BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, JULY 25, 2016
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
RNC 2016: GOP Platform, Media Coverage, and Notable Moments
Wikileaks posts nearly 20,000 hacked DNC e-mails online
Outcry from Sanders supporters after leaked DNC 'atheism' e-mails [links to Benton summary]
Clinton Campaign's 'Trump Yourself' tool calls you a loser, gives e-mail address to Clinton [links to Benton summary
Google searches for 'third-party candidate' spike during GOP convention [links to Hill, The]
Roger Ailes Fused TV With Politics, Changing Both [links to New York Times
How Fox News’s Influence Grew Under Roger Ailes [links to New York Times]
How Trump’s tweets get made — and the guy who defends them [links to Washington Post]
Five myths about political speechwriting [links to Washington Post]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
ICT Facts and Figures 2016 - press release
The Lifeline Program is Essential to the Public Safety Sector - PK blog
ConnectHome Marks One-Year Anniversary
Washington State Utility Commission Has BDS Issues With FCC
FCC To Launch Broadband Health Mapping Tool - public notice [links to Benton summary]
CONTENT
WikiLeaks threatens to start its own Twitter because of 'cyber feudalism'
5 Most Ground-Breaking Technologies of the Decade [links to USAToday]
Protect Consumer Innovators from Copyright Overreach, Public Knowledge Tells Supreme Court [links to Public Knowledge]
NAB to DOJ: Music Licensing Consent Decree Decision Was Right Call [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
TELECOM
Cutting off Robocalls - Chairman Wheeler blog
FCC selects Swedish firm to run sensitive national database routing phone calls
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
FCC Announces The Roll-Out Schedule for the New Version Of the Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) [links to Federal Communications Commission]
SECURITY/PRIVACY
Oliver Stone links Pokémon Go to totalitarianism during privacy debate [links to Guardian, The]
Malicious computers caught snooping on Tor-anonymized Dark Web sites [links to Ars Technica]
Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case [links to Vice]
Microsoft’s president explains the company’s quiet legal war for user privacy (Q&A) [links to Washington Post]
OWNERSHIP
FCC's Quadrennial Review Vote Is on Clock [links to Benton summary]
TELEVISION
Cable lobby set-top offer: No DVR requirement, no more compromises [links to Ars Technica]
Moving Beyond the Cable Box [links to Public Knowledge]
NCTA Floods FCC With 'Ditch the Box' Data [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
World's last VCR manufacturer to cease production [links to USAToday]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
Verizon confirms it will boot data hogs off its network [links to Washington Post]
The 5G-Pokémon moment [links to American Enterprise Institute]
Why Pokémon Go’s technology is no fad [links to Brookings]
HEALTH
FCC To Launch Broadband Health Mapping Tool - public notice [links to Benton summary]
JOURNALISM
William Gaines, Prizewinning Investigative Reporter, Dies at 82 [links to Benton summary]
DOD Revises War Manual to Clarify Journalist Status [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
POLICYMAKERS
FCC Chairman Wheeler Proves To Be No Cable Shill - TVNewsCheck editorial [links to Benton summary]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
The internet saved Turkey’s president from a coup. Now he’s doubling down on censorship. [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
RNC 2016: GOP PLATFORM, MEDIA COVERAGE, AND NOTABLE MOMENTS
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Robbie McBeath]
This week, Donald Trump and the Republican Party rolled into Cleveland, Ohio for the 2016 Republican National Convention. In a spectacle of full of cheers, jeers, and fears, Donald Trump officially accepted the Republican nomination. Importantly, the GOP unveiled the party platform, which addresses universal broadband, Internet governance, and EdTech. The convention itself was a high-tech affair, with social media and live-streaming used as popular tools. The press, some of which had been previously blacklisted by the Trump campaign, was in full force, as reporters streamed and tweeted their way through the four-day convention. Let’s unpack some of the most important parts of RNC 2016.
benton.org/headlines/rnc-2016-gop-platform-media-coverage-and-notable-moments | Benton Foundation
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WIKILEAKS POSTS NEARLY 20,000 HACKED DNC E-MAILS ONLINE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Andrea Peterson]
Wikileaks posted a massive trove of internal Democratic National Committee e-mails online July 22, in what the organization dubbed the first of a new "Hillary Leaks" series. The cache includes nearly 20,000 e-mails and more than 8,000 file attachments from the inboxes of seven key staffers of the DNC, including communications director Luis Miranda and national finance director Jordan Kaplan. The e-mails span from January 2015 through late May and are presented in a searchable database. The cache appears to contain sensitive personal information about some donors, including Social Security numbers, passport numbers and credit card information. A hacker known as Guccifer 2.0 claimed credit for handing the documents over to Wikileaks on Twitter. However, some experts have expressed skepticism about his involvement, citing differences between the data Wikileaks released and Guccifer 2.0's previous leaks of hacked data.
benton.org/headlines/wikileaks-posts-nearly-20000-hacked-dnc-e-mails-online | Washington Post | The Verge
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
ICT FACTS AND FIGURES 2016
[SOURCE: International Telecommunication Union, AUTHOR: ]
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) information and communications technology (ICT) Facts and Figures 2016 features end-2016 estimates for key telecommunication/ICT indicators, including on mobile-cellular subscriptions, Internet use, fixed and mobile broadband services, home ICT access, and more. ICT Facts & Figures 2016 shows that developing countries now account for the vast majority of Internet users, with 2.5 billion users compared with one billion in developed countries. But Internet penetration rates tell a different story, with 81% in developed countries, compared with 40% in developing countries and 15% in the Least Developed Countries. By the end of 2016, more than half of the world’s population – 3.9 billion people – will not yet be using the Internet. While almost one billion households in the world now have Internet access (of which 230 million are in China, 60 million in India and 20 million in the world’s 48 Least Developed Countries), figures for household access reveal the extent of the digital divide, with 84% of households connected in Europe, compared with 15.4% in the African region.
benton.org/headlines/ict-facts-and-figures-2016 | International Telecommunication Union | Press release | B&C
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LIFELINE PROGRAM IS ESSENTIAL TO PUBLIC SAFETY SECTOR
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Kayla Gardner]
[Commentary] The Lifeline program is essential to the public safety sector because it increases access to public safety communications by equipping more low-income users with traceable service-initialized cellphones. Lifeline is crucial to ensuring that all Americans, even those from low-income communities, can contact 9-1-1 during an emergency - regardless of their location. Furthermore, if a caller does not know his or her location, but calls from a service-initialized cell phone, the 9-1-1 dispatcher can contact the cell carrier and request a trace of a subscriber’s GPS coordinates. That information can aid a dispatcher in dispatching emergency services to an exact and precise location. During the critical moments of an emergency, time is of the essence and sometimes a rapid response can mean the difference between life and death. It is essential that the Lifeline program remain intact, as equipping more people with cell phones greatly expands the accessibility of public safety communications, particularly to low-income communities.
benton.org/headlines/lifeline-program-essential-public-safety-sector | Public Knowledge
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CONNECTHOME MARKS ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY
[SOURCE: American Library Association, SOURCE: Larra Clark]
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) marked the first anniversary of its ConnectHome pilot program—which connects public housing residents with low-cost broadband, devices, digital literacy training, and technical assistance—with a large-scale expansion that HUD Secretary Julián Castro called ConnectHome Nation. Public housing and HUD-assisted residents living in Comcast’s service area are now eligible to apply for Internet Essentials, the company’s high-speed internet adoption program for low-income families. Up to 2 million HUD-assisted homes will have access to the program. The public–private partnership brings together Internet service providers, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector to narrow the digital divide for families with school-aged children who live in HUD-assisted housing. It builds on the ConnectED initiative to connect 99% of K–12 students to high-speed internet in classrooms and libraries by 2018. In a July 14 media call, Castro recognized the national partnership of the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries in the 28 pilot communities for helping to create true educational experiences for families. Libraries from Meriden (CT) to Nashville (TN) and Cleveland (OH) to Seattle (WA) are working with local public housing authorities to provide training to youth and their families
benton.org/headlines/connecthome-marks-one-year-anniversary | American Library Association
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WASHINGTON STATE UTILITY COMMISSION HAS BDS ISSUES WITH FCC
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Add the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission to those asking the Federal Communications Commission to revise or reboot its marketplace anaylsis of the business data service (BDS), formerly special access, market. In a letter to the FCC, Steven King, executive director of the commission, cited new data from cable operators that it says showed they significantly undercounted the number of locations "capable of" providing BDS services. The cable operators initially had provided data on where they were actively providing competitive BDS service but did not include places where they could provide it, but weren’t.
benton.org/headlines/washington-state-utility-commission-has-bds-issues-fcc | Broadcasting&Cable
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CONTENT
WIKILEAKS THREATENS TO START ITS OWN TWITTER BECAUSE OF 'CYBER FEUDALISM'
[SOURCE: The Verge, AUTHOR: Adi Robertson]
WikiLeaks and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey have had harsh words over Twitter’s recent decision to ban noted Breitbart editor and troll Milo Yiannopoulos. WikiLeaks’ Twitter account declared the ban an example of "cyber feudalism," saying that Twitter had "banned conservative gay libertarian [Yiannopoulos] for speaking the 'wrong' way" to Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones. According to an earlier Twitter statement, Yiannopoulos was banned for "inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others" after Jones began posting examples of racist and misogynist abuse she had received on the platform. Dorsey soon replied to WikiLeaks, echoing this language. "We don't ban people for expressing their thoughts," he wrote. "Targeted abuse & inciting abuse against people however, that's not allowed." The ideal version of Twitter would in fact do what WikiLeaks suggests: build tools to let people pick who they want to communicate with, then facilitate that as openly as possible.
benton.org/headlines/wikileaks-threatens-start-its-own-twitter-because-cyber-feudalism | Verge, The
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TELECOM
CUTTING OFF ROBOCALLS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler]
In regard to the Federal Communications Commission’s expectations that carriers respond to consumers’ blocking requests, I have sent letters to the CEOs of major wireless and wireline phone companies calling on them to offer call-blocking services to their customers now – at no cost to you. Consumers want and deserve more control over the calls they receive. I have also sent letters to intermediary carriers that connect robocallers to the consumer's phone company, reminding them of their responsibility to help facilitate the offering of blocking technologies. I am also calling on the carriers and standards groups to accelerate the development and deployment of technical standards that would prevent spoofing of caller ID and thus make blocking technologies more effective, as was done in the battle against spam years ago. All of these companies have been asked to respond within 30 days with their concrete, actionable solutions to address these issues. Here’s the bottom line: Robocalls are currently the number one complaint the FCC receives from consumers. Whenever and wherever Congress and the courts give us the authority, the Commission will push hard for strong, pro-consumer limits to robocalls and other unwanted calls.
benton.org/headlines/cutting-robocalls | Federal Communications Commission | The Hill
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FCC SELECTS SWEDISH FIRM TO RUN SENSITIVE NATIONAL DATABASE ROUTING PHONE CALLS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ellen Nakashima]
The Federal Communications Commission selected a Swedish-owned firm to run a sensitive national database that routes billions of phone calls across the country, apparently satisfied that the award would not jeopardize national security. The vote by the five commissioners clears the way for Telcordia, owned by Ericcson and based in New Jersey, to proceed with the challenging task of building a system that can track calls and text messages by nearly every phone number in North America while ensuring the data remains secure. The database handles the intercarrier routing of calls and texts for more than 650 million US phone numbers and for more than 2,000 carriers. If numbers are scrambled or deleted, a massive communications breakdown could occur. The database is particularly important for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies that query the database every day, several million times a year, in the course of criminal and intelligence investigations to track which phone company provides service for a particular number. Security experts say that if a foreign spy agency wants to know which of its agents the United States has under surveillance, it could attempt to hack the system to see what numbers the FBI has wiretaps on. The system includes the phone number, database and the platform that tells law enforcement which carrier owns which number.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-selects-swedish-firm-run-sensitive-national-database-routing-phone-calls | Washington Post
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