June 2011

Half of Smartphone Owners Say "It's My Life!"

A recent smartphone survey conducted by Prosper Mobile Insights finds that a majority of smartphone users are fully integrating their devices into every aspect of their daily lives.

According to the survey, 52.9% say they utilize all of the functions of their smartphones, 30.4% say they use the basic functions of their smartphones and 16.7% only use their smartphones for calling, texting and e-mailing. With all the unique features of smartphones, texting, Internet, and email are the top functions smartphone users say they cannot live without. Calling features, GPS, and Facebook are also necessities to some. With new technology, however, comes new concerns, and the top privacy issue among smartphone users is location tracking, followed closely by unauthorized access to personal information.

FCC has big job to fill with top lawyer headed to bureau

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski must decide who will succeed Rick Kaplan as the Chairman's top lawyer. Here's some candidates:

  • Sherrese Smith, currently serves as legal advisor to the Chairman for media, consumer, and enforcement issues. Previously served as general counsel at Washington Post Digital and practiced law at Arnold & Porter.
  • Zac Katz, currently serves as the Chairman's legal advisor for wireline communications, as well as international and Internet issues. Previously served as deputy bureau chief in the FCC's Office of Strategic Planning. He joined the FCC from the White House Counsel’s Office and previously worked at law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson. He also worked with technology companies at a strategy consulting and investment firm in Silicon Valley.
  • Amy Levine, currently serves as special counsel to the chairman, working on issues including incentive auctions, spectrum, and public safety. She previously worked for Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), who was chairman of the House Commerce Committee's Communications Subcommittee. Before that, she worked for Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO). She also worked at Covington & Burling.

Sen Leahy re-introduces bill to make concealing data breaches a crime

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) re-introduced a bill that would establish a national standard for data breach reporting and make it a crime to conceal a data breach that could result in financial harm to consumers.

The legislation would make it a crime to intentionally conceal a data breach that could cause economic damage to consumers, punishable by up to five years in jail. The bill would require data brokers to disclose to consumers what sensitive personal information they have about them and allow consumers to make corrections to that data. The bill would also require firms to take steps to safeguard the privacy and security of consumers and increase the penalties for attempted computer hacking and conspiracy to commit hacking. It would require both firms and businesses to inform consumers when their personal information has been breached.Chairman Leahy first introduced a version of the bill in 2005 and has steered it through the Judiciary Committee in each of the last three Congresses, only to see it languish on the Senate floor. However, he is more optimistic this time around thanks to the renewed focus on cybersecurity on the Hill.

New Jersey court denies blogger shield protection

A blogger sued for defamation over comments posted on an Internet message board is not entitled to the same protections as a journalist, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled.

The court said that blogger Shellee Hale's criticism of a software company on a porn industry bulletin board was not covered by the New Jersey press shield law, which protects members of the news media from revealing their confidential sources. The New Jersey Supreme Court's opinion affirmed the rulings of both the trial and appellate courts. However, unlike the appeals court, the high court said that the shield law does not require newspersons to identify themselves as reporters, carry certain credentials or follow professional standards like taking notes, fact-checking or disclosing conflicts of interest.

In an online reader forum, Hale had accused Too Much Media LLC, which provides software to adult entertainment sites, of profiting from a 2007 security breach that exposed customers' personal information. She wrote that the company's owners had threatened the lives of people who questioned their conduct. Her posts appeared on the message board of Oprano, the self-described "Wall Street Journal of the adult entertainment industry." The court "has taken a sharp turn against the nontraditional journalist and people writing on the web," said Hale's lawyer, Jeffrey Pollock. He said the decision relegates anyone writing for alternative media to a second class of protection. New Jersey can no longer pride itself on having the broadest shield law in the nation, he said.

Toronto waterfront set for "ultra-broadband"

One of Toronto's newest neighborhoods will start life with some of the fastest Internet connections in the world as developers tempt bandwidth-hungry residents and business into the one-time industrial wasteland.

Modeled on similar undertakings in Seoul, Tokyo, Stockholm, London and Paris, the new area on the shores of Lake Ontario will offer Internet connections that are 500 times faster than a typical North American household link, meaning it will take seconds to download or edit a movie. Developers say the new Internet connections will offer speeds of up to 10 gigabits a second for businesses or 100 megabits for residential use, a crucial draw for the residential and commercial space planned for the mostly disused industrial land to the east of downtown Toronto.

Study: National Broadband Map Doesn't Include All Carriers or Coverage

Are there inaccuracies and omissions in the National Broadband Map? The question has been debated since February when the federal government made the map public. The chatter continues. A new study this month from a fraud detection firm asserts that, based on consumer Internet transactions, the federal government’s map doesn't include data on all Internet carriers and their coverage areas. ID Insight, an organization that detects and prevents identity fraud, compared data in the National Broadband Map with data collected by its own organization’s database of national broadband availability, called Broadband Scout. The findings were published in a white paper called Verification Analysis of the National Broadband Map: Spotlight on Arizona. “It’s not to say that the effort of the National Broadband Map isn't valid,” said Adam Elliott, ID Insight's president. "Everybody at the state level and at the national level will agree and acknowledge that, 'Hey, this is the first step.' It’s a great start, but we know there are holes in it."

Cyber Cops Stymied by Elusive Hackers

Hardly a month has gone by this year without a multinational company such as Google, EMC or Sony disclosing it’s been hacked by cyber intruders who infiltrated networks or stole customer information. Yet no hacker has been publicly identified, charged or arrested. If past enforcement efforts are an indication, most of the perpetrators will never be prosecuted or punished.

"I don't have a high level of confidence that they will be brought to justice,” said Peter George, chief executive of Fidelis Security Systems Inc., a Bethesda, Maryland-based data protection consulting firm whose clients include International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), the U.S. Army and the Department of Commerce. “The government is doing what they can, but they need to do a lot more.” In the U.S., the FBI, the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies are confronting what amounts to a massive crime wave that’s highly organized and hard to combat with traditional methods. The hacker organizations are well-funded and global, eluding arrest except in the rarest of cases.

Sen Menendez Introduces Cybersecurity Bill To Match House Legislation

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) will introduce the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2011 which calls for more research and development for federal networks as well as more collaboration between the government and the private sector. The legislation gives the National Institute of Standards and Technology the authority to set security standards for federal computer systems; creates R&D grant programs; establishes a task force of government, academic and industry resources; and creates scholarship programs to educate more cybersecurity professionals. Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX), and Dan Lipinski (D-IL) are planning to introduce an identical bill in the House.

Proposed bill would equate GPS tracking, wiretapping

Rep Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) will introduce the Geolocational Surveillance and Privacy Act which would prohibit police and federal law enforcement from tracking citizens' location through cellphones, GPS devices and other electronic items without first getting a warrant. Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR) is expected to introduce a companion bill in the Senate.

The bill also would impose criminal penalties on individuals who use GPS devices to surreptitiously track a person's movements. The bill also would prohibit cellphone companies and other providers of trackable devices from sharing customers' past or present location information without their clear consent. The legislation would apply to U.S. citizens' location information even when they're outside the United States and pertain equally to past and present location information, according to the draft bill.

The West's Coming Internet War

[Commentary] The United Nations declared an audacious new right to the Internet in a long report. In the wake of Middle Eastern revolutions of the Arab Spring, the UN states that the Internet acts as a catalyst for a variety of other human rights, for free expression and the democratic exchange of ideas.

This expression can "offend, shock or disturb" as well as attack governments and high-profile figures, but people must be able to raise their voices online. Frank La Rue, the UN's special rapporteur for free expression, goes on to encourage "intermediaries in particular to disclose details regarding content removal requests and accessibility of websites." Using technology to block and filter content, La Rue contends, violates states' obligation to guarantee free expression. The UN document appears designed to target repression abroad in more heavily repressive spots such as the Middle East and China and to trumpet what the special rapporteur may consider Western values of freedom (and potentially to herald disclosures from groups like WikiLeaks), but the real target of its missives as well as the legal implications could very well fall closer to home. Some European countries have voiced the same broader goal of the UN declaration -- that people should have a right to Internet access. As the report acknowledges, France declared as much in 2009. Yet the underlying sentiments of freedom and expression hardly harmonize with European sensibilities surrounding privacy. The digital and growing right to be forgotten doesn't fit easily into the UN's message. Even more complicating is the EU's own presence within the UN, accounting for 27 member nations and an eighth of the votes.

Could Europe's right to be forgotten evolve into a direct violation of the UN's newly entrenched principles and commitment to Internet liberty? Expect the battles to only be beginning.