June 2011

[Commentary] The hacking of the International Monetary Fund, Central Intelligence Agency and Citibank computer systems has raised fears that the US is on the brink of a cyberwar for which it is woefully unprepared. To deal with this growing threat, the Obama administration’s strategy is to treat destructive state-sponsored cyberattacks as an act of war that may even result in a conventional military response. This approach unfortunately has an unsustainable double standard: while Barack Obama’s strategy treats cyber­destruction by someone else as an act of war, his administration’s actions imply that cyber-destruction by America is a normal covert action, equivalent to espionage.

This double standard will undermine US attempts to confront cyberattacks and exacerbate one of the most intractable problems: how to attribute blame for such an attack. The US, along with Israel, is widely believed to be responsible for the creation and deployment of the Stuxnet computer worm now wreaking havoc with Iran’s nuclear programme. Stuxnet appears to have inflicted huge damage on Iran’s centrifuges, probably exceeding what could have been accomplished by an air raid, and set back its nuclear ambitions by several years. By the logic of the Obama cyber-strategy, this was an act of war against Iran.

[Wright is executive director of studies at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs]

Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other Internet companies have made billions of dollars tracking people's online movements and using that data to target advertising based on their prediction of what a person might want to buy. But as privacy concerns grow in Washington and Europe over the voluminous personal data being collected online and through smartphones, a wave of startups hopes to create a new business model for the use of that data.

Rather than an Internet where invisible software "cookies" track consumers' movements online -- allowing somebody else to cash in on that data -- their alternative model would allow individuals to control their own data, and perhaps even profit by selling access to it. Some advocates predict the rise of "a privacy and reputation economy," where a constellation of Internet companies would provide services that allow people to discover what information exists about them online, to counter false information, and even allow people to share personal information with advertisers when it benefits them.

[Commentary] As if they didn't have enough problems with online piracy, the major record labels say they've seen a surge in high-quality counterfeit CDs in California in recent years. That's why they're backing a bill by state Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) that would allow police to search disc manufacturing plants without a warrant, making it easier to find the ones that are behind the bogus products. The labels' eagerness to crack down on pirates is understandable, and Padilla has crafted a narrow measure that tries to stay within the parameters set by the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, exempting disc manufacturers from the 4th Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches is an overreach that would set a dangerous precedent.

The great and the good from the media and telecoms industries will gather in Cambridge on June 29 for the launch of an eagerly awaited technology trial. Microsoft is leading a consortium that will investigate whether radio spectrum not wanted for transmitting terrestrial television can instead support a new generation of mobile broadband networks.

These infrastructures – and the spectrum to support them – are likely to be badly needed if consumers are to make the most of Internet-connected smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone and those featuring Google’s Android software. In big cities, the bandwidth-hungry iPhone has been overloading some mobile phone operators’ networks, and smartphone users wanting to watch data-rich video such as YouTube often find the best way to do so is at WiFi hot spots. WiFi is a technology enabling short-range wireless data connections that then plug into fixed-line networks; the arrangements usually provide faster broadband download speeds compared to mobile operators’ infrastructures. The trial in Cambridge will look at whether some of the spectrum designated for transmitting digital TV could be used to create super WiFi networks in towns and cities.