Posts Tagged ‘tech policy/news’

Queen: We sank the Armada, we can sink some P2P pirates!

// November 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Yesterday at 11:30am, the Queen made her way to Parliament in a coach, entered the robing room to receive her crown, then followed someone known as the “Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod” to the door of the House of Commons. The Gentlemen Usher banged thrice upon the door with his black rod, was allowed to enter, and headed to the Table of the House to “announce the Queen’s summons.” The Queen, seated on her throne, then opened Parliament with her customary speech. Though it sounds like something straight out of the 1570s, this is pomp and circumstance, 21st century style. The ritual opening of the Parliament was tweeted on the official “ukparliament” account , transcripts went up immediately on the Web, an official Flickr photo set captured the magic—and the Queen’s speech made clear that legislative action against Internet file-swappers would be coming, and soon.

Smart grids drag utilities into the swamp of online privacy

// November 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

The smart grid is rapidly becoming a reality in the US, as utilities have been installing networked monitoring and control equipment, both in their own facilities and in their customers’ homes. The pace of these installations should accelerate due to recent initiatives from the Department of Energy and the state of California; across the border, the Province of Ontario will see smart meters installed in every home by the end of next year. Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner has now worked with members of the Future of Privacy Forum to analyze the privacy implications of these initiatives. The resulting report indicates that there are a variety of potential privacy concerns, some of which are best addressed before the deployments begin in earnest. Nearly half of the report simply reviews what the smart grid entails, specifically from the consumer perspective. In general terms, a smart meter, combined with smart appliances and other hardware, will allow consumers to obtain fine-grained information about their energy use patterns, and exercise a greater degree of control over them. As the report notes, this can have a wide variety of positive consequences, from more efficient use of energy resources to lowered electric bills. So the general message is that concerns about privacy shouldn’t derail plans to deploy smart grids.

BlueBeat Beatles tracks gone for good after judge’s beatdown

// November 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

We now have the full legal theory behind BlueBeat.com’s attempt to sell remastered Beatles tracks online for a quarter each. It’s so odd that the federal judge overseeing a music industry lawsuit against the site decided he didn’t even need to hold the hearing scheduled for tomorrow. Instead, he blasted BlueBeat’s “psycho-acoustic modeling” defense and extended his temporary injunction into something more permanent. In a strange declaration that covers all sorts of ground completely unrelated to the lawsuit (and is littered with typos), BlueBeat founder Hank Risan told the court last week that the songs for sale on his site are totally new recordings that he created and that he in fact owns the copyrights on. This is possible thanks to the wonder of psycho-acoustic simulation, which Risan describes this way:

I’m in ur atom, probing ur nucleus

// November 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

It has been 100 years since the Geiger-Marsden experiment upended humanity’s longstanding view of the atom as a nice, relatively homogeneous particle. When the alpha particles shot at gold foil targets bounced off at odd angles, it shocked everyone involved (the original paper is now open access ). The realization that atoms have a high-mass center lead to the formation of the Rutherford (or planetary) model of the atom, where electrons orbit a dense nucleus.  It was quite the most incredible event that has ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you. - E. Rutherford The Rutherford model is now recognized as a useful metaphor, but, as soon as you get into the details, it falls apart. Electrons don’t travel in nice orbits; rather, their orbitals exist as a cloud around the nucleus. The nucleus is not a singular positive mass, but a complex ball of protons and neutrons that are made up of even smaller particles known as quarks and gluons. Although all this information indicates that the Rutherford model is wrong, it doesn’t necessarily indicate what a replacement for the model should look like.

FTC threatens fines, jail for online check service operators

// November 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

The Federal Trade Commission has charged those behind the shady online check service Qchex with contempt, and wants daily fines imposed on them until they give up the ghost. The group has launched a new site—a Qchex clone—with the same questionable policies that made Qchex a “dinner bell for fraudsters.” This has left the FTC fuming, and it wants the site’s operators to quit helping criminals rip people off— now . You may remember Qchex from a court order earlier this year —in February, a US District Court ordered the company to halt its illegal operations and to cough up its ill-gotten gains. It turns out that the check creation and delivery service failed to implement safeguards to prevent fraud, a point that the FTC had brought up back in 2006. Qchex apparently created and sent checks drawn from any old bank account without verifying that the person requesting the check was the owner of said accounts. Unsurprisingly, this made Qchex a shining beacon for scammers from around the globe who used the service to steal money from people’s accounts, using those same checks to pay for various goods and services.

An introduction to the FBI’s anti-cyber crime network

// November 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

The Federal Bureau of Investigation told Congress this week that when it comes to cyber crime, terrorist groups like Al Qaeda aren’t the sharpest pencils in the cup, but they’re not out of the game either. “It is always worth remaining mindful that terrorists do not require long term, persistent network access to accomplish some or all of their goals,” Steven R. Chabinsky, one of the Bureau’s Cyber Division directors, explained to a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee. “Rather, a compelling act of terror in cyberspace could take advantage of a limited window of opportunity to access and then destroy portions of our networked infrastructure.” And there are lots of such windows, Chabinsky added, since, “we, as a nation, continue to deploy new technologies without having in place sufficient hardware or software assurance schemes, or sufficient security processes that extend through the entire lifecycle of our networks.” Thus the FBI has set up its own network to respond to whatever comes down the pike. Time will tell, and probably soon, how effective it is, but Chabinsky laid it out all the parts at the hearing. They include a division within the bureau, an inter-federal task force, an alliance with state, local, and industry enforcers, and a consumer complaint center.

Spurring IPv6 upgrades through "cash for (network) clunkers"

// November 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

At the Internet Governance Forum meeting here in Egypt, a session on critical Internet resources started with yet another discussion of the transition from IPv4 to IPv6. This time, talk turned to paying for the upgrade to IPv6—a real issue in poorer countries. Rod Beckstrom, the head of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number (ICANN), offered his own novel approach to the problem: a worldwide “cash for clunkers” program targeted at old networks.

Finland, Spain bringing 1Mbps broadband to everyone

// November 18th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

While the US talks, other countries are acting. Both Finland and Spain have now decided to add “broadband” to their universal service requirements. By 2011, any Finn or Spaniard, no matter where they live, should be able to get a reliable 1Mbps connection at a reasonable price. “Universal service”: it’s a common concept in developed countries, and it provides money to telephone operators and other utilities to ensure that service is extended even to places where it would not otherwise be profitable, and that prices remain reasonable. As broadband increasingly becomes an essential utility, members of Congress and US regulators at the FCC have pondered how some form of basic connectivity might be extended to every American address through the Universal Service Fund.

Ethics leaks spur House bill banning P2P apps on .gov PCs

// November 18th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Peer-to-peer filesharing applications have been wildly popular, especially among those interested in accessing pirated software, music, and media. But not everyone who operates a P2P client knows how to properly configure the software, and some clients may share entire directories unless explicitly directed not to. Apparently, some government employees have exhibited this sort of carelessness, as private and secret government documents have shown up on P2P networks. Now, at least one Congressman has had enough, and has introduced a bill that would ban the use of P2P software by government employees. The Congressman in question is Edolphus Towns of New York, who chairs the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In a statement announcing the bill’s introduction, Towns highlights a number of embarrassing incidents in which sensitive government files showed up on P2P networks. These include schematics for the Presidential helicopter and the location of a first-family safe house, as well as the financial records of a Supreme Court Justice.

ICANN attendees: America, surrender the root zone file!

// November 18th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Back in October, the US Commerce Department changed its agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Out went the “Joint Project Agreement” and in came the “Affirmation of Commitments.” That may not sound like much of change, but the new document removed even more US control from ICANN. It was welcomed by the international community, but some continue to argue that it didn’t go far enough, and this opposition to continued US influence over the domain name system and IP addressing surfaced again at the United Nations-backed Internet Governance Forum going on this week in Egypt.

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