June 2012

Info agencies built on paper shift to meet demands of digital age

Two legislative-branch agencies built on paper are working hard to reinvent themselves as Congress’s consumption of and demand for digital information increases.

“We’re responding to technology because technology is affecting how information is created and distributed,” said Robert Dizard, deputy librarian of the Library of Congress. According to Dizard, the “great majority” of the library’s products are now delivered electronically to lawmakers and staff, a far cry from when the agency was founded in the early 19th century. Leaders at the Government Printing Office (GPO) report a similar congressional demand for digital data. Paper might have served as the agency’s primary medium when it was created in 1860, but the rise of the Internet has significantly changed the GPO’s strategy.

Josh Gottheimer Exiting FCC

Josh Gottheimer, senior counselor to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and director of public-private initiatives, will be exiting the FCC in July. The announcement is the third announced departure in as many weeks for senior FCC officials. No word on who is succeeding Gottheimer as senior counselor, but Jordan Usdan, deputy director of PPI, will be acting director. Gotthemier joined the FCC in 2010.

Powell: NCTA Consciously Did Not Take Lead on PIPA/SOPA

Questioned following a Paley Center luncheon on whether the National Cable & Telecommunications Association was sufficiently engaged in the debates over SOPA/PIPA anti-piracy legislation, NCTA President Michael Powell said he thought NCTA was "fairly well positioned" given its membership, but that old lobbying techniques will need to be updated in the face of new media. NCTA had to represent both programmers and operators and there were nuances NCTA had to be careful about.

The Triumph of State Security and Proposed Changes to the ITRs

[Commentary] As we assess the potential implications of the ITU’s international telecommunications regulations (ITRs) on the internet it is necessary to sort out charges that are, in my view, overblown and alarmist versus those that have merit based on a close reading of the relevant ITU texts.

I want to be clear that while I think that many of the charges being leveled at the ITU are trumped up baloney, there are actually many reasons to be concerned. I’ll briefly reprise what I see as the over blown claims (OBCs), then set out the most important real areas of concern. The proposed changes afoot have been largely strained through the prism of ideology, indiscriminately jumbling together overblown claims with real insights. As far as I can see, it is not the myriad of small changes to one section of the ITRs after another that constitute the major problem, but rather a set of issues that are mostly clustered in proposals by Russia, and supported by China, to add new sections to Article 8. The damage such proposals could do to unsettled internet policy issues related to anonymity and online identity, privacy and personal data protection, as well as internet content regulation are enormous and can hardly be exaggerated.

Broadband barrier

[Commentary] It is encouraging news that GRUCom and the University of Florida are teaming up to provide ultahigh-speed broadband service to UF's Innovation Square and its surrounding Innovation District. For all of Gainesville's potential to capitalize on the knowledge economy, the limitations of broadband service here provide a very real barrier that will require considerable public and private investment and collaboration to overcome. The so-called Gig.U initiative is aimed at increasing broadband service in university communities like ours. And in that regard, the GRUCom/UF broadband initiative is a good start. Gainesville's innovation economy already ranges beyond Innovation Square. If Gainesville is to prosper, ultra fast and reliable broadband must follow where innovation leads.

Viewers Appreciate Netflix Price, Flexibility

New research may indicate that Netflix’s appeal vis-à-vis HBO, Showtime and pay-per-view films is less than expected, given the relatively low cost.

News Corp in $2 billion Australia pay-TV bid

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp made a $2 billion takeover offer for Australia's Consolidated Media Holdings, boosting top shareholder and billionaire James Packer's warchest as he abandons media in favor of casinos. Packer, who has built stakes in casinos in Australia, London, Macau and Las Vegas, indicated he would accept the offer in the absence of a higher bid for the pay-TV stakeholder, in which he holds 50.1 percent.

Chinese online censorship targets "collective action" posts

For years, it’s been conventional wisdom that the Chinese government does not tolerate online speech against the state and that Beijing employs a massive surveillance, filtration, takedown, and propaganda regime to counter all that happens online. But new academic research from Harvard suggests that China’s filtration policy may be more complex, and oddly, more open than had been previously thought.

"Instead, we show that the censorship program is aimed at curtailing collective action by silencing comments that represent, reinforce, or spur social mobilization, regardless of content," write Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret Roberts in their paper. King is a professor of social science and the latter two are doctoral candidates. "Censorship is oriented toward attempting to forestall collective activities that are occurring now or may occur in the future—and, as such, seem to clearly expose government intent, such as examples we offer where sharp increases in censorship presage government action outside the Internet."

US, Israel developed Flame computer virus to slow Iranian nuclear efforts, officials say

The United States and Israel jointly developed a sophisticated computer virus nicknamed Flame that collected critical intelligence in preparation for cyber-sabotage attacks aimed at slowing Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon, according to Western officials with knowledge of the effort.

The massive piece of malware was designed to secretly map Iran’s computer networks and monitor the computers of Iranian officials, sending back a steady stream of intelligence used to enable an ongoing cyberwarfare campaign, according to the officials. The effort, involving the National Security Agency, the CIA and Israel’s military, has included the use of destructive software such as the so-called Stuxnet virus to cause malfunctions in Iran’s nuclear enrichment equipment. The emerging details about Flame provide new clues about what is believed to be the first sustained campaign of cyber-sabotage against an adversary of the United States. “This is about preparing the battlefield for another type of covert action,” said one former high-ranking U.S. intelligence official, who added that Flame and Stuxnet were elements of a broader assault that continues today. “Cyber collection against the Iranian program is way further down the road than this.”

Oft-Divided House Still United Against ITU-Centric Net Governance

House Commerce Committee members took turns speaking in support of a resolution calling on the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to resist imposing a top-down government model for Internet governance.

The resolution is one of five bills being marked up in the committee on June 20. Several legislators spoke in stark terms of a potential United Nations takeover of the 'net. But it is not only the Hill that is concerned that at an upcoming treaty conference in Dubai in December -- the World Conference on International Telecommunications -- some of the 193 members, led by Russia and China, will be proposing extending ITU's oversight of international phone traffic, to Internet traffic. Both the FCC and the White House agree a multistakeholder model should be preserved.

Benton

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