April 2012

US Web site covering China scandal disrupted by cyberattack

A US-based Web site that has aggressively covered China’s biggest political scandal in decades was the victim of a disruptive attack that was accompanied by threats to the service that registers its domain name, the site’s manager said.

The site was rendered inaccessible for much of April 19, depriving readers of coverage of the latest developments in the downfall of Chinese Communist Party official Bo Xilai, said Watson Meng, 47, who runs the Chinese-language site from Durham (NC). Chinese viewers are able to gain access through proxy servers that get them around China’s Internet firewall, which the government uses to block certain content. Meng said he believes some element of the government ordered the disruption, but said he has no forensic proof. The site, Boxun, has been targeted previously while publishing material considered sensitive by the Chinese government.

Facebook apps rated on privacy protection

A new service that grades how each of Facebook's top third-party apps respects consumers' privacy was released y by research firm PrivacyChoice. The free tool, Privacyscore for Facebook, spells out privacy policies and tracking practices of more than 200 top Facebook apps, including games, work-related programs and sharing apps.

Apple's big year outshines mixed result for Silicon Valley

The phenomenal performance of a single superstar overshadowed an otherwise mixed year for Silicon Valley's 150 biggest companies in 2011, as Apple surged past Hewlett-Packard to become the valley's dominant financial powerhouse.

Apple's ascendance in the SV150 marked a sea change for the Silicon Valley tech industry: The company's popular iPhones and iPads are revolutionizing the way consumers and workers share information around the world, prompting analysts at Barclays Capital to call Apple "the most disruptive force in tech." With nearly $128 billion in annual sales, Apple became the valley's biggest company by revenue for the first time in 2011. That distinction was previously held by HP in every year since this newspaper began ranking local companies in 1986. Apple also ranked first for net income, racking up a mind-boggling profit of nearly $33 billion. Essentially, Apple accounted for $1 of every $5 in sales reported by the SV150 as a whole, and nearly $1 of every $3 in combined SV150 profit. And as its stock price blew past $600 a share in March, Apple ended last month with a market capitalization of $558 billion. That was nearly a third of the market cap for the combined SV150. And although its stock dipped slightly this month, it is still the most valuable company in the world.

Can Twitter's new innovator's agreement end the patent wars?

[Commentary] In a technology era that threatens to be defined by its epic Patent Wars, Twitter took the remarkable step of breaking away from the pack and shouting, "Enough."

The company announced a new policy that hands control of its patents back to its engineers -- you know, the people who actually invent stuff. This is a radical step because most companies require employees to sign agreements that surrender control of such intellectual property to their employers. The so-called "Innovator's Patent Agreement" elicited well-deserved praise across Silicon Valley and the high-tech diaspora for saying Twitter would primarily use patents for defensive purposes. Unfortunately, while it's going to give Twitter enormous credibility among its current and prospective employees, it's unlikely to stop the larger insanity that has turned patents into weapons of mass destruction. "I think it's a noble effort," said Edward Reines, an attorney and partner in Weil Gotshal's Technology Litigation Practice. "But one person's offense is another person's defense. Intellectual property attorneys could argue to the end of time what is a defensive assertion and what is not." Twitter has made a tremendous gesture this week and set a new bar. Let's see how many others have the courage to follow.

Hundreds of thousands American households may lose Internet in July

For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections this summer. Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world.

In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system is to be shut down. The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by its security partner, dcwg DOT org, that will inform them whether they're infected and explain how to fix the problem. After July 9, infected users won't be able to connect to the Internet.

Broadcast Reality Check

When the curtain goes up on the network upfront presentations in New York in mid-May, media buyers will get a first look at the usual cavalcade of pricey scripted series. Lost in the tide of police procedurals, ensemble comedies and supernatural thrillers, the season’s new unscripted fare once again will be relegated to a dusty corner of the theater.

Reality shows account for just three of the 92 projects on the 2012-13 broadcast development slate, a disproportionate allowance given the enthusiasm of the American TV audience. Remove the NFL from the equation and Fox’s American Idol and NBC’s The Voice deliver the strongest ratings on broadcast TV while commanding some of the highest unit prices. Season to date, Idol’s Wednesday night broadcasts are averaging a 5.6 rating in the dollar demo, a number matched by only The Voice’s Monday night showcase. As demonstrated by the $500,000 price tag attached to each 30-second spot in Idol, advertisers are obviously eager to get on board with reality. Even aging shows like ABC’s Dancing With the Stars fetch some of the highest ad rates on the tube. On Monday nights, the celeb-driven competition series is out-earned only by the top-rated scripted series, CBS’ Two and a Half Men. Despite the fact that unscripted is a proven magnet for eyeballs and ad dollars, reality has something of a prestige problem.

Mitt Romney’s record in Silicon Valley

Mitt Romney isn’t talking tech on the campaign trail, but that doesn’t mean industry insiders aren’t trying to read the tea leaves. Scattered throughout Romney’s memoir, statements and recent campaign documents are clues to how he regards Internet piracy and SOPA, tax reform, cybersecurity protections, network neutrality and federal research and design — all issues that could double as litmus tests for cash-flush Silicon Valley, where many potential tech allies and donors are still sizing up the candidates.

As a former businessman, Romney has some early appeal in a region that boasts a strong investment community. And for now, he counts on a few powerful friends with heavyweight tech credentials — such as Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman, a big Romney backer who’s contributed $100,000 to the super PAC angling on behalf of the former Massachusetts governor.

How the Media Covered the 2012 Primary Campaign

Mitt Romney needed 15 weeks once the primary contests began to gain a secure hold over his party’s nomination for president. But he emerged as the conclusive winner in the media narrative about the race six weeks earlier, following a narrow win in his native state, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism that examines in detail the media’s coverage of the race.

After Romney’s tight victory in the Michigan primary on Feb. 28, news coverage about his candidacy became measurably more favorable and the portrayal of his rivals—particularly Rick Santorum—began to become more negative and to shrink in volume. One main component of that shift in the narrative is that after Michigan, the news media began to view Romney’s nomination as essentially inevitable. Indeed, a close look at the coverage finds that references to delegate math and the concept of electoral inevitability spiked in the media the week after Michigan, rising twelve fold, for instance, on television news programs. From that point on, the amount of attention in the press to Romney’s candidacy began to overwhelm that of his rivals, and the tone of coverage about him, which had been often mixed or negative before, became solidly positive. A look inside the coverage also reveals that Romney endured more media "vetting" of his record and personal character than the other Republican contenders. Since November, just over 12% of the coverage in which Romney was a significant figure was devoted to those subjects. The press focused in particular on his wealth and his experience at the private equity investment firm Bain Capital.

2012: The mobile web election

Political campaigns know this quite well and are doing their best to harness the power of hyper-connectedness to ensure their candidate a win come Election Day. But how?

You can’t just make a version of "Angry Birds" with your candidate smashing into a recession or terrorists or something. To begin with, candidates are leaning on texting, more for rallying the troops than for finding new troops to rally. “The experiments that have been done have found that text messaging individuals on election day is actually quite effective in bringing them to the polls,” says D. Sunshine Hillygus of Duke University’s Political Science Department. “But, in part, because of the short amount of space you can get into a text message, also because of intrusiveness of the text message, using text messaging for persuasion messages is quite a bit more difficult.” Using mobile as a persuader takes a bit more intricate of an approach in terms of language but campaigns will have the benefit of targeting who gets the pitch. “What they're doing there is trying to reach persuadable voters with micro targeting of very specific personalized messages,” Hillygus says, “that are much more likely to contain divisive issues and what we call dog whistle politics, where candidates are sending a message meant to be received only by a small intended group and not heard by others in the electorate.” Then there's location.

Ofcom launches Sky News probe

Ofcom, the UK media regulator, has launched an investigation into Sky News, the channel run by BSkyB, following its admission that it hacked the e-mails of individuals suspected of criminal activity.

Earlier this month BSkyB, 39.1 percent owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, said it authorized a journalist to access e-mails belonging to John Darwin, dubbed the “canoe man” because he faked his death in a canoeing accident. Sky insisted that it was acting in the public interest because it shared information with the police which led to a criminal conviction. The news of the latest probe will come as a blow to Mr Murdoch is who due to testify at the Leveson inquiry into press ethics April 25 and 26. The regulator is weighing whether News Corp is a “fit and proper” owner of a broadcasting license.