1. Monthly archive
  2. October 2015

October 2015

How activists are forcing the White House to say where it stands on encryption

A petition calling for President Barack Obama to support strong encryption and "reject any law, policy or mandate" that would undermine digital security reached 100,000 signatures on Oct 27, the level at which the White House has said it will respond. The petition was organized by privacy activists at Access Now and the Electronic Frontier Foundation and endorsed by more than 50 groups and companies, including tech heavy hitters, such as Google and Microsoft. The action relied on the "We the People" platform, a public engagement tool from the White House that promises to respond to petitions that reach a certain number of signatures -- right now that's 100,000.

The Internet is getting less and less free

Surveillance, attacks on digital speech, outright censorship and imprisonment are making the Internet less and less free, an annual Freedom House study has concluded. The organization's latest Internet freedom report marks the fifth year in a row that digital civil liberties around the world have been curtailed. Of the 65 countries Freedom House looked at, 29 percent are considered "not free," while even fewer -- 27 percent -- are said to have a "free" Internet. In other words, there are now more countries with an un-free Internet than there are countries with a free Internet. In the United States and Europe, political battles over encrypted Internet traffic cast a shadow over the free and open Web, according to Freedom House.

Tech companies have accused law enforcement of trying to undermine user privacy and security by demanding that they install "back doors" into their software; authorities argue that the concessions are necessary to fight crime and terrorism. Freedom House calculates its index as a composite of several factors, such as the amount of access to Internet a country enjoys, the extent to which authorities restrict content on the Web, and whether the government punishes Internet users.

FCC's Wheeler Gets Earful on LTE-U

Cable chief technology officers, joined by executives from Google and Microsoft, met with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler to argue that before LTE-U technologies are employed in unlicensed spectrum bands, also used by cable Wi-Fi hot spots, there must be rigorous standards to insure the technology does not impair Wi-Fi. LTE-U is a way for telecommunication companies to offer their own offload of wireless broadband similar to Cable's Wi-Fi play for wired broadband. Cable operators have argued that standards first need to be in place to prevent the new technology from interfering with existing Wi-Fi, currently their major mobile broadband play, while wireless companies insist it has been tested already, that the two can co-exist, and LTE-U and license assisted access (LAA), which is a licensed-spectrum assisted version, should roll out ASAP.

The cable CTO's, including from Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter, and Cablevision, and the computer company executives told Chairman Wheeler and his aides that they don't oppose LTE-U, but that it has so far "avoided the long-proven standards-setting process and would substantially degrade consumer Wi-Fi service across the country." Backers of LTE-U, who have formed a coalition to push for the technology and include wireless companies and Qualcomm, say they have tested the technology and that it won't interfere with Wi-Fi.

Breitbart brings its conservative take to tech journalism

The late Andrew Breitbart launched his arch-conservative news site with a commitment to "the destruction of the old media guard." There's a strain of that sentiment in the latest section launched by Breitbart News. Breitbart Tech, which went live on Oct 27, will provide a remedy to what it describes as a sickness plaguing technology and gaming journalism.

The section will be shepherded by Milo Yiannopoulos, a British journalist and a Breitbart veteran. Yiannopoulos, 31, has earned a reputation for provocative and trollish commentary. Breitbart Tech, Yiannopoulos says, won't adhere to the politically correct standards of other outlets. He points to GamerGate as an example of a story that he says was hijacked by "mendacious professional gender warriors" and "crazy third-wave feminists."

How the Internet’s most earnest evangelist became its fiercest critic

Jonathan Harris has spent much of his time lately doing two things: writing computer code and meditating. Code is old hat to Harris, an acclaimed digital artist and in-demand TED-talker, who learned to program at Princeton in the late-’90s. The marathon Zen meditations are, however, a more recent addition: Harris’ latest, ever more desperate attempt to reclaim his mind from his Macbook screen. To hear Harris tell it, it’s a battle that he’s waged, on and off, for the past seven years, ever since his early, unbridled optimism about the Internet’s potential began scoring him commissions and high-paid speaking gigs. The Internet is still his medium today. In early October, he released Network Effect, his first major project in two years.

But where his earlier work celebrated big data and social networking, Network Effect pans both as dystopian. “I don’t want to suggest that some moments are more valuable than others,” Harris said on the phone from New York, where he and his meditation-guru girlfriend are about to catch a plane to Australia. “However, I would say the mindset we inhabit on the Internet is a mindset that stops us from seeing moments as sacred.” “Staring at a glowing rectangle,” he’ll say several times, “is no way to live.”

Exploring Fiber for Oklahoma City, Jacksonville and Tampa

We’re inviting Oklahoma City (OK), Jacksonville (FL), and Tampa (FL) to explore bringing Google Fiber to their communities, as we did in Sept with three other cities. These growing tech-hubs have a strong entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to small business growth. Their list of accolades is long -- from Jacksonville’s title as a top 10 city for tech jobs, to Tampa Bay’s #2 spot on the list of best cities for young entrepreneurs, to Oklahoma City’s recognition as the #1 city to launch a business.

One of our goals is to make sure speed isn't an accidental ceiling for how people and businesses use the Web, and these cities are the perfect places to show what’s possible with gigabit Internet. Now we start our joint planning process, when we work side-by-side with local leaders to create detailed studies of each metro area. Constructing a brand-new fiber network is a big job -- the more we learn about a city, the smoother our construction efforts will be. We’ll study factors that may impact construction, like local infrastructure and housing density. City leaders will use our checklist to share key information such as maps of water and electricity lines. Early preparations not only help with our decision-making process -- they help cities lay the groundwork for any service provider to enter the market.

This digital land rush could pit your cellular carrier against some surprising companies

Some of the biggest technology companies in America will soon need to make a choice: How deeply invested do they want to be in wireless technology? As policymakers in Washington inch closer to launching a historic auction of wireless airwaves, these companies face a new opportunity to expand their role in America's mobile ecosystem.

Washington policymakers have pitched the auction primarily to AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile as a way they can upgrade their LTE data networks, which consumers are flocking to at a prodigious pace. But companies outside the industry could easily disrupt those plans by competing for the valuable frequencies themselves. Business executives and analysts are now openly speculating about who could become a spoiler in the auction. Whether it's Amazon, Comcast or Google, surprise players from a range of industries could frustrate the cellular carriers' ambitious expansion plans -- and gain a foothold in one of the most valuable parts of the radio spectrum that's ever been put up for sale. In short, you can expect that what was already going to be an intense bidding war for scarce frequencies is only going to get hotter.

The GOP Has a Tech Talent Problem It Might Not Solve

Scott Walker's withdrawal from the 2016 presidential race in Sept was tough on staffers like Matt Oczkowski -- as it turns out, tougher than he thought. Back in July, Walker looked like a GOP frontrunner. Knowing how critical tech was to President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election, the Walker campaign invested early in tech and digital talent. So when Walker’s funding dried up, and he announced that he was pulling out of the race, Oczkowski fully expected the whole tech and digital staff would be scooped up by another campaign. But that never happened.

For Oczkowski, that was sign -- a sign that the rest of the GOP field isn’t building and prioritizing tech as vigorously as the Democrats are. “It’s what everyone should be doing,” he says. “It’s certainly what Hillary’s doing.” For the GOP, on the other hand, the tech talent appears to be spread thin.

© 1994-2024 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved.