December 2010

Cable in the Classroom Adds Online Tools

Cable in the Classroom is unveiling updated "digital citizenship" tools and resources as part of a newly revamped Web presence. The organization has a new and expanded mission to help educators and parents teach children to safely and responsibly use an ever-growing array of new media tools. The new resources at CIConline.org leverage the educational content, capabilities and expertise of the cable industry, as well as a wide spectrum of other educational experts and organizations. Cable in the Classroom's new online offerings center on three areas:

Digital Citizenship: A new focus for CIC is its leadership role in helping develop the concept of "digital citizenship" -- a positive and proactive approach to help children use digital tools safely and effectively. Digital citizenship brings Internet safety and security together with digital literacy, ethical behavior and civic engagement in a holistic package of curricular resources, lesson plans, activities, and research. These articles, videos and digital tools are made available to teachers and parents giving them the resources they need to instill digital citizenship in children.
Network Programming and Online Content: CIC continues to highlight the best educational programming and content and offers it to educators for use in the classroom and wherever learning happens. The new www.ciconline.org now does this in more timely and interactive ways, allowing teachers and others to quickly and easily find the television and online content that matches their needs.
Broadband Applications: Cable's broadband platform engages children in learning by marrying the fast flow of education-rich content with interactive features for a multi-sensory learning experience. At ciconline.org, CIC provides teachers with specific examples of learning powered by broadband, and illustrations of the ways in which cable is working to apply more broadly the benefits of broadband to education.

Appeals court: Feds need warrants for e-mail

Police must obtain search warrants before perusing Internet users' e-mail records, a federal appeals court ruled today in a landmark decision that struck down part of a 1986 law allowing warrantless access. In case involving a penile-enhancement entrepreneur convicted of fraud and other crimes, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals said that the practice of warrantless access to e-mail messages violates the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures.

Sanders Calls On Justice To Block NBC-Comcast Merger

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called on the Justice Department to block Comcast's proposed merger with NBC Universal, saying combining the nation's biggest cable company with a major content provider will drive up cable television prices and hamper competition.

In a letter to Christine Varney, assistant attorney general for antitrust, Sen Sanders said the merger would likely result in "substantially lessening" competition in the video programming market and the cable TV and online distribution markets. "The proposed Comcast-NBCU merger poses substantial new risks not seen in past transactions because of both its size and the dynamic evolution of distribution models for video content," Sen Sanders wrote. "These risks go above and beyond even the hypothetical ameliorative potential of current [Federal Communications Commission] and statutory protections. We're the merger to be approved I have little doubt that Comcast-NBCU would retain hundreds of attorneys and lobbyists to exploit the gaps and loopholes in current regulations."

Watch this: the AllVid Proceeding

[Commentary] Back in March and April of this year, I wrote about the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to open up the set-top box market. Now it’s time to talk about this proceeding (10-91) again, because the world of devices gives the pay-TV/programming industry another opportunity to squeeze Netflix and the rest of us. This proceeding is a big deal. If the provider of subscription video can control every possible angle of use of that video and simultaneously is one of very few choices for high-speed Internet access for a particular household, unending market-shaping mischief is possible.

Think of the angles.

Programming guide information: If no one else can get access to machine-readable, standardized data ABOUT programs, no one else can provide an interface to a wide variety of Internet and pay-TV programming. Only the pay-TV company will get to run this business.
Context for programming. If no one else can accompany the subscription programming with other applications, then only the pay-TV source will be able to run these businesses.
Choices of devices. If no one else can sell consumers devices that allow access to both online and pay-TV programming, then only the pay-TV source will be able to sell these integrated devices. We'll all be forced into monthly rentals, high-priced unending relationships with devices that we don't own. And if the pay-TV provider decides to offer an integrated device to us, they'll have control over what Internet access is allowed.
Use your market power to ensure that unauthorized video isn't allowed into approved consumer devices, and don't let anyone create new devices that will play well with subscription services.
A set of legal arguments - the carriers claim that the FCC proposal creates a risk of litigation over their First Amendment (forced speech!) and Fifth Amendment (taking our IP rights without just compensation!) rights, plus enormous copyright problems (those program guides are copyrightable!).

Sen Reid bets on Internet poker as odds dwindle

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is pushing for a last-minute bill to legalize Internet poker -- at least for operators of existing brick-and-mortar casinos.

The measure is seen as a windfall for Las Vegas-based companies like MGM Resorts International, which closed down its online gambling operations nearly a decade ago amid regulatory uncertainties, and Caesars Entertainment, which operates the World Series of Poker. The bill, now under discussion. would legalize only Internet poker, not games like roulette or where players are betting against the casino. With Republicans set to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January, the casino industry believes the next couple of weeks are all that is left before the window of opportunity for legislation closes for at least several years. That is because groups like the Southern Baptist Convention and some key Republican lawmakers remain opposed to online gambling.

John Pilger: WikiLeaks, Web to revolutionize reporting

Revelations on the WikiLeaks website which have enraged governments around the world should force the traditional media to rely less on official sources, award-winning journalist John Pilger said. In an interview to discuss his film "The War You Don't See," the veteran Australian reporter said the Internet, and more specifically WikiLeaks, would bring about a "revolution" in journalism which too often failed to do its job properly.

EDUCAUSE
Thursday, December 16
1-2pm U.S. Eastern Time
http://www.educause.edu/live1035

The research and education (R&E) community that created Internet2 in 1996 was the same community whose innovation laid the foundation for nearly every important Internet technology we use today, including the Internet Protocol (IP), UNIX, the World Wide Web, social networking, videoconferencing, and many others.

What was the motivation for the creation of Internet2? To create an official ³agent² of the R&E community, charged with ensuring that it continue to provide the same kind of leadership that drove the development of the Internet and made possible all the innovation that poured out afterward; to permanently remove the limitations of bandwidth from the equation and see what kinds of remarkable, life-changing, society-changing discoveries would happen.

New and significant challenges have since emerged that are creating a new paradigm for the R&E community. These forces include globalization, the proliferation of large-scale distributed science projects, the rise of for-profit education, the increased importance of lifelong learning, emerging needs for risk management, and, most significantly, the decrease in funding for education while costs continue rising rapidly. In the face of these challenges, how can the community come together and leverage its investment in Internet2 to ensure that the fundamental requirements of R&E remain strong, to again lower the barriers of entry into discovery, and to spread the benefits of those discoveries far and wide?

H. David Lambert, recently named Internet2¹s president and CEO, will describe how these forces and opportunities are aligning Internet2¹s vision and mapping its path forward.

Read more about Internet2: The Path Forward

FBI Memos Reveal Cost of a Hacking Attack

Repelling a hacker attack can be costly as PayPal, Visa and MasterCard undoubtedly found out last week as they tried – with mixed success – to keep their Web sites from being knocked offline by supporters of Wikileaks. How much money exactly? An unrelated attack several years earlier on Google may provide some insight.

In 2005 Google was battling the Santy worm, a bit of malicious software that caused infected computers across the globe to automatically enter search queries – so many, in fact, that Google was overwhelmed. Details of the episode are chronicled in internal Federal Bureau of Investigation memos obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act request. On Dec. 22, 2005, Google complained to the FBI that the attack had slowed its search engine’s performance. For 12 to 18 months previous, Google said it had been plagued by variants of the worm, which used search queries to find vulnerable Web sites and deface them by exploiting a security hole in community forum software PHP Bulletin Board.

GOP FCC commissioners gin up opposition to network neutrality

Federal Communications Commission members Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker attended a meeting of Americans for Tax Reform on Dec 13, where they advocated against the FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's network neutrality proposal.

The McDowell-Baker effort was part of an off-the-record, weekly meeting of free-market activists. About 30 people attended. The pair warned that the network neutrality proposal could be more onerous than industry is expecting and might be significantly stronger than the House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman legislative framework it was based on. It seems possible that the two commissioners may be trying to steer free-market activists to oppose the policy in the absence of guidance from companies such as Verizon, AT&T and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.

Rep Upton names Gary Andres Energy & Commerce staff director

Incoming House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) announced that Gary Andres, a former White House staff member under President George H.W. Bush, will serve as staff director for the committee in the next Congress.

In his new role, Andres will take a lead role on the Republicans' efforts to repeal the White House's healthcare bill. The GOP is also expected to fight any new climate change regulations, and the committee should serve as ground zero for those confrontations.

Andres previous served as deputy assistant for legislative affairs to the first President Bush and was an adviser to President George W. Bush's transition team. He currently services as vice chairman of public policy and research at the lobbying firm Dutko World Wide. He has also served as a columnist for The Weekly Standard Online, Politico, National Review, and Roll Call. Andres is also a research fellow at the American University Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies and holds a Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Illinois-Chicago. He previously served vice president for Washington research at Prudential Securities and executive director of federal relations at Southwestern Bell Corp.

Benton

Search