1. Monthly archive
  2. January 2014

January 2014

The NSA and Silicon Valley

[Commentary] I believe that the people who work at the National Security Agency are patriots. They devote their considerable intellects to preserve, protect, and defend the people of the United States. I wish their patriotism + brainpower would do the same for the US Constitution. But those issues are getting plenty of ink elsewhere.

My concern is more personal and local: The NSA’s version of patriotism is corroding Silicon Valley. Integrity of our products, creative freedom of talented people, and trust with our users are the casualties. The dolphin in the tuna net is us -- our industry, our work, and the social fabric of our community. Product integrity is doomed when the NSA involves itself in the product development process. The scope of NSA’s activity here is unknowable. But what I hear from founders and other investors is beyond my worst expectations. President Barack Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence learned enough about the matter to give it a prominent place in their Dec 12 report. A key recommendation: “the US Government should … not in any way subvert, undermine, weaken, or make vulnerable generally available commercial software.” It’s incredible to me that this needs to be said at all. Inside our companies and research centers, talented minds are being conscripted into surveillance. The freedom of talented people to work for whom they choose, building what they choose, for the purpose they choose is being deleted. Billions of people let Silicon Valley into their daily lives and they hug it close. They trust our products to find information, to get work done, to talk to each other, to buy and sell stuff, and to have fun. But now we are making trust withdrawals every day as people around the world learn how the NSA has woven surveillance, search, and seizure into and around our products.

Smart patriots of the NSA are struggling with a basic question: Of all the ways to get a critical job done, which ways line up with our founding values? The NSA’s answer is deadly to Silicon Valley’s life’s work. That is 100 percent unacceptable.

[Michael Dearing is founder of Harrison Metal. He is a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and a consulting associate professor at Stanford University.]

[Dec 30]

DOJ ready to publish phone surveillance approval

The Department of Justice has reversed course and said it is willing to declassify parts of a court opinion permitting phone surveillance.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion -- regarding Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which the government cites when justifying its collection of information about virtually all American phone calls -- is at the center of a case being brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which wants the opinion to be public. Initially the DOJ told the court that the opinion could not be published, even with redactions. “However, upon further review and as a discretionary matter, the Government has now determined that it does not object” to the publication of a redacted version of the opinion, the DOJ told the court in a document filed earlier this month. The DOJ defended its earlier position, saying that the publication of the opinion could harm an ongoing counterterrorism investigation.

[Dec 30]

Not falling behind

[Commentary] Ed Wyatt’s broadband analysis in the New York Times is a mixture of diverse perspectives and peculiar analysis. First, the United States is not falling behind the rest of the world in broadband, and I challenge anyone who thinks otherwise to show their data.

Second, it’s not the case that broadband users in Chattanooga (TN), Lafayette (LA), and Bristol (VA) enjoy the fastest speeds in the United States. I researched Chattanooga and found that the actual, measured speeds experienced in Chattanooga were below the national average. The disconnect stems from the fact that the high-speed network deployed by the public utility only has a few dozen customers for its gigabit network offering. While extremely high-speed networking is available, the vast majority of Chattanooga’s people don’t see any reason to subscribe to it so they use the same options that most people in most of America use: DSL and cable, at speeds that top out at 100 Mbps. Gigabit broadband is available in most US cities of a million people or more, but usually as a commercial product. Hence, if you’re running a business and have a legitimate need for a 1 Gbps or 10 Gbps network connection, it’s quite likely that you can get it at an appropriate price; most home users can’t get one and wouldn’t know what to do with it if they could. Clue: If you’re not connecting hundreds of users to the Internet, you don’t need a gigabit connection.

[Dec 30]

Call me an optimist, but the future of journalism isn't bleak

[Commentary] As we head into 2014, the 20th anniversary of the first popular web browser, we are awash in media. As consumers, creators and ultimately, collaborators, we are creating an ecosystem of information – including journalism – that grows more complex all the time.

In a few ways, notably the rising tide of crap of all kinds in media and the loss of some of the valuable journalism of the past, this is cause for deep worry. Yet there's plenty of reason for optimism, too: amid all the garbage, is more quality information than we've had access to before. Increasingly, the trick will be finding it. At some level, we have to ask a lot more of audiences in this new world. People will have to be more literate about how media work, and more willing to go deeper on their own. Most of all, they'll have to be relentlessly skeptical. They'll need help from trustworthy news organizations and from self-designated editors who point to the good stuff. Those of us who do the pointing have some obligations. We should link to the original, not a knockoff by an "aggregator" that tries (too often successfully) to land the traffic that should go to the original piece. It should be a matter of pride not to feed the rip-off artists who may well be doing it legally, but are absolutely doing it unethically.

[Gillmor is director of the Knight center for digital media entrepreneurship at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite school of journalism and mass communication.]

[Dec 30]

Ralph Oakley Named to NAB Television Board

National Association of Broadcasters Television Board Chair Marci Burdick has appointed Quincy Newspapers President and CEO Ralph Oakley to the NAB TV Board of Directors, effective immediately.

He replaces LIN Media Executive Vice President, Television Scott Blumenthal, who is retiring. Oakley became president and CEO of Quincy, a family-owned business that operates 12 TV stations, two daily newspapers and two radio stations, in 2009 after working for the company in various operational and management positions since the 1970s. He is a fifth-generation family member to work in broadcasting. An active member in the broadcast industry, Oakley is currently a board trustee of NAB's political action committee (NABPAC) and serves on the boards of NBC Television Affiliate Association and the Television Bureau of Advertising, and is a past board member of the ABC Television Affiliate Board of Governors. A past president and State Leadership Chairman of the Illinois Broadcasters Association, Oakley was the recipient of the organization's Vincent T. Wasilweski Broadcaster of the Year award in 2012.

[Dec 30]

IP-Connected TV Devices Set For A Surge

A growing number of TVs will be graced with Internet connections in the years ahead, eclipsing 202 million by 2015, according to a new forecast from NPD Group.

That predicted total would represent a 44% increase from the 140 million TVs that were graced with Internet connections in one form or another at the start of 2013, the firm said in its new Connected Home Forecast report. NPG said it expects 65% of connectable devices, a group that includes smart TVs, Blu-ray players, gaming consoles and streaming media players, will get connected by consumers by 2015, versus 56% at the start of 2013. The firm attributes this rise to the surging adoption of the devices themselves, including new, popular products such as the Google Chromecast streaming adapter. The introduction of these specialized devices will help to drive the number of installed and connected media players to 31 million by 2015, enabling them to outpace connected Blu-ray players by mid-2014, NPD said.

[Dec 30]

Social Media Update 2013

Some 73% of online adults now use a social networking site of some kind. Facebook is the dominant social networking platform in the number of users, but a striking number of users are now diversifying onto other platforms. Some 42% of online adults now use multiple social networking sites. These are among the key findings on social networking site usage and adoption from a new survey from the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project. Facebook remains the leader by a wide margin with 71% saying they use the site, up from 67% in 2012. Use of all the sites was up year to year, though some within the margin of error. LinkedIn was the second most popular at 22%, up from 20% in 2012; followed by Pinterest at 21%, up from 15%; Twitter at 18%, up from 16%; and Instagram at 17%, up from 13%. Additionally, Pew found that 76 percent of online US adult females use Facebook, compared to 66 percent for online males, while fairly similar women/men percentage splits exist for Twitter (18 percent/17 percent), Instagram (20/17) and Pinterest (33/8). Indeed, one-third of women are now using Pinterest. But then there's LinkedIn: the researcher said 24 percent of Internet-using men employ the site compared to 19 percent of women. [Dec 30]

Restoring Limits on the FCC's Ancillary Authority

[Commentary] Verizon’s pending appeal of the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality order presents one of the most significant legal questions in modern telecommunications policy: whether, and to what extent, the FCC can regulate Internet activity.

New FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has stated clearly that “regulating the Internet is a non-starter.” But the FCC’s actions over the last several years belie that notion. Since 2007, the FCC has enacted binding regulations on a wide range of actors within the Internet ecosystem, including Internet service providers, Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) applications, Over-the-Top text message services, and Internet-based providers of Telecommunications Relay Services. The FCC enacted each of these rules pursuant to a theory of jurisdiction that, at times, has seemed virtually limitless in its reach over any communication by wire or radio. Whether the agency will successfully defend its net neutrality rules will turn largely upon its ability to defend this jurisdictional theory, known as Title I ancillary authority.

[Dec 16]

Obama’s NSA Phone Spying Reforms Might Make Things Worse

[Commentary] President Barack Obama turned heads just days before Christmas when he announced that he is “seriously” considering following the recommendations set forth by an advisory panel, which he appointed, that suggested a major overhaul to the National Security Agency’s wholesale collection of telephone metadata. But an examination of a key suggestion from the “President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies” finds those revisions will do little to improve the protection of American’s calling history. In fact, it may well make the data more vulnerable to government inspection by potentially mandating that Americans’ phone call records be stored for longer periods of time than many telecoms currently archive them. And there likely would be few, if any, legal barriers to law enforcement officials, from the FBI to your local police department, to clear before obtaining that data. [Dec 30]

Shopping for Spy Gear: Catalog Advertises NSA Toolbox

When it comes to modern firewalls for corporate computer networks, the world's second largest network equipment manufacturer doesn't skimp on praising its own work.

According to Juniper Networks' online PR copy, the company's products are "ideal" for protecting large companies and computing centers from unwanted access from outside. They claim the performance of the company's special computers is "unmatched" and their firewalls are the "best-in-class." Despite these assurances, though, there is one attacker none of these products can fend off -- the United States' National Security Agency. Specialists at the intelligence organization succeeded years ago in penetrating the company's digital firewalls. A document viewed by SPIEGEL resembling a product catalog reveals that an NSA division called ANT has burrowed its way into nearly all the security architecture made by the major players in the industry -- including American global market leader Cisco and its Chinese competitor Huawei, but also producers of mass-market goods, such as US computer-maker Dell. [Dec 29]

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