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February 2013

Fewer Cell Towers Are Shut Down in Afghanistan, Minister Says

To disrupt communications, the Taliban shuts down cell masts in remote areas of Afghanistan, but problem is in decline.

“It was a very serious problem for us, three or four years ago, because the Taliban believed they were being tracked through their mobile phones,” said Afghanistan’s minister of communication and information technology, Amirzai Sangin. The government stuck to its position that networks shouldn’t be closed, and “they reacted by exploding the towers, attacking the towers, burning the towers.” Minister Sangin recalls losing “something like 300 towers” during the period, each valued at between $100,000 and $200,000. But he says the situation changed thanks to an information campaign about the real victims of the exploding mobile masts. “We adopted what I think was a very clever policy, and that was to tell through the media that the Taliban, by exploding a tower, are not doing anything against foreign forces in Afghanistan… or the Afghan government,” he says. “The losers are the people, because in that tower, there were maybe 10,000 mobile users.”

At A Pakistani Mobile Library, Kids Can Check Out Books, And Hope

In Pakistan, rarely a day goes by without news of a bombing or an attack by militants. Many young Pakistanis have grown up in the grip of religious extremism, and there's little sign that that is likely to change in the near future. But the founder of the Bright Star bookmobile is trying to reverse that trend, starting at the most basic level.

Senate Commerce Committee and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
March 7, 2013
2:30 p.m.

This joint hearing will examine the development and implementation of the Executive Order issued by President Obama and explore the need for comprehensive legislation to strengthen our nation’s cybersecurity.


White House picks Edith Ramirez to lead FTC

President Barack Obama intends to designate Edith Ramirez as chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission.

Ramirez, who joined the FTC as a commissioner in 2010, will replace the agency’s outgoing leader, Jon Leibowitz, a White House official told POLITICO. Her new role will still leave an opening for a third Democratic commission member. The source declined to specify when Commissioner Ramirez officially will be designated chairwoman or who the president might nominate for her current spot. Ultimately, that forthcoming selection would require Senate approval. While at the agency, Commissioner Ramirez has largely tracked closely with her fellow Democrats. Ramirez, for example, joined in FTC reports calling for Do Not Track technology, and she backed the majority conclusion of a two-year antitrust probe of Google — though the commissioner did raise questions about the form in which the FTC obtained some of its concessions. Commissioner Ramirez does boast notable political ties to the Obama administration. Back in 2008, she served as the campaign’s director of Latino outreach, and in 2012 Ramirez donated to the president’s reelection effort. Both Ramirez and the president worked together on the Harvard Law Review in the early 1990s.

Use, Not Collection, Should Be Focus of Data Rules, Report Says

A new report, “Unlocking the Value of Personal Data: From Collection to Usage,” from World Economic Forum’s Personal Data project argues:

  • Personal data is a valuable asset that ought to be put to work.
  • Fluid data markets will benefit economies, societies and individuals.
  • Privacy rules should focus on how data is used rather than on the widespread collection of personal data.
  • The modern digital world, with its explosion of data, has made the traditional approach to privacy based on “notice and consent” typically between two parties — a marketer and a consumer — obsolete, in the view of the report’s authors.

A Start-Up Plans to Digitize Your Postal Mail

One glaring omission in the list of services that have been transformed by the Internet: postal mail. A start-up, Outbox, is trying to change that by digitizing your mail.

For $5 a month, you can skip trips to the mailbox and sorting and recycling your mail, and instead view and organize all your correspondence on an app and do away with junk mail with the swipe of a finger. With the app, going through your mail becomes easier and more convenient. Your letters and envelopes are picked up from your mailbox and scanned so they’re accessible on a pretty app. You can unsubscribe from junk mail, file mail in virtual folders to look up later and form to-do lists for responding to time-sensitive mail. If there is a piece of mail you want physically, whether it’s the J. Crew catalog or a hand-drawn, you can ask Outbox to deliver it. Otherwise, Outbox shreds and recycles it.

There are a few obvious problems with the concept and execution of Outbox, write Laura June in The Verge. First of all, it is bloated from start to finish: building a "revolutionary" product by piggybacking onto the nation's most laughably bureaucratic, least agile institution seems shortsighted and doomed, but it actually makes the mail experience less efficient than it is today. Outbox says it picks up your mail three days a week, so it seems likely that the turnaround time will be significantly less fast than if you simply bite the bullet and open the mail yourself.

Comcast: We Won't Slow Down or Disconnect Alleged Pirates

Comcast will persistently nag subscribers suspected of illegally trading copyrighted material but -- unlike some other Internet service providers -- the cable operator says it will not throttle back connection speeds or block access to the Internet. Comcast and four other major U.S. broadband providers -- Time Warner Cable, AT&T, Verizon Communications and Cablevision Systems -- have begun alerting subscribers suspected of illegally sharing or downloading copyrighted content over peer-to-peer networks, under the media industry-led “six strikes” program.

Comcast provided details of how it will carry out the Center for Copyright Information’s Copyright Alert System. In the first two instances, Comcast's Xfinity Internet users suspected of copyright infringement will receive “information-focused alerts” via both in-browser alerts and emails, Susan Jin Davis, Comcast Cable’s vice president of strategic services for communications and data services, wrote in a blog post. Alerts 3 and 4 will be more strongly worded “warning-focused alerts.” With the fifth suspected offense, Comcast will step up to “mitigation-focused alerts,” which will include a persistent in-browser alert that requires a customer to call the Comcast Security Assurance (CSA) team. Comcast will remove the persistent alert only after a user reviews information about copyright infringement; if subscribers who believe they have received alerts file for an independent review of the charges within 14 days of the fifth alert (which requires paying a $35 fee), Comcast will remove the in-browser alerts until the appeal is completed.

Common Cause Outlines Media Reform Battle Plan

Common Cause has outlined its battle plan on the media ownership consolidation front. The group tapped former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Copps, a longtime consolidation critic, to head up its Media and Democracy Reform Initiative.

Common Cause is particularly concerned about the impact of media concentration on political speech and the impact of money on elections. The initiative will leverage 35 state chapters and funding from "several foundations" to spotlight media reform. In an e-mail to supporters, Todd O'Boyle, program director of the initiative, outlined a three-pronged strategy. The group will fight government approval of media consolidation that if feels "squelch independent and local voices"; will push the FCC to compel "real" disclosures of political ad sponsorship as a way to redress what it sees as the grievance of the Citizens United decision; and will call for a new FCC chairman to back up then-Senator Obama's opposition to media mergers, policies they say the current chairman "has not always lived up to." Specifically, the anti-consolidation campaign against will include trying to derail the current FCC proposal to allow for some TV station/newspaper cross-ownerships.

FCC Commences 2013 EEO Audits

On February 26, 2013, the Federal Communications Commission mailed the first of its Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) audit letters for 2013 to randomly selected radio and television Stations. The FCC’s EEO rules, the FCC annually audits the EEO programs of randomly selected broadcast licensees.

Each year, approximately five percent of all radio and television stations are selected for EEO audits. This year we have modified the audit letter in certain respects to reduce audit burdens on stations while at the same time encouraging broader job outreach. Although we are requesting fewer job notices, on-air ad logs, information on initiatives that go beyond our requirements, and some other items, we will still be thoroughly auditing programs for compliance with our rules. We intend for reduced response burdens to encourage stations to have vigorous recruitment without needing to provide as much detail as before in audit responses.

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