August 2013

French prosecutor investigates US Prism spying scheme

The Paris prosecutor's office said it had launched a preliminary investigation into the US National Security Agency's Prism surveillance program after French rights groups complained it was snooping on citizens' e-mails and phone calls.

The probe, which was opened in mid-July, followed a legal complaint earlier that month by two human rights groups denouncing US spying methods revealed by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, claiming that French laws had been violated and calling for an investigation into reports on US surveillance that appeared in Britain's Guardian newspaper, the Washington Post and German news magazine Der Spiegel.

NTIA Applauds CSMAC’s Work to Make More Spectrum Available for Commercial Use

The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) applauded the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC) for its ground breaking work to explore spectrum sharing arrangements between federal agencies and private industry.

CSMAC, made up of a diverse group of private sector spectrum experts, has been overseeing five working groups that have been working collaboratively with federal government representatives for over a year to develop recommendations to facilitate the transition of as much as 110 megahertz of spectrum in the 1695-1710 MHz and 1755-1850 MHz bands from federal use to commercial broadband. Given the exploding demand for spectrum, NTIA has proposed spectrum sharing as a new path forward for repurposing spectrum that meets the needs of both industry and federal users. In April, NTIA transmitted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the first two CSMAC reports containing the recommendations developed by the first two working groups organized around spectrum bands used for meteorological-satellite, law enforcement video, explosive ordnance disposal, and other short distance links. The new reports will also be sent to the FCC for inclusion in the record of its pending rulemaking for Advanced Wireless Services (AWS-3).

In historic vote, New Zealand bans software patents

A major new patent bill, passed in a 117-4 vote by New Zealand's Parliament after five years of debate, will ban software patents.

The relevant clause of the patent bill actually states that a computer program is "not an invention." Some have suggested that was a way to get around the wording of the TRIPS intellectual property treaty, which requires patents to be "available for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology." Processes will still be patentable if the computer program is merely a way of implementing a patentable process. But patent claims that cover computer programs "as such" will not be allowed. It's an open question whether other countries will take up New Zealand's example. An outright ban on software patents in the US seems unlikely given the large corporations—in tech and other sectors—that would oppose such a move. However, this year has been one of unprecedented concern about "patent trolls," with six bills introduced in Congress addressing that issue in the last several months.

DMA: Industry Should Draft Any Future Voluntary Privacy Codes

The Digital Marketing Association already has plenty of suggestions to improve the National Telecommunications & Information Administration's (NTIA) multistakeholder process for enforcing the Obama Administration's consumer privacy "bill of rights."

Those include letting industry create guidelines and give individual companies the opportunity to participate or not without any pressure from NTIA. Jerry Cerasale, senior VP, government affairs, for DMA, provided a number of suggestions in a letter to the NTIA chief Lawrence Strickling. Those suggestions include that industry stakeholders should draft any code they will have to consider adopting, with the multistakeholder meetings providing the opportunity for others, which would include public advocacy groups, to comment on the draft and decide whether or not they will support them. The Consumer Federation of America has recommended a selection process for code drafters from the broader multistakeholder community, which would include public advocacy groups like CFA. In addition to nixing that idea, DMA also doesn't like CFA's suggestion of hiring an outside party to facilitate or draft the code, and DMA says the industry should handle implementation testing.

Here’s how one hacker is waging war on the Syrian government

As President Barack Obama weighed US air strikes in Syria, a lone American hacker was waging his own attack on the Syrian government. He works a white-collar job in the United States by day, while at night he’s on the digital front lines of the civil war in Syria, where hacktivists on both sides of the conflict are fighting to deliver their messages over cyberspace. The American identifies himself with the pseudonym “Oliver Tucket.” He shared copies of two Syrian government documents he said he had gleaned from a hacked server. The shy, earnest, clean-cut young professional of about 30 says he doesn’t have any specific ties to the Syrian conflict but was upset about the actions of the Syrian government and wanted to embarrass the Assad regime.

Did you know Montana was a leader on privacy laws? Neither did Montana.

Amendments to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act passed the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year, but there’s been no further progress on updating the law that lets federal investigators seize e-mail records without a warrant. Now, a bunch of states are taking matters into their own hands, with each considering (or already settling on) legislative language that makes it harder for state and local law enforcement to read unopened e-mails, as well as e-mails that have sat unopened in an inbox for more than 180 days.

In Montana, an e-mail and location-tracking privacy bill known as HB 603 became law in May after being passed in the state legislature with virtually no opposition. Allie Bohm, a policy analyst at the ACLU, said that not even law enforcement officers objected to the law. Montana’s traditional views on privacy are so strong that many police officers request a warrant even if the law doesn’t require it. When the state Senate House passed the bill by a 92-vote margin in April, many Montanans had no idea they had become pioneers in privacy law.

Inside the Bitcoin advocates’ closed-door meeting with federal regulators

The US government took the latest step toward regulating virtual currencies as representatives from the Bitcoin Foundation met behind closed doors with federal officials in Washington.

Attendees say the meeting was cordial, with regulators listening carefully as Bitcoin advocates warned that excessive regulation could drive innovation in virtual currencies overseas. Nearly a dozen high-level agencies were in attendance, including the Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service, the Secret Service and the Financial Crimes and Enforcement Division (FinCEN) of the Treasury Department, which convened the discussion. The meeting was the first opportunity for advocates of Bitcoin — the online currency that can be used to buy real-world goods and services — to explain the system to a wide array of federal officials. Assuaging doubts concerning payment methods and vulnerability to financial crimes, Jim Harper, a member of the panel and the director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, feels that allowing Bitcoin to operate freely might result in a more competitive payments sector. He said, “Right now, it’s $3 to get money out of an ATM,” Harper said. “Technology like Bitcoin could change that equilibrium . . . doing it in a market-based way rather than a regulatory way.”

Why aren’t there any technologists on the NSA review panel?

[Commentary] The White House panel to review government surveillance policies includes Michael Morell, Richard Clarke, Cass Sunstein, Peter Swire, and Geoffrey Stone. Some in the tech and privacy communities expressed dismay at the lack of tech expertise on the panel.

Chris Soghoian, principal technologist and a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, for example, asked on Twitter, “Is it too much to ask that the NSA surveillance review panel include at least one person who knows how to actually run a packet sniffer?” Joseph Lorenzo Hall, the senior staff technologist at the Center for Democracy & Technology where Swire is a Fellow, argued on Twitter than Swire’s publication history showed he was technically literate, but wrote he would have liked to see someone like Princeton computer science professor Ed Felten on the panel. Having a technologist like Felten on the panel could provide much-needed insight into the broader technical implications of government surveillance practices.

Expect more Web hacking if US strikes Syria: cybersecurity expert

The Syrian hacker group that has taken credit for causing outages on the websites of the New York Times and other news organizations probably will increase its activity if the US launches military strikes on the Middle Eastern nation, a cybersecurity expert said.

The Syrian Electronic Army wants to keep people from reading what it views as negative information about the regime of President Bashar Assad, which it supports, said Adam Meyers, vice president of intelligence for CrowdStrike, an Internet security firm. The group does so by launching hacking attacks on news and social media sites. "They’re gearing up to continue the campaign, and if the hammer starts to come down on the current regime, they’re going to start desperately trying to provide positive messaging and negatively impact those speaking badly about the regime," Meyers said.

Sen Grassley demands more information about NSA abuse

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is demanding more information about incidents when National Security Agency analysts purposefully violated the law. Sen Grassley, the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to George Ellard, the NSA's inspector general, requesting "specific details" about the misconduct.

He asked the NSA to identify the job titles and responsibilities of all of the employees who intentionally broke the law. He also asked how the NSA identified the misconduct and whether the agency took any administrative or legal action against the employees, and to submit the information in an unclassified manner "to the extent possible."

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