BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2016
Today's Events:
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
How Facebook tracks and profits from voters in a $10 Billion US election
Iowa Caucuses a Showcase for Microsoft’s Ambitions in Civic Tech [links to Benton summary]
Clinton didn’t know how to access e-mail by computer, says State official
BuzzFeed Editor: How Donald Trump Owns The Old Media And The New Media [links to BuzzFeed]
Do Trump and Sanders show us the limits of money in politics? [links to Vox]
The Bernie Campaign: The Democratic Party's Biggest Insurrection in Decades - HuffPo op-ed [links to Benton summary]
Democracy of the Billionaires [links to Huffington Post]
The sneaky language today's politicians use to get away with racism and sexism [links to Vox]
Google wants to be the home of the 2016 election horse race [links to Benton summary]
How Ted Cruz used good political science to design a disastrous mailer [links to Benton summary]
On Wikipedia, Donald Trump Reigns and Facts Are Open to Debate [links to New York Times]
The media’s day of reckoning on Donald Trump has arrived - WaPo analysis [links to Benton summary]
A newspaper publisher joins the effort to boost Latino turnout at the Iowa caucuses [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Tech Firms Are Unclear on New UK Surveillance Laws, Warns Government Committee
DHS-Supported Scans of Private Networks Prompt Suspicions of Domestic Surveillance
The Open Government Public Policy Implications of Hillary Clinton’s E-mailgate - Medium op-ed [links to Benton summary]
DHS Chief Defends $6 Billion Federal Firewall After Stinging Audit [links to nextgov]
SECURITY/PRIVACY
US and Europe Fail to Meet Deadline for New Safe Harbor Pact
At Berkeley, a New Digital Privacy Protest
UC-Berkeley students sue Google, alleging their e-mails were illegally scanned
The Future of Cybersecurity Is Being Written in the Israeli Desert [links to Vice]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Remarks of Lawrence Strickling at Silicon Flatirons Conference - speech
Kentucky Wired broadband project faces financial shortfall, Gov Bevin administration says [links to WDRB]
ACCESSIBILITY
Apple urges FCC to spike rules for universal compliance with hearing aids [links to Benton summary]
CONTENT
The RIAA says streams will now count toward gold and platinum record certification [links to Benton summary]
RADIO
Commissioner Pai Statement on the Successful Launch of the AM Revitalization Effort - press release [links to Benton summary]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
Facebook says it has 'no plans' to provide connectivity solutions in the US, supports high-band spectrum plan [links to Benton summary]
OpenSignal: T-Mobile squeaks past Verizon for title of fastest LTE network [links to Verge, The]
The Importance of Permissionless Innovation in Unlicensed Spectrum Bands - Mobile Future research [links to Benton summary]
TELEVISION
In New Thursday Night Football Deal, CBS Will Share Games With NBC [links to AdWeek]
DIVERSITY
Jesse Jackson Op-Ed: Hollywood, it's time to flip the script on diversity [links to USAToday]
Diversity in Tech and what we’ve already lost [links to Medium]
A newspaper publisher joins the effort to boost Latino turnout at the Iowa caucuses [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
ENERGY
Microsoft Plumbs Ocean’s Depths to Test Underwater Data Center [links to Benton summary]
HEALTH
IDC: 40% See Growth in Healthcare IT Spending [links to telecompetitor]
Study: Doctors’ Texts Can Prod Patients To Take Drugs, But Questions Linger [links to Kaiser Health News]
POLICYMAKERS
FCC Commissioner Rosenworcel Names Marc Paul Legal Advisor on Media Issues - press release [links to Benton summary]
Wheeler channels Bernie to regulate set-top boxes - Mark Jamison/AEI op-ed [links to Benton summary]
COMPANY NEWS
Alphabet vaults Apple to become most valuable company [links to USAToday]
Google's Most Expensive Moonshot? Laying Internet Cables [links to Benton summary]
The Information: Google wants to take “Apple-like” control over Nexus devices [links to Ars Technica]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
US and Europe Fail to Meet Deadline for New Safe Harbor Pact
Tech Firms Are Unclear on New UK Surveillance Laws, Warns Government Committee
Op-Ed: The undoing of Germany's privacy dogma [links to Christian Science Monitor]
The Tragedy of Ethiopia's Internet
The Future of Cybersecurity Is Being Written in the Israeli Desert [links to Vice]
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ELECTIONS & MEDIA
HOW FACEBOOK TRACKS AND PROFITS FROM VOTERS IN A $10 BILLION US ELECTION
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Harry Davies, Danny Yadron]
Facebook, which told investors it was “excited about the targeting”, does not let candidates track individual users. But it does now allow presidential campaigns to upload their massive e-mail lists and voter files – which contain political habits, real names, home addresses and phone numbers – to the company’s advertising network. The company will then match real-life voters with their Facebook accounts, which follow individuals as they move across congressional districts and are filled with insightful data. The data is encrypted and not maintained by Facebook after ads run, the company said. Acxiom, a massive data broker based in Little Rock (AR) helps campaigns upload the voter info. But a campaign operative said Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) has been using Facebook ads to raise money, among other things, and a Guardian analysis shows Sen Cruz-affiliated donors are spending $10,000 per day on Facebook “placement” as the first vote nears. In Iowa, the Cruz campaign is using Facebook to target voters on a range of broad issues like immigration controls to niche specific causes such as abolishing state laws against the sale of fireworks. The Guardian understands the campaign has built a specific model for this relatively small group of voters, who may be responsive to Sen Cruz ads against big government, and in some cases is going out to find them individually. Political scientists, current campaign advisors and former digital gurus to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney agree: a Facebook ad is perhaps the best money to spend in what could be a nearly $10 billion election, and 2016 is fast becoming the year Facebook learned to profit from how you vote.
benton.org/headlines/how-facebook-tracks-and-profits-voters-10-billion-us-election | Guardian, The
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STATE OFFICIAL: CLINTON DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO ACCESS E-MAIL BY COMPUTER
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Julian Hattem]
Hillary Clinton did not know how to use a computer to read and send e-mails when she entered office as the nation's top diplomat in 2009. She only knew how to read her messages via BlackBerry, according to an official at the time. Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, told State Department official Lewis Lukens that there could be a “problem,” because Clinton “does not know how to use a computer to do e-mail — only [Blackberry],” he wrote in a 2009 e-mail released on Feb 1. “But I said [it] would not take much training to get her up to speed," he claimed. It’s unclear whether Clinton was ever trained to use a computer to access e-mails. However, the admission might bolster the argument that e-mails were not her main means of communication, despite the heavy focus on her use of a private e-mail account and server for official State business. Lukens’s message was contained within an e-mail chain in which the State Department tried to explore options for setting up a "standalone" computer in Clinton’s office which operated off of the State Department’s network.
benton.org/headlines/clinton-didnt-know-how-access-e-mail-computer-says-state-official | Hill, The
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
TECH FIRMS UNCLEAR ON NEW UK SURVEILLANCE LAWS
[SOURCE: Vice, AUTHOR: Joseph Cox]
The wording of the United Kingdom's proposed surveillance law is so vague that tech companies have little idea what data it would require them to store, a new government report has said. Companies are also concerned about the cost and feasibility of collecting such data, and are unclear on the law's position regarding encryption. “The Government must urgently review the legislation so that the obligations on the industry are clear and proportionate,” wrote Nicola Blackwood MP, chair of the Science and Technology Committee. The committee has been taking evidence from activists, academics, and tech companies around the draft Investigatory Powers Bill, a proposed piece of legislation that will force Internet service providers (ISPs) to store all customers' browsing history for 12 months, among other things. This data collection includes the creation of so-called Internet connection records, or ICRs. An ICR is, according to Home Secretary Theresa May, “a record of the communications service that a person has used, not a record of every web page they have accessed.” That could include information such as a record of when you visit a specific website or when you use WhatsApp on your phone. But members of the tech industry are not clear on what an ICR actually is, according to the Science and Technology Committee's report. “The Bill was intended to provide clarity to the industry, but the current draft contains very broad and ambiguous definitions of ICRs, which are confusing communications providers,” Blackwood's statement continues. There is also confusion around the tech industry's obligations around end-to-end encryption.
benton.org/headlines/tech-firms-are-unclear-new-uk-surveillance-laws-warns-government-committee | Vice
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DHS-SUPPORTED SCANS OF PRIVATE NETWORKS PROMPT SUSPICIONS OF DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Aliya Sternstein]
A new Department of Homeland Security-supported information security service that scans private sector networks could expand domestic surveillance, civil liberties groups say, citing documents associated with the activity. Under the "Enhanced Cybersecurity Services" program, DHS feeds government intelligence about network threats to approved Internet Service Providers so they can immunize corporate subscribers. The program, made available nationwide last June, is voluntary. Now, DHS has announced a new service under the program that ISPs can offer called "netflow analysis." A November 2015 privacy impact assessment of the added feature is short on details about what kind of customer information may be shared with the government, and critics have spotted loopholes that, they say, may allow the National Security Agency to spy on Internet users. Andy Ozment, assistant secretary for DHS cybersecurity and communications, said in a Jan. 26 blog post the new function will allow ISPs "to more effectively identify and analyze malicious activity transiting their customers’ networks.” The participating providers currently include AT&T, CenturyLink, Lockheed Martin and Verizon.
benton.org/headlines/dhs-supported-scans-private-networks-prompt-suspicions-domestic-surveillance | nextgov
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SECURITY/PRIVACY
US AND EUROPE FAIL TO MEET DEADLINE FOR NEW SAFE HARBOR PACT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Mark Scott]
American and European officials failed to reach an agreement over how digital data -- including financial information and social media posts — could be transferred between the two regions. Despite last-minute talks, the two sides remained far apart on specific details required to approve a comprehensive deal. Without an agreement, companies that regularly move data, including tech giants like Google and nontech companies like General Electric, could find themselves in murky legal waters. European and American officials had until Jan 31 to meet a deadline set by Europe’s national privacy agencies, some of which have promised aggressive legal action if the current negotiations founder. Those agencies will publish their own judgment on how data can be moved safely between the two regions on Feb 3. With time ticking down, the two sides are now hoping to agree to a broad deal before European national regulators act on Feb 3, according to several officials with direct knowledge of the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Still, negotiators said sticking points remained — including over how Europeans’ data would be protected from surveillance by the American government and how Europeans could seek legal remedies in American courts — and neither side could guarantee the final outcome.
benton.org/headlines/us-and-europe-fail-meet-deadline-new-safe-harbor-pact | New York Times | ars technica
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PRIVACY AT UC BERKELEY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Steve Lohr]
After hackers breached the computer network of the UCLA medical center last summer, Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California, and her office moved to shore up security across the university system’s 10 campuses. Under a program initiated by Napolitano, the former secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration, the university system began installing hardware and software in its data centers that would monitor patterns of digital traffic, like what websites are being visited by faculty and students, or telltale signs of cyber intruders. The program, which was begun with little notice or consultation, soon rankled a group of professors at one campus, Berkeley, which has a deep-seated ethos of academic freedom as the cradle of the free speech movement in the 1960s. In recent days, the professors have begun speaking out publicly about the issue. “My primary concern is monitoring the private information of students and faculty in secret,” said Eric Brewer, a professor of computer science at U.C. Berkeley. “I’m sure there’s good intent. But I can’t see a good reason for doing it.” The resistance from Brewer and other professors at Berkeley, which is now becoming a public debate with the university system’s administrators, raises the issue of how to define academic freedom in the age of online attacks. While some of the professors criticize the monitoring program as one that invades their privacy, the University of California has responded that “privacy perishes in the absence of security.”
benton.org/headlines/berkeley-new-digital-privacy-protest | New York Times
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US-BERKELEY STUDENTS SUE GOOGLE, ALLEGE E-MAILS WERE ILLEGALLY SCANNED
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Emma Brown]
Four students and alumni from the University of California-Berkeley have sued Google in federal court, alleging that the company — which runs the university’s e-mail accounts — illegally intercepted and scanned e-mails for advertising purposes without students’ knowledge or consent. Google’s Gmail service is a core feature of Google Apps for Education, which is provided for free to thousands of K-12 schools and universities and is used by more than 30 million students and teachers nationwide, according to the complaint. The lawsuit alleges that Google misled Berkeley and other institutions into believing that school e-mail accounts would not be subject to scanning for commercial purposes. The schools, in turn, assured their students and staff of their privacy. But, the complaint alleges, Google was scanning and analyzing e-mails to serve targeted advertisements to students until April 30, 2014, when the company announced via a blog post that it had “permanently removed all ads scanning” in its e-mail service for schools, “which means that Google cannot collect or use student data in Apps for Education services for advertising purposes.” That announcement amounted to a tacit acknowledgement that Google had been using information from student e-mails to target ads, according to the plaintiffs, who allege that Google violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. They are asking the court to force the company to delete any information derived from the scanned e-mails and pay damages. Under the law, the plaintiffs could collect up to $10,000 each, or $100 for each day that the law was broken, whichever is greater.
benton.org/headlines/uc-berkeley-students-sue-google-alleging-their-e-mails-were-illegally-scanned | Washington Post
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
REMARKS OF LAWRENCE STRICKLING AT SILICON FLATIRONS CONFERENCE
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration, AUTHOR: Lawrence Strickling]
National Telecommunications & Information Administration head Lawrence Strickling provided the keynote address at the Silicon Flatirons Conference on the Digital Broadband Migration in Boulder (CO). He used the opportunity to continue to promote the Obama Administration's $4 billion Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). Strickling called BTOP a "resounding success," citing the deployment of 115,000 miles of new or upgraded network, the connection of nearly 26,000 anchor institutions—including schools—and the addition of 670,000 new broadband subscribers. He also said he will team with the Federal Communications Commission to find the balance of the Administration's wireless spectrum goal by the end of 2016. Strickling made a point of praising EagleNet, the BTOP-funded program in Colorado that was criticized by cable operators for overbuilding and by others over environmental impacts. It was in the spotlight on Capitol Hill from Republicans, who used it to illustrate their issues with the BTOP subsidies. The Obama Administration in 2010 charged NTIA to work with the FCC to free up 500 MHz of additional spectrum for commercial use by 2020. They are about halfway there, Strickling said, adding that he and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler were committed to finding the rest by the end of 2016.
benton.org/headlines/remarks-lawrence-strickling-silicon-flatirons-conference | National Telecommunications and Information Administration | Broadcasting & Cable
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
THE TRAGEDY OF ETHIOPIA'S INTERNET
[SOURCE: Vice, AUTHOR: Justin Lynch]
Former American diplomats, current members of Ethiopia’s intelligence agency, and foreign policy experts all said that the Ethiopian government is afraid of dissident views spreading online, and has crafted its intelligence service, telecommunication sector, and legal codes to stamp out digital dissent. Perhaps the foremost victim of the country’s Internet crusade is young Nafkot Nega, who believes his father is a terrorist because he’s a journalist. The prohibitive factors that cause Ethiopia’s digital divide are straightforward. The monopoly on Internet access has made it prohibitively expensive for many citizens to get online. Routine service outages make connections unreliable. And for those Ethiopians who do manage to access the Internet, there is little content available in the local language of Amharic. Whether these barriers to Internet access are the intended result of a system designed to limit the spread of information, or the unintentional byproduct of a monopolistic cash cow is about as murky as the country’s dealings in cyber-espionage. “Ethiopia wants to maintain as much control as possible over the Internet so that it can prevent internal comments that are critical of government policies and minimize access to critical comments originating outside Ethiopia,” said David Shinn, the former American ambassador to Ethiopia. A member of the Information Network Security Agency, one of Ethiopia’s intelligence agencies, also said that the monopoly purposefully limited Internet access to preserve security in the country.
benton.org/headlines/tragedy-ethiopias-internet | Vice
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