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November 2016

Investigating Donald Trump, FBI Sees No Clear Link to Russia

For much of the summer, the FBI pursued a widening investigation into a Russian role in the American presidential campaign. Agents scrutinized advisers close to Donald Trump, looked for financial connections with Russian financial figures, searched for those involved in hacking the computers of Democrats, and even chased a lead — which they ultimately came to doubt — about a possible secret channel of email communication from the Trump Organization to a Russian bank. Law enforcement officials say that none of the investigations so far have found any conclusive or direct link between Trump and the Russian government.

And even the hacking into Democratic emails, F.B.I. and intelligence officials now believe, was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Trump. The FBI’s inquiries into Russia’s possible role continue. Intelligence officials have said in interviews over the last six weeks that apparent connections between some of Trump’s aides and Moscow originally compelled them to open a broad investigation into possible links between the Russian government and the Republican presidential candidate. Still, they have said that Trump himself has not become a target. And no evidence has emerged that would link him or anyone else in his business or political circle directly to Russia’s election operations.

Protecting the internet's purpose

[Commentary] To digital natives, the internet is a given. “There was a time when people felt the internet was another world,” noted Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, “but now people realize it’s a tool that we use in this world.” It’s helpful to think of the internet as earlier generations thought of automobiles and airplanes. In the first half of the 20th century, those were exciting if iffy technologies – unregulated, unreliable, and unsafe. Year after year, users demanded, and business and government provided, better quality and safety. Digital technology is on a similar curve. It is heartening that young hackers are uncovering internet vulnerabilities. It would be even better if they were to use their talents not just to make the Xbox and Minecraft more secure but to protect the internet’s original purpose: to connect people and ideas, to make all knowledge freely available.

Level 3 brings the global internet to CenturyLink

During the first dotcom boom, CenturyLink was a barely considered long-distance telephone company serving about 2 million customers in the deep south of America. A little more than a decade later, the company stands to be transformed through the acquisition of Level 3 — a former darling of that tech boom and now one of the largest global internet providers critical to data-intensive businesses such as Netflix and Google. CenturyLink has grown rapidly in recent years to become the third-largest fixed-line telecoms player in the US behind AT&T and Verizon, as well as a major competitor in the market selling telecoms services to companies. But the acquisition of Level 3 will give the group global significance for the first time, propelling it above Verizon in the US enterprise market and greatly expanding its internet services business as data use rapidly increases.

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