June 2014

Ex-NSA Chief: We Need Cybersecurity Legislation

Former National Security Agency director General Keith Alexander said that Congress needs to pass cybersecurity legislation that will make it easier for government and the communications industry to work together to combat that threat.

He said that the government needed the ability to share threat info with industry, and industry with government.

"We need cybersecurity legislation. We need to push that through." He said he was not talking about sharing personally identifiable information, but instead "malicious activity." He also said it was needed to provide protection for industry players who act on threat information supplied by the government. "If the government tells industry: 'Please block this traffic,' and [the government] makes a mistake, then industry should have some form of liability protection."

He said those are the keys to cyber legislation.

Tech company, free speech groups to protect websites under attack

Online security company CloudFlare and free speech organizations are teaming up to protect “politically and artistically important” websites from attacks.

Through an initiative -- named Project Galileo -- CloudFlare will provide its tools to protect against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks to websites facing free speech threats.

“Bullies should not be able to knock sites offline simply because they disagree with their content,” CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince said. CloudFlare will provide its security tools to threatened websites identified by the 15 free speech organizations that are a part of Project Galileo, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology and Access, the company said in its release announcing the initiative.

The Privacy Paradox, a Challenge for Business

People around the world are thrilled by the ease and convenience of their smartphones and Internet services, but they aren’t willing to trade their privacy to get more of it.

That is the top-line finding of a new study of 15,000 consumers in 15 countries.

The privacy paradox was surfaced most directly in one question: Would you be willing to trade some privacy for greater convenience and ease?

Worldwide, 51 percent replied no, and 27 percent said yes. (The remainder had no opinion or didn’t know.) There were country-by-country differences, but there was a consistency to the results, especially in the developed nations. The United States was 56 percent no and 21 percent yes. Britain was almost identical -- 55 percent no, 18 percent yes. Germany was most privacy protective -- 71 percent no, and 12 percent yes. India, by contrast, had the highest yes percentage -- 48 percent, to 40 percent no.

The study, conducted by Edelman Berland, a market research firm, and sponsored by EMC, the data storage giant, has some other intriguing results with implications for business. Consumers worldwide seem to strongly agree with the notion that there should be laws “to prohibit businesses from buying an selling data without my opt-in consent” -- 87 percent.

Privacy experts say Facebook changes open up ‘unprecedented’ data collection

Facebook came under fire from privacy advocates who say that changes to its ad network mark an unprecedented expansion of its ability to collect users' personal data.

The advocates are also criticizing the Federal Trade Commission for allowing Facebook to make the changes and argue that the network's size gives it too much knowledge about its users.

The social network announced the changes in an official company blog post, saying it will now draw information from other Web sites to inform its ad choices, mirroring the set-up that many other online advertisers use.

Facebook may simply be offering its own version of what other companies already do, said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. But it is a significant change in the advertising landscape because of Facebook's size, he said.

The network has over one billion users worldwide, and hundreds of millions of users in the United States. "It's true that everybody is doing all of this, and that's how the system works," Chester said. "But this is unprecedented. Given Facebook's scale, this is a dramatic expansion of its spying on users."

Chester said that he and other privacy advocates will raise their concerns in a previously scheduled meeting with Federal Trade Commissioner Edith Ramirez and will also be contacting regulators in Europe about the changes. He believes that the new changes should be considered a violation of Facebook's earlier agreement with the regulatory agency.

Facebook argues: "We can't speak for the commission, but we are confident that these updates comply with our legal obligations, including our commitments to the FTC.”

Five myths about net neutrality

[Commentary] It’s not you. “Net neutrality” is confusing. As broadband Internet has replaced dial-up in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission has struggled to come up with rules to make sure high-speed Internet service providers adhere to the principle of “neutrality.” Fans and foes of net neutrality both say that if they don’t get their way, the Internet will be ruined. But will it?

The Internet has never been regulated -- no need to start now.
If new net neutrality rules aren’t adopted, the Internet will quickly fall apart. If net neutrality were imposed, the Internet would oses the experimentation that has long been its hallmark.
Net neutrality rules will limit the growth of broadband Internet.
Net neutrality is a battle between corporate giants. It’s the online grass-roots that has kept the vision of a neutral Internet alive for nearly a decade, with assists from advocacy groups such as Free Press and Consumers Union, and tech leaders such as Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian and Craigslist’s Craig Newmark. They’ve taken a highly technical -- and arguably poorly branded -- idea and turned it into a statement of values.
Either the Internet’s neutral or it’s not. That’s never been true. Wu said himself in his 2003 law journal article, “Neutrality, as a concept, is finicky.” For one thing, even allies on the pro-regulation side of the debate haven’t settled on one definition of “net neutrality.”

Spectrum Hold 'Em: FCC Updates Spectrum Holding Policies

[Commentary] Not all spectrum is created equal. Low-band spectrum gets special treatment in the upcoming “Incentive Auction” and in the Federal Communications Commission’s case-by-case analysis of secondary market transactions.

More specifically, for mobile telephony/broadband applications, low-band (i.e., below 1 GHz in frequency) spectrum offers better signal propagation for enhanced geographic coverage than high-band (i.e., above 1GHz) spectrum, but high-band is better at transmitting larger amounts of data (albeit over shorter distances).

Low-band spectrum, which wireless carriers covet due to better coverage capabilities and lower deployment costs, is in shorter supply than high-band spectrum. AT&T and Verizon will be most constrained by the new rules when it comes to bidding on 600 MHz spectrum in the Incentive Auction.

But the ultimate success of that auction depends largely on maximizing the proceeds from the “forward auction” component. Those proceeds will have to pay for the First Responder Network Authority, the Next Generation 911 program and federal deficit reduction (all as required by Congress) while also paying off broadcasters in the “reverse auction”. That last element is particularly important because the amount of spectrum available for the “forward auction” may depend to a significant degree on how much spectrum broadcasters opt to make available in the “reverse auction”. And, obviously, the financial incentive for broadcasters to do so may be seriously compromised if the returns from the “forward auction” will be artificially depressed by the partial exclusion of the two deepest pocketed bidders.

Senate Dems to FCC: Go easy on broadcasters

A group of Senate Democrats is asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to show leniency to broadcasters that have resource sharing agreements, which are now banned.

In a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, the lawmakers said they worry the result of the agency’s new rules “will be less competition since certain broadcasters may be forced to cease operations, which would harm not only the broadcasters themselves but also the viewers they serve.”

Sens Charles Schumer (D-NY), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Bob Casey Jr (D-PA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) signed the letter. With their request, the Senate Democrats join Republicans and broadcasters in expressing concern that the FCC’s recent actions to curb collusion between broadcasters will unfairly hurt the companies and their viewers.

Time Warner’s Turner Seeks Upfront Price Hikes In Line With NBC’s

Now that broadcast networks have begun to write business in TV’s annual “upfront” market, cable players are preparing to join the fray. Executives at Time Warner’s Turner suite of cable networks believe there’s an opportunity for volume gains in the 2014 upfront market, when US TV networks try to sell the bulk of their ad inventory for the coming season.

The company, which operates TNT, TBS, CNN, Cartoon Network and other outlets, senses advertisers holding back dollars in negotiations with broadcast networks, according to a person familiar with the situation, and feels only a portion of those dollars can go to digital outlets. Turner’s operating premise in the marketplace, this person suggested, is that marketers still want video advertising and won’t be able to tuck dollars away in their corporate pockets.

As such, the company is likely to seek price increases in line with the top of the broadcast market, this person said. NBC, which has seen a recent surge in the audiences between 18 and 49 that advertisers seek, has been pressing for increases of around 8% in the cost of reaching 1,000 viewers, according to media buyers and other people familiar with negotiations.

Senate to consider AT&T-DirecTV merger

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the proposed $49 billion merger of AT&T and DirecTV in late June, the panel announced. The Antitrust subcommittee’s session will be held on the same day that the House Judiciary Committee holds its hearing, on June 24.

The House panel will go first with a hearing, followed hours later by lawmakers in the Senate. The twin hearings will likely feature some skepticism from lawmakers worried that the trend of mergers among major media companies will lead to higher prices and worse service for their constituents.

Durham Says Yes to AT&T’s GigaPower

Following recent approval from Winston-Salem (NC) city officials for Durham have ratified an agreement that gives AT&T the green light to deploy its 1-Gbps-capable, fiber-based U-verse with GigaPower platform.

Like the earlier deal with Winston-Salem, the Durham agreement stems from AT&T’s discussions with the North Carolina Next Generation Network (NCNGN), an initiative comprised of six cities, four universities, and local business leaders, that’s aimed at stimulating deployment of next-gen broadband networks in the state.

AT&T said the approved plan covers “potential fiber deployments” to businesses and residential areas in “parts” of Durham, which is also served by incumbent cable operator Time Warner Cable, but has not elaborated on which areas will be covered.

AT&T also has not announced a specific timeline for its NC-area rollouts, but noted that, like its plan for Winston-Salem, the build in Durham will get underway “within a few weeks," and will reveal more detailed rollout plans later. AT&T has similar ratifications pending in four other North Carolina areas: Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill and Raleigh.

Benton

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