December 2011

Sprint, C Spire granted motion to stay AT&T lawsuits

Sprint and C-Spire have been granted their motions to stay their court cases against the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile.

On Dec 13, U.S. District court judge Ellen Huvelle granted the Sprint and T-Mobile requests, which are identical to the stay requests sent in by AT&T and the Department of Justice. In a statement, Sprint’s senior vice president of governmental affairs, Vonya McCann, said that Sprint will consider its options if AT&T and T-Mobile restart their bid for a merger. “Should AT&T, Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile decide to reinitiate this court proceeding in January, they have agreed with both the governmental and private plaintiffs to a January 18 conference with the Court to determine next steps on all of the cases,” she said.

Chairman Smith Circulates New Version of SOPA

A revised version of the Stop Online Protection Act has been circulated by Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chair of the House Judiciary Committee in advance of Thursday's planned markup of the bill, which has been generating lots of pushback from its critics.

That came in the form of a managers amendment, which is essentially a new version of the bill to be substituted for the old. That new version includes making it explicit that the bill only targets foreign sites, no longer allows for redirection from an infringing site, makes it clear ISPs have the flexibility to determine how best to comply and narrows the definition of rogue Web site, according to Smith's office. According to Smith's outline of the changes, the manager's amendment:

Clarifies that provisions of the bill apply only to foreign rogue websites
Removes language that would have required redirection when users try to access an unlawful site
Includes a savings clause that disallows a court from issuing an order that would harm DNS
Makes sure that service providers have the ability to determine the best method to ensure compliance and prohibits courts from imposing any additional obligations on service providers
Commissions an inter-agency expert study on any impact of the bill's remedies on the DNS
Makes clear that in an action by the Attorney General, service providers will not be required to block subdomains
Narrows definitions in the bill
Narrows the definition of rogue websites dedicated to illegal or infringing activity to ensure that monitoring is not required
Narrows the definition of search engines to clarify that only services that operate primarily as search engines are covered, not search functions on other services or services powered by third parties
Narrows the definition of payment processors to ensure that banks and credit unions are not included as such
Narrows the definition of advertising networks to clarify that the bill covers entities directly involved in serving ads to foreign rogue websites
Removes the "voluntary notice" section for rights holders; this means rights holders are no longer required to provide notice to payment processors and advertising networks as a precondition to seeking judicial relief. Victims of IP theft will continue to use current voluntary market-based systems to address counterfeiting and piracy. The bill maintains immunity for financial institutions and online ad service providers.

Dodd on piracy bill: 'Hollywood is pro-Internet'

Motion Picture Association of America head Chris Dodd (D-CT) pushed back at criticism his industry is backing an online piracy bill that would lead to censorship online.

“Hollywood is pro-Internet. We stand with those who strongly oppose foreign governments that would unilaterally block websites, and thus deny the free flow of information and speech," Dodd said at the Center for American Progress. "So I want to make it clear right at the outset that our fight against content theft is not a fight against technology. It is a fight against criminals.” The MPAA and its member studios are among the strongest supporters of the Stop Online Piracy Act, which has drawn a backlash from the technology community because it would force search engines and other Web firms to delete links to foreign websites dedicated to copyright infringement. Dodd denied that the bill would lead to censorship, citing a recent study by Envisional that found nearly a quarter of Internet traffic is copyright-infringing.

Domain seizure oversight lax and broken, targets out of luck

The federal government experienced two embarrassing setbacks last week related to Operation In Our Sites, the campaign to seize domain names suspected of being used to infringe copyright.

A federal judge dismissed a forfeiture complaint against the Spanish sports site RojaDirecta.com (though the government is keeping the domain for now). Also last week, the government returned the domain Dajaz1.com, tacitly admitting that it had made a mistake in seizing the domain in the first place. These seizures have raised a lot of questions. Does the government really have the power to seize a domain name, hold it for a year, and then return it without compensating the owner? Is it common for the records of routine property seizures to be sealed? Shouldn't the courts be doing a better job of supervising these seizures?

Google Wallet stores too much unencrypted data in a rooted device – report

Google Wallet does a good job of storing passwords but doesn't encrypt the entire credit card number, balance, and other information, a research firm said today after testing the application on a rooted device.

Data that is stored on the device in various SQLite databases in unencrypted form also includes name on the card, the last four digits of the credit card, card limit, expiration date, transaction dates, and locations, ViaForensics said in a report titled "Forensic security analysis of Google Wallet." In addition, the application created a recoverable image of a credit card that could provide fodder for a social engineering attack, according to the report, which was a high-level analysis of Google Wallet -- "the first real payment system leveraging NFC [near field communication] on Android."

DC: We’ll see your 1 Gig, raise you 100 Gig

[Commentary] Dec 7 as a pretty good day for Washington, D.C. residents and business and, yeah, even the Federal government. The city-owned 100-gigabit, middle-mile DC Community Access Network (DC-CAN) opened for business.

One of the benefits of this project is that it should open eyes to the fact that a few billion dollars in broadband stimulus money was committed to middle mile infrastructure, but it’s not clear how many last mile projects will spring up to connect to them. How DC-CAN resolves this issue could influence some Federal policy decisions, since the network is essentially a test bed in their own front yard. DC-CAN’s middle-mile 100 gigabit network is an awesome step for better broadband access by all of the city, including the Federal government (it’s somewhat ironic watching FCC live Webcasts slow to a crawl due to overloaded broadband connections). But it’s only the first step. Now the city must effectively entice service providers to tackle the last mile, or gather the political will to build its own last-mile network to the homes and businesses needing cheaper, better broadband.

LightSquared cedes some authority, ditches power plan to save network

Beset by leaked reports that its planned network once again flunked Global Positioning System interference tests and with billions of dollars at stake, startup cellular carrier LightSquared took a bold step to win approval for operation of its network in its low frequency band by offering a multiagency federal working group veto power over operations in the upper portion of its spectrum.

But the proposal comes with a catch: the Federal Communications Commission must remove conditions that restrict LightSquared from commercial operation in the lower 10 MHz of spectrum tentatively approved in January. This proposal would provide the Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Interior and Homeland Security Departments, as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff and NASA, an "explicit gatekeeping role" over use of the upper 10 MHz of its spectrum, LightSquared said in filing. Jeff Carlisle, LightSquared's executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy, said in the filing that the proposal would give these agencies, which comprise the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee chaired by the Defense and Commerce departments, the legal authority they now lack to direct spectrum allocation.

EU to Launch Open Data Portal

The European Union's governing body has developed an early version of a public data portal and plans to launch the final website by Spring 2012, the European Commission said. "In time this will serve as a single-access point for re-usable data from all EU institutions, bodies and agencies and national authorities," the Commission said. The portal is aimed at providing open data to academics and journalists as well as for industry and entrepreneurs to develop "smart phone apps, such as maps, real-time traffic and weather information, price comparison tools and more," the Commission said.

Docs Have iPad Fever: Is There A Cure?

In case you're questioning reports of a tablet epidemic in healthcare, take a look at stats from a QuantiaMD survey.

Thirty percent of doctors use a tablet device, compared with just 5% of U.S. consumers, the online physicians' forum said. Of tablet-using physicians, two-thirds, equivalent to 19% of all physicians, use their tablet in a clinical setting. Another 35% of doctors surveyed say they're "extremely likely" to use a tablet in the next few years to help their practice. That sounds like a fever to me. It's probably no surprise to most health IT managers to hear that Apple's iPad tops the list of tablets that clinicians want to use. But if your clinicians are hot for an iPad, my advice is take two aspirins and call me in the morning. iPad fever has gotten a little out of hand. Granted, there are lots of practical advantages to using one, including all the medical apps that run seamlessly on it, but the iPad burn goes deeper than that.

NTSB recommends ban on driver cell phone use

States should ban all driver use of cell phones and other portable electronic devices, except in emergencies, the National Transportation Board said.

The recommendation, unanimously agreed to by the five-member board, applies to both hands-free and hand-held phones and significantly exceeds any existing state laws restricting texting and cellphone use behind the wheel. The board is expected to recommend new restrictions on driver use of electronic devices behind the wheel. While the NTSB doesn't have the power to impose restrictions, it's recommendations carry significant weight with federal regulators and congressional and state lawmakers. Investigators are seeing texting, cell phone calls and other distracting behavior by operators in accidents across all modes of transportation with increasing frequency. It has become routine for investigators to immediately request the preservation of cell phone and texting records when they launch an investigation.

Benton

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