May 2013

Can Researchers Influence Government's Cybersecurity Agenda?

Government, academic and private sector cybersecurity experts met last month at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) headquarters to establish a research agenda that may affect America’s developing cybersecurity research approach.

The Cyber Security Research Alliance (CSRA) and NIST hosted a two-day workshop on April 4th and 5th in Gaithersburg (MD) focused on addressing the threats and vulnerabilities in technology that supports critical infrastructure operations like the country’s food, power and communications networks. The alliance has collaborated with NIST, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, since 2012 to help organizations in multiple sectors prioritize their own threat research and mediation tactics. The workshop was the latest step in that mission. “It’s the beginning of the beginning, and clearly, what we hope to come out of this workshop will be an agenda and identification of high priority initiatives that could be undertaken in the research arena to address these barriers to cybersecurity that exist in legacy systems today,” said Lee Holcomb, CSRA president. The collaborators hope to publish their agenda by the end of May.

Payphone Wi-Fi Piloted in Boston

Boston's Department of Innovation and Technology has endorsed installing Wi-Fi at 16 payphone sites near City Hall, Faneuil Hall, Downtown Crossing and Long Wharf. The move was announced last week by the four companies involved in the effort: RCN Business Services, LCC International Inc., Pacific Telemanagement Services and DAS Communications. Four unadvertised demo sites were set up in conjunction with the announcement, and received heavy usage. Tyler Katz, President of DAS Communications, told Boston.com that about 2,000 devices connected to the as yet unpromoted service at a payphone by City Hall, spending an average of 17 minutes using the connection. "People were using it quite a bit," he said. "There's a demand for this."

Watchdogs Ask Court To Reject 'Sponsored Stories' Settlement

Facebook's proposed $20 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit about “sponsored stories” would result in continued violations of laws protecting children's privacy, the advocacy group Public Citizen says in new court papers.

“The proposed settlement fails to remedy one of the core problems for which the plaintiff class is seeking relief: Facebook’s use of minors’ likenesses without the parental consent that is required by state law,” Public Citizen argues in a motion seeking to scuttle the settlement agreement. “The proposed settlement itself would perpetuate and purport to authorize ongoing violations of the laws of multiple states by authorizing Facebook to continue using minors’ likenesses without parental consent.” If approved by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg in the Northern District of California, the deal would resolve a class-action lawsuit alleging that Facebook's sponsored stories violates a California law about endorsements. That law says companies need people's permission before using their names or images in ads. In the case of minors, companies need parental consent. Facebook's sponsored stories program shows users' names and photos in ads to their friends.

Attacking Lifeline for Political Gain

[Commentary] Too many members of Congress blame the poor for the country’s economic woes. It’s a way to score political points, especially when the poor are often synonymous with people of color. This is the motivation for much of the criticism of the government’s Lifeline program, which subsidizes phone service for 15 million poor people, including the elderly and people living in rural areas. Many conservative critics want to eliminate the program’s funding for wireless services. A Republican-led House bill, co-sponsored by more than 40 congressional members, would do just that. The bill's supporters claim Lifeline is fraught with waste and abuse, and last Thursday the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held a hearing on the program. At the heart of the criticism lies a false claim that the program provides poor households with free cellphones — aka, “Obama phones.” The image of that poor family, for many, is that of a poor black family.

Pentagon OKs Samsung, Blackberry devices for government use

The Defense Department has approved BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 and Samsung Knox, the enterprise softwares made by the two smartphone companies.

Lt. Col. Damien Pickart, a spokesman for the department, said that the Pentagon also expects to approve the use of Apple's iOS 6 mobile platform in the next few weeks. Blackberry has long been the dominate device for government use. But with the latest approvals, a three-way battle is expected between BlackBerry, Apple and Samsung for Defense business. According to the Reuters report, there are 470,000 BlackBerry users, 41,000 Apple users and 8,700 Android users in the department. None of the approvals, however, mean any orders have been placed. The types of devices that are purchased will be decided on by groups within the department, the report says.

U.S. Wireless Providers Invested Almost Six Times More Per Subscriber than Rest of World

CTIA-The Wireless Association released its semi-annual survey, which showed U.S. wireless providers increased their annual network investments from $25.3 billion in 2011 to $30.1 billion in 2012 (up 19 percent). The $30.1 billion is the highest amount since the survey began in 1985, which is approximately 25 percent of the world’s total wireless capital expenditures , even though the U.S. has only five percent of the world’s wireless users. The U.S. wireless providers invested approximately $94 per subscriber, compared with $16 per subscriber for the rest of the world. Since 2000, wireless providers invested more than $296 billion, not including the more than $35 billion in spectrum auction revenues paid to the U.S. government.

The year-end 2012 annual survey results:

Wireless subscriber connections: 326.4 million (102 percent penetration); 2011: 315.9 million (3.3 percent increase).
Total prepaid / pay-as-you-go subscribers: 76.4 million (23.4 percent of subscribers); 2011: 71.7 million (6.6 percent increase).
Wireless network data traffic: 1.468 trillion megabytes; 2011: 866.8 billion (69.3 percent increase).
Active smartphones and wireless-enabled PDAs: 152.1 million; 2011: 111.5 million (36.4 percent increase).
Wireless-enabled tablets, laptops and modems: 22.3 million; 2011: 20.2 million (10.2 percent increase).
Minutes of Use (MOU): 2.2999 trillion; 2011: 2.2955 trillion (4.4 billion minute increase or .2 percent).
SMS sent and received: 2.19 trillion; 2011: 2.3 trillion (4.9 percent decrease).
MMS sent and received: 74.5 billion; 2011: 52.8 billion (41 percent increase).

Dish's Charlie Ergen on Sprint Offer: 'We're Not Going to Lose'

Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen has been hard at work trying to convince the shareholders of Sprint that his company would make a better home for the wireless provider than Softbank.

On May 2, he turned his attention to his own shareholders, fielding their questions at Dish’s annual meeting. Asked by one analyst what Dish’s options are if Sprint rejects its overtures, Ergen shaped an answer that matched the confident tone of his rival, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, who earlier this week predicted that he would prevail without raising his offer. “We’re not going to lose because we’ve got a better offer on the table,” Ergen insisted. “Our offer is seven dollars and ten cents a share. Softbank’s offer is six dollars and thirty-eight cents a share. Now, if Softbank were to raise their offer to seven dollars and eleven cents, then it’s a fair fight.” “It’s simply a bidding war of two companies,” he added. “Ultimately, the shareholders of Sprint are going to take the person who has the most money, and secondarily who has the best strategic plan going forward.”

Report: 78% of U.S. Broadband Homes Have a Home Network

Opportunities to provide tech support are growing in the U.S. as home network routers are installed in more homes, according to a new whitepaper by Parks Associates and Support.com.

Seventy-eight percent of U.S. broadband households have a home network router and that’s driving demand for tech support, according to “Expanding to the Home Network: The Evolution of Premium Support.” Parks and Support.com forecast that the percentage of U.S. broadband households with home networks will increase to 95% by 2016, each with an average 4.5 connected devices running. While home network connectivity enhances the capabilities of all devices, it also poses challenges in the way of setup and troubleshooting, the companies note. “The adoption of connected devices and usage of high-bandwidth applications add new layers of complexity for the consumer,” Parks’ research analyst Patrice Samuels said.

TDG: 56% of U.S. Broadband Homes Have an Internet-Connected TV

Fifty-six percent of all U.S. broadband households have at least one TV connected to the Internet – be it a direct connection to a smart TV or indirectly via ancillary devices, such as game consoles and Blu-ray players, according to a new report from The Diffusion Group (TDG). Two or more Net-connected TVs are present in nearly ¼ of U.S. broadband households, “suggesting that connected TVs are moving beyond the living room and into master and secondary bedrooms,” according to TDG’s “The In-Home CE and Home Network Ecosystem – 2013” report.

Apple and others could stop smartphone theft. Here’s why they don’t

Phone makers like Apple and Google are reluctant to make phones hard to steal and privacy advocates don’t want them to.

Thieves can just send the phones overseas.
Thieves can just hack the phones.
The phone companies don’t want to make a kill-switch.

Benton

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