GigaOm

US Judge confuses privacy and security, concludes that you should have neither

Senior US District Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr., a federal judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, has ruled that the user of any computer which connects to the Internet should not have an expectation of privacy because computer security is ineffectual at stopping hackers. The ruling made on June 23rd was reached in one of the many cases resulting from the FBI’s infiltration of PlayPen, a hidden child exploitation site on the Tor network. After taking control of the site, the FBI kept it up and running, using it to plant malware on visitors’ computers, gathering identifying information that was used to enable prosecution.

Judge Morgan ruled that the FBI’s actions in hacking visitors’ computers did not violate Fourth Amendment protections and did not require a warrant, stating that the “Defendant here should have been aware that by going [on-line] to access Playpen, he diminished his expectation of privacy.” Describing the ruling as “dangerously flawed” Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Mark Rumold wrote, “The implications for the decision, if upheld, are staggering: law enforcement would be free to remotely search and seize information from your computer, without a warrant, without probable cause, or without any suspicion at all.” But holds out that the ruling is “incorrect as a matter of law, and we expect there is little chance it would hold up on appeal.”

US: NSA leaks should be no excuse for local storage mandates, which harm “organic” Internet

The US State Department has warned against countries such as Russia forcing web service providers to store citizens’ data locally, even though such moves are at least in part inspired by Edward Snowden’s revelations of the National Security Agency spying on foreigners’ personal data.

“[People should not] use the Snowden revelations as an excuse for taking what are essentially protectionist measures that will harm the ability of the Internet to work in an organic way,” a State Department official said, ahead of the annual Internet Governance Forum meeting in Istanbul.

Why big data has some big problems when it comes to public policy

[Commentary] For all the talk about using big data and data science to solve the world’s problems -- and even all the talk about big data as one of the world’s problems -- it seems like we still have a long way to go.

Most obstacles standing in the way of using data science to solve society’s problems have little to do with the data itself.

It’s easier to gather and easier to analyze than ever before. Rather, the problem is that data scientists and researchers -- even those who really care about tackling important issues -- can often have a difficult time overcoming the much more powerful forces fighting against them: fear, politics and the law.

And although they’re all distinct in some ways, they’re also very closely connected.

Germany mulls ban on after-hours work emails and calls

A ban on office communications in the evening and during vacation time could become law in Germany. German labor minister Andrea Nahles said that the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was consulting on how such a law could be made -- what thresholds would need to be mandated, and so on.

She said the first results were expected in 2015.

This Venn diagram shows which cities may get a gig (and why broadband competition matters)

The third annual Gig.U report shows how much has changed in the three years since Gig U. was created as a means to bring gigabit connectivity to university towns. It’s clear from the report that there are two things driving the expansion of gigabit services. The first is a willingness by municipalities to act as a partner, not an impediment, and work with providers to get fiber in the ground acting. And the second is competition. There are few cities getting a gig from one provider.

BART got a 10 second warning before Sunday’s Napa earthquake. Why didn’t everyone else?

At 3:20 a.m. on August 24, an alarm went off at Bay Area transit provider BART’s offices: An earthquake was approaching, and the shaking would start in 10 seconds.

12 earthquake sensors are installed for BART as a part of ShakeAlert, an early warning system created by the University of California-Berkeley Seismology Laboratory, United States Geological Survey and other partners.

ShakeAlert’s 150 users knew the Napa quake was coming. So why didn’t every single resident in the Bay Area get that same warning as BART? The answer is funding. It’s been law since 2013 that California needs to establish a state-wide earthquake early warning system. But the law states that funding won’t come from California’s general fund.

Netflix is now paying Time Warner Cable for direct access and faster streams

Time Warner Cable signed a direct interconnection deal with Netflix, making it the fourth of the big four US Internet service providers to sign paid peering agreements with the streaming video provider.

Time Warner confirmed the deal happened in June and the implementation has been rolling out in August.

What should the White House seek in its next privacy czar? Someone who can explain the Internet

[Commentary] Nicole Wong, a former top lawyer at Google and Twitter, left the White House recently after working on privacy and big data issues for a little over a year. In choosing Wong’s successor, the White House may not need to find the best technologist or tech lawyer in the country.

Instead, the Administration should look for someone with a high public profile capable of broadening the debate beyond the recondite circles of tech policy, and into the language of ordinary Internet users.

The slippery slope of FCC Internet regulation

[Commentary] Silicon Valley, take note. On August 8, the Federal Communications Commission started regulating mobile apps -- and this government foray into the app space should be of concern to tech entrepreneurs as the debate over how best to ensure the open internet continues.

CTIA-The Wireless Association and its members certainly support text-to-911 solutions, but the expansion of regulatory mandates deeper into the mobile ecosystem should give us all pause.

Digital innovators across the country should take heed of this cautionary tale of expansive FCC regulation. The development should inform all of us in our consideration of the open Internet debate, where we must be wary of the slippery slope of regulatory intrusion into every aspect of the mobile broadband ecosystem -- including apps, software, and other services.

Onerous additional regulations that don’t recognize the technical and operational challenges of mobility would undercut investment and give rise to great uncertainty -- and in the process, hamper innovation.

[Baker is president and CEO of CTIA-The Wireless Association]

When will voice-over-LTE matter? When it’s no longer just about voice

After years of delays, voice-over-LTE finally seems to be making its way into mobile networks and phones.

As we purchase new smartphones over the next few years, we’ll find traditional 2G phone calls receding into the past and voice or SMS becoming just another IP service. Today, however, consumers buying new VoLTE phones probably won’t notice much of a difference.

By eventually moving to an all IP network and service delivery platform, voice will just become another feature in a wide-ranging communication service, all of which can be linked to a universal ID: your ten-digit phone number.

Germany “accidentally” spied on Hillary Clinton phone call, report says

The United States spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and that’s a pretty big deal because she’s a head of state, but this wasn’t purely a one-sided affair.

According to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, German intelligence also listened in on a call involving erstwhile US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Fon begins beta testing a business Wi-Fi network

Crowdsourced Wi-Fi Internet service provider Fon plans to add a business component to its largely residential hotspot footprint.

Now, Fon has launched a global beta program, inviting consumer-facing businesses to install a souped-up version of its Fonera router and offer Internet access to Fon members and the general public.

The new program seems to split the difference between the two models of business Wi-Fi we see today: wide-open networks businesses offer as an amenity to attract customers and closed networks for internal use.

Sports fans could see more and cheaper games, as court and FCC take aim at unpopular blackout rules

Republican Federal Communications Commissioner Ajit Pai has renewed a push to kill a 1975 rule that allows the leagues to black out games on cable if a local team fails to sell enough tickets.

The proposal, first announced in December, appears to be gaining momentum before a vote in the fall, according to a National Journal report. If the FCC plan passes, which appears likely, it will be a victory for fans but a relatively minor one. The reason is that the FCC rule, for practical purposes, has only affected football fans in a handful of cities where small-market NFL teams -- including Buffalo, Cincinnati and San Diego -- fail to sell out their games.

An even bigger victory for fans comes by way of a court decision in which a federal judge in New York refused to halt class action claims by fans who say blackout rules imposed by the NHL and Major League Baseball violate antitrust laws.

Taken together, the rulings are important because they suggest that authorities are growing skeptical of rules that give powerful sports leagues a free pass on ordinary anti-trust rules. More importantly, for fans, the end of blackouts could mean not just more games, but lower prices -- the judge reportedly cited an expert who claims game packages could cost 50 percent less if there were true competition in the sports market.

As satellite Internet technology improves, Exede starts boosting its broadband caps

If you’re living in a rural area, “broadband” likely means slow speeds and strict limits on the amount of data you can consume each month.

But Exede, the rural broadband service owned by satellite Internet service provider ViaSat, is starting to close that gap between the city – with its access to cable modem or even fiber connections -- and rural areas.

Exede will start testing a new broadband plan with a 150 GB-per month gap in several regions of the US. It’s calling the new Freedom Plan a “virtually unlimited” service, which is on par with the monthly limits at which many wireline ISPs are capping their lower-tier plans.

If Dish really wants into wireless, it needs to move on T-Mobile

[Commentary] The time finally may be right for a tie-up between Dish and T-Mobile. While T-Mobile’s momentum is impressive, it will need much more spectrum to continue to expand its nationwide LTE network.

Dish has been planning to use its AWS-4 spectrum as well as its coveted 700 MHz airwaves to deploy LTE services, and both companies plan to participate in the Federal Communications Commission’s auction of low-band spectrum slated for 2015.

Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen said it would be a “personal failure” if his company failed to get into the wireless market. He should move now to pick up T-Mobile to take on AT&T and Verizon at next year’s auction.

If Sprint ever wants to buy T-Mobile, one of them is going to have to fail

Sprint may have given up on buying T-Mobile for now, but wireless industry analyst Chetan Sharma believes it’s only a matter of time before the two renew their courtship. A merged Sprint/T-Mobile is inevitable, according to Sharma, but if the two want to consolidate sooner rather than later, T-Mobile will have to stop performing so damn well. “To be considered a player requiring some regulatory assistance, [T-Mobile] has to probably get back to those levels of losing 300-400K [subscribers] every quarter,” Sharma said.

Wi-Fi hotspot speeds are still faster than 4G in the US, but that could soon change

OpenSignal’s newest report on US Wi-Fi speeds contains a particularly interesting nugget of information: the network measurement firm found that the Wi-Fi speeds we get from public hotspots, in places like coffee shops, hotels and retail stores, are consistently faster than the speeds we see over 4G networks.

But there’s a lot of new network construction going on in the US. That should mean that speeds will kick up a few notches, as more devices that can tap these networks come onto the market.

What’s next for Sprint and T-Mobile? It’s all about the spectrum auction, baby

[Commentary] Now that Sprint has given up on buying T-Mobile, it looks like we’re going to have four nationwide carriers in the United States, at least until a more pliable administration is office.

Sprint and T-Mobile will plan for their futures as independent carriers, and that means they’re almost certainly looking ahead to the 2015 broadcast spectrum incentive auction.

The incentive auction will mark the Federal Communications Commission’s first major release of new mobile airwaves since the 700 MHz auction in 2008 and the Advanced Wireless Services auction in 2006. T-Mobile and Sprint are particularly interested in this band because of where it’s located on the electromagnetic spectrum: 600 MHz. They’re ideal for building a network with greater coverage.

Surprise: TV networks are already unbundling from cable

[Commentary] HBO is never going to unbundle, except when it is: Executives of the premium cable network have long insisted that they won’t offer its HBO Go streaming service as a Netflix-like standalone Internet subscription in the United States.

But HBO is already running an Internet-only service in northern Europe, and it’s now looking to take that proposition to other countries, including possibly Japan and Turkey. HBO isn’t the only network that’s been testing the waters on Internet-based video services.

Australian government reveals mandatory data retention plans

The Australian government has announced plans to introduce mandatory data retention, forcing telecommunications companies to hang on to certain customer data for up to 2 years.

The plans were leaked ahead of a press conference, in which Prime Minister Tony Abbott said they would help in the fight against terrorism. The Liberal-led coalition government said it would “update Australia’s telecommunication interception law which predates the Internet era and is increasingly ineffective,” as well as introduce “proper oversight” to protect Australians’ privacy rights.

States, stand down! Let community broadband innovate.

[Commentary] Creating “Smart Cities” is a concept taking hold in rural and urban communities. An IDC report states these are cities investing in technology such as broadband networks and analytics software to enable people to be more productive, use city infrastructure more efficiently, and receive better government services.

Innovation for them is defined by quality of life improvements that attract and retain individuals and businesses while making a positive impact on local government budgets. Another type of innovation that’s drawing people to fight states’ intrusion into local broadband decisions is creating new innovative companies. Broadband advocates expect the drive to prevent state intrusion into local decisions to increase.

[Settles is a consultant who helps organizations develop broadband strategies ]

Holding onto the triple play: How costs, caps and contracts will keep ISPs flush

As customers are finding more entertainment value in broadband -- either because they are spending all night on reddit or because they are streaming movies via Netflix or Apple’s iTunes -- they are increasingly questioning the value of the cable package.

And while these people may not be the dreaded cord cutters or cord nevers, they may attempt to cut the costs of cable by going for an economy package or signing up for service and then dropping it a few months later.

Together the combination of broadband data caps, contracts and cost reductions are helping cable companies transition from being in the pay TV business to being in the broadband business while attempting to keep their margins intact. It’s a thin line, but it’s one that its rivals in the telecommunications world walked a few years ago as they transitioned from wireline voice to mobile services.

Canadian court forces Google to remove search results worldwide, as fears of “memory hole” grow

A Canadian court is forcing Google to remove search listings not just for google.ca, but beyond the country’s borders too. The case could lead to more regional censorship practices becoming global.

How advertisers can keep pace with the changing television landscape

Despite television ad spending crossing $75 billion in 2013, the industry’s core business model is in flux. Shrinking audience ratings and the fragmentation of television viewership across second and third screens could drive marketing and advertising dollars online and confirm the view of digital and direct marketers that television advertising is inefficient and doesn’t even deliver the reach it used to.

Media-measurement oligarchs are struggling to keep pace with seismic shifts in video-viewing behavior. Driven by a combo of consolidation and new players, a fragmenting audience, and social media technologies, TV ad buying and selling is facing major disruptions. Advertising techniques that arose in online media are finally having an effect on traditional television.

[Loizides is Strategy & Business Planning Consultant, Paphion]