August 2017

Apple is breaking its silence on network neutrality, urging the Trump administration to preserve strong rules that prevent the likes of AT&T, Charter, Comcast and Verizon from blocking or interfering with web traffic. In its new comments to the Federal Communications Commission, the iPhone maker specifically urged FCC Chairman Ajit Pai not to roll back an existing ban against so-called “fast lanes,” which might allow broadband providers someday to charge for faster delivery of tech companies’ movies, music or other content. Apple doesn’t take an explicit position on the Title II legal issue at hand. Instead, Apple only shares its more general views about the need for net neutrality safeguards.

“Broadband providers should not block, throttle, or otherwise discriminate against lawful websites and services,” Apple said . “Far from new, this has been a foundational principle of the FCC’s approach to net neutrality for over a decade. Providers of online goods and services need assurance that they will be able to reliably reach their customers without interference from the underlying broadband provider.”

President Donald Trump promised big changes on cybersecurity after his election. During the Obama administration, the nation’s cybersecurity was “run by people that don’t know what they’re doing,” the president said during a post-election press conference. The Trump administration, he promised, would gather “some of the greatest computer minds anywhere in the world” and “put those minds together … to form a defense.” Seven months into the president’s administration, however, analysts are wondering what’s so different.

On most major cybersecurity issues, such as securing federal networks and critical infrastructure, Trump officials are in near lockstep with their Obama-era predecessors. Where they differ, there’s no clear Trump cybersecurity doctrine to explain the divergence. “It’s schizophrenic,” said Peter Singer, a cyber theorist and senior fellow at the New America Foundation. “That may be because of the absence of a strategy or it may be because the chaotic execution of that strategy undermines it.”