December 2014

Reinventing the Internet to Make It Safer

Vinton Cerf’s and Robert Kahn’s sets of rules and protocols laid the foundation of the modern Internet. Their decisions continue to form the basis for modern digital communications -- much to the detriment of security, some experts argue. But the United States government is teaming up with computer scientists to do something about it.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, decided to explore what the Internet might look like if we could rebuild the computer systems from the ground up, employing the hard lessons we have learned about security. The idea was simple, yet seemingly impossible. The program, called Clean Slate, consisted of two separate but related efforts: Crash -- short for Clean-Slate Design of Resilient, Adaptive, Secure Hosts -- a multiyear project aimed at building systems that were much harder to break into, that could continue to fully function when they were breached and that could heal themselves, and MRC, short for Mission-Oriented Resilient Clouds, which applied similar thinking to computer networking and cloud computing.

Protecting Data Privacy at School and at Play

Parents trying to protect their child’s privacy and data security online are grappling with two main concerns -- information-sharing by children and data-mining by companies -- only one of which they may have some meaningful control over.

With the growing use of mobile devices and apps at home and in school, an increasing number of companies are compiling and analyzing details about children’s online activities. Some sites that offer video games featuring cartoon characters, for instance, track children’s activities around the web with the aim of tailoring advertisements to them. Some apps popular with children can collect information like their whereabouts or phone numbers. A federal law, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or Coppa, is designed to provide some online safeguards. It requires online operators to obtain a parent’s consent before collecting personal details from a child under 13. Unfortunately for concerned parents, that law applies only to sites and apps specifically directed at young children -- and not to general-audience sites frequented by adults and children.

Facebook doesn’t transform free speech into a lesser right

[Commentary] Freedom of speech is the most cherished of American rights, zealously protected by legal rules that give wide berth to expressions of nastiness, pettiness, anger and frustration -- and to descriptions of gruesomeness, violence and horror -- in order to steer far clear of crushing legitimate speech that might be disfavored by politicians, misunderstood by judges or unpopular in a particular community. Yet the government opposes even having to show recklessness on the part of a speaker in order to imprison him. “That’s not the kind of standard that we typically use in the First Amendment,” Justice Elena Kagan said. “We typically say that the First Amendment requires a kind of buffer zone to ensure that even stuff that is wrongful maybe is permitted because we don’t want to chill innocent behavior.” The court must keep that principle in mind for the sake of those who might stop speaking out of fear that a prosecutor and jury somewhere will disapprove of what they have to say.

Federal grand jury subpoenaed documents from LA Unified

Los Angeles school district officials turned over 20 boxes of documents in response to a federal grand jury subpoena for documents related to its troubled iPad project. The subpoena asked for documents related to the bidding process as well as to the winning bidders in the $1.3-billion effort to provide a computer to every student, teacher and campus administrator.

The contract, approved in June 2013, was with Apple to supply iPads; Pearson provided the curriculum as a subcontractor. The investigation is a broad one, seeking records related to Apple and Pearson that predate the bidding process or that involve other projects, according to the subpoena. The documents sought include all "score sheets; complete notepads, notebooks and binders; reports; contracts; agreements; consent forms; files; notices; agenda; meetings notes and minutes; instructions; accounting records” and much more. The FBI seizure was part of the first law-enforcement investigation of technology effort.

Patriot Blogger Embodies Beijing’s Web Vision

Until recently, Zhou Xiaoping was a relatively obscure spiky-haired blogger whose fulminations against the West, particularly America, attracted a fringe audience of angry nationalists. Now, thanks to President Xi Jinping , he’s famous.

At a televised gathering in October of China’s cultural elites, President Xi unexpectedly singled out the 33-year-old former People’s Liberation Army soldier for acclaim, along with another fiercely patriotic fellow blogger. “Keep writing works with ‘positive energy,’ ” the president urged them. China’s propaganda czars are heavily promoting Zhou as the poster child for a Chinese-style Internet that operates in the service of the state. And now China wants to export that vision to the world.

News organisations ‘go native’ to find new source of ad revenue

Welcome to the world of sponsored content, in which advertisers pay to have their messages integrated with editorial content on a publisher’s site.

It is one of the fastest-growing sources of revenue for the news industry – but also one of the most controversial. Although the “advertorial” -- an advert in a similar format to an editorial article -- has existed in print for decades, it is only recently that publishers have reinvented the concept for the digital age. Sponsored content is perhaps the most contentious variety of what is known as “native advertising”, forms of marketing that look the same as the editorial content of a particular website or app and blend in seamlessly with other stories.

Report Says Cyberattacks Originated Inside Iran

Iranian hackers were identified as the source of coordinated attacks against more than 50 targets in 16 countries, many of them corporate and government entities that manage critical energy, transportation and medical services.

Over the course of two years, according to Cylance, a security firm, Iranian hackers managed to steal confidential data from a long list of targets and, in some cases, infiltrated victims’ computer networks to such an extent that they could take over, manipulate or easily destroy data on those machines. Cylance called the attacks “Operation Cleaver” because the word cleaver frequently appeared in the attackers’ malicious code.

A Village Has What All of Italy Wants: The Internet

Verrua Savoia, Italy, is a rural hilltop village, where a 17th-century fortress is a reminder of how residents warded off invaders for hundreds of years, might seem the last place in Italy to find a wireless Internet connection. After all, roughly a third of Italians have never used the Internet, giving the country one of the lowest rates of usage in Europe. Residents can recall providers laughing over the phone at their request for an Internet hookup, or the perplexed look of technicians upon arriving in Verrua Savoia, where just 1,500 residents live in dozens of small settlements spread over nearly 20 miles of valleys and steep hillsides in northern Italy. Even so, some here believed they had the right to join the digital world, to pay their bills, do their banking or make a doctor’s appointment online.

FCC Should Track the Application of Fixed Internet Usage-Based Pricing and Help Improve Consumer Education

The Government Accountability Office was asked to review the use of usage-based pricing (UBP) by Internet providers. This report examines: 1) information available about the application of UBP by Internet service providers; 2) issues related to UBP selected consumers report are important to them; and 3) the potential effects of UBP on consumers.

While the Federal Communications Commission is collecting data regarding fixed UBP, it is not using this data to track UBP use because it only recently started collecting the data specifically to analyze prices. As a result, although FCC is charged with promoting the public interest, it may not know if UBP is being used in a way that is contrary to the public interest and, if so, take appropriate actions.

GAO recommends FCC: (1) work with fixed providers to develop a voluntary code of conduct to improve consumer communication and (2) make use of existing data to track fixed Internet UBP and its effects on consumers nationwide. FCC said it will monitor complaints and provider plans to determine if a more proactive approach is needed. GAO continues to believe that better communication is warranted. FCC agreed to use existing data to analyze UBP issues.

Framework for an Open Internet -- Section 706, Title II, and Forbearance

The future of Internet innovation and competition will turn on decisions the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will soon make in the Open Internet Proceeding. This paper discusses why partial reclassification of sender-side-only traffic is not a reasonable path forward, and argues that there is only one workable path forward -- the FCC should: (1) rely on Section 706 as the foundation for protecting both sides of the two-sided broadband Internet access platform; (2) reclassify both sides of the two-sided Internet access platform as telecommunications; and (3) forbear from the bulk of Title II provisions to deliver “just enough” Title II to support the application of Section 706. This paper discusses the policy synergy associated with the Section 706/Title II/Forbearance approach, and discusses case law that supports the proposition that higher courts will defer to the FCC's reclassification and forbearance decisions.

Benton

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