February 2014

Sen Franken has 'deep concern' about Google Glass app NameTag

Sen Al Franken (D-MN) is worried about the privacy implications of a new facial recognition app. Sen Franken expressed "deep concern" about NameTag, a facial recognition app for Google Glass devices that have been "jailbroken" to circumvent Google's ban on facial recognition tools.

Sen Franken, chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Privacy, asked NameTag to delay its launch until there are best practices for facial recognition technology, such as those that will come out of a Commerce Department initiative. “According to promotional materials, NameTag lets strangers get a broad range of personal information -- including a person’s name, photos, and dating website profiles -- simply by looking at that person’s face with the Glass camera," Sen Franken said in his letter. "This is apparently done without that person’s knowledge or consent, which crosses a bright line for privacy and personal safety. At a minimum, NameTag should only identify people who have given the app permission to do so."

NSA Data Collection Critic Promotes E-Mail Boilerplate Protest

The Government Accountability Project is circulating a privacy statement for e-mail communications it wants Internet users to adopt as a form of protest against the bulk collection of data by the National Security Agency.

As the planned Feb 11 Day We Fight Back protest against surveillance approaches, GAP wants backers of the protest to start using this as a boilerplate on all of their e-mails: "This communication may be unlawfully collected and stored by the National Security Agency (NSA) in secret. The parties to this email do not consent to the retrieving or storing of this communication and any related metadata, as well as printing, copying, re-transmitting, disseminating, or otherwise using it. If you believe you have received this communication in error, please delete it immediately."

Google Appoints Its Most Senior Woman to Run YouTube

The most senior woman at Google, Susan Wojcicki, who has been a senior vice president of advertising and commerce, is changing jobs at the company to run YouTube.

Salar Kamangar, who has had the job of senior vice president of YouTube, will be staying at the company in an unspecified role having to do with early-stage ventures. Sridhar Ramaswamy, also a senior vice president of advertising and commerce, will run the ad business. The move is a sign that Google is focusing sharply on advertising at YouTube. Wojcicki has overseen Google’s outrageously profitable advertising, including successful new ad types for shopping and mobile. For Wojcicki, it is a chance to run her own operation, because YouTube operates as its own business. She has been a target for chief executive positions in the tech industry, and since 2013, she has had to share her job with Ramaswamy after he was promoted to become another senior vice president of ads and commerce.

Utah bill would stop regional fiber networks from expanding

Kansas isn't the only state considering legislation that would limit the growth of government-funded broadband networks that threaten incumbent Internet service providers. The latest such attempt is a Utah House bill called the "Interlocal Entity Service Prohibition," which would prevent a regional fiber consortium from building infrastructure outside the boundaries of its member cities and towns.

While it would affect any such group, the bill seems to be directed at UTOPIA, the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency, a consortium of 16 cities that operates a fiber-to-the-premises broadband network. The bill explicitly targets fiber only, not affecting cable or other types of networks. "It actually is aimed specifically at UTOPIA," said the group's legislative policy director, Gary Crane. Crane is also a city attorney for Layton, one of UTOPIA's member municipalities. "I think there's probably a lot of fear in those who hold the monopoly currently in our cities that this model may be a good model for other cities to adopt." The bill, sponsored by State Sen Curt Webb (R-Logan), "prohibits an interlocal entity that provides telecommunication service through a fiber optic network from constructing infrastructure or providing telecommunication service in locations outside the boundaries of its members."

Digital Learning Program Prepares Students for School, Careers and Life in the 21st Century

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has enabled major advances in connecting schools to broadband and building the foundation for digital learning both in the classroom and beyond. Through our Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), NTIA invested in roughly 230 projects nationwide to expand access to and use of broadband. Our network infrastructure projects are linking approximately 10,000 educational institutions to high-speed Internet. Our digital literacy training and broadband adoption programs are ensuring that teachers, students and parents have the skills and resources to take advantage of these high-speed connections. And our public computer center projects are providing Internet access to those who don’t have it at home. Through these investments, NTIA has witnessed first-hand how technology can expand access to instructors, classes and curriculum materials for schools with limited resources; provide engaging online content and virtual teaching aids to supplement lesson plans and homework assignments; and serve as a platform to teach students the digital literacy skills that are so critical to success in today’s information-age economy.

Regulators plead for help on data security

Lawmakers and top regulators are calling for a new law to help protect consumers’ sensitive data following breaches in which millions of accounts were compromised. In the third hearing on the issue this week, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairwoman Edith Ramirez told lawmakers on a House Commerce subcommittee there is “certainly no perfect solution to this issue, but it’s clear to me that congressional action is necessary.”

Bob Russo, general manager of PCI Security Standards Council, which sets industry standards, also testified in the hearing. He told The Hill that there are “plenty of things that government can do.” “Law enforcement is one,” he said. “We know where these guys are, in some cases we even know who they are, but we still can’t get them. Law enforcement is certainly an area where we can use some help.” Chairwoman Ramirez told lawmakers that any new legislation should also further empower the FTC to take action against companies with lax security standards.

House panel approves cybersecurity bill

The House Homeland Security Committee voted unanimously to approve a bill to secure the federal government and critical infrastructure elements from cyberattacks.

The bill -- HR 3696, the National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, backed by Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Rep Patrick Meehan (R-PA), chairman of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity -- would push the Department of Homeland Security to strengthen and codify it cybersecurity standards for the federal government and critical infrastructure networks. Chairman McCaul cited the varied support for the bill, including members in both parties and privacy advocates. The bill "establishes equal cybersecurity partnerships between private industry and DHS, while ensuring Americans’ civil liberties are protected," he said. “We cannot wait for a major attack to take action, and I am pleased that the Committee today unanimously passed legislation that improves DHS’s ability to defend against the many threats to our critical infrastructure."

Foolish attempt to criminalize journalism

[Commentary] It's an idea that needs to have a stake driven through its heart -- right away. Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI) is floating the notion that journalists who publish articles based on classified information might be criminals who are "fencing stolen material."

Rep Rogers is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. But this is a proposition that has no intelligence at all. With all due respect, writing a story based on classified material is a long way from knocking over a bank. What we have here is a blatant attempt to intimidate journalists by criminalizing their actions. The goal is clearly to choke off publication of articles that are embarrassing or uncomfortable to the government. And, like it or not, many revelations clearly in the public interest have come to light because of leaked classified material. Putting journalists in the slammer for producing them may be gratifying to people who don't like the stories. But it's bad for democracy.

Verizon denies using net neutrality victory to sabotage Netflix, Amazon

After a federal court decided in January 2014 that the government couldn't prohibit Internet providers from slowing or blocking Web traffic, at least one Internet service provider (ISP) is being accused of taking advantage of the ruling.

A Texas man named David Raphael wrote on his blog that Verizon was intentionally throttling Netflix subscribers and other Internet users who rely on Amazon's cloud computing service. Verizon quickly denied the complaint, saying it continues to treat all traffic equally. Raphael, a software engineer for the cloud-based security firm iScan Online, said he was first alerted to the problem on Jan 26 when the president of his company complained of "major slowdowns" while using iScan remotely. After determining that nothing was amiss with iScan's product, Raphael returned home to find that his own connection to Amazon Web Services -- on which iScan runs -- had been degraded. Connections to AWS were limited to 40 kBps, Raphael said -- about 240 times slower than the 75 Mbps fiber optic connection Raphael was paying for. Raphael discovered that even content hosted on AWS by others, including Netflix, was also slower. When Raphael contacted Verizon about the issue, a customer representative acknowledged that Verizon was "limiting bandwidth to cloud providers." Verizon said it was investigating the report and that the customer rep was misinformed.

Selling Consumers Not Lists: The New World of Digital Decision-Making and the Role of the Fair Credit Reporting Act

This article explores the new world of financial decision-making, which draws on a range of Internet techniques. While some practices are regulated as traditional credit reports under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), credit bureaus and other financial firms are expanding into currently unregulated areas, including online marketing and sales. Does the FCRA need to be updated to address the growing use of real-time database scoring and decision-making on the Internet? Where is the line drawn between when an online, real-time decision-making score is used simply to serve as advertising for a financial product or to make a decision about establishing a consumer’s eligibility for credit? When companies use a consumer’s online profile for establishing his or her eligibility for credit, does it become a consumer report? As financial firms use powerful digital tools to precisely identify and market to potential customers in real time, are they compiling prescreened lists actionable under the FCRA?

Benton

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