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  2. April 2013

April 2013

CFAA: Where the computer security law is broken

Educators and activists representing a swath of organizations and institutions -- from the Electronic Frontier Foundation to George Washington University -- took to Reddit in an Ask Me Anything (AMA) interview, seeking to educate the public about the controversial Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and to push for reform.

"We are here to discuss the [CFAA] which we are striving to reform, and under which Aaron Swartz, Andrew Auernheimer (weev), and others have been prosecuted and which potentially makes felons out of millions of Americans by criminalizing website terms of service violations," the participants explained. The participants in the AMA laid out their case as to why the CFAA needs reform in the opposite direction: "We hail from across the political spectrum and we have somewhat divergent opinions about what the ideal CFAA would look like. But we all agree that the CFAA allows law enforcement to engage in frivolous prosecutions and/or to seek penalties that are severely disproportionate to alleged offenses -- and that this stifles innovation and speech and must be fixed."

Google favours ‘in-house’ search results

Google faces having to offer users in Europe more choice of other specialized search engines after Brussels investigators found its results were favoring its in-house services to the detriment of consumers.

One of the European Commission’s primary concerns, according to officials involved, is the visibility in search results of rival so-called “vertical search” services – in areas such as maps, finance or weather – that may provide more relevant results to a query. This specific finding indicates that alongside widely expected concessions to more clearly label Google’s own services, the US group will also need to offer solutions that give more prominence to rival specialist search services and consumers clearer alternatives. Google is this week submitting its final offer of concessions to the Commission, which aim to head off formal antitrust charges and a hefty fine. This is the first time Google has bowed to regulatory pressure over its search business but rivals including Microsoft fear the deal will still let Google off the hook.

World’s Tech Companies Look to Brussels to Resolve Antitrust Complaints

A look at European competition commissioner Joaquín Almunia.

He served as the European Union’s commissioner for economic and monetary affairs before being appointed four years ago as the bloc’s competition commissioner. The post is likely to be his last job in Brussels and he does not foresee a return to politics in Spain, where he led the Socialists to defeat in 2000 before resigning as party leader. But the formal complaint that recently hit his desk, focusing on how Google runs its mobile software business, is the latest sign that Mr. Almunia remains the go-to figure for antitrust enforcement in the world’s technology sector. Almunia still must decide whether to take up the new complaint, which landed just as he appeared to be reaching the final stages of settlement talks with Google over the way it conducts its search and advertising business. But the case is growing in importance, given the rise of mobile computing.

The social (studies) network: Africa's cellular education revolution

For a continent that has historically been largely unconnected via land-based telecommunications, mobile telephony uptake over the last few years has been nothing short of a revolution on the African continent.

In 1995 there were an estimated 600,000 mobile phone subscriptions in Africa. A decade later this number rose to 87 million and in 2012 it was estimated that there were 735 million mobile subscriptions on the continent. This makes Africa currently the fastest growing and second-largest market for mobile phones in the world. For the first time in its history, large numbers of Africans can communicate with each other over distance, receive information, and access services via mobile devices. As a result mobile telephony has significantly impacted the way people communicate, socialize, play, pay for things, and interact with their governments. These connections also offer an opportunity for education. Mobile technologies are being used to distribute educational materials, support reading, and enable peer-to-peer learning and remote tutoring through social networking services.

Federal Communications Commission
Friday, May 3, 2013
http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2013/db0404/DA-1...
More info: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2013/db0419/DA-1...

As part of its Learn Everything About Reverse-Auctions Now Program (LEARN), the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) will host a workshop on Friday, May 3, 2013 to discuss technical aspects of the 600 MHz band plan that will result from the broadcast television incentive auction.

At the workshop, a panel of FCC experts will lead a day-long roundtable discussion with stakeholders on how best to achieve the FCC’s five policy goals in crafting a 600 MHz band plan. The goal is to evaluate and quantify technical tradeoffs among the proposed 600 MHz band plan, alternative band plan proposals in the Commission’s NPRM, and other proposals put forward by commenters.

Workshop participants will discuss the following technical issues that have been raised in the record:

  • mobile antenna issues,
  • high power services in the duplex gap and intermodulation issues,
  • harmonics interference,
  • co-channel interference,
  • filter pass band, and
  • duplexing approaches permitted in the band.

Workshop participants will focus on technical issues involving licensed, flexible use wireless services in the 600 MHz band and interference issues raised by the coexistence of mobile services and television stations in the band. Related band plan issues, such as the use of guard bands or channel 37 by various licensed or unlicensed transmissions, may be the focus of a future LEARN workshop.


First Responder Network Authority Board Meeting

June 4, 2013,
8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time
Westminster, Colorado
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/federal-register-notice/2013/first-responder-net...

NTIA will post a detailed agenda on its Web site, http://www.ntia.doc.gov, prior to the meeting on June 4, 2013. The agenda topics are subject to change. The Board may, by a majority vote, close a portion of the meeting as necessary to preserve the confidentiality of commercial or financial information that is privileged or confidential, to discuss personnel matters, or to discuss legal matters affecting FirstNet, including pending or potential litigation.

Agenda

Call to Order (Chairman Ginn)

Roll Call (Uzoma Onyeije)

Minutes of the May 8, 2013 Special Board Meeting

General Manager’s Budget Presentation
- Resolution on the General Manager’s Budget Proposal

General Manager’s Organizational Structure Presentation
- Resolution on FirstNet’s Organizational Chart and Personnel Specifications

Resolution on National Environmental Policy Act Implementation

Presentations
- Special Review Committee Update (Wellington Webb)
- BTOP Update (Sue Swenson)
- Outreach & Consultation Update (Jeff Johnson)

Next Steps (Chairman Ginn)

Adjourn


Berkeley Center for Law and Technology
April 18-19, 2013
Claremont Hotel, Berkeley CA
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/formalities.htm

Copyright formalities, such as registration of claims and placing notices on copies, may seem outdated, pedestrian, and . . . well . . . boring. They are anything but. Formalities, which in the past three decades have largely disappeared from American copyright law, may be about to stage a comeback. Why? Because copyright formalities may be one of the most important strategies for reconciling copyright law and the challenges of the digital age. Never before have creative works been made available to the public on such a large scale. This has presented new challenges for copyright law and a need to create more legal certainty regarding claims of copyright, to facilitate rights clearances and to enhance the free flow of information. Copyright formalities, such as registration and notice, may be able to overcome these challenges. Registries would, for instance, create a valuable source of information through which third parties can ascertain what works copyright protects, the scope and term of protection, the identity of right owners, and the terms on which copies of the works may be available.

In the past, formalities regimes were difficult and often expensive to comply with, particularly when trade in copyrighted works crossed national boundaries. But recent research on formalities suggests that we can get many of the benefits that formalities promise for a more efficient and focused copyright law, without the problems that led us to do away with them in the first place. The same digital networked environment that has enabled an interactive, simultaneous and decentralized creation, access and consumption of works, also permits the smooth administration of new sorts of more flexible and efficient formalities.

This conference will consider, among other things, the useful role that formalities can play in addressing today’s copyright challenges, what kinds of formalities might best serve the interests of authors and of the public, economic considerations posed by formalities, the need for appropriate technological infrastructures to support new formalities regimes, and some constraints that the Berne Convention may pose for the design and implementation of new formalities regimes.


House panel set to debate CISPA

The House Intelligence Committee will meet behind closed doors on the afternoon of April 10 to mark up a controversial cybersecurity bill before it heads to the floor for a vote, which could come as early as next week.

The Intelligence panel will weigh a handful of amendments to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which is expected to be the cornerstone bill in a set of cyber-focused measures that the House is set to vote on this month. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) have agreed to back a handful of amendments that they say are intended to address the concerns of privacy advocates and the White House. The bill is aimed at encouraging intelligence-sharing about cyber threats between the government and industry, but privacy groups have warned that the measure would put the privacy of people's personal information at risk.

AT&T and Google’s plans to give Austin a gigabit is an experiment. Is it a good one?

AT&T executives will meet with Austin and Texas officials seeking the same concessions that Google is getting in order to build out its gigabit network. As someone who has followed telecom in Austin, and in Texas, this mostly means the ability to cherry pick where it will deploy its gigabit network. And that points to both the upside and downside of Google’s influence.

Google has changed the economics of deploying fiber in part by its strategy of getting people to sign up in advance and then choosing to deploy where demand was greatest. This eliminates the need to pass homes that might not sign up for fiber and also lets Google roll out service to neighborhoods in bulk. Well, AT&T wants to do something similar. AT&T would like to follow a strategy where communities help drive demand for the gigabit service, Larry Solomon, an AT&T spokesman, said. When I asked if that means aggregating demand and then serving those communities he said that was something AT&T was interested in. But there’s a big downside to this plan for the end user and the cities. Having both Google and AT&T trying to convince customers to sign up for their respective gigabit service effectively splits the vote. Solomon didn’t comment on that possibility, but did say AT&T wants to offer competitive pricing and build offers around wireless and other AT&T products. Google hasn’t announced pricing for its services in Austin yet, but in Kansas City a gigabit costs $70 a month and a gigabit plus TV costs $120 per month. If AT&T gets its way with city and state officials and goes head to head with Google in the neighborhoods, we’re looking at what could become — at best — a network buildout in areas where people own their own homes (Google had to develop special programs for attracting landlords to commit, which made Google Fiber in low-income areas a tougher sell) and already know they want a gigabit. At worst, neighbors who are split between Google or AT&T will not meet the threshold to get a buildout, and no one gets a gig.

And frankly, it’s dumb that both AT&T and Google might spent dollars building out fiber to the home in the same neighborhoods. Will streets get torn up twice? Will your broadband provider be determined for the life of your home based on the decisions that occur during a few pre-determined fiber sign-up periods?

Chairman Rockefeller concerned by lobbying past of FCC front-runner

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) expressed concern about the possible nomination of Tom Wheeler, a former lobbyist, to head the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), saying Wheeler's history as a lobbyist for the cable and cellphone industries is cause for a "little bit" of concern. "A lobbyist is a lobbyist," Chairman Rockefeller said in a brief conversation with reporters in the Capitol. "He's been lobbying for some of the things he'd be making decisions on." When asked whether Wheeler would be a bad choice to lead the FCC, Chairman Rockefeller responded, "Don't ask me that question."

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