February 17, 2016 (Privacy, Security and Surveillance)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2016
Today's Events:
- Preserving Broadband Network Privacy, Public Knowledge and New America Foundation panel: https://www.benton.org/node/234264
- Insights From New Research on Digital Inclusion and Access, Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) Webinar, featuring Benton researcher Dr Colin Rhinesmith: https://www.benton.org/node/234265
INTERNET/BROADBAND
The Emerging World of Broadband Public–Private Partnerships: A Business Strategy and Legal Guide - research
Why Alabama plans to use schools, libraries to fill broadband coverage gaps
Editorial: Build a fiber network in Boston [links to Boston Globe]
1930s electricity co-ops take Internet initiative [links to Benton summary]
FCC’s Internet Power Grab Enables Destructive Abuse - Letter to WSJ editor [links to Benton summary]
PRIVACY/SECURITY/SURVEILLANCE
Judge orders Apple to help unlock iPhone used by San Bernardino shooter
NSA Gets Less Web Data Than Believed, Report Suggests
Google Acknowledges It Collects Student Information, but Doesn’t Target Ads
Protecting Privacy, Promoting Competition: A Framework For Updating The Federal Communications Commission Privacy Rules For The Digital World - PK White Paper
The network neutrality fight is now about data collection
The NSA’s SKYNET program may be killing thousands of innocent people - op-ed
No One's Emails Are Safe, Says CIA Director Who Got Hacked [links to Vice]
Apple’s being sued over a security feature that can break the iPhone [links to Washington Post]
Europe Is Launching Sentinel-3A, the Latest in Its All-Seeing Satellite Network [links to Vice]
Defense Department Invests to Prep networks for Internet of Everything [links to nextgov]
How researchers hacked a computer that wasn’t connected to the Internet [links to Benton summary]
US Had Cyberattack Plan if Iran Nuclear Dispute Led to Conflict [links to New York Times]
TELECOM
FCC Takes Steps to Facilitate International Telecommunications Services Between US and Cuba - press release
CWA, civil rights coalition urge FCC to continue prison phone reform
USTelecom Makes Its Case Against Special Access Regulation [links to Benton summary]
Four Ways to Modernize the 1996 Telecom Act - Multichannel News op-ed [links to Benton summary]
Even large firms are cutting landlines [links to Benton summary]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Defending Capitalism in Communications - Commissioner O'Rielly blog
The Partisan FCC - Scott Wallsten analysis [links to Benton summary]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
How 10 text messages can help families find out if they qualify for food stamps
Verizon determined to develop and deploy real-time text technology that will be interoperable with other RTT services and applications [links to Fierce]
American Airlines sues Gogo for slow in-flight Wi-Fi [links to CNNMoney]
AT&T joins Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint in offering up to $650 in Early Termination Fee payoffs [links to Fierce]
Infrastructure lessons from Superbowl 50 [links to Verizon]
TELEVISION
Many small TV stations may soon go off the air
FCC Holding Twitter Forum on Set-top Proposal [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
Exposing Some Myths about Google’s Set-Top Box Proposal [links to AT&T]
Is AT&T Exiting the IPTV Business? [links to telecompetitor]
No Retransmission ‘Crisis’, Say NAB, CBS [links to TVNewsCheck]
CONTENT
Piracy and the Supply of New Creative Works [links to Technology Policy Institute]
ADVERTISING
Why Facebook’s push to end poverty is actually self-serving [links to Benton summary]
Why Do Consumers Increasingly Want to Be Less Connected, Not More? [links to AdWeek]
Cruz campaign asks stations to stop airing anti-Cruz ad [links to Benton summary]
OWNERSHIP
How BuzzFeed's Jonah Peretti Is Building A 100-Year Media Company [links to Fast Company]
WAGT Anchors Tell Viewers to File Complaints With FCC After Ownership Change [links to Benton summary]
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
Cruz campaign asks stations to stop airing anti-Cruz ad [links to Benton summary]
Cruz app data collection helps campaign read minds of voters [links to Benton summary]
Study: Twitter is poor at predicting election results [links to Social Science Computer Review]
Republican presidential race is a mess; Blame Citizens United. [links to Benton summary]
It’s time for the media to pin down Donald Trump on policy [links to Washington Post]
JOURNALISM
How the San Antonio Express-News broke news of Scalia’s death [links to Poynter]
How BuzzFeed's Jonah Peretti Is Building A 100-Year Media Company [links to Fast Company]
Podcasts and community [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
LABOR
Gearing Up for the Cloud, AT&T Tells Its Workers: Adapt, or Else [links to Benton summary]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
FCC Takes Steps to Facilitate International Telecommunications Services Between US and Cuba - press release
‘Project Loon’ Is Aloft in Sri Lanka [links to Benton summary]
Why Facebook’s push to end poverty is actually self-serving [links to Benton summary]
The Internet in Africa: How much do governments matter? - AEI op-ed [links to Benton summary]
Europe Is Launching Sentinel-3A, the Latest in Its All-Seeing Satellite Network [links to Vice]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
BROADBAND PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Joanne Hovis, Marc Schulhof, Jim Baller, Ashley Stelfox]
Local governments increasingly see before them exciting new opportunities to develop next-generation broadband in their communities—and to reap the many benefits that broadband will deliver to their residents and businesses. Many localities are likely aware of Google Fiber and municipal fiber success stories—but emerging public–private partnership models present an alternative for the many communities that lack the capital or expertise to deploy and operate fiber networks, or to act as Internet service providers (ISP), on their own. This report explores three business models for broadband public–private partnerships:
Private investment, public facilitation – The model focuses not on a public sector investment, but on modest measures the public sector can take to enable or encourage greater private sector investment. Google Fiber is the most prominent example, but there is significant interest among smaller companies
Private execution, public funding – This model, which involves a substantial amount of public investment, is a variation on the traditional municipal ownership model for broadband infrastructure—but with private rather than public sector execution.
Shared investment and risk – In this model, localities and private partners find creative ways to share the capital, operating, and maintenance costs of a broadband network.
As localities evaluate broadband public–private partnerships, they should consider both the opportunities and potential pitfalls, and pay particular attention to three interwoven issues: risk, benefit, and control. These factors are the key considerations not only for state and local governments, but also for private sector network operators and service providers. A successful partnership must align each side’s needs, and will inevitably involve trade-offs within this framework.
The report also examines, with a public sector audience in mind, the major legal issues that may arise in a broadband public–private partnership project, from early planning through the negotiating stage.
benton.org/headlines/emerging-world-broadband-public-private-partnerships-business-strategy-and-legal-guide | Benton Foundation
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WHY AL PLANS TO USE SCHOOLS, LIBRARIES TO FILL BROADBAND GAPS
[SOURCE: Birmingham Business Journal, AUTHOR: Alan Alexander]
The issue of broadband connectivity in rural areas of Alabama has become a bigger item on the state's agenda in 2015. Gov Robert Bentley (R-AL) instituted a number of changes in 2015 to jumpstart the process of expanding the high-speed Internet service throughout the state. By working with 35 school districts across the state, the Office of Broadband Development will use the Federal Communication Commission's E-rate Modernization Order, which makes it possible for schools and libraries to construct and operate their own fiber networks. The Office of Broadband Development hasn't been able to put a figure on how much broadband expansion will cost, but Director Kathy Johnson said they are approaching it in the most cost-effective way possible. The districts will make competitive bids, and if their needs qualify as more cost-effective than lit services, they can take advantage of the match-rate program. "Through this program, if the state will help pay required match, the FCC will kick in an additional 10 percent, making it possible for schools and libraries to build and own their fiber network that is paid for up to 90 percent with federal funds," Johnson said. "This offer was made available due to the high cost of getting adequate connectivity to schools and libraries."Johnson said this strategy works because Internet service providers encounter steep deployment costs and poor investment returns when expanding broadband into rural areas. That, combined with how teaching methods are becoming more digital with students using mobile devices, shows how schools and libraries could make for more accessible broadband in the future. "The E-rate opportunity for constructing fiber networks to schools and libraries is one such area that, with minimal state investment, will provide more affordable fiber to schools and libraries with sufficient growth opportunities for many years to come," she said.
benton.org/headlines/why-alabama-plans-use-schools-libraries-fill-broadband-coverage-gaps | Birmingham Business Journal
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PRIVACY/SECURITY/SURVEILLANCE
UNLOCKING IPHONES
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ellen Nakashima]
US Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym ordered Apple to help the government unlock the iPhone used by one of the shooters who carried out the Dec. 2 San Bernardino (CA) terrorist attacks after the government said that the firm failed to provide assistance voluntarily. The Justice Department sought the order “in the hopes of gaining crucial evidence” about the shooting rampage, which killed 14 people and injured 22. The order does not ask Apple to break the phone’s encryption but rather to disable the feature that wipes the data on the phone after 10 incorrect tries at entering a password. That way, the government can try to crack the password using “brute force” — attempting tens of millions of combinations without risking the deletion of the data. In a strongly worded message posted to Apple’s website, chief executive Tim Cook said: “Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help [the FBI]. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a back door to the iPhone.” Cook said such a step would dangerously weaken iPhone security. “Once created,” he said, “the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable.” The Apple CEO said that “opposing this order is not something we take lightly. We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the US government.”
benton.org/headlines/judge-orders-apple-help-unlock-iphone-used-san-bernardino-shooter | Washington Post | FT | LA Times | WashPost – Cook reaction
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NSA DATA COLLECTION
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Charlie Savage]
A newly declassified report by the National Security Agency’s inspector general suggests that the government is receiving far less data from Americans’ international Internet communications than privacy advocates have long suspected. The report indicates that when the NSA conducts Internet surveillance under the FISA Amendments Act, companies that operate the Internet are probably turning over just emails to, from or about the NSA’s foreign targets — not all the data crossing their switches, as the critics had presumed. The theory that the government is rooting through vast amounts of data for its targets’ messages has been at the heart of several lawsuits challenging such surveillance as violating the Fourth Amendment. The report was classified when completed in 2015, and it still contains many redactions. But several uncensored sentences appear to indicate how the system works: They suggest that the government supplies its foreign targets’ “selectors” — like email addresses — to the network companies that operate the Internet, and they sift through the raw data for any messages containing them, turning over only those. The distinction is important for evaluating crucial constitutional issues raised by how to apply Fourth Amendment privacy rights to new communications and surveillance technologies. Government secrecy about Internet wiretapping has prevented judges from adjudicating the issues in open court.
benton.org/headlines/nsa-gets-less-web-data-believed-report-suggests | New York Times
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GOOGLE ACKNOWLEDGES STUDENT DATA COLLECTION
[SOURCE: Revere Digital, AUTHOR: Dawn Chmielewski]
Google acknowledges it collects information about students when they’re visiting Google-owned sites such as YouTube or services like Google Maps — but says it doesn’t use this personal data to target advertising. The company provided details of its privacy practices in response to an inquiry from Sen Al Franken (D-MN), who had expressed concern that Google may be collecting students’ personal data for non-educational purposes without parents’ knowledge or consent. Susan Molinari, Google’s vice president of policy and government relations, wrote that the company collects such personal information as a student’s name and email address when they’re using education apps such as Gmail, Google Docs or Calendar. It doesn’t display ads within these services or use the data for advertising purposes, she wrote. If the school permits a student to travel beyond the walled garden of Google’s education apps while still logged in to their student account, Google collects data as it would for any other user — keeping tabs on the device they’re using or personal information they volunteer. Since these users are logged into their student accounts, Google says it doesn’t use this personal information to target advertising. Molinari said there’s “very little difference” in the data Google collects from its education apps and the data collected when they’re using a Chromebook. Sen Franken issued a statement lauding Google for its thoroughness, but continuing to express concerns about what Google does with the information it collects from students who are browsing the Web while logged in to its education services.
benton.org/headlines/google-acknowledges-it-collects-student-information-doesnt-target-ads | Revere Digital | Sen Franken
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PROTECTING PRIVACY WHITE PAPER
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Harold Feld]
This paper examines how the Federal Communications Commission might apply privacy rules to broadband Internet access services now that these are classified as Title II telecommunications services. This paper provides necessary background by exploring the history and purpose of Section 222 of the Communications Act, which imposes a duty on Title II carriers to protect the “proprietary information” of their customers or interconnecting networks. The paper also reviews the FCC’s general privacy jurisdiction and its complementary relationship with the Federal Trade Commission. The paper also examines the existing and potential information collection habits of broadband providers, illustrating why the FCC must act now to protect consumer privacy and over-the-top (OTT) competition. Finally, the paper concludes with recommendations for the FCC’s upcoming privacy proceeding, including: (a) Prohibit carriers from blocking or otherwise interfering with the ability of consumers to protect themselves from tracking by ordinary means (such as clearing cookies) without requiring users to employ encryption; (b) Prohibit carriers from collecting information on competing services at interconnection points and other places of traffic exchange; and (c) Update the FCC’s privacy rules governing cable and wireless services to prevent carriers from exploiting potential loopholes to gain unfair advantage from the unique relationship between the carrier and the customer.
benton.org/headlines/protecting-privacy-promoting-competition-framework-updating-federal-communications | Public Knowledge | Public Knowledge Event
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DATA COLLECTION FIGHT
[SOURCE: The Verge, AUTHOR: Russell Brandom]
Network neutrality isn’t the only consequence of the Federal Communications Commission reclassifying broadband as a Title II service, and a new fight is taking shape around a relatively overlooked portion of the ruling. The fight centers around customer data, and how much providers are allowed to collect. Gathering customer data can be extremely lucrative in the age of Google and targeted ads, but bringing providers under Title II means they have a whole new set of rules to follow when doing it. Those rules have never applied to companies like Comcast or Time Warner before, and wireless carriers like AT&T and Verizon have never had to apply them to mobile data. Suddenly, those companies are dealing with new restrictions, just as many of them are doing more ad-tracking than ever. It’s still unclear what kind of policy the FCC will set — or if it will set a policy at all — but the issue is already drawing fire from both sides. The FCC can afford to play it cool because, for the moment, it’s holding all the cards. The core legal question is how the commission will interpret Section 222 of the Communications Act, which deals with the privacy of customer information and, as of last March, applies to both broadband providers like Comcast and mobile internet companies like AT&T. The broad strokes of the law are clear — carriers can’t share anything without customer permission, and the data must be stripped of personally identifiable information. But the language is ambiguous in a number of places: how can permission be collected? How much data counts as personally identifiable? The broad strokes restrict sharing to either aggregate or anonymized data — but "aggregate" can mean a lot of different things. If the FCC doesn’t set an explicit policy, companies will be free to experiment with data-mining programs similar to those already in place at online ad companies. On the other hand, if the FCC does set a policy and start to answer those questions, companies may not like the answers.
benton.org/headlines/network-neutrality-fight-now-about-data-collection | The Verge
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THE NSA'S SKYNET PROGRAM MAY BE KILLING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Christian Grothoff, JM Porup]
[Commentary] In 2014, the former director of both the CIA and the National Security Agency proclaimed that "we kill people based on metadata." Now, a new examination of previously published Snowden documents suggests that many of those people may have been innocent. In 2015, The Intercept published documents detailing the NSA's SKYNET programme. According to the documents, SKYNET engages in mass surveillance of Pakistan's mobile phone network, and then uses a machine learning algorithm on the cellular network metadata of 55 million people to try and rate each person's likelihood of being a terrorist. Patrick Ball—a data scientist and the executive director at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group—who has previously given expert testimony before war crimes tribunals, described the NSA's methods as "ridiculously optimistic" and "completely bulls--t." A flaw in how the NSA trains SKYNET's machine learning algorithm to analyse cellular metadata, Ball said, makes the results scientifically unsound. Somewhere between 2,500 and 4,000 people have been killed by drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004, and most of them were classified by the US government as "extremists," the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported. Based on the classification date of "20070108" on one of the SKYNET slide decks (which themselves appear to date from 2011 and 2012), the machine learning program may have been in development as early as 2007. In the years that have followed, thousands of innocent people in Pakistan may have been mislabelled as terrorists by that "scientifically unsound" algorithm, possibly resulting in their untimely demise.
[Christian Grothoff leads the Décentralisé research team at Inria, a French institute for applied computer science and mathematics research. J.M. Porup is a freelance cybersecurity reporter who lives in Toronto.]
benton.org/headlines/nsas-skynet-program-may-be-killing-thousands-innocent-people | Ars Technica
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TELECOM
FCC TAKES STEPS TO FACILITATE INTERNATIONAL TELECOM SERVICES BETWEEN US AND CUBA
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission took steps to promote international telecommunications services between the United States and Cuba by proposing to remove nondiscrimination requirements on the US-Cuba route. Currently, the FCC’s nondiscrimination rules require all facilities-based US carriers providing the same or similar services on the US-Cuba route to operate under identical rate terms and conditions. In 2012, the Commission removed nondiscrimination requirements for US carriers operating between the United States and other countries. Cuba is the only country to which the nondiscrimination requirements still apply. If the proposal is adopted, US carriers would have more flexibility to negotiate rates with the state-owned telecommunications operator, ETECSA, and to respond to market forces. The action responds to a recommendation from the State Department to remove the nondiscrimination requirements based on the changes in US-Cuba relations, and seeks comment on whether such an action would serve the public interest. In particular, the action seeks comment on removing certain nondiscrimination requirements and asks whether removal would lead to more direct agreements between US carriers and the state-owned telecommunications operator, ETECSA, and encourage competition on the US-Cuba route.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-takes-steps-facilitate-international-telecommunications-services-between-us-and-cuba | Federal Communications Commission
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PRISON PHONE REFORM
[SOURCE: Speed Matter, AUTHOR:]
In 2015 the Federal Communications Commission approved measures to reform inmate calling services to ensure that rates are “just, reasonable, and fair.” Those reforms capped all inmate calling rates – a 15-minute call can cost no more than $1.65 – and limited or banned ancillary service charges, which can add nearly 40% to the cost of a single call. Now a coalition of civil rights and public interest groups are urging the FCC to build on these important changes. In a letter to the FCC, the coalition explained the importance of fair inmate communications services and offered specific suggestions:
Address pricing abuses in advanced communications and video visitation;
Cap international calling rates;
Address the communications rights of deaf, hard of hearing, and disabled inmates;
Ensure the limits on ancillary fees are effective for all communications; and
Collect data in the prison communications industry.
benton.org/headlines/cwa-civil-rights-coalition-urge-fcc-continue-prison-phone-reform | Speed Matter
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WIRELESS
TEXTING ELIGIBILITY
[SOURCE: Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Max Lewontin]
The web and text-based app mRelief, which lets families know if they're eligible in 10 messages or fewer, is currently being used in Chicago for a range of services, including Medicaid and early childhood programs.
benton.org/headlines/how-10-text-messages-can-help-families-find-out-if-they-qualify-food-stamps | Christian Science Monitor
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TELEVISION
LPTV AND THE INCENTIVE AUCTION
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jim Puzzanghera]
Many small, low-power TV stations, which often broadcast foreign-language and religious programming, soon could be silenced — knocked off the air involuntarily by the federal government with no compensation to their owners or alternatives for their often low-income viewers. The stations are the potential collateral damage of an ambitious attempt to transform the public airwaves for the mobile needs of the 21st century. The Federal Communications Commission plans to use a complex auction to shift a huge swath of public airwaves from carrying TV signals to delivering wireless services to smartphones and other data-hungry mobile devices.
benton.org/headlines/many-small-tv-stations-may-soon-go-air | Los Angeles Times
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
DEFENDING CAPITALISM IN COMMUNICATIONS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly]
American capitalism, and its role in the communications industry, should be embraced, celebrated, and exported throughout the world. Instead, it is under continuous assault domestically by self-defined progressives and ultra-liberals, who have found sport in using misguided rhetoric and false pretenses to denigrate one of the core tenets of American society. Without proper checks and reassertion of our commitment to free enterprise, the latest anti-capitalism talk risks seeping into Federal Communications Commission proceedings and underlying activities. In fact, signs of it can be seen in multiple Commission proceedings, from municipal broadband advocacy to the harmful network neutrality overreach. The following briefly explores just some of the benefits of capitalism:
1) Connects Willing Buyer and Seller in Marketplace
2) Minimizes Need for Government Interference
3) Protects Consumers Efficiently and Sufficiently
4) Facilitates Profits and Economic Growth
5) Fosters Entrepreneurialism
The Commission should reject views and rhetoric antithetical to American capitalism. Instead, we must fully embrace its benefits as we consider all matters and root out those instances where past activities have diverged.
benton.org/headlines/defending-capitalism-communications | Federal Communications Commission
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