September 2014

Apple will no longer unlock most iPhones, iPads for police, even with search warrants

Apple said that it is making it impossible for the company to turn over data from most iPhones or iPads to police -- even when they have a search warrant -- taking a hard new line as tech companies attempt to blunt allegations that they have too readily participated in government efforts to collect user information.

The move amounts to an engineering solution to a legal quandary: Rather than comply with binding court orders, Apple has reworked its latest encryption in a way that prevents the company -- or anyone but the device’s owner -- from gaining access to the vast troves of user data typically stored on smartphones or tablet computers. The key is the encryption that Apple mobile devices automatically put in place when a user selects a passcode, making it difficult for anyone who lacks that passcode to access the information within, including photos, e-mails and recordings. Apple once maintained the ability to unlock some content on devices for legally binding police requests but will no longer do so for iOS 8, it said in the new privacy policy.

Union Finds TV Diversity Hiring Stalled

Women and minorities are largely shut out of the ranks of TV series directors in a stubbornly unchanged pattern of hiring, according to a Directors Guild of America study.

The report said that employers have made no significant improvement in diversity among TV directors in the last four years. White males directed the vast majority of the more than 3,500 cable, broadcast and high-budget online episodes made for the 2013-14 season. Last season, 69 percent of all TV episodes were directed by white males, with 17 percent directed by minority males and 12 percent directed by white females, the study found. Female directors made no gains in hiring last season compared to the year before. A 3 percent increase in the episodes directed by minority males can be attributed to work done by Tyler Perry on three series that he also produces, the guild said. Minority females were the least-represented among TV directors, representing only 2 percent of TV series directors.

Twitter’s new guide for campaigners

Twitter released a guide for elected officials and candidates that details the do’s and don’ts of how to effectively use the social media site. The 137-page report is Twitter’s first comprehensive publication that puts in place the basics on everything from setting up an account (believe it or not, there are still a few stragglers in Congress) to the best way to get a retweet (post a photo). It also gives campaigners hints on what kinds of messages can break through the clutter, namely by giving authentic and behind-the-scenes glimpses of what it’s like to serve in office.

Occupy Wall Street Activists File Suit Over Control of Twitter Account

Three years after the Occupy Wall Street movement began, an unlikely conflict has emerged over one of the cause’s most precious tools: a Twitter account. During the primacy of the Occupy movement in New York, people across the country followed @OccupyWallStNYC and other social media accounts to track the latest developments, from encampments to conflicts. Now one group of activists is accusing a former comrade of taking unilateral control of the shared account and locking out the organizers he had once collaborated with.

How Islamic State is wielding the Internet in new ways

American law-enforcement officials have expressed growing concern about the threat of homegrown terror as federal prosecutors announced the indictment of a New York man, Mufid Elfgeeh, who is accused of having offered support to the rogue Islamic State, which is creating havoc in Iraq and Syria. New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said the nation’s largest police force has been trying to stay ahead of an “evolving world of terrorism” -- especially terror groups’ growing sophistication with the use of social media to promote their message and recruit potential “lone wolf” American terrorists. On the one hand, experts caution that terrorist propaganda and recruitment efforts online is nothing new. But even as a handful of Americans attempt to get more engaged with extremist groups, media observers say IS has become one of most sophisticated social media operations yet seen.

Chinese Hacked US Military Contractors, Senate Panel Says

Hackers linked to China's government broke into computer networks of private transportation companies working for the US military 20 times in one year, Senate investigators said. But the probe by the Senate Armed Services Committee found that officials of the US Transportation Command, responsible for moving troops and goods across the globe, were told about just two of those incidents.

If a system was compromised, military officers might not have known, the panel said. Transportation Command makes extensive use of passenger and cargo airlines as well as ship operators, and its leadership has acknowledged its communications with outside companies make it the part of the military most vulnerable to cyberattack. The committee's study covered June 2012 to June 2013 and highlights a complaint by many government and corporate leaders: Large organizations often aren't told about data breaches at suppliers and subcontractors. That means incidents that seem minor could prove crucial in a later cyberattack.

The big stick behind Google’s soft power approach to Europe

Google is believed to have more than doubled the amount it spends on lobbying the European Union since 2011. It spent roughly €1.5m in 2013, according to the European Transparency Register, a voluntary register that tracks what businesses spend on lobbying European institutions, an increase from the €600,000 it spent in 2011. Its efforts in Europe are part of its “soft power” approach towards influencing policy makers.

3.7 Million Comments Later, Here's Where Net Neutrality Stands

The window for the public to weigh in on how federal rule-makers should treat Internet traffic is closed, after a record 3.7 million comments arrived at the Federal Communications. The Sunlight Foundation analyzed the first 800,000 and found that fewer than 1 percent were opposed to network neutrality enforcement. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has said that he hopes the FCC will approve a proposal before the end of 2014, which gives the commission a few more months to sift through the comments, meet with stakeholders and reconvene on this issue. In the meantime, there's plenty of reading the tea leaves of Wheeler's public comments and moves. One issue that's come up in this interim period is how to treat mobile connections.

Senators hear calls on the FCC to step back from net neutrality rules

The Federal Communications Commission should abandon its efforts to pass network neutrality rules because new regulations would hurt investment and the deployment of broadband, a parade of Republican senators and advocates said.

Advocates of strong net neutrality rules have pointed to few problems that justify intrusive new regulations, several Republican senators argued during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Net neutrality would amount to the FCC taking “control” of the Internet, said Sen Orrin Hatch (R-UT). “Without government regulation the Internet is growing,” he said. “So what’s the problem? What is broken? What is it that needs to be fixed?” Instead of questioning witnesses, Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) gave a six-minute speech about what he sees as the evils of a “nanny state” of growing government regulation. Every time the net neutrality debate returns to Washington (DC) “it stirs up an interesting debate between government regulation versus, to some, the terrifying freedom of the Internet,” Sen Cruz said. “I think the American people don’t find that freedom all that terrifying.”

Several Democratic senators and three hearing witnesses defended net neutrality rules, saying rules are needed to keep the Internet free from selective traffic slowdowns by broadband providers seeking to pump up profits through paid traffic prioritization deals.

Republicans in Congress don't know what Internet freedom means

[Commentary] The future of the Internet is at stake, and there's still a lot of ignorance about technology on both sides of the aisle in Congress. But right now there's only one party in Congress that's actively threatening to kill the founding principles that have made the Internet the booming success it is today.

People who understand the history of the internet and the value it now provides to everyone accept the obvious conclusion that the internet is a utility, just like water and electricity. Right now advocates are trying to convince the Federal Communications Commission to just say that obvious fact, and do what it should have done years ago but lacked the courage to accomplish: to declare that ISPs are common carriers, subject to restrictions on how they handle the speech that travels through their cables. But Internet providers don't want to be treated like common carriers, because it would, in short, stifle profits. So what's their response? To cast reclassification as "heavy handed" regulation from Big Government. And Republicans are buying it. There are two major themes to GOP objection: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," and "big government is bad."

Benton

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