January 2015

INTERNET/BROADBAND

THE NEXT BIG TURNING POINT IN THE NETWORK NEUTRALITY DEBATE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Brian Fung]
Industry groups representing large ISPs continue to oppose Title II on principle but have also engaged on the forbearance question. Comcast said in a filing that if the Federal Communications Commission does wind up using Title II, it should forbear from all of the sections. The fact that the company is entertaining the idea of forbearance at all, much less offering suggestions for how to do it, is significant. Comcast still believes Title II would be harmful, and the wider point of its filing is to say as much. But the possibility of Title II and forbearance is clearly on the company's mind, and its latest filing addresses the issue at length. Even as a wider ideological battle rages over whether to use Title II, a more substantive discussion about which parts of Title II would or wouldn't apply is taking place. The discussion involves not just the traditional proponents of aggressive rules who view forbearance as a key part of the Title II strategy, but also opponents. That's an important step forward for the discussion.
benton.org/headlines/next-big-turning-point-network-neutrality-debate | Washington Post
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BOTH SIDES MAKE CLOSING NET NEUTRALITY ARGUMENTS AS DECISION LOOMS
[SOURCE: Revere Digital, AUTHOR: Amy Schatz]
Several tech industry associations, including the Computer & Communications Industry Association and startup group Engine, filed a joint letter asking Federal Communications Commission officials to use a “light-touch policy framework” when writing new rules to prohibit discriminatory delivery of Internet traffic. One thing that has changed in the ongoing, eye-glazing debate over legal justifications is that both sides now appear to assume that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will propose reversing the FCC’s decade-old decision to deregulate Internet lines. Notably, the conversation has now shifted from whether to re-regulate Internet lines under Title II of the Communications Act to how the agency could do it. Internet providers are urging the FCC to use few if any sections of Title II, while net neutrality proponents are pressing the agency to rely on a handful of key sections.
benton.org/headlines/both-sides-make-closing-net-neutrality-arguments-decision-looms | Revere Digital
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GOOGLE AND TITLE II
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Alistair Barr]
In a rare public comment by Google on network neutrality, Google said it sees a silver lining in the potential to be regulated like a telecom company. In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, Google’s director of communications law Austin Schlick highlighted a potential positive for the company if Title II kicks in. As a regulated telecom service, Google Fiber would get access to utility poles and other essential infrastructure owned by utilities. The FCC should make sure this happens because it would promote competition and spur more investment and deployment of broadband internet service, Schlick argued. Gaining better access to utility poles would be a big boost for Google Fiber, which has been seen as an expensive experiment by some investors and analysts. Hooking up homes using poles is about a tenth of the price of digging trenches across streets and sidewalks, according to Reed Hundt, who was FCC chairman in the 1990s.
benton.org/headlines/google-strikes-upbeat-note-fcc-title-ii | Wall Street Journal
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A FASTER INTERNET IN 2015?
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Holman Jenkins Jr]
[Commentary] Telecommunications companies have been eager to offload their copper networks along with the burden of legacy regulation they carry -- the companies haven’t been eager to invest in bringing Americans superfast DSL as seen in Europe and Asia. Why not? Beginning in the ’90s, US regulators cast a DSL nuclear winter over the country, forcing phone companies to lease their lines at a loss to competitors -- exactly the sort of common-carrier regulation President Barack Obama’s supporters now want extended over every Internet carrier in the name of network neutrality. What happens to emerging business models for local Internet if investors and entrepreneurs suddenly discover they would be regulated as utilities? That’s a question nobody is asking. The new distribution business models would do infinitely more to meet the real broadband needs and wishes of Americans than the broadband-as-utility policy, which would likely just cast a pall over the willingness of operators to make such investments at all.
benton.org/headlines/faster-internet-2015 | Wall Street Journal
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LABOR

TECHNOLOGY'S IMPACT ON WORKERS
[SOURCE: Pew Internet and American Life Project, AUTHOR: Kristen Purcell, Lee Rainie]
Pew Research surveyed online a representative sample of adult Internet users and asked those who have jobs a series of questions about the role of digital technology in their work lives. The most recent survey data from Pew Research in late 2013 shows that 94 percent of jobholders are Internet users and they work in all kinds of enterprises from technology companies to non-technology firms; from big corporations to small proprietor operations; and from those in urban areas, farms, and places in between. Some of the key findings include:
Email and the Internet are deemed the most important communications and information tools among online workers.
While commentators worry that digital tools can be a distraction in the workplace, many online workers say that is not the case when it comes to their productivity.
Bosses are adapting to technology, too.
benton.org/headlines/technologys-impact-workers | Pew Internet and American Life Project | read the research
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PRIVACY/SECURITY

DEBATE OVER US GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Felicia Schwartz]
Key provisions of the Patriot Act, including Section 215, which authorizes phone-records collection, are set to expire in June after attempts to modify the Sept. 11-era national security law were stymied in the Senate in 2014. Now, the incoming Republican-dominated Congress faces a variety of tensions as it works to sort out the future of US surveillance programs. Congress and the Administration face a difficult choice: reauthorize the law in some form or risk losing the legal basis for key intelligence programs. “The House is not going to pass a straight reauthorization, and I don’t think President Obama would support one,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, and a supporter of privacy protections. “Something has to happen and there has to be some kind of reform, and the question is: What does it look like?”
benton.org/headlines/debate-over-us-government-surveillance-faces-deadline | Wall Street Journal
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HOW THE INTERNET'S ENGINEERS ARE FIGHTING MASS SURVEILLANCE
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: David Meyer]
The Internet Engineering Task Force has played down suggestions that the National Security Agency is weakening the security of the Internet through its standardization processes, and has insisted that the nature of those processes will result in better online privacy for all. A year and a half after Edward Snowden blew the lid on the activities of the NSA and its international partners, it looks like real progress is being made. Here’s a rundown on why the IETF is confident that the NSA can’t derail those efforts -- and what exactly it is that the group is doing to enhance online security:
The IETF is in the process of formalizing a concept called “opportunistic security” whereby -- even if full end-to-end security isn’t practical for whatever reason -- some security is now officially recognized as being better than nothing.
HTTP 2, currently being finalized by the IETF and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), is on the way, and it will support the padding of traffic so as to make it harder for spies to draw inferences from packet size.
The IETF is also officially killing off RC4, a cipher used in the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol that supposedly provides the security behind the “https” you see denoting secure connections in web addresses.
A separate working group is trying to develop a new DNS Private Exchange (DPRIVE) mechanism to make DNS transactions -- where someone enters a web address and a Domain Name System server translates it to a machine-friendly IP address -- more private.
benton.org/headlines/how-internets-engineers-are-fighting-mass-surveillance | GigaOm
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WHAT IF NORTH KOREA WASN'T BEHIND THE SONY HACK?
[SOURCE: Revere Digital, AUTHOR: Dawn Chmielewski]
The latest theory on the culprit behind the devastating cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, presented to the FBI, blamed the attacks on one or more insiders working in concert with known hackers. In an independent analysis, representatives from security firm Norse found a 10-year veteran of Sony Pictures with a technical background and access to the studio’s networks who was laid off in 2014, and individuals previously associated with LulzSec, which claimed responsibility for a 2011 attack on the Sony Pictures website. Norse Senior Vice President Kurt Stammberger said it’s clear the attackers had some kind of inside-assist: The malware used to infiltrate Sony’s corporate network had the addresses of individual computer servers written into the code. “This was super-duper targeted. That’s why it was so effective,” Stammberger said. “They knew precisely how Sony’s network was architected, exactly where all of its critical data was kept. That’s why so much of their data has spilled out onto the Internet.”
benton.org/headlines/what-if-north-korea-wasnt-behind-sony-hack | Revere Digital | LATimes | Wall Street Journal
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SONY HACKERS THREATEN US NEWS MEDIA ORGANIZATION
[SOURCE: First Look Media, AUTHOR: Jana Winter]
The hackers who infiltrated Sony Pictures Entertainment’s computer servers have threatened to attack an American news media organization, according to an FBI bulletin. The threat against the unnamed news organization by the Guardians of Peace, the hacker group that has claimed credit for the Sony attack, “may extend to other such organizations in the near future.” Referring to Sony only as “USPER1” and the news organization as “USPER2,” the Joint Intelligence Bulletin, dated Dec. 24 and marked For Official Use Only, states that its purpose is “to provide information on the late-November 2014 cyber intrusion targeting USPER1 and related threats concerning the planned release of the movie, "The Interview." Additionally, these threats have extended to USPER2 -- a news media organization -- and may extend to other such organizations in the near future.” “While it’s hard to tell how legitimate the threat is, if a news organization is attacked in the same manner Sony was, it could put countless sensitive sources in danger of being exposed -- or worse,” said Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
benton.org/headlines/sony-hackers-threaten-us-news-media-organization | First Look Media
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

WEB FREEDOM IS A GROWING ISSUE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Vindu Goel, Andrew Kramer]
Government censorship of the Internet is a cat-and-mouse game. And despite more aggressive tactics in recent months, the cats have been largely frustrated while the mice wriggle away. But in 2015, the challenges for Silicon Valley will mount, with Russia and Turkey in particular trying to tighten controls on foreign-based Internet companies. Major American companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google are increasingly being put in the tricky position of figuring out which laws and orders to comply with around the world -- and which to ignore or contest. Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, signed the latest version of a personal data law that will require companies to store data about Russian users on computers inside the country, where it will be easier for the government to get access to it. With few companies expected to comply with the law, which goes into effect Sept. 1, a confrontation may well erupt.
benton.org/headlines/web-freedom-seen-be-growing-global-issue-2015 | New York Times
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FACEBOOK AND BEIJING
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Can information companies participate in China’s huge market without selling their souls to the Communist Party? Facebook is the latest American tech firm to face this question, and critics are blaming the company for taking down a post about self-immolation by a Tibetan monk. The issue deserves more than easy condemnation. If Facebook wants to try to do business in China without internalizing the censorship regime, then more power to it. The potential reward to shareholders and Chinese customers are considerable, but so are the risks to its brand and reputation.
benton.org/headlines/facebook-and-beijing | Wall Street Journal
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GMAIL'S CHINA BLOCK ADDS TO CONCERNS OVER INTERNET CENSORSHIP
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Richard Waters, Charles Clover]
A four-day outage of Google’s Gmail service in mainland China was at least partly lifted, but not before the apparent act of Internet censorship had provided the final restrictive flourish to a year in which global online freedoms had a notable setback. The unusual total severing of the Google email service ended as mysteriously as it had begun -- users of Gmail via POP and IMAP servers, who had been frustrated for days trying to send and receive email, suddenly saw their inboxes full again, though some were still reporting delays in receiving emails and others said that their service had not returned. The episode left questions about the breadth and scope of China’s notorious “Great Firewall” and underlined the vulnerability of international communication services to disruption. An executive at one big US Internet company said the interruption to Gmail marked a familiar pattern in China’s periodic online crackdowns, but added that other repressive governments had this year shown they are “increasingly concerned about the opportunities the internet has given to their citizens.”
benton.org/headlines/gmails-china-block-adds-concerns-over-internet-censorship | Financial Times
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CAN THE INTERNET DEFEAT PUTIN?
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Emily Parker]
A court in Moscow convicted Russia’s top opposition blogger, Aleksei Navalny, of criminal fraud. Navalny, who has been under house arrest for nearly a year, was given a suspended sentence and spared jail time. His younger brother Oleg, however, was sentenced to serve three and a half years. Aleksei Navalny is an anti-corruption activist and outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, and the verdicts were seen as a cynical strategy to punish him without turning him into an imprisoned martyr. Navalny, a 21st-century Russian dissident, presents a new kind of threat to the Putin regime. He was the first Russian activist to have used the Internet as an effective tool of political resistance. He didn’t ask people to revolt, he just called on them to file online complaints. He provided detailed instructions for appealing to the authorities, and asked his supporters to report everything from unrepaired potholes to suspicious government contracts. Navalny has proved that the Internet’s power is not just “virtual.” But it does have its limits. The opposition’s main obstacle will continue to be public apathy, which is an authoritarian government’s best protection. The Internet alone is not enough to overcome it.
benton.org/headlines/can-internet-defeat-putin | New York Times
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January 2015

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