discuss the collaboration this morning at the Advertising Week conference in New York.
Net neutrality redux: The more things change ...
By Kenneth Corbin | September 21, 2009The [Net neutrality debate came roaring back this morning](/government/article.php/3840111/FCC+Chair+Throws+Weight+Behind+Net+Neutrality+Push.htm), and, judging by the fast-and-furious reactions that have been pouring in throughout the afternoon, we just might be in store for the same hoary debate about protecting innovation and regulating the Internet that has been bouncing around Congress and the FCC for the better part of the decade.
And this just three months after a delightful late-spring event where some of the historical adversaries in the debate assured us that the discussion was evolving, that it was more civil, and that the participants now find far more about which to agree than disagree.
That's probably true. How many times have you heard Obama say that both parties agree on about 80 percent of the substance of health care reform? (Obama, incidentally, put in a plug for the open Internet in a speech delivered this morning in Troy, N.Y., announcing the White House innovation agenda.)
But when the positions of disagreement are intractable, it doesn't really make much of a difference how wide the common ground stretches. That's not where the battle is fought.
Genachowski to press FCC for Net neutrality rules
By Kenneth Corbin | September 18, 2009We've known that Net neutrality was going to resurface in the new FCC, and it's looking like the official word could come on Monday.
Chairman Julius Genachowski is scheduled to speak at the Brookings Institute, where he "will announce some key elements of his ambitious broadband policy agenda."
The FCC said the chairman "will affirm his support for a free and open Internet" in his speech.
In short, Genachowski is expected to announce a new push for action to enshrine openness and non-discrimination into the FCC's Internet policy.
Markey planning uniform cell charger bill. What?
By Kenneth Corbin | September 17, 2009Yes, you read that right.
If Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey is to be taken at his word, one of his legislative priorities is the drafting of a bill that would seek to establish some uniform standard for the power cords that recharge mobile handsets.
"You buy a new car, they don't change the way you put gasoline in," Markey said this morning at a House oversight hearing on the Federal Communications Commission.
Indeed, a Blackberry charger will not repower an iPhone. So every time you upgrade to the latest and greatest model, there's one more piece of electrical equipment that's outlived its use.
"That's creating a huge environment problem across the country. We have to dispose of all this stuff," said Markey, who chairs the House subcommittee on the environment. "Plus it's a pain."
Time Warner CEO: TV to Web in baby steps
By Kenneth Corbin | September 16, 2009Jeff Bewkes has been talking loudly about leveling the barriers to access to Time Warner's TV content across multiple platforms for at least the better part of the year.
But, lest we get ahead of ourselves, the media conglomerate's chief executive took the opportunity of his speaking engagement at a Goldman Sachs investors conference this afternoon to put broadband in its place.
"Start with television," he said, reminding his audience that most people are far more interested in watching premium programming on their 50-inch flat screens than on their laptops or iPhones.
Bewkes reiterated his position that the emerging model is defined by on-demand access for paying subscribers, with the platform -- broadband or television -- of secondary importance.
"What we're saying about broadband is, 'Fine, of course you should have it on your laptop, your Blackberry, whatever,'" Bewkes said. "If you subscribe to it, we're going to turn it on on every platform."
Dell hit with $4M bill in New York fraud case
By Kenneth Corbin | September 16, 2009Dell has reached a settlement with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, agreeing to pay the state $4 million to resolve charges of false advertising, fraud and deceptive business practices.
The agreement follows the May 2008 decision of the New York Supreme Court of Albany County to uphold Cuomo's lawsuit against the PC giant and its financial services arm.
Cuomo's lawsuit accused Dell of running a "bait and switch" financing scheme, widely promoting zero-interest payments while actually saddling the majority of customers with steep rates. The result was that many Dell customers, some with superb credit, unknowingly signed up for payment plans with interest rates sometimes in excess of 20 percent.
Other aspects of the complaint turned on Dell's service agreements and billing practices.
Clever Google controls the Book Search message
By Kenneth Corbin | September 11, 2009You've got to hand it to Google.
Heading into a House oversight hearing on its controversial Book Search settlement, Google knew it was going to be at the top of the tech news cycle. So, then, the question became how to spin.
And this is where I applaud the search giant's image custodians for their masterful message control.
David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, announced with a hint of magnanimity at yesterday's hearing that Google was inviting its competitors and critics (including Amazon, whose top lobbyist was sitting to Drummond's immediate left at the witness table) to access and resell the out-of-print books in its digital library, cutting them into the revenue stream and emphasizing the non-exclusive nature of the settlement.
And Drummond did an excellent job of presenting this as a concession, a new development in the long-running copyright feud, even though it was anything but.
This was welcome news to the press corps. We've all been writing about Google Book Search for too long now.
Facebook, aping Twitter, rolls out update tagging feature
By Kenneth Corbin | September 10, 2009Remember when Facebook rolled out the stream? You know, that status update feature that everyone took to mean stodgy old Facebook was copying trendy Twitter in all its real-time splendor?
Well, in that context, today's announcement makes a lot of sense.
Soon, Facebook users will be able to tag their friends in their status updates with the trusty "@" symbol, establishing the same sort of two-way conversation that helps cut through the noise on Twitter.
"People often update their status to reflect their thoughts and feelings, or to mention things they feel like sharing," explains Facebook's Tom Occhino on the company blog. "Sometimes that includes referencing friends, groups or even events they are attending -- for instance, posting 'Grabbing lunch with Meredith Chin' or 'I'm heading to Starbucks Coffee Company -- anyone want some coffee?'
A momentary digression: Has anyone ever tweeted, er, Facebook status updated, his or her intention to grab coffee at "Starbucks Coffee Company"? Seems an awfully formal linguistic intrusion into the age of 140 characters or fewer.
It matters not.
Adventures in online journalism with the Seattle P-I
By Kenneth Corbin | September 09, 2009WASHINGTON -- In some ways, the Seattle P-I is one of the best testbeds the country's got going for what local journalism will look like after the city paper takes its inevitable place behind the glass case at the Smithsonian.
The paper, formerly the beta daily in a two-newspaper town, ended its 146-year print run in March, a victim of declining circulations and the spare economics of digital advertising.
The paper, though eulogized thoroughly, was reborn as a Web-only experiment, a digital news organization pruned from an editorial staff of almost 180 down to about 20.
"It's an adventure," said Monica Guzman, who carriers the title of "news gatherer" at the online-only incarnation of the Seattle P.I.
FCC unveils public-safety roadmap
By Kenneth Corbin | September 08, 2009The Federal Communications Commission today issued a report on the agency's emergency-response systems, emphasizing the importance of cooperating with state and local responders.
To emphasize the spirit of coordination across the government, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski released the report at a media event this morning with senior officials from the Department of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In an emergency situation, the FCC's primary responsibility is to ensure that the communications networks used by first responders and officials are reliable. In too many recent disasters (the attacks of Sept. 11, Hurricane Katrina being the most dramatic), those networks have failed.
White House agrees to post visitor records online
By Kenneth Corbin | September 04, 2009Open government advocates have scored another victory, with the Obama administration agreeing to publish records of White House visitors on its Web site.
That concession would end four legal disputes initiated by the open government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
"For the first time in history, records of White House visitors will be made available to the public on an ongoing basis," Obama said in a statement. "We will achieve our goal of making this administration the most open and transparent administration in history not only by opening the doors of the White House to more Americans, but by shining a light on the business conducted inside. Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process."
Each month, the White House said it plans to refresh its Web site with the records of visitors from the previous three to four months.
Former Googler to take over as Twitter COO
By Kenneth Corbin | September 03, 2009Twitter continues to line its executive roster with Google veterans, reportedly bringing in Dick Costolo to serve as the company's first COO.
Costolo, who founded RSS service Feedburner and sold it to Google in 2007, left the search giant in July and will begin work at Twitter next week, according to a Reuters report.
As of this writing, Costolo's on his way to France, according to his Twitter feed
Costolo joins Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams, both Google alums, along with a handful of others who have left the search giant for the greener pastures Twitter promises as it evolves into a more mature (and maybe even profitable!) company.
It's also a bit fitting that a pioneer of the RSS medium
finds himself a seat at the captain's table at Twitter, given the recent hype
about the micro-blogging site emerging as the preeminent method of obtaining
and sharing news content on the Web.
