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For all the fuss over Americans dropping their cable subscriptions in favor of Internet video, another type of cord cutting appears to be more common. Hundreds of thousands of Americans canceled their home Internet service last year, surveys suggest, taking advantage of the proliferation of Wi-Fi hot spots and fast new wireless networks that have made Web connections on smartphones and tablets ubiquitous.
Last year around 1% of U.S. households stopped paying for home Internet subscriptions and relied on wireless access instead, according to consumer surveys by Leichtman Research Group Inc. Just 0.4% of households in the last year canceled their pay-television subscriptions in favor of getting video entertainment over the Internet via services such as Hulu or Netflix. Dropping home Internet service isn't a great deal for heavy Internet users, however. While smartphones are fine for email and social networking, wireless data plans can be expensive and easily drained by even a single streamed high-definition movie. Free Wi-Fi is more widely available than ever, but cutting the Internet cord means users have to rely on cellular access at home. Still, frustrated by rising cable and Internet bills, some subscribers are testing whether their smartphones and free Wi-Fi might be good enough. Others, unable to afford both services, are having to make do without easy access to streaming video for entertainment and education, underscoring the persistent differences in how people of various economic levels go online.
Cord Cutters Lop Off Internet Service More Than TV
In the US Supreme Court’s 1964 landmark ruling on obscenity, Justice Potter Stewart famously refused to define pornography. “But I know it when I see it,” he wrote. Half a century later, social media networks are the new arbiter of what is offensive and what is free speech.
Facilitating free speech while controlling offensive content has become a controversial test and technological challenge for social networks such as Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, particularly as they work to create an environment that is appealing to advertisers and other commercial partners. Other internet companies such as Google and Yahoo have been able to build algorithms to control what kind of content appears next to certain kinds of ads. Google, for example, can ensure that ads for real estate do not appear next to search results about forest fires destroying homes. This practice, rooted in traditional newspaper or television advertising, prevents airline ads being shown in the context of news stories or television plots about aircraft crashes. But content on social networks is created by users and is constantly changing. If networks censor the content too much, they lose the trust and prodigious posting of their users. If they do not police enough, they offend other users and scare off advertisers.
Social networks face free-speech tests
Cybersecurity experts say billions of dollars made from child pornography and illicit sales of things like national secrets and drugs are being moved through anonymous Internet payment systems like Liberty Reserve, the currency exchange whose operators were indicted for laundering $6 billion.
Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, described it as the largest online money-laundering case in history. Liberty Reserve was shut down, but cybersecurity experts said it was just one among hundreds of anonymous Internet payment systems. They said online systems like the Moscow-based WebMoney, Perfect Money, based in Panama, and CashU, which serves the Middle East and North Africa, require little more than a valid e-mail address to initiate an account. The names and locations of the actual users are unknown and can be easily fabricated. And they worry that the no-questions-asked verification system has created a safe harbor for illicit activity.
Anonymous Payment Schemes Thriving on Web
[Commentary] What makes the US-China cyberespionage dispute unique is that the two countries are playing a game – spy vs. spy – that is accepted in international relations, but they are playing it by different rules. The US government views espionage as a national security activity, not as a tool for furthering the economic well-being of US companies. In contrast, China views the well-being of its companies as being directly tied to the security interests of the nation. In their minds, drawing a line between espionage focused on stealing state secrets and espionage focused on stealing corporate secrets is arbitrary.
If the US wishes to stop Chinese economic cyberespionage, it will need to increase the costs and reduce the benefits of such activities. That will cause China and other competitors to rethink whether such activities are worth it. Government actions are important, but the key players in this game sit in the private sector. A true public-private partnership is needed. There are several policy levers that the US government can use to achieve those goals, though changing China’s fundamental views through government actions alone will be difficult. A more powerful option is for the US government to help industry lower the value that China gains from its activities.
This can be done in three ways.
- First, the US government must provide companies with actionable intelligence that they can use to protect their networks.
- Second, government agencies must incentivize companies to take actions that improve their cybersecurity.
- Third, the US government needs to clarify the legal framework that delineates what kinds of “active defenses” are permissible under different circumstances.
How Obama should work with business to combat China cyberspying
Google’s standing recommendation is that companies should fix critical vulnerabilities within 60 days -- or, if a fix is not possible, they should notify the public about the risk and offer workarounds.
We encourage researchers to publish their findings if reported issues will take longer to patch. Based on our experience, however, we believe that more urgent action -- within 7 days -- is appropriate for critical vulnerabilities under active exploitation. The reason for this special designation is that each day an actively exploited vulnerability remains undisclosed to the public and unpatched, more computers will be compromised. Seven days is an aggressive timeline and may be too short for some vendors to update their products, but it should be enough time to publish advice about possible mitigations, such as temporarily disabling a service, restricting access, or contacting the vendor for more information. As a result, after 7 days have elapsed without a patch or advisory, we will support researchers making details available so that users can take steps to protect themselves. By holding ourselves to the same standard, we hope to improve both the state of web security and the coordination of vulnerability management.
Disclosure timeline for vulnerabilities under active attack
Coursera, the California company that offers free college classes online, is forming partnerships with 10 large public university systems and public flagship universities to create courses that students can take for credit, either fully online or with classroom sessions.
The move could open online classes to 1.25 million students at public institutions across the United States, and could help increase graduation rates by making introductory and required classes — often a bottleneck because of high demand — more widely available. Joining Coursera will be the State University of New York system, the Tennessee Board of Regents and the University of Tennessee systems, the University of Colorado system, the University of Houston system, the University of Kentucky, the University of Nebraska, the University of New Mexico, the University System of Georgia and West Virginia University. Some systems plan to blend online materials with faculty-led classroom sessions. Others will offer credit to students who take the courses online followed by a proctored exam on campus.
Universities Team With Online Course Provider Web Courses Woo Professors (WSJ) Mountain View's Coursera strikes huge online-education deal with state university systems (AP)
Earlier this month, Aereo sued various CBS stations over its expansion plans and cited comments from CBS executives as evidence of a controversy that needed resolution. Aereo sought a declaration on the legality of its system of capturing television signals for enjoyment on subscribers' digital devices.
On May 28, the broadcasters filed a response. The defendants blast Aereo's "gamemanship," and declaring no actual controversy.... yet ... they explain away CBS executive comments and push a New York judge to dismiss Aereo's complaint as improper forum shopping on "future activities." CBS defendants say they know why Aereo would prefer to make the case in New York. "Aereo clearly fears that circuits outside the Second Circuit, which are not bound by the Cablevision and Aereo decisions, will follow the lead of Judge Wu, and asks this Court to prevent that from happening," says the CBS broadcasters in their memorandum. The CBS defendants say that Aereo can't simply race to the courthouse for a declaratory judgment to gain a procedural advantage. If Aereo is to be sued, Aereo shall have the pleasure of being sued. Or as the defendants put it, "If the threat of litigation is as imminent as Aereo claims, it will have every opportunity to defend its actions if and when it launches in other cities and if it is sued in those jurisdictions."
CBS Asks New York Court to Dismiss Aereo's Lawsuit
Google is preparing an attack on Apple’s iPhone with a device that is more aware of its surroundings and smart enough to anticipate how it will be used next, according to the head of the internet company’s Motorola subsidiary.
The gadget, called the Moto X, will be made in the US and will be part of a campaign to drive down the cost of smartphones and end the high profit margins companies such as Apple have enjoyed, said Dennis Woodside, the Google executive installed to run Motorola after it was acquired in late 2011. Sensors inside the device, such as a gyroscope and accelerometer, will be constantly powered up so the phone will know whether it’s in a car travelling at 60mph or being taken out of a user’s pocket, he said. Based on that, it will try to anticipate what a user is likely to want it for, for instance enabling it to open a camera app in advance to take a picture. Woodside hinted that the new handset would go on sale later this year and be priced well below the iPhone 5, adding that the sort of steep price declines seen in consumer electronics from personal computers to televisions were overdue in the smartphone market.
Google to challenge iPhone with Moto X Motorola to launch first made-in-the-USA smartphone (AP)
The European telecoms sector is falling far behind the US in next-generation wireless services after years of investment shortfall, a development likely to hamper the continent’s competitiveness for years to come.
From roughly the same level of spending in 2007, investment in the wireless industry in the US has increased by more than two-thirds in the past five years, while comparable expenditure has decreased slightly overall across Europe, according to a scathing new report by GSMA, the mobile industry body. The difference in spending began growing at a time when new superfast 4G mobile data technologies became available, such that about a fifth of US mobile connections are expected to be using mobile broadband over 4G, or LTE, networks by the end of this year, compared with just 2 per cent in Europe. Tom Philips, head of government and public affairs at the GSMA, which produced the report with Navigant Economics, the consultancy, described the report’s findings as shocking for the European sector. “The [investment] gap looks like it is getting worse, not better. Europe is so regulated that it cannot afford to invest. Everything in Europe is subscale,” said Philips.
Europe trails US in next-generation wireless New GSMA Report Highlights Widening Gap Between European And United States Mobile Markets (GSMA press release) GMSA (read the report) Europe Is Losing the 4G Race (Wall Street Journal)
Europe is in trouble. The Eurozone crisis, which is far from over, has laid bare the economic and even social divisions between north and south. Polling shows internal support for the EU is at an all-time low of just 41 percent. The European project needs a boost. Might lower mobile roaming charges and a net neutrality guarantee help save the day? It may sound absurd, but that is indeed the gist of a major speech given by Neelie Kroes, the EU’s digital chief. And Kroes wants to move fast: her team tells me the plan is for official proposals to be published “by September at the latest” before seeking approval from member states by October and the European Parliament by December. If successful, the proposals would be law by Easter next year.
Can mobile roaming and network neutrality reform help save Europe?