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June 2015

Mobile app improves rates of CPR in cardiac arrest cases, studies find

Using a mobile app to find and alert people with CPR training who are near someone having a cardiac arrest improves the chances of the victim getting CPR and the person's survival rate, according to studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The chances of surviving a cardiac arrest outside a hospital are dismally low, according to past research and the NEJM studies. In the studies conducted in Sweden, which looked at out-of-hospital cardiac arrests from Jan. 1, 1990 through Dec. 31, 2011, only 4 percent of the victims survived 30 days past the incident -- if they didn't have someone performing CPR or using a defibrillator before emergency responders got to the scene. But the survival rate more than doubled -- to 10.5 percent -- if a bystander performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the studies found.

The researchers then investigated if bystander-initiated CPR rates could be increased with the use of mobile technology. A mobile "on-call" system with GPS was used to find and alert anyone with CPR training who was near, about 1,600 feet from, someone having a cardiac incident. The app pulled information from 911 dispatchers and sent it to trained volunteers in the form of texts and automated calls. Researchers found that the technology significantly increased the rate at which bystanders initiated CPR. In cases when the app wasn't used, only 48 percent of cardiac arrest victims got CPR from bystanders, the study found. But when the on-call system was activated, that rate jumped to 62 percent.

Orange CEO urges government to stop meddling in telecoms sector

The head of Orange has urged the French government to rein in its involvement in industry consolidation even as two of its rivals prepare to test Paris’s authority with a €10bn merger. Stéphane Richard, chief executive of France’s biggest telecommunications group, whose largest shareholder is the government, said that decisions over mergers and acquisitions would be “essentially a topic for the French antitrust authority. The government has really no tools in its hands to prevent this”. The Socialist government of President François Hollande disagrees.

On June 22, Emmanuel Macron, economy minister, said it could block a $10bn bid by Numericable-SFR, the country’s second biggest mobile operator, for Bouygues Telecom, the third largest. He called the deal, which would create the country’s largest operator, bad for consumers, investment and jobs. Richard said before news of the bid became public that several government attempts to stop or influence takeovers, including General Electric’s acquisition of Alstom’s energy business and the sale of SFR to billionaire Patrick Drahi, whose Altice cable group controls Numericable-SFR, had largely failed.

June 23, 2015 (Net Neutrality Complaint Filed Against TWC)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 2015

FCC's Disability Advisory Committee Meeting: https://www.benton.org/calendar/2015-06-23

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SECURITY/PRIVACY
   Popular Security Software Came Under Relentless NSA and GCHQ Attacks
   A disaster foretold -- and ignored
   Privacy group wants FTC to investigate Uber [links to web]

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   Major Internet providers slowing traffic speeds for thousands across US
   A San Diego business has filed a net neutrality complaint against Time Warner Cable
   FCC Seeks Comment on Small Business Exemption from Open Internet Enhanced Transparency Requirements - public notice [links to web]
   CTIA: FCC Broadband Use Estimate Was Spot On [links to web]
   You're Using The Internet Wrong: Here's How To Finally Eliminate Digital Distractions [links to web]

LIFELINE
   FCC Clarifies Lifeline Subscriber Usage Rules - public notice [links to web]
   Remarks of Commissioner Clyburn at New America Foundation - speech [links to web]
   These States Depend on 'Obama Phone' the Most [links to web]

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   Senators to feds: 'Just Google it' [links to web]
   FCC Information Technology Team Recognized with the Affirm Leadership Award in Cloud Computing - press release [links to web]
   MD tech groups are joining forces to make the state an innovation hub [links to web]

BROADCASTING
   PBS, CBP, APTS: FCC Disregarding Needs of Viewers
   LPTVs to FCC: See You In Court
   Analysts: Don’t expect big windfall in broadcast incentive auction [links to web]

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   Only Congress Can Build a Spectrum Pipeline - Verizon press release [links to web]

CONTENT
   Taylor Swift Criticism Spurs Apple to Change Royalties Policy [links to web]
   Amazon to pay authors in its library program by pages read [links to web]

ADVERTISING
   Big Data’s Big Impact on the Future of Advertising - Revere Digital op-ed [links to web]
   Facebook Pushes Advertisers to Employ User Data More Effectively [links to web]
   Comcast and NBCUniversal Open Cross-Promotional Ad Strategy [links to web]

JOURNALISM
   Here are 4 visions of what journalism might look like in 2025 [links to web]
   Brian Williams Scandal Shows Power of Social Media [links to web]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   Australia passes controversial anti-piracy web censorship law
   Europol web unit to hunt extremists behind Isis social media propaganda [links to web]

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SECURITY/PRIVACY

POPULAR SECURITY SOFTWARE CAME UNDER RELENTLESS NSA AND GCHQ ATTACKS
[SOURCE: The Intercept, AUTHOR: Andrew Fishman, Morgan Marquis-Boire]
The National Security Agency and its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, have worked to subvert anti-virus and other security software in order to track users and infiltrate networks, according to documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The spy agencies have reverse engineered software products, sometimes under questionable legal authority, and monitored web and e-mail traffic in order to discreetly thwart anti-virus software and obtain intelligence from companies about security software and users of such software. One security software maker repeatedly singled out in the documents is Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab, which has a holding registered in the UK, claims more than 270,000 corporate clients, and says it protects more than 400 million people with its products. British spies aimed to thwart Kaspersky software in part through a technique known as software reverse engineering, or SRE, according to a top-secret warrant renewal request. The NSA has also studied Kaspersky Lab’s software for weaknesses, obtaining sensitive customer information by monitoring communications between the software and Kaspersky servers, according to a draft top-secret report. The US spy agency also appears to have examined e-mails inbound to security software companies flagging new viruses and vulnerabilities. The efforts to compromise security software were of particular importance because such software is relied upon to defend against an array of digital threats and is typically more trusted by the operating system than other applications, running with elevated privileges that allow more vectors for surveillance and attack. Spy agencies seem to be engaged in a digital game of cat and mouse with anti-virus software companies; the US and UK have aggressively probed for weaknesses in software deployed by the companies, which have themselves exposed sophisticated state-sponsored malware.
benton.org/headlines/popular-security-software-came-under-relentless-nsa-and-gchq-attacks | Intercept, The
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A DISASTER FORETOLD -- AND IGNORED
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Craig Timberg]
The seven young men sitting before some of Capitol Hill’s most powerful lawmakers weren’t graduate students or junior analysts from some think tank. No, Space Rogue, Kingpin, Mudge and the others were hackers who had come from the mysterious environs of cyberspace to deliver a terrifying warning to the world. Your computers, they told the panel of senators in May 1998, are not safe -- not the software, not the hardware, not the networks that link them together. The companies that build these things don’t care, the hackers continued, and they have no reason to care because failure costs them nothing. And the federal government has neither the skill nor the will to do anything about it. “If you’re looking for computer security, then the Internet is not the place to be,” said Mudge, then 27 and looking like a biblical prophet with long brown hair flowing past his shoulders. The Internet itself, he added, could be taken down “by any of the seven individuals seated before you” with 30 minutes of well-choreographed keystrokes. The senators nodded gravely, making clear that they understood the gravity of the situation. What happened instead was a tragedy of missed opportunity, and 17 years later the world is still paying the price in rampant insecurity. The testimony from L0pht, as the hacker group called itself, was among the most audacious of a rising chorus of warnings delivered in the 1990s as the Internet was exploding in popularity, well on its way to becoming a potent global force for communication, commerce and criminality.
benton.org/headlines/disaster-foretold-and-ignored | Washington Post
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

MAJOR INTERNET PROVIDERS SLOWING TRAFFIC SPEEDS FOR THOUSANDS ACROSS US
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Sam Thielman]
Major Internet providers, including AT&T, Time Warner and Verizon, are slowing data from popular websites to thousands of US businesses and residential customers in dozens of cities across the country, according to a study released June 22. The study, conducted by Internet activists BattlefortheNet, looked at the results from 300,000 internet users and found significant degradations on the networks of the five largest internet service providers (ISPs), representing 75 percent of all wireline households across the US. The study, supported by the technologists at Open Technology Institute’s M-Lab, examines the comparative speeds of Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), which shoulder some of the data load for popular websites. Any site that becomes popular enough has to pay a CDN to carry its content on a network of servers around the country (or the world) so that the material is close to the people who want to access it. Tim Karr of Free Press, one of the groups that makes up BattlefortheNet, said the finding show ISPs are not providing content to users at the speeds they’re paying for. “For too long, Internet access providers and their lobbyists have characterized net neutrality protections as a solution in search of a problem,” said Karr. “Data compiled using the Internet Health Test show us otherwise -- that there is widespread and systemic abuse across the network. The irony is that this trove of evidence is becoming public just as many in Congress are trying to strip away the open internet protections that would prevent such bad behavior.”
benton.org/headlines/major-internet-providers-slowing-traffic-speeds-thousands-across-us | Guardian, The
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A SAN DIEGO BUSINESS HAS FILED A NET NEUTRALITY COMPLAINT AGAINST TIME WARNER CABLE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Brian Fung]
In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission on June 22, Commercial Network Services (CNS) claims that it's being charged unjust rates to deliver its streaming Web cam video to consumers. CNS wants Time Warner Cable to carry its traffic for free. But TWC is telling CNS's chief executive, Barry Bahrami, that his company doesn't qualify for what's called a "settlement-free" deal. "TWC is acting as gatekeeper and degrading our ability to exercise free expression," Bahrami writes in the complaint. "TWC’s management policy is restricting the open exchange of Internet traffic." TWC has said that its behavior is consistent with industry standards and that it's confident the FCC will reject Bahrami's claims. It's unclear how much traction Bahrami will get with the commission. His argument is that Time Warner Cable has violated the FCC's rules against paid prioritization, or the tactic where Internet providers charge a fee to selectively speed up certain Web sites. That behavior was labeled illegal under the FCC's network neutrality rules. But that part of the FCC's rules only cover the so-called "last mile" between a consumer's device and his Internet provider. It doesn't address the part of the Internet where Time Warner Cable and Bahrami are having their dispute. So the FCC could find that, in fact, TWC hasn't broken any rules after all.
benton.org/headlines/san-diego-business-has-filed-net-neutrality-complaint-against-time-warner-cable | Washington Post
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BROADCASTING

PBS, CBP, APTS: FCC DISREGARDING NEEDS OF VIEWERS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Noncommercial TV stations were taking aim June 22 at the Federal Communications Commission's rejection of their petition to insure that there is still a channel available for noncommercial stations in each market after the broadcast incentive auction. They suggest that, for the first time, the FCC is subjecting the future of noncommercial TV to commercial market forces. "Through this decision, the Commission has disregarded the needs of the millions of Americans who rely on public television for essential services in education, public safety and civic leadership," the Association of Public Television Stations, PBS and CPB said in a joint statement. The FCC said, in rejecting the petition by the noncom groups, that those stations could still give up spectrum and share, but that if a station wanted to get out of the business and the result was no more noncom channel in the market, it was not going to prevent that. The FCC pointed out that stations could still give up spectrum and share with another station, reserving the noncommercial license on their part of the channel. But in response to the FCC decision, the groups made clear their displeasure, particularly after a noncom volunteered for a sharing test that helped the FCC advance its auction proposal. "By denying this petition, the Commission is discarding six decades of regulatory precedent and the clear mandate of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 to provide universal service. In taking this action without a rulemaking procedure in which interested parties might participate, the Commission is neglecting its own rules and ignoring the Administrative Procedure Act governing such rulemakings," the groups said.
benton.org/headlines/pbs-cbp-apts-fcc-disregarding-needs-viewers | Broadcasting&Cable
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LPTVS TO FCC: SEE YOU IN COURT
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Mike Gravino, director of the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition, said that taking the Federal Communications Commission to court over the incentive auction is now a "given." That comes after the FCC denied more than two dozen LPTV decisions to reconsider various aspects of the upcoming incentive auction. Except for class A LPTVs, low power stations and translators, the latter of which help extend the reach of full-power stations to hard-to access populations, don't get to participate in the auction, or get protection from interference of displacement in the station repack after the auction. Gravino said that representatives of his industry, the National Association of Broadcasters and noncommercial TV executives are meeting with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to talk about the FCC's Auction Procedures public notice, which will deal with other issues with the FCC's denial of those petitions, but signaled the die is cast for further legal action. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit recently rejected the National Association of Broadcasters and Sinclair's legal challenges to the auction, but it looks like it will be getting some more action. "Taking the FCC to court is a given for the LPTV industry, but which group does it, and when, is still being analyzed." There were over 25 denials of LPTV petitions, essentially all of the ones which were submitted. Unlike the NAB and Sinclair legal challenges, which accepted a speedy process by the court, LPTV will probably not be so accommodating, he said.
benton.org/headlines/lptvs-fcc-see-you-court | Broadcasting&Cable
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

AUSTRALIA PASSES CONTROVERSIAL ANTI-PIRACY WEB CENSORSHIP LAW
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Glyn Moody]
A controversial bill to allow websites to be censored has been passed by both houses of the Australian parliament. The Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015 allows companies to go to a Federal Court judge to get overseas sites blocked if their "primary purpose" is facilitating copyright infringement. Dr Matthew Rimmer, an associate professor at the Australian National University College of Law, points out that there is a lack of definitions within the bill: "What is 'primary purpose'? There's no definition. What is 'facilitation'? Again, there's no definition." That's dangerous, he believes, because it could lead to "collateral damage," whereby sites that don't intend to hosting infringing material are blocked because a court might rule they were covered anyway. Moreover, Rimmer said that controversial material of the kind released by WikiLeaks is often under copyright, which means that the new law could be used to censor information that was embarrassing, but in the public interest. The bill passed easily in both houses thanks to bipartisan support from the Liberal and Labor parties: only the Australian Greens put up any fight against it. Bernard Keane explains in an article on Crikey that the main argument for the new law -- that it would save Australian jobs -- is completely bogus. Claims that film piracy was costing 6100 jobs every year don't stand up to scrutiny: "If piracy were going to destroy 6000 jobs in the arts sector every year, why is employment in the specific sub-sector that according to the copyright industry is the one directly affected by piracy now 31,000, compared to 24,000 in 2011?" Keane asks.
benton.org/headlines/australia-passes-controversial-anti-piracy-web-censorship-law | Ars Technica
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Remarks of Commissioner Clyburn at New America Foundation

[Commentary] Allow me to express my appreciation to the New America Foundation for inviting me to focus on a critically important topic I am deeply passionate about -- affordable mobile broadband. For broadband to reach its fullest potential, to improve the lives of every American, it must be both affordable and ubiquitous -- if it is not, it will become just another barrier that separates the "haves" and the "have nots"...The FCC has adopted a framework, which would sunset the current Lifeline program, and replace it with what I am proposing to be known going forward as: iBridge Now! The optimal way to discipline program expenditure for iBridge Now! is to focus on leveraging a modernized program to reduce the critical divides that exist in this nation, so that the number of eligible households decline, which means that the current program's expenditures declines.

The program should be focused on being part of a pathway out of poverty, poor education, lackluster healthcare options, and more. Our goal should be for iBridge Now! to be so successful and so enabling, that its recipients no longer need it or any other federal benefit program, because they no longer qualify. We should be bold and visionary and careful not to embrace an artificial budget, set at an arbitrary amount, and risk ensuring that millions remain stuck in digital badlands....We need to be clear about the purpose of Lifeline in the statue: it is to ensure that service is "affordable." The statue does not state that the purpose of Lifeline is to spur new adoption, nor does it say that services should only be affordable for select few low-income consumers who have never adopted broadband before. The word in the statute is affordable.

Senators to feds: 'Just Google it'

Senators want to eliminate an agency tucked within the Commerce Department, the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), suggesting that the Internet has made it obsolete. Sens Mark Kirk (R-IL), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA) introduced the Just Google It Act on June 22, which would eliminate the NTIS. The NTIS is the "largest central resource for government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information," according to the agency's website. But, the Sens say that the rise of Internet search engines has made it "outdated and duplicative."

“Instead of wasting millions of dollars to buy and sell printed documents, the federal government should join the 21st Century and just Google it,” Sen Kirk said in a statement, adding that the government agency "has been obsolete since the Internet was invented." The Sens pointed to a 2014 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report which found that a majority of documents added to the NTIS collection over the past twenty years could be found somewhere else, with most of those available for free online. The Sens would give the Commerce Department a year to shut down the NTIS and transfer any "critical functions" to another part of the department.

FCC Seeks Comment on Small Business Exemption from Open Internet Enhanced Transparency Requirements

In the 2015 Open Internet Order, the Federal Communications Commission adopted certain enhancements to the existing transparency rule that governs the content and format of disclosures made by providers of broadband Internet access service. These enhanced transparency requirements build on the original transparency rule the FCC adopted in 2010 to provide critical information to end-user consumers, edge provides, and the Internet community. These enhancements apply to provider disclosures required by the existing transparency rule regarding commercial terms, performance characteristics, and network practices.

In response to concerns from smaller providers about the compliance burden of the enhancements, the FCC temporarily exempted those providers "with 100,000 or fewer broadband subscribers as per their most recent Form 477, aggregated over all the provider's affiliates." At the same time, the FCC stated that "both the appropriateness of the exemption and the subscriber threshold require further deliberation," and directed the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau to seek comment on the exemption and to "adopt an order announcing whether it is maintaining an exemption and at what level by no later than December 15, 2015." This public notice seeks comment on these issues, as well as whether the enhancements to the transparency rule raise compliance burden concerns that warrant making permanent the exemption.

A San Diego business has filed a net neutrality complaint against Time Warner Cable

In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission on June 22, Commercial Network Services (CNS) claims that it's being charged unjust rates to deliver its streaming Web cam video to consumers. CNS wants Time Warner Cable to carry its traffic for free. But TWC is telling CNS's chief executive, Barry Bahrami, that his company doesn't qualify for what's called a "settlement-free" deal. "TWC is acting as gatekeeper and degrading our ability to exercise free expression," Bahrami writes in the complaint.

"TWC’s management policy is restricting the open exchange of Internet traffic." TWC has said that its behavior is consistent with industry standards and that it's confident the FCC will reject Bahrami's claims. It's unclear how much traction Bahrami will get with the commission. His argument is that Time Warner Cable has violated the FCC's rules against paid prioritization, or the tactic where Internet providers charge a fee to selectively speed up certain Web sites. That behavior was labeled illegal under the FCC's network neutrality rules. But that part of the FCC's rules only cover the so-called "last mile" between a consumer's device and his Internet provider. It doesn't address the part of the Internet where Time Warner Cable and Bahrami are having their dispute. So the FCC could find that, in fact, TWC hasn't broken any rules after all.

FCC Information Technology Team Recognized with the Affirm Leadership Award in Cloud Computing

The Federal Communications Commission was recognized with the Association for Federal Information Resources Management's ("AFFIRM") Leadership Award in Cloud Computing. A first-time AFFIRM Leadership Award recipient, the FCC information technology team is being honored for its role in developing the new Consumer Help Desk. The FCC was the only recipient of a team award from AFFIRM in 2015. The information technology team developed the Consumer Health Center, eliminating the previous paper-based system in favor of an online system. This new online system allows for 24-hour filing, tracking and handling of complaints and uses a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, which embodies the FCC's approach to IT moving forward.

A disaster foretold -- and ignored

The seven young men sitting before some of Capitol Hill’s most powerful lawmakers weren’t graduate students or junior analysts from some think tank. No, Space Rogue, Kingpin, Mudge and the others were hackers who had come from the mysterious environs of cyberspace to deliver a terrifying warning to the world. Your computers, they told the panel of senators in May 1998, are not safe -- not the software, not the hardware, not the networks that link them together. The companies that build these things don’t care, the hackers continued, and they have no reason to care because failure costs them nothing. And the federal government has neither the skill nor the will to do anything about it.

“If you’re looking for computer security, then the Internet is not the place to be,” said Mudge, then 27 and looking like a biblical prophet with long brown hair flowing past his shoulders. The Internet itself, he added, could be taken down “by any of the seven individuals seated before you” with 30 minutes of well-choreographed keystrokes. The senators nodded gravely, making clear that they understood the gravity of the situation. What happened instead was a tragedy of missed opportunity, and 17 years later the world is still paying the price in rampant insecurity. The testimony from L0pht, as the hacker group called itself, was among the most audacious of a rising chorus of warnings delivered in the 1990s as the Internet was exploding in popularity, well on its way to becoming a potent global force for communication, commerce and criminality.

Big Data’s Big Impact on the Future of Advertising

[Commentary] The big broadcast nets are beginning to book their first big upfront deals -- deals that are showing signs of today’s complex media world. Technology innovation continues to drive media fragmentation, muddying the once-simple world of TV, radio and print. Advertisers must now divide their budgets among all the proliferating devices and channels people watch. How can they hope to get the return they are used to in terms of what people buy? And how can the broadcast nets and other media companies offer such a return? Certainly, this revolution in technology is complicating our lives. But we believe this same technological revolution is going to make it possible for advertising to enjoy a renaissance of sorts. Why?

Technology innovation will make it possible to trim a great deal of waste out of advertising by making it more precise. As advertising becomes more precise, it will become more efficient, which will drive up its ROI. This higher ROI will then lead to more investment in advertising. Yes, spending more, which many are reluctant to do, will become the attractive option, the smart business move. What we are seeing is the emergence of a real-time meld of data, technology and analytics that relates the media exposure of all consumers on any device to the purchase activity of all consumers in any channel. The result will allow manufacturers to identify, with extraordinary precision, what mix of advertising will most contribute to their brands’ growth prospects. The crucial enabler of that precision will be data. The right data, in the right form, handled in the right manner. This is what will drive the coming advertising renaissance. Is it any wonder data is cool once again?

[Mitch Barns is CEO of Nielsen]

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