October 2013

Brazil announces secure email to counter US spying

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff announced that her government was creating a secure e-mail system to try and shield official communications from spying by the United States and other countries.

"We need more security on our messages to prevent possible espionage," Rousseff said, ordering the Federal Data Processing Service, or SERPRO, to implement a safe e-mail system throughout the federal government. The move came after Rousseff publicly condemned spying against Brazilian government agencies attributed to the United States and Canada.

Mostashari shares concerns, 'insider clues' in first speech since leaving ONC

Dr. Farzad Mostashari didn't quite bare his soul to a bunch of hospital CIOs, but the man who was indefatigably buoyant as the nation's federal health information technology czar did pull back the curtain a bit and offered an assessment of his own concerns as well as some "insider clues" in his first speech since leaving federal service.

Dr. Mostashari stepped down as head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on Oct. 5. He announced that he'd be joining the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, working for its Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform. “I'm hopeful and optimistic, but in terms of having new technologies and systems, I'm a little concerned,” Dr. Mostashari said. And now, speaking “not as national coordinator,” he shared some of those concerns about both the current state and the future of healthcare IT. “Too many don't know how to do this,” Dr. Mostashari said, meaning the needed, technology-enabled changes in healthcare delivery. He cited market usability and poor communication across the industry as major concerns in healthcare IT. He also dropped “a couple of insider clues” as to the policymakers' perspectives on calls for delaying Stage 2 of the federal EHR incentive payment program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. “There is no legal way to change the final rule without a pretty elaborate process that takes nine to 12 months,” he said. Instead, Mostashari said, those pressing for relief from penalties for noncompliance might look to “sub-regulatory guidance.”

AT&T-Backed Report Prompts Question: Should The US Get Rid Of Phone Lines?

[Commentary] AT&T and Verizon have been pushing federal regulators to sunset the nation’s traditional copper-based communications network -- and many of the pesky regulations that come with it. Their latest effort to win support comes in the form of a new report written by a visiting scholar at Georgetown University and paid for by an organization known as the Internet Innovation Alliance that consistently supports AT&T’s agenda.

AT&T also provides an undisclosed amount of financial support to the group. At its heart, the report asserts that regulations that force the carriers to maintain the traditional telecommunications network are unnecessarily diverting investment away from modern broadband networks that don’t carry the same onerous regulatory requirements. To be clear, the report, which is titled “Telecommunications competition: the infrastructure-investment race,” frames the issue just a little differently and uses somewhat stronger language. It asserts that “outdated regulations that force companies to build and maintain obsolete copper-based legacy telephone networks are unnecessarily diverting investment away from modern broadband networks and services that 95 percent of U.S. households prefer, desire and use.” Shamelessly misleading, the report makes a big deal about the explosive growth of IP-based video traffic and how it dwarfs legacy phone calls in size. This isn’t surprising given that phone calls are measured in kilobits and videos in megabytes. It’s also not particularly relevant since video is not an alternative to phone calls. But the report treats the two as equivalent.

Canadian government to push cable providers to unbundle channels

The Canadian government will soon require cable and satellite television providers to make it easier for customers to buy only the channels they want rather than pay for bundles, the country's industry minister said.

"We don't think it's right for Canadians to have to pay for bundled television channels that they don't watch. We want to unbundle television channels and allow Canadians to pick and pay the specific television channels that they want," Industry Minister James Moore said during an appearance on CTV's "Question Period." Some Canadian cable and satellite television providers have already begun to offer so-called "a la carte" pricing. Moore said Canada's Conservative government is looking at other consumer-friendly moves when the next parliamentary session resumes such as preventing airline overbooking and curbing wireless roaming rates charged by telecom companies.

Google Sets Plan to Sell Users’ Endorsements

Google, following in Facebook’s footsteps, wants to sell users’ endorsements to marketers to help them hawk their wares. Google announced an update to its terms of service that allows the company to include adult users’ names, photos and comments in ads shown across the Web, based on ratings, reviews and posts they have made on Google Plus and other Google services like YouTube.

When the new ad policy goes live Nov. 11, Google will be able to show what the company calls shared endorsements on Google sites and across the Web, on the more than two million sites in Google’s display advertising network, which are viewed by an estimated one billion people. Google said it would give users the chance to opt out of being included in the new endorsements, and people under the age of 18 will automatically be excluded.

When Our News Is Gerrymandered, Too

[Commentary] Political analysts trying to explain the current standoff in Washington are quick to point to redistricting as helping to foster ideological extremism in Congress. Representatives have been skillfully gerrymandered into safe districts of like minds where they can do as they please, listening only to reflections of their own thinking without fear of political consequence. But given that politics in its current form is threatening to produce a crisis that threatens to create financial mayhem on a global scale -- while striking one more blow against claims of American “greatness” -- perhaps something more complicated than sketching out voting districts is at play.

The polarized political map is now accompanied by a media ecosystem that is equally gerrymandered into districts of self-reinforcing discourse. Millions of news consumers select and assemble a world view from sources that may please them, but rarely challenge them. Cable blowhardism would not be such a good business if there hadn’t been a kind of personal redistricting of news coverage by the citizenry. Data from Pew Research Center for the People and the Press on trends in news consumption released in 2012 suggests people are assembling along separate media streams where they find mostly what they want to hear, and little else. Fully 78 percent of Sean Hannity’s audience on Fox News identified as conservative, with most of the rest of the audience identifying as moderate and just 5 present as liberal. Over on MSNBC, conservatives make up just 7 percent of Rachel Maddow’s audience. It isn’t just politicians that are feeding their bases, it is the media outlets, as well. The village common -- you know, that place where we all meet to discuss our problems, relying on the same set of facts -- has shrunk to the size of a postage stamp, surrounded by the huge gated communities of like minds who never venture into the great beyond.

Washington Post reporter: Here’s why we refused the NSA’s demand to censor the names of PRISM companies

Barton Gellman, the Washington Post reporter who broke the news of the NSA online content collection program PRISM, says the government asked him to suppress the names of the nine companies participating in the program.

Gellman said The Washington Post has a practice of talking to the government before running stories that may impact national security. According to Gellman, there were "certain things" in the PRISM slides that they agreed raised legitimate security concerns. But, he said, “The thing that the government most wanted us to remove was the names of the nine companies. The argument, roughly speaking, was that we will lose cooperation from companies if you expose them in this way. And my reply was ‘that's why we are including them.’ Not in order to cause a certain result, or to get you to lose your cooperation but if the harm that you are describing consists of reputational or business damage to a company because the public doesn't like what it's doing or you're doing, that's the accountability we are supposed to be promoting.” In other words, Gellman believes that it's because the names were released that many of those technology companies started to be vocal advocates of greater transparency about the program.

US cable companies should create Netflix rival: Malone

Liberty Media Chairman John Malone said that cable companies should team up to create a rival to Netflix that would deliver programming over the Internet on a national basis.

Cable companies could "solve the problem" of high programming costs by acquiring content for an Internet-based service under one brand that they would sell in a bundle with broadband, Malone said. He used the example of Comcast's Xfinity video streaming product one day being shared with the rest of the cable industry to become a national brand. He added that another alternative would be for Hulu to "be bought and syndicated" by cable companies or for an entrepreneur to create a new product from scratch that the cable industry can get behind.

Device Sales Delays Possible as Reviews Halted by US Shutdown

Device makers such as Google may have to delay introductions of new smartphones and other products because the partial US government shutdown halted certifications that the gadgets don’t cause interference.

Every computer, mobile phone, gaming system, TV, wireless medical device and anything that emits radio waves needs to pass a review by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC clears about 16,000 electronic devices annually, according to figures presented last month to lawmakers by FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. That output is now at zero, and that “could be something that’s a real drag on the digital economy the longer it goes on,” said Commissioner Rosenworcel. The FCC may become backed up once it resumes operations, creating the potential for delays in introductions of devices from Google, Apple, Samsung Electronics, HTC, and LG Electronics, law firm Hogan Lovells said in an Oct. 9 note.

Marketers Could Be Hit by Tough New Data Laws for EU

The battle between big data and individual privacy will be put in the spotlight on Oct. 21 when the European Parliament votes on the introduction of the harsh new Data Protection Regulation. Organizations -- including the World Federation of Advertisers and the Industry Coalition for Data Protection (a collection of trade bodies that includes the WFA and the American Chamber of Commerce to the EU) -- have been furiously lobbying ahead of the vote, hoping for a lighter-touch regime to protect the interests of business.

Malte Lohan, director of public affairs at the WFA, said, "The European Parliament wants to make the toughest privacy law the world has ever seen. The EU is championing the rights of citizens, but it's not that straightforward -- this could undermine the digital economy." The first crucial issue is around the definition of personal data. The second centers on the definition of consent. The vote by the European Parliament is not the final stage in the process, but it is a key step in determining the outcome. Once approved, the regulation will be put to the European Council, where individual countries get to have their say, bringing in another layer of complexity as different countries have very different approaches to privacy.

Benton

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