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September 2016

Commissioner Rosenworcel: “Something’s not right” with Wi-Fi at debate

One of the members of the Federal Communications Commission, Jessica Rosenworcel, has asked the agency to investigate the ban on journalists’ Wi-Fi personal hotspots at the presidential debate held at Hofstra University. The host venue demanded that journalists pay $200 to access the event’s Wi-Fi and were told to shut down their own hotspots or leave the debate. At least one photo showed a handheld device that was being used to scan for and locate “rogue” Wi-Fi networks.

"My office has asked the @FCC Enforcement Bureau to investigate, figure out what happened," Commissioner Rosenworcel tweeted. "Something not right with #WiFi situation at @HofstraU last night." Karla Schuster, a spokeswoman for Hofstra University, said, "The Commission on Presidential Debates sets the criteria for services and requires that a completely separate network from the University’s network be built to support the media and journalists. This is necessary due to the volume of Wi-Fi activity and the need to avoid interference. The Rate Card fee of $200 for Wi-Fi access is to help defray the costs and the charge for the service does not cover the cost of the buildout. For Wi-Fi to perform optimally the system must be tuned with each access point and antenna. When other Wi-Fi access points are placed within the environment the result is poorer service for all. To avoid unauthorized access points that could interfere, anyone who has a device that emits RF frequency must register the device. Whenever a RF-emitting device was located, the technician notified the individual to visit the RF desk located in the Hall. The CPD RF engineer would determine if the device could broadcast without interference."

Government ‘hacking’ and the Playpen search warrant

[Commentary] In recent months, over a dozen district courts have handed down divided opinions on the legality of a single search warrant that was used to search the computers of many visitors to a child pornography website. The warrant raises interesting legal issues, although I think the significant issues are mostly not the ones that have received the most media attention. Many of these cases are headed to various courts of appeal, so I thought I would present an overview of the investigation and discuss some of the legal issues raised by the warrant.
[Orin Kerr is the Fred C. Stevenson Research Professor at The George Washington University Law School, where he has taught since 2001. ]

Benton Editorial

Innovators in Digital Inclusion

Innovators in Digital Inclusion

Private Solutions to Broadband Adoption: An Economic Analysis

Building and maintaining broadband networks is a tremendously expensive endeavor and even where networks are built they provide less benefit if vast swaths of the earth’s population does not see any value in using them. Research indicates that awareness, digital literacy, and affordability are the key barriers to adoption. A successful program, whether implemented by the public or private sectors, must expose nonusers to the benefits of being on-line and do so at low prices (or even free). While some governments have attempted to spur deployment and adoption, the public sector operates with limited resources.

Using subscriptions from the Lifeline program in the United States, we find that the use of the subsidy program rises with increases in unemployment and poverty. We suspect that private programs such as Facebook’s Free Basics may even be more effective than public programs, since the private programs are not influenced by political concerns and are available through participating operators to everyone for free without eligibility criteria.

Next Presidential Debate Will Include Internet Input

The Open Debate Coalition said that ABC and CNN have agreed to consider the top questions submitted to its PresidentialOpenQuestions.com for the Oct 9 presidential town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis (MO), the second of three scheduled presidential debates. ABC's Martha Raddatz and CNN's Anderson Cooper are co-moderating the town hall. The coalition said that the agreement came after discussions with ABC and CNN debate producers. The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) is requiring moderators to ask questions based on input from the Internet.

"The commission was watching closely as the Open Debate Coalition tested out their innovative bottom-up question submission and voting platform in the primaries this year, and we were impressed with the results,” said Mike McCurry, co-chair of the CPD. “2016's presidential debate moderators will have a rich pool of voter-submitted questions they can draw on that carry greater weight because they are backed by votes from the American people." The CPD is also teaming with Twitter to boost social media involvement around the debates. Coalition members include Americans for Tax Reform, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, FreedomWorks, NARAL, the National Organization for Women, Color Of Change, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

Dear readers: Please stop calling us ‘the media.’ There is no such thing.

I’m writing because I have a request: Please stop calling us “the media.” Yes, in some sense, we are the media. But not in the blunt way you use the phrase. It’s so imprecise and generic that it has lost any meaning. It’s — how would you put this? — lazy and unfair. As I understand your use of this term, “the media” is essentially shorthand for anything you read, saw or heard today that you disagreed with or didn’t like. At any given moment, “the media” is biased against your candidate, your issue, your very way of life. But, you know, the media isn’t really doing that. Some article, some news report, some guy spouting off on a CNN panel or at CrankyCrackpot.com might be. But none of those things singularly are really the media. Fact is, there really is no such thing as “the media.” It’s an invention, a tool, an all-purpose smear by people who can’t be bothered to make distinctions.

Next big thing: The 'uberfication' of crowdsourced news

Get ready to hear a lot about the “uberfication” of user-generated content. Yes, it’s a mouthful. But it’s also the next big thing. Fresco News, a two-year-old New York start-up, sees itself becoming a hot property as it cracks the code on local amateur content generation. I first wrote about Fresco [“The Uberfication of news”] as Tronc impresario (and chairman) Michael Ferro sought to buy the company in July, amid a frenzy of efforts to find lots of cheap-to-produce content to Tronc, the websites of the newspapers owned by the company formerly known as Tribune Publishing. Tronc’s effort to buy Fresco seems unlikely to succeed, as this hot company – several sources tell me – finds itself well-courted by more stable buyers. Both 21st Century Fox and AOL have shown buying interest as well as Tronc, confidential sources say.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see even greater interest given the priority many news companies, both legacy and start-up, have been lately giving to ad-friendly, video-delivered news. Still, it appears more likely that Fresco will remain an independent company, at least for now. Simply, Fresco News now enables local TV stations to assign, receive and quickly get on air and online lots of amateur-shot newsy videos in their metro area. Its secret sauce: Uberizing the supply chain process from station assignment to Fresco “qualified” shooter to shooting smartphone video to uploading and optimizing its quality for quick delivery to consumers, online or on the air.

Democratic Sens Slam Yahoo CEO Over Delay in Acknowledging Hack

Six Democratic Senators are blasting Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, saying the delay in reporting a high-profile security breach is "unacceptable." “We are even more disturbed that user information was first compromised in 2014, yet the company only announced the breach last week,” Sens Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Al Franken (D-MN), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Edward J. Markey (D-MA) wrote in a letter to Mayer on Sept 27. “This is unacceptable,” they added.

Yahoo last week acknowledged that 500 million accounts were compromised. The Sens have six questions for Mayer, including when Yahoo first learned of the compromise, how many users were affected, what protections Yahoo is offering to them and what steps Yahoo is taking to prevent such breaches in the future. The senators also want to know if the U.S. government had warned Yahoo of a possible state-sponsored hack.

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