October 2009

With no plan to respond to cyberattacks, US risks reliving 9/11

In the wake of a widespread cyberattack, the United States could face the same lack of coordination and preparedness the nation experienced after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because the government has not developed clear policies for how to respond, a panel of current and former federal security officials said on Monday. "In terms of terrorism response, I think we're getting well-practiced and well-organized. We are an efficient nation," said Gen. Michael Hayden, principal at consulting firm Chertoff Group and former Bush Administration director of the CIA. "Not so with the new age threat of cyberattacks, [where] we are not well-organized. It's very unclear who would be in charge of response." As a result, the federal response to a cyberattack could resemble what happened on Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked, said Hayden. The government would pull together people to "frankly act like a committee, because we don't have any other alternative" strategy in place to define how federal, state and local government and the private sector will respond, he added.

DC Circuit Seemed to Support FCC Position on Universal Service: Report

The universal service fund has been growing at an alarming rate over the past few years, and in order to curb its growth the Federal Communications Commission choose to cap the amount of support a competitive eligible telecommunications company could receive in 2008. The Rural Cellular Association filed a petition in the D.C. Circuit court of appeals to remove this cap. The court seemed to support the position of the FCC in capping the fund, according to a Monday research report by Stifel Nicholas.

Broadband connectivity is a big issue in rural and remote parts of Minnesota

Cook County (MN) — which takes in towns along Lake Superior's North Shore, the Gunflint Trail and part of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness — is poised for a definitive decision about its broadband connectivity and its economic future. Voters are set to decide a referendum proposing a 1 percent sales tax that could be used to help fund several projects, including construction of a fiber optic network. The plan is to make high-speed Internet access, cable TV, and telephone service available to every home and business. The county has applied for a $33 million federal grant to help fund the project. In all, Minnesota has a stake in 77 different grant applications for a share of $7.2 billion in federal stimulus money dedicated to national broadband coverage. The first round of awards is expected to be announced in November.

National Inventory of Broadband Projects and Programs

The National Regulatory Research Institute, with funding from the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, has a launch a website with referencing information and links to other sites which may be of interest to those who are seeking to provide broadband services to the unserved and underserved.

Broadband Community Search

The Rural Development Broadband Loan Program is committed to ensuring that rural America has access to affordable, reliable broadband service through loans for rural communities. This search tool is designed to allow the public to: 1) Find information about RUS funded Broadband Loans and 2) To search for community information by company, county or state and community name.

Verizon Spearheads Effort to Pour $1.3B Into LTE

A half-dozen venture capital firms will invest as much as $1.3 billion into Long Term Evolution, or LTE, development under a new initiative spearheaded by Verizon Wireless. The 4G Venture Forum, as the group is dubbed, includes Alcatel-Lucent Ventures, Charles River Partners, New Venture Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Redpoint Ventures, as well as LTE infrastructure providers Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson. The venture firms will identify and fund ideas for devices and applications, while Verizon and the two infrastructure companies will test concepts through their labs and developer communities.

AHIMA floats privacy 'bill of rights'

The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) is looking to bridge what it sees as a yawning gap in health privacy protections with a seven-point bill of rights it hopes will push the healthcare industry to a "major paradigm shift" in patient privacy practices. The bill is necessary because of "repeated abuses of access, accuracy, privacy and security of the most basic rights of individuals,' said Vera Rulon, AHIMA's president. The AHIMA's principles include: 1) The right to access your health information free of charge, 2) The right to access your health information during the course of treatment, 3) The right to expect that your health information is accurate and as complete as possible, 4) The right for you or your personal representative(s) to know who provides, accesses, and updates your health information, except as precluded by law or regulation, 5) The right to expect healthcare professionals and others with lawful access to your health information to be held accountable for violations of all privacy and security laws, policies, and procedures, including the sharing of user IDs and passwords, 6) The right to expect equivalent health information privacy and security protections to be available to all healthcare consumers regardless of state or geographic boundaries or the location (jurisdiction) of where the treatment occurs, 7) The right to the opportunity for private legal recourse in the event of a breach of one's health information that causes harm.

Access goals hitch ride at light speed

Public broadcasters joined more than 2,000 first-round applicants racing to pitch their broadband dreams for funding from the telecom piece of the government's stimulus outlay. PBS seeks $8.7 million for a Broadband Communities initiative to expand its Digital Learning Library for schools, encourage public use of its video portal and establish broadband education outreach. Florida Public Broadcasting requests $22.8 million for a statewide high-speed HELPS (Health, Education, Local, Public Safety) Network. The National Black Programming Consortium put in for $11.5 million to build on the media skills training of its Public Media Corps.

Searching for Trouble

Google search now takes in about four of every ten online advertising dollars, and last year, Google's revenues exceeded twenty-two billion dollars, more than two-thirds of the thirty billion in total U.S. newspaper advertising projected for this year. Google has reinforced the notion that traditional media now want to combat: that digital information and content should be free and that advertising alone should subsidize it. To many, Google appears impregnable. But the same has been thought of the Big Three auto companies, IBM, and Microsoft.

Are We Headed For Another Tech Bubble?

Have you heard? Twitter is worth $1 billion. Right now, at least. The Web property du jour has raised more financing - $100 million, reportedly, for a valuation 10 times that amount. Twitter has yet to show any sort of profit and has no monetization path, and yet investors are stampeding to own part of the company. The flurry of activity has some wondering if we're headed toward another tech bubble, centered on social media and cloud services.

Benton

Search