Stories from Abroad

Early last August, an envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried “eyes only” instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides. Only in the administration’s final weeks in office did it tell the public, in a declassified report, what officials had learned from Brennan in August — that Russian President Vladimir Putin was working to elect Donald Trump.

Over that five-month interval, the Obama administration secretly debated dozens of options for deterring or punishing Russia, including cyberattacks on Russian infrastructure, the release of CIA-gathered material that might embarrass Putin and sanctions that officials said could “crater” the Russian economy. But in the end, in late December, President Obama approved a modest package combining measures that had been drawn up to punish Russia for other issues — expulsions of 35 diplomats and the closure of two Russian compounds — with economic sanctions so narrowly targeted that even those who helped design them describe their impact as largely symbolic. President Obama also approved a previously undisclosed covert measure that authorized planting cyber weapons in Russia’s infrastructure, the digital equivalent of bombs that could be detonated if the United States found itself in an escalating exchange with Moscow. The project, which President Obama approved in a covert-action finding, was still in its planning stages when he left office. It would be up to President Trump to decide whether to use the capability.

President Donald Trump has a new morning ritual. Around 6:30 am on many days — before all the network news shows have come on the air — he gets on the phone with a member of his outside legal team to chew over all things Russia. The calls — detailed by three senior White House officials — are part strategy consultation and part presidential venting session, during which President Trump’s lawyers and public-relations gurus take turns reviewing the latest headlines with him. They also devise their plan for battling his avowed enemies: the special counsel leading the Russia investigation; the “fake news” media chronicling it; and, in some instances, the president’s own Justice Department overseeing the probe.

His advisers have encouraged the calls — which the early-to-rise President Trump takes from his private quarters in the White House residence — in hopes that he can compartmentalize the widening Russia investigation. By the time the president arrives for work in the Oval Office, the thinking goes, he will no longer be consumed by the Russia probe that he complains hangs over his presidency like a darkening cloud. Senior officials have also been devising an overhaul of the White House communications operation to better meet the offensive and defensive demands of the president they serve, as well as the 24-hour cycle of tweet-size news.

[Commentary] The week of June 12, the European Union Directorate-General for Competition released a report on the effects of zero-rating practices on competition in broadband markets, commissioned from consultants DotEcon, Aetha, and Oswald & Vahida. The report reviewed both the theoretical arguments regarding zero-rating and competition (including work by myself and Roslyn Layton) and actual experiences with the practice from European Union countries.

The report’s findings are extremely informative, given the extent to which the purported harms from zero-rating alarmed a large number of United States advocates in the past. Notably, this resulted in the February 2015 Open Internet Order requiring case-by-case analysis of alleged breaches of a zero-rating general conduct standard in agreements between broadband internet access service operators and end consumers.

[Bronwyn Howell is a faculty member at the School of Management, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.]

This paper reviews experiences with subsidizing telecommunications services, and broadband in particular, in the United States and around the world. Based on those lessons it proposes a path forward intended to yield the biggest broadband bang for the subsidy buck.

Specifically, an effective broadband subsidy program would:
Set a single, clear objective: bring broadband service to populated areas that do not have it.
Define “broadband” by taking into account consumer demand characteristics. This definition should be use-centric, not technology-centric. Any technology should be eligible to participate in the auction.
Make the program a one-time subsidy.
Rank-order the bids in terms of cost-effectiveness in terms of new locations, not area, connected per subsidy dollar. Fund the most cost-effective project first, the next most costeffective second, and so on until the budget is exhausted.
Rigorously evaluate the results and have organizations other than the one implementing the program conduct the evaluations.

People connected to the Russian government tried to hack election-related computer systems in 21 states, a Department of Homeland Security official testified June 21. Samuel Liles, the Department of Homeland Security’s acting director of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis Cyber Division, said vote tallying mechanisms were unaffected, and the hackers appeared to be scanning for vulnerabilities — which Liles likened to walking down the street and looking at homes to see who might be inside. But hackers successfully exploited a “small number” of networks, Liles said, likening the act to making it through a home’s front door.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced the creation of the Global Indigenous Ambassador Program. The program establishes two Indigenous Ambassadors, to be selected from underrepresented indigenous communities. Through the inclusion of a broader and more diverse base of knowledgeable constituents, ICANN will be better equipped to support the next generation of the global Internet community.

"This is an exciting opportunity for two Indigenous Ambassadors to learn about ICANN and the At-Large community, representing the best interests of Internet end users," states Loris Taylor, President & CEO, Native Public Media. ICANN is now accepting applications for two Global Indigenous Ambassadors. Applicants must be members of unserved or underserved tribal or native communities and meet the ICANN Fellowship Program criteria. Selected participants will receive travel, hotel, and per diem for the ICANN60 Conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to be held 28 October – 3 November 2017. The deadline for submitting applications is 6 July 2017.

Rupert Murdoch’s legacy as a media mogul will be tested on June 20 when British regulators report to the government whether 21st Century Fox should be allowed to buy the rest of Sky, the British satellite giant. Murdoch has long dreamed of adding Sky to his array of global media assets. His media conglomerate, 21st Century Fox, already owns a 39 percent stake in the British satellite provider that also has divisions in Italy, Germany and elsewhere in Europe, and had proposed taking over Sky in 2010, but that effort was abandoned amid a telephone hacking scandal.

As part of their review, British regulators are scrutinizing whether 21st Century Fox meets the country’s broadcasting standards and whether the $14.9 billion takeover would unfairly hamper the British media landscape. They are also evaluating whether 21st Century Fox executives are “fit and proper” to retain broadcasting licenses in the United Kingdom. The details of the review are not expected to be made public on June 20.

Mexico’s most prominent human rights lawyers, journalists and anti-corruption activists have been targeted by advanced spyware sold to the Mexican government on the condition that it be used only to investigate criminals and terrorists. The targets include lawyers looking into the mass disappearance of 43 students, a highly respected academic who helped write anti-corruption legislation, two of Mexico’s most influential journalists and an American representing victims of sexual abuse by the police. The spying even swept up family members, including a teenage boy.

Since 2011, at least three Mexican federal agencies have purchased about $80 million worth of spyware created by an Israeli cyberarms manufacturer. The software, known as Pegasus, infiltrates smartphones to monitor every detail of a person’s cellular life — calls, texts, e-mail, contacts and calendars. It can even use the microphone and camera on phones for surveillance, turning a target’s smartphone into a personal bug. The company that makes the software, the NSO Group, says it sells the tool exclusively to governments, with an explicit agreement that it be used only to battle terrorists or the drug cartels and criminal groups that have long kidnapped and killed Mexicans. But according to dozens of messages examined by The New York Times and independent forensic analysts, the software has been used against some of the government’s most outspoken critics and their families, in what many view as an unprecedented effort to thwart the fight against the corruption infecting every limb of Mexican society.

Mexico’s most prominent human rights lawyers, journalists and anti-corruption activists have been targeted by advanced spyware sold to the Mexican government on the condition that it be used only to investigate criminals and terrorists. The targets include lawyers looking into the mass disappearance of 43 students, a highly respected academic who helped write anti-corruption legislation, two of Mexico’s most influential journalists and an American representing victims of sexual abuse by the police. The spying even swept up family members, including a teenage boy.

The small city of Hull in northern England is planning to be one of the first places in Europe to consign its telephone lines to history. By the end of 2017, between 150,000 and 180,000 of Hull’s 210,000 buildings will be using the city’s super-fast fibre broadband network. That means it is time, according to Bill Halbert, the head of the local telecoms company KCOM, to start thinking about decommissioning the old copper telephone network. “Copper cannot handle the future,” said Halbert, who pointed out that most British households are now running seven to nine devices off their internet network and that fibre-optic cables are the only option. “It has to be fibre all the way. That’s one of the big national challenges for our economy.” If the city gets rid of its phone lines, it would follow in the footsteps of Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago, and the Channel island of Jersey. Palaiseau, outside Paris, is also planning to ditch the old wires in 2018.