July 2014

Court gave NSA broad leeway in surveillance, documents show

Virtually no foreign government is off-limits for the National Security Agency, which has been authorized to intercept information “concerning” all but four countries, according to top-secret documents.

The United States has long had broad no-spying arrangements with those four countries -- Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand -- in a group known collectively with the United States as the Five Eyes. B

ut a classified 2010 legal certification and other documents indicate the NSA has been given a far more elastic authority than previously known, one that allows it to intercept through US companies not just the communications of its overseas targets but any communications about its targets as well. The certification -- approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and included among a set of documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden -- lists 193 countries that would be of valid interest for US intelligence.

The certification also permitted the agency to gather intelligence about entities including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Facebook Added 'Research' To User Agreement 4 Months After Emotion Manipulation Study

[Commentary] Four months after the Facebook emotion study happened, in May 2012, Facebook made changes to its data use policy, and that’s when it introduced this line about how it might use your information:

“For internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement.” Facebook helpfully posted a “red-line” version of the new policy, contrasting it with the prior version from September 2011 -- which did not mention anything about user information being used in “research.”

Defenders of the Facebook study including my colleague Jeff Bercovici say that everyone on the Internet is doing A/B testing -- showing users two versions of something to see which resonates more based on how they click, share, and respond.

But the Facebook study with its intention to manipulate the Facebook environment for unknowing users to see whether it made them feel elated or depressed seems different to me than the normal “will this make someone more likely to buy this thing” kind of testing.

“They actually did a test to see whether it would have a deleterious effect on their users,” says Pam Dixon of the World Privacy Forum. “This isn’t A/B testing. They didn’t just want to change users’ behaviors, they wanted to change their moods.”

Aereo CEO Asks Consumers to Rise Up and Fight for Aereo

Aereo founder and CEO Chet Kanojia is asking Americans to rise up and demand the right to beam broadcasters’ signals to their computers -- while paying Aereo's fee to do so.

He is asking Aereo subscribers to ask Congress to do… something. It is unclear what that might be, since the court has already shot the company down.

“Today, I'm asking you to raise your hands and make your voices heard. Tell your lawmakers how disappointed you are that the nation's highest court issued a decision that could deny you the right to use the antenna of your choice to access live over-the-air broadcast television. Tell them your stories of why having access to a cloud-based antenna is important to you and your families. Show them you care about this issue,” he wrote in an appeal to Aereo subscribers.

Two Years Later, The Supreme Court Still Doesn’t Want To Review Red Lion v. FCC.

[Commentary] The Supreme Court stubbornly refuses to address Red Lion. Not only did Minority Television Project provide the opportunity to overrule Red Lion and abolish all those pesky ownership limits and public interest obligations, it framed this as an opportunity to further expand Citizens United.

How could the majority possibly resist, especially given the groupthink that the Supreme Court is simply lusting to overturn Red Lion and totally deregulate the broadcast industry at the first opportunity? And yet, somehow, they resisted. The FCC’s authority to impose broadcast ownership limits (and other spectrum ownership limits for that matter) remains not only intact, but subject to the lenient “rational basis” standard of scrutiny.

When it comes to net neutrality, the Nordic model is the best approach

[Commentary] Network neutrality is a global debate. A number of countries have implemented laws or are in the process of doing so. Each country defines the issue differently and thus creates laws with different provisions.

This creates a problem of international harmonization for the Internet, which is inherently global. Net neutrality rules are a difficult compromise between consumer protection and increased governmental control of the Internet, but the multi-stakeholder model strikes a balance.

Norway’s model for net neutrality, established in February 2009, is the longest running regime of that type in the world. No violations of net neutrality have been documented under the model. Swedish regulators observed at a recent event that the model is working, and ISPs are actually becoming more transparent.

The Nordic model preserves a role for the regulator to frame the discussion while at the same time encouraging participation by operators, content/application providers, and consumers. In this way, the regulator is less of a warden and more of a mediator.

Nordic regulators have agreed to cooperate on net neutrality. Should an EU law come to pass, it would supersede the enlightened approach taken by the Nordic countries. The better outcome would be to build on the efforts of the Nordic regulators, and make their model the global standard.

[Layton studies Internet economics at the Center for Communication, Media, and Information Technologies (CMI) at Aalborg University in Copenhagen]

Europe’s roaming data cuts are welcome, but not the end of the story

Europeans traveling around the union will pay a lot less for mobile data, voice and SMS. The most drastic cut will be for data, with the retail price cap dropping from 45 euro cents ($0.62) per megabyte to 20 cents ($0.27).

This represents the last stage in the grading-down of data roaming premiums within the European Union (there were no retail caps on roaming data before mid-2012, when a 70 cent cap was introduced). It’s far from being the end of the story, though -- a major package of telecommunications reform that’s almost been signed into law will do away with intra-EU roaming premiums altogether.

There’s a huge political driver behind all of this, in the creation of a true EU single market -- in practical terms, EU politicians are trying to erase the borders between member states, and that’s not possible when crossing a border results in massive bill shock. For European startups, this is essential, particularly if their apps and services are intended to be used on the move.

The complete elimination of roaming fees within the EU will take place at the end of 2015, if member states give final approval to measures already backed by the European Commission and the European Parliament.

FCC: US Broadband Connections of 10 Mbps or Higher Doubled in One Year

The number of fixed and mobile US broadband connections with downstream speeds of at least 10 Mbps increased 118% between June 2012 and June 2013 to reach 103 million, according to Federal Communications Commission data.

The data is contained in the FCC’s latest “Internet Access Services” report, which is based on information collected from broadband providers.

Mobile broadband saw a particularly steep increase in the number of users connecting at higher data rates. More than 52 million mobile Internet users connected at speeds above 6 Mbps downstream and 1.5 Mbps upstream as of June 2013, up from 18.7 million in June 2012 -- an increase of 279%.

Millions of dynamic DNS users suffer after Microsoft seizes No-IP domains

Millions of legitimate servers that rely on dynamic domain name services from No-IP.com suffered outages after Microsoft seized 22 domain names it said were being abused in malware-related crimes against Windows users.

Microsoft enforced a federal court order making the company the domain IP resolver for the No-IP domains. Microsoft said the objective of the seizure was to identify and reroute traffic associated with two malware families that abused No-IP services.

Almost immediately, end users, some of which were actively involved in Internet security, castigated the move as heavy handed, since there was no evidence No-IP officially sanctioned or actively facilitated the malware campaign, which went by the names Bladabindi (aka NJrat) and Jenxcus (aka NJw0rm).

"By becoming the DNS authority for those free dynamic DNS domains, Microsoft is now effectively in a position of complete control and is now able to dictate their configuration," Claudio Guarnieri, co-founder of Radically Open Security, wrote in an e-mail to Ars Technica. "Microsoft fundamentally swept away No-IP, which has seen parts of its own DNS infrastructure legally taken away."

Google Is About To Take Over Your Whole Life, And You Won't Even Notice

[Commentary] Google had just announced a new initiative called Material Design that promised to unify all Google products (and even third-party Android apps) under a common UX tongue. Google seemed to be morphing into something, but what?

With Material Design, Google has become a second reality inside touch-screen devices -- complete with its own rules of logic and physics -- and if Google has its way, it will eventually break free of touch screens to quite literally reshape the world around us. It's a series of services that have become our digital infrastructure.

And in the very near future, Google will exist, not as something you need to understand as "Chrome" or "Android," but as a conduit of information that's on just the right screen at just the right time.

[Wilson started Philanthroper.com]

NBC News Airs an Hour-Long Commercial For Its Corporate Sibling

Don't ever let it be said that NBC News isn't willing to give a little boost to its fellow members of the NBCUniversal corporate family.

The network aired an hour-long special about the new Diagon Alley section of the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" theme park at the Universal Studios resort in Orlando.

Benton

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