September 2015

Chinese President Xi defends China's right to regulate the Internet

Chinese President Xi Jinping pushed back against concerns that new Chinese regulations and restrictions are meant to censor online speech and keep foreign businesses out of the country. “We welcome all foreign companies in China and will respect and protect their lawful rights and interests provided that they abide by the laws and regulations of China and do nothing to undermine China’s national interests and interests of Chinese consumers,” President Xi said.

Businesses and nonprofits have watched warily in recent years as China has moved to further control the flow of digital information and pass a national security law that requires certain technologies to be “secure and controllable.” Ahead of his first official state visit in Washington later during the week of Sept 21, President Xi maintained China’s right to regulate its own Internet. “Rule of law also applies to the Internet, with the need to safeguard a country’s sovereignty, security and development interests as relevant as in the real world,” he said. "Freedom and order must be upheld side by side in both cyberspace and the physical world,” Xi continued. “Freedom is the purpose of order, and order the guarantee of freedom. We need to fully respect netizens’ rights to express themselves, while at the same time, ensure a sound cyberspace order to better protect the lawful rights and interests of all netizens.”

John Ellis Bush would roll back network neutrality if elected

GOP Presidential candidate Jeb Bush unveiled policy proposals that call for rolling back major Obama Administration rules, including network neutrality. Bush’s proposal laments the rules for subjecting Internet service providers -- such as Verizon, AT&T or Comcast -- to “antiquated ‘common carrier’ regulations,” a frequent criticism. “Rather than enhancing consumer welfare, these rules prohibit one group of companies (Internet Service Providers) from charging another group of companies (content companies) the full cost for using their services,” according to the policy proposal. The fight over the regulations is pitting Internet activists and major tech companies such as Netflix against large service providers such as AT&T.

However, Bush framed his proposal as protecting some small broadband providers who asserted the rules “caused them to cut back on investments to upgrade and expand their networks.” “Agencies today make far more laws than legislators. But unlike courts and legislators, regulators conduct their deliberations in relative obscurity, often outside of the public’s view and effectively accountable to no one, not even the president,” according to Bush’s proposal.

In addition, he would put a new regulatory freeze on agencies until one of his appointees approved new rules. He would also set a regulation budget, requiring offsets if new regulations bring costs. He would also pass an executive order outlining principles regulators should follow, including a preference for state action and “honest” cost-benefit analysis.

Dig once: The no-brainer Internet policy the White House just endorsed

The Broadband Opportunity Council Report calls for federal agencies to develop new rules and to streamline the way they give out funding for building Internet infrastructure and online services. While these commitments promise to upgrade the country's Internet infrastructure, the biggest step promotes a policy aimed at enhancing competition among Internet providers. Known as "dig once," the idea helps lower the cost of laying down new high-speed Internet cables by making it unnecessary to tear up the streets every time a company wants to reach new homes with its underground network.

Dig-once policies recommend laying a single tube in the ground through which all Internet wires can go. Once it's there, any company that wants to add fiber can just route their cables through that existing conduit -- cutting the cost of broadband deployment by up to 90 percent, according to the Federal Highway Administration. Making it easier and less expensive to offer new Internet service could potentially result in lower Internet prices and improved speeds. "'Dig Once' policies promote broadband competition, reduce costs for broadband providers and decrease road-related costs from repeated excavation," the report reads.

FCC Chairman Wheeler Statement On The Broadband Opportunity Council Report

Today’s White House report sends a clear and vital message: access to broadband means access to opportunity. The FCC remains committed to working with government and private-sector partners to harness the power of broadband to grow our economy and improve the lives of American people.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Walden Comments on FCC Chairman Wheeler USF Announcement

This is the right approach. Precious Universal Service dollars should be targeted for communities where investment is lacking. Chairman Wheeler’s decision to move the Connect America Fund forward with a focus on unserved areas will help bring millions of Americans online, including many in Oregon. The Connect America Fund is a tremendous opportunity to lower the communications gap for rural Americans, and with responsible management, we can ensure that ratepayer dollars are spent efficiently in fulfilling the important mission of the USF.

Statement of FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel on the Digital Learning Equity Act

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel of the Federal Communications Commission joined Rep Peter Welch (D-VT) at the Lyman C. Hunt Middle School in Burlington (VT) to discuss the introduction of the Digital Learning Equity Act in the US House of Representatives and the challenges students face doing their homework when they don’t have access to the Internet at home. The Digital Learning Equity Act, which was introduced by Rep Welch and Rep David McKinley (R-WV), would call for a national study on the Homework Gap and provide for pilot programs to extend access to digital learning opportunities for students when they are outside of the classroom.

Commissioner Rosenworcel said, "The Homework Gap is the cruelest part of the new digital divide. Today, too many students are unable to complete their school assignments because they do not have Internet access at home. This means they fall behind in the classroom -- and we all lose out when we have a generation ill-prepared to enter the digital economy. Thanks to Rep Welch and Rep McKinley for the good work they’ve done with the Digital Learning Equity Act, which puts the spotlight on the Homework Gap and ways to overcome it.”

Remarks of FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly Before the Prosperity Caucus

I thought I would use this valuable platform to talk about a couple of issues relevant to the communications worlds that you may find of interest:

Economic Freedom: Federal Communications Commission staff should not advocate for local governments, like cities and towns, to enter the marketplace by creating communications services to directly compete with private companies. Such a practice should be characterized for what it is: borderline socialism. Championing economic freedom is my guiding principle when it comes to overseeing the communications industry.

Cost-Benefit Analysis: The FCC is unwilling to conduct and consider proper cost-benefit analysis. Many of you are in the economic field in one capacity or another, and the FCC desperately needs to be challenged on all of its cost-benefit analysis assumptions and underlying work. Whether it is you or someone you know, please be willing to consider taking up the mantle and critiquing the FCC’s work, either as a whole or on an individual item basis. In addition, we need private economists to file their own analyses in our proceedings.

FCC Economists: We have a lot more lawyers than economists. While the FCC has a number of economists and probably even some this crowd might find philosophically acceptable, staffing levels are regularly found to be insufficient for FCC tasks, a sure sign of misplaced priorities.

Understanding what audiences want from local news

[Commentary] My colleagues and I at Rutgers University’s Media + the Public Interest Initiative have been collaborating with local news outlets in New Jersey on the task of understanding how those audiences see the news and information ecosystem, and what they want from local news organizations. Thus far we have conducted focus groups in three New Jersey communities: Newark, New Brunswick, and Morristown. Given the extent to which similar findings emerged across all three communities, we think they may represent broader insights about the nature of the contemporary local news audience:

‘Outside’ news sources are seen as unreliable: Our focus group participants were universally critical of the local news coverage offered by sources from outside of their communities.
A desire for more ‘follow-up’ reporting: Our focus group participants were very consistent in their desire for more “follow-up” reporting -- that is, reporting that revisits events and issues to determine if and how they are being resolved, in order to hold local governments, service providers, and leaders accountable for their actions (or inaction).
The self-reliant news consumer: Participants consistently expressed an understanding -- and acceptance -- of how the contemporary news environment works, particularly in terms of the increasing responsibility (or “burden” as some referred to it) that falls on the individual news consumer to stay informed.
The infrequency of citizen journalism: When we asked participants to discuss if and how they engage in activities related to sharing and producing news and information for their communities, we were struck by how brief these conversations were.
Interpersonal networks are still important: Finally, we found it striking the extent to which, even in this era of seemingly abundant news and information sources, mobile access, and social media, interpersonal networks still play an important role the way we share and receive local news and information.

[Philip M. Napoli is a professor of Journalism & Media Studies at Rutgers University in New Brunswick(NJ) where he is also the principal investigator for the News Measures Research Project]

On the Paradox of the Simple Privacy Policy

[Commentary] Sometimes you’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t. That’s how it seems after watching the media react to changes in some companies’ privacy policies over the course of the last couple of weeks. The latest controversy revolves around a bold move from anti-virus software maker AVG.

On September 14, AVG issued a press release touting its new one-page privacy policy as a user-friendly statement that’s “simpler, clearer and more transparent,” according to AVG’s Chief Legal Officer Harvey Anderson. The move was a follow up to a promise made earlier in 2015 by the company’s CEO Gary Kovacs while keynoting the Mobile World Congress 2015. During that speech, Kovacs promised a simple privacy policy that users could understand. On top of this bold move, AVG went a step further and challenged other companies to do the same. Yes, maybe being up front with your customers may invite outrage if you’re doing something they think is outrageous, but if you then provide controls to ameliorate the user concerns, trust can be cultivated. And what company doesn’t want the trust of its users?

A Tricky Path to Quantum-Safe Encryption

Quantum computers, once seen as a remote theoretical possibility, are now widely expected to work within five to 30 years. By exploiting the probabilistic rules of quantum physics, the devices could decrypt most of the world’s “secure” data, from National Security Agency secrets to bank records to e-mail passwords. Aware of this looming threat, cryptographers have been racing to develop “quantum-resistant” schemes efficient enough for widespread use. But last October, cryptographers at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain’s electronic surveillance agency, posted an enigmatic paper online that called into question the security of some of the most efficient lattice-based schemes.

The findings hinted that vulnerabilities had crept in during a decade-long push for ever-greater efficiency. As cryptographers simplified the underlying lattices on which their schemes were based, they rendered the schemes more susceptible to attack. Building on the GCHQ claims, two teams of cryptanalysts have spent the past year determining which lattice-based schemes can be broken by quantum computers, and which are safe -- for now.

Benton

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