April 2012

Group calls for public-private alliance to protect cyberspace

As Congress turns its focus to cybersecurity matters, 26 major business and trade associations are seeking to remind lawmakers that cyberspace is "a bulwark of the global economy." The group sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) urging action to protect "the prosperity and security of our interconnected world" by focusing on five policy objectives the businesses and associations believe would improve the nation's readiness to face attacks on its information infrastructure.

The private sector owns and operates the "vast majority" of systems that are regularly subject to cyberattacks, and has "the greatest incentive to manage and defend against them," the group said. Despite private ownership, the group acknowledged "widespread agreement that the protection and resilience of these systems and assets require the public and private sectors to work together" to improve information-sharing techniques while safeguarding personal privacy. Legislation should therefore limit private-sector liability arising out of any information-sharing meant to improve cybersecurity, the group said.

Lawmakers, Civil Liberties Activists Spar Ahead Of Cybersecurity Votes

Sponsors of controversial cybersecurity legislation moved quickly this week to try to blunt planned protests over the proposals. Civil liberties groups launched a "week of action" to highlight their concerns with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which they say could have unintended consequences for privacy.

House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) released the latest changes to that bill in an attempt to address the privacy concerns, but civil liberties activists were unimpressed. "Even with the changes in the discussion draft, CISPA remains the broadest and most dangerous cybersecurity bill out there," ACLU's Amanda Simon said. The groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Constitution Project, held a Capitol Hill briefing on Tuesday to outline their fear that CISPA's language is too vague.

Physical media is dead — long live the app

Physical media is dead. It is being replaced with “apps” thanks to broadband connectivity and anywhere computing that has come to us via smartphones, tablets and other connected devices.

From music playlists to catalogs to retail stores to television — it wouldn’t surprise me if everything is an app in short order. And that future is scary and yet full of opportunities. We listen to music via services like Spotify and Rdio and Pandora instead, and we download tracks we love from Apple’s iTunes and Amazon’s store. We watch movies and television shows streamed to us from Netflix (or one of its international variants.) Books are now digital. The unifying fabric behind all these new behaviors is broadband. For the longest time, physical media was the container that moved content. Records became compact discs. Movie film became VHS tapes and then DVD. Books didn’t really change. And neither did newspapers and magazines. They are all mere containers.

Hulu’s growing up, but what about its parents?

With Hulu set to crash traditional TV’s big “upfront” ad selling party with a big presentation to top Madison Avenue media buyers April 19, the New York Times published a story headlined, “An Online TV Site Grows Up.” Issuing a report concurrently, however, Bernstein Research wondered, “Can Hulu’s Parents Afford to Let It Grow Up?”

There’s no doubt that Hulu is becoming a more influential media business, with the company also revealing Tuesday that its paid subscription base has reached 2 million and that 2012 revenue is on pace to far outstrip the $420 million grossed in 2011. Led by senior analyst Todd Juenger, however, Bernstein wonders how Hulu’s corporate owners, Walt Disney Company, News Corp. and Comcast, can continue to let their over-the-top service flourish while pursuing goals tied to television’s traditional models. For one, as these three owners seek to grow re-transmission fees for their broadcast networks, Bernstein says providing their programming to Hulu serves as an undermining influence.

Supreme Court takes copyright case

The Supreme Court agreed to hear a copyright case involving the online sale of foreign-made textbooks that’s being closely watched by the tech sector. The case, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., involves the “first-sale doctrine,” a copyright infringement defense under which someone who buys a copyrighted work is free to resell it. In the case, Supap Kirtsaeng, a student from Thailand, subsidized his expenses by having friends and family members send him foreign editions of textbooks and selling them online. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that the doctrine does not apply to copies of copyrighted material made outside the US.

Millions of Americans Dial Up Travel Plans From the Phone

eMarketer estimates that 16 million Americans will book travel from their mobile devices this year, increasing 33 percent from 12 million in 2011. And, even more people — roughly 37.8 million — will use their phones to research travel this year. eMarketer said despite mobile’s rapid growth, total spending on online travel is growing more slowly than overall online retail sales. This year, online travel spending is set to increase 11 percent to $120 billion in the U.S.

O’Reilly, Goldberg agree: alleged media bias doesn’t matter

Bill O’Reilly and regular contributor-cum-media critic Bernard Goldberg, once again, agreed on things. Most pivotally on this point by O’Reilly himself: “Folks know that the media is dishonest — that the media now is not in the business to report the news anymore. They’re there to advance an ideological agenda. So, if the folks know it, all the polls say they know it, that means that the press is not going to have any real influence on the election this time around.”

Why Are Telecom Companies Blocking Rural America From Getting High-Speed Internet?

Municipal broadband networks are thought to be a good option for vast, sparsely populated rural areas because laying cable across them is a costly proposition, one that’s hard for private companies to justify without a greater guaranteed return than such areas can typically provide. When cities, counties, or public utilities own and operate the networks instead, however, they can provide low-cost, high-quality access to the Internet to their residents. Localities can finance them through a number of avenues, including public-private partnerships or bonds.

But the titans of telecom aren’t operating on quite the same wavelength. Since last January, AT&T, CenturyLink, and Time Warner have contributed just over $146,000 to politicians in South Carolina who back legislation that would cripple networks like Orangeburg’s. It’s only one example of a broader campaign by telecom companies to protect their cartel at all costs—even at the expense of keeping the country’s poorest on the wrong side of the digital divide for many years to come.

US consumers turn to Facebook, Twitter for healthcare answers

A third of U.S. consumers now use social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to seek medical information and track and share symptoms. They're also using the sites to vent about doctors, drugs, treatments, medical devices and health plans.

The survey of 1,040 U.S. consumers was put together by consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and includes data from a separate survey of healthcare and pharmaceutical executives on how social media is used in their business strategies. Not unexpectedly, young adults rely on social networks for healthcare information far more than older Americans. The survey found that more than 80% of those between the ages of 18 and 24 said they're likely to share health information through social media channels -- and nearly 90% said they would trust information found there. By comparison, less than half (45%) of those surveyed between the ages of 45 and 64 said they're likely to share health information via social media.

In Noisy Digital Era, 'Elegant' Internet Still Thrives

Before Facebook and MySpace transformed how we interact virtually, there was another kind of Internet — a 1980s network, where users connected via phone lines and communicated through simple lines of text. And while that may sound outdated, that version of the Internet is still very much alive.

Benton

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