March 2010

Academic Paper in China Sets Off Alarms in US

It came as a surprise this month to Wang Jianwei, a graduate engineering student in Liaoning, China, that he had been described as a potential cyberwarrior before the United States Congress.

Larry M. Wortzel, a military strategist and China specialist, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 10 that it should be concerned because "Chinese researchers at the Institute of Systems Engineering of Dalian University of Technology published a paper on how to attack a small U.S. power grid sub-network in a way that would cause a cascading failure of the entire U.S." When reached by telephone, Mr. Wang said he and his professor had indeed published "Cascade-Based Attack Vulnerability on the U.S. Power Grid" in an international journal called Safety Science last spring. But Mr. Wang said he had simply been trying to find ways to enhance the stability of power grids by exploring potential vulnerabilities.

President's veto power over Internet removed in amended bill

When the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 was originally proposed, this sweeping overhaul of the nation's cybersecurity apparatus contained a provision that would give the president the power to shut down the Internet in the event of a major cyberattack. Needless to say, the idea of giving an Internet kill switch to President Obama was wildly unpopular with everyone from civil libertarians to the Fox News crowd, and the bill didn't make it very far.

The bill's sponsors, Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), amended the bill last week and dropped the controversial kill switch provision. In the modified version of the bill, which is now the Cybersecurity Act of 2010, S. 773, the president will work with government agencies and the private sector to define a set of objective criteria for what constitutes a national cybersecurity emergency. The president will also work with those same parties to develop a coordinated plan of action that will kick in when such an emergency is formally declared. The combination of agreed-upon objective criteria and a preexisting plan that's collaboratively developed with the owners of critical network infrastructure is by itself a significant improvement over the former version's unilateral presidential shutdown power, but the amendment goes even further by explicitly declaring that, "This section does not authorize, and shall not be construed to authorize, an expansion of existing Presidential authorities."

Stimulus website wins award despite early complaints

Recovery.gov, the federal website that shows how and where stimulus money is being spent around the country, received a Gold "ADDY" Award from the Ad Club of Metropolitan Washington.

Winning the local ADDY competition means Recovery.gov will go on to compete against winners from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware in the regional contest. The site, which cost $18 million to build, launched in September to track the spending of the $787 billion stimulus package. It's been criticized from the beginning-- first for its slow development, then for lack of information, and later for inaccurate information.

Get an iPad for your old CDs thanks to iPodMeister

Here's a thought: if you hadn't wasted so much money on bad CDs in the 90s, you could buy an iPad today. It burns, doesn't it?

Fortunately for those of us with now-useless and potentially embarrassing CDs, the New York Times has pointed out that iPodMeister has a solution: the company that has long taken CDs in trade for new iPods will now have iPads for barter as well. It might sound like the company is out to steal your collection, but according to iPodMeister's site, the business model is successful because CDs can still fetch high prices overseas in areas where MP3 players haven't yet penetrated the market. The system is simple enough: send them a couple hundred CDs and iPodMeister sends you back the iPod or iPad model of your choice. The offerings range from an 8GB iPod nano for 220 CDs, to the baseline 16GB iPad for 600 CDs, up to the 64GB iPad for 1,150 CDs.

Roberts: Comcast Won't Discriminate Against Competitor's Web Programming

Comcast Chairman Brian Roberts and NBCU President Jeff Zucker have responded to a host of follow-up questions from Senate Judiciary Committee members about their proposed joint venture, with Roberts saying his company will not discriminate against competitors Web programming, but making no promises about putting all, or any, new programming on the Web.

Most questions were broadly philosophical and drew similar answers that essentially restated hearing testimony about the lack of overlap of assets, the competitiveness of the market, or the relatively small share the combined company would control of cable channels or online content. But there were a series of pointed questions from Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), by far the most aggressive questioner in two separate hearings on the deal, attempting to pin Roberts and Zucker down about specific conditions and potential pledges. Zucker deferred to Roberts on most of those questions, since Comcast will be the majority owner of the new venture.

EchoStar Successfully Launches Satellite To Expand Dish's HD Offerings

EchoStar said Sunday that it had successfully launched EchoStar XIV, through which it will expand its U.S. high-definition offerings.

That now makes 15 satellites in the Dish Network fleet. Dish will need plenty of satellite capacity to fulfill its pledge of delivering local into local service into the more than two-dozen remaining smaller markets that have been uneconomical to serve and whose subscribers have to date lacked access to local stations via their satellite carrier. Getting local service to those smaller, principally rural areas has been a big priority for Rep Rick Boucher (D-VA), chairman of the House Communications Subcommittee, whose primarily rural district is home to a couple of those markets. EchoStar is also negotiating with noncommercial stations on an advanced timetable for delivering their HD signals. It has suggested that it will be tough to meet the demand of both requirements, which are part of the satellite reauthorization bill that may or may not get a vote this week.

Why Viacom's Fight With YouTube Threatens Web Innovation

In the YouTube-Viacom court case there's something important going on: Depending on how New York District Judge Louis Stanton rules, some of the fundamental basics of Internet law could get rewritten. Cases like Viacom's put principles such as safe harbor under threat - something that could alter the relationship between web sites and their users: Who owns a tweet? Who can say what on Facebook? Where does the line fall between virality and piracy? When does a service become responsible for what its users do? In a world where real-time, social web services are pushing the boundaries, a win for Viacom could endanger all sorts of innovation.

US Gets Poor Grades in Nurturing STEM Diversity

The nation's K-12 education system gets an average grade of D for the job it does "engaging and nurturing" minorities to pursue careers in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and a D-plus for such performance with girls, based on results released today from a survey of female and minority chemists and chemical engineers.

Those polled also believe science teachers play a larger role than parents and others in inspiring an interest in science, with 70 percent saying teachers have the most influence at the elementary level, and nearly 90 percent saying teachers have the most influence at the high school level. Meanwhile, another report, developed with support from the National Science Foundation, pulls together "a large and diverse body" of existing research providing evidence that social and environmental factors contribute to the "underrepresentation" of women in science and engineering.

Solving Algebra on Smartphones

If North Carolina high school junior Katie Denton struggles with her Algebra 2 homework, she knows she's not on her own. Denton can use her school-issued smartphone to send instant messages to her teacher or classmates for help. She can use the same device to connect to the Internet and post an algebra question on a school math blog. Or she can watch student- or teacher-created videos demonstrating algebra concepts on her smartphone screen. Her math class is taking part in Project K-Nect, a grant-funded program that has adopted smartphones as teaching tools in some math classes in a handful of North Carolina school districts. Research on the program has shown a measurable effect on students' math achievement, and the organizers of Project K-Nect say students have driven the program to heights they never imagined.

Tech czar remains low-profile

Jon Stewart calls him the Indian George Clooney. He counts Democratic National Committee Chairman and former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine as one of his job references. And President Barack Obama has tasked him with finding ways for technology to advance his priorities. Yet Aneesh Chopra, the nation's first chief technology officer, or tech czar, has been so low profile in Washington's usual power corridors that it's almost as though he's the first virtual czar. He's not, of course, and the reality can be a bit startling, especially when the 37-year-old's unorthodox style and bountiful energy is housed inside a White House that aspires to being steadfast and a little boring.

Benton

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