February 2016

[Commentary] With Apple holding a potential key to uniquely valuable information with global security implications — and refusing to relinquish it to government — it is time to evaluate where we are in the privacy continuum. In this matter, it is not the state's action that is troubling. When consumers blithely consent to let companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple and others collect their personally identifiable information as a condition of continued use, a social contract is formed and the veneer of privacy fades. There is scant evidence that most Americans know the true cost or character of the private information they relinquish in an ostensibly fair exchange of data for service. If Americans have been suspicious of government's collection of personal information, why should they be any less suspicious of the same by private companies? Put another way, if we can request government files through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), should we have the same right for files compiled by Google, Facebook and others with infinitely more and better data?

The answers to these questions are as complex as the technologies we use on a daily basis, but no less critical to our way of life. When one company refuses to acknowledge rules, let alone play by them, there is an imbalance in the ecosystem, and society suffers. While the underlying issues involved in Apple's refusal to cooperate with government are intellectually ripe, it is time for that company to put the nation's interests above its own. It is time for Apple to put patriotism over profit, act responsibly and cooperate with our government.

[Hoffman is chairman of Business in the Public Interest and an adjunct professor in Communication, Culture and Technology at Georgetown University]

[Commentary] The US has incomparable resources, but it may never be as strong as it is in cyberspace as it is today. Cyber power may be a particularly ephemeral form of power. China is developing new competing technologies. India, Europe, and other friends hold different visions of how to manage the Internet and protect privacy. The gap between the interests of American technology companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon and Washington is growing. The global, open Internet, a wellspring of US economic, political, and military power, is fragmenting as Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and many others are assert cyber sovereignty.

In order to address the challenges of cyberspace, the US must at least accomplish three things: enhance cybersecurity defense at home, create a working truce between the government and the private sector, and build a coalition of like-minded countries in the international sphere. Washington will have to funnel new money to research, development and innovation in cybersecurity; forge agreements with the private sector on the sharing of data; and, with its friends in Europe and Asia, clearly define what behaviors are acceptable in cyberspace and how it plans to respond if lines are crossed. The US will have to be more limited in its ambitions but more assertive in their pursuit. While it should continue to promote and espouse the virtues of an open, global, and secure Internet, the US must prepare for a more likely future—a highly contested, nationally divided cyberspace.

[Adam Segal is the Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies and Director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations]

House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) said he was confident Congress would pass a bill backstopping them in the post-incentive auction repack. Speaking to a National Association of Broadcasters State Leadership audience, Ranking Member Pallone talked about his bill, the Viewer Protection Act. Broadcasters have been pressing the Federal Communications Commission to soften its hard 39-month deadline for transitioning to new channels after the auction and are concerned the $1.75 billion transition fund may not cover all the necessary expenses.

Ranking Member Pallone said he was sure the FCC didn't want viewers to lose their TV signals as a result of the repack and said his bill would make sure they had the tools needed to make sure that didn't happen. The Rep has billed his bill, introduced in Jan, as being mostly focused on those consumers, but broadcasters would clearly benefit as well. The Rep said that given that in his state, still recovering from Hurricane Sandy, "we never know when another emergency will strike," the viewers should not lose their TV signals for even a day.

About 1.3 million IP addresses—including those used by Google, Yahoo, Craigslist, and Yelp—are turning users of the Tor anonymity network into second-class Web citizens by blocking them outright or degrading the services offered to them, according to a recently published research paper. Titled "Do You See What I See? Differential Treatment of Anonymous Users," the paper said 3.67 percent of websites in the Alexa 1,000 discriminated against computers visiting with known Tor exit-node IP addresses. In some cases, the visitors are completely locked out, while in others users are required to complete burdensome CAPTCHAs or are limited in what they can do.

The authors said the singling out was an attempt by the sites to limit fraud and other online crime, which is carried out by a disproportionately high percentage of Tor users. In the process, law-abiding Tor users are being treated as second-class Web citizens. "While many websites block Tor to reduce abuse, doing so inadvertently impacts users from censored countries who do not have other ways to access censored Internet content," the authors wrote.