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[Commentary] Because of the way the Internet is designed and the poor general state of computer security, it is extremely difficult to pinpoint an attack's origin. Attackers are far ahead of our ability to track them. One good way to discourage cyber mayhem is ensuring that anyone who perpetrates it suffers consequences, so being able to place blame properly is important. But that's not so easy. Part of the problem is the very nature of the Internet, which was designed to allow any user to easily reach out and touch any other user. But that touch can be a caress or a punch. Most machines on the Internet are susceptible to attack from the outside, and when it happens, there are usually few fingerprints to identify the source. A complete solution is likely to be beyond our technical capabilities at this point, and the "fingerprint" problem makes it difficult to establish treaties mandating proper behavior in cyber warfare. But we should nevertheless seek ways of establishing better cooperation between nations, including protocols for handling known compromised machines.
[Reiher is an adjunct professor of computer science at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science]
Insecurity in cyberspace
About 90 percent of Americans pay for television, giving them scores of channels to choose from, but four free-to-air networks they can pick up with a “rabbit ears” aerial still account for 96 of the top 100 primetime programs. Audience inertia and brand loyalty built over decades mean that ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC still account for 40 percent of all primetime viewing. Their unique ability to attract mass audiences, particularly for live sport, has kept TV advertising healthy even as advertising dollars fled other media for Google and Facebook.
Broadcasters once offered signals to cable, satellite and telecoms groups for free, in exchange for perks such as prominent positions in their onscreen channel listings. In the past five years, however, their business has been transformed as they discovered they had the power to demand that distributors pay to retransmit their programming. This has created a second revenue stream of “retrans” fees worth more than $2 billion a year, which could jump to $12 billion, says Rich Greenfield, a BTIG Research analyst. “It’s a good gig if you can get it,” Verizon’s Lowell McAdam remarked this week. Yet three of America’s biggest broadcasters said they might give that gig up. The broadcasters claim Aereo violates copyright by rebroadcasting signals without consent. Aereo claims it has simply invented a more convenient form of rabbit ears, and says having a TV aerial is every American’s right. Behind the posturing, the legal dispute hinges on whether Aereo’s streaming counts as a public or private performance of copyrighted content. Two New York courts have sided with Aereo, but further legal battles lie ahead – possibly all the way to the Supreme Court. A courtroom loss would sink Aereo.
Television set for a revolution
Ad Control is an app that gives consumers a way to opt out of cross-app advertising.
Developed by Evidon, the app is now available in the Apple App Store. An Android version will be available later this month. When the Digital Advertising Alliance announces in two weeks its mobile privacy standards, Evidon's app will allow for compliance. The DAA rolled out its ad choices program two years ago in response to growing concerns at the Federal Trade Commission and in the government that consumers needed to be given a choice to opt out of behaviorally targeted ads. Though regulators seem satisfied that the industry is working to protect consumer privacy online through self-regulation, they've been pressing for a mobile solution, which the industry has been promising to deliver for more than a year.
Want to Opt Out of Targeted Mobile Ads? There's an App for That
The Postal Service backed away from its plan to stop Saturday mail delivery, criticizing Congress for taking the cost-cutting proposal off the table.
The Postal Service’s Board of Governors said it came to the decision in response to a measure passed by Congress in March requiring it to continue delivering mail six days a week. “The board believes that Congress has left it with no choice but to delay this implementation at this time,” the Postal Service said. Congress included the requirement in legislation it passed to keep the government financed through September. It was the latest salvo in the power struggle between the Postal Service and lawmakers over solving the agency’s financial woes. The board called on Congress to allow the Postal Service to make its own decisions about the future of the agency. “It is not possible for the Postal Service to meet significant cost reduction goals without changing its delivery schedule — any rational analysis of our current financial condition and business options leads to this conclusion,” it said.
Postal Service Halts Push to End Delivery of Mail on Saturdays Plan to End Saturday Mail Delivery Delayed (WSJ)
The House Intelligence Committee passed a controversial cybersecurity bill on an 18-2 vote.
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, known as CISPA, is expected to be voted on in the House next week with a set of other cybersecurity-focused bills. House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), the authors of the bill, expressed optimism that the markup vote signaled they have enough momentum to pass CISPA through the House, as it did last year. A set of six amendments backed by Reps Rogers and Ruppersberger were incorporated into the bill during the markup. Among the approved changes, the bill would require the government to strip personal information from the cyber threat data they receive from companies. The Intelligence panel also agreed to strike a provision from the bill that would allow the government to broadly use the information for "national security purposes.' Many of the amendments were aimed at allaying the concerns of privacy groups and the White House. So far, the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Democracy and Technology and other privacy advocates are not won over by the changes. The panel also approved language stating that the bill would not allow companies to "hack back" against other entities that have stolen trade secrets or other proprietary information from them.
Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) both voted against the bill during the markup. Amendments offered by the two lawmakers, which were backed by privacy groups, were not agreed to.
Cybersecurity bill advances in House
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) plans to offer three privacy-focused amendments during the House Intelligence Committee's markup of a controversial cybersecurity bill.
The amendments are aimed at incorporating additional privacy safeguards in the measure so people's personal information and electronic communications are kept out of the military's hands when companies relay cyber threat data to federal agencies and departments. These proposed changes touch on concerns privacy and civil liberties groups have raised with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). One of Schakowsky's amendments would ensure that companies can only report information about cyber threats to civilian agencies, so the military would be barred from handling that data first. This tackles one of the top concerns privacy advocates have raised with the bill. One of Schakowsky's other amendments would narrow the liability protection that companies receive in the bill and would let consumers or other injured parties take legal action against businesses. Schakowsky's final amendment would require the president to designate a person within the government to establish policies that govern how it retains, uses and stores personal information it receives.
Rep Schakowsky to offer set of amendments to cyber intelligence-sharing bill
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) is urging the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require companies to reveal more information about their ability to defend against attacks on their computer systems.
In a letter sent to recently confirmed SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White, Sen Rockefeller said the agency should issue commission-level guidance to companies on their obligation to disclose cybersecurity information. He argued that investors have a right to know about cyberattacks and the steps companies are taking to protect themselves. "While the staff guidance has had a positive impact on the information available to investors on these matters, the disclosures are generally still insufficient for investors to discern the true costs and benefits of companies' cybersecurity practices," Sen Rockefeller wrote. He pointed to reports that hackers are targeting critical infrastructure systems, such as oil and gas companies, and stealing valuable intellectual property. "This threat to our country's economic and national security, and to companies' bottom line, is real and it is growing," Sen Rockefeller wrote.
Sen Rockefeller asks SEC to step up cybersecurity disclosures Rockefeller Says SEC Should Bolster Cybersecurity Guidance (Press release)
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced the SECURE IT Act which would "allow the government and the private sector to address cyber threat information in a more transparent fashion; reform how our government manages its own information systems; create new deterrents for cyber criminals; prioritize research and development for cybersecurity initiatives; and streamline consumers' ability to be notified when they are at risk of identity theft or financial harm."
A Balckburn spokesman said the bill was a complement to CISPA. "There is no single bullet solution to cyber security," he said. Rep Blackburn said SECURE IT was a "conservative, incentive-based framework that opens up collaboration between the government and the private sector while also providing safeguards to citizens when their sensitive data is compromised."
Rep Blackburn Introduces SECURE IT Act
The House Communications Subcommittee began its two-day markup of a bill that would make U.S. support of a multistakeholder model of Internet governance the law of the land, rather than just the sense of the Congress, but lacking the unanimous support that was given last session's bipartisan resolution.
Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) has no problem with turning resolution language into law, while the ranking Democrats on the full committee and subcommittee say there would be unintended consequences to the language which they hope to fix with amendments to the bill.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who said he could not support the bill, said that he was concerned that the bill was a back-door attempt to undermine the Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality rules and ability to manage the IP transition. He also said bill proponents refused to include a "savings" clause in the bill that would make clear the FCC's authority was preserved.
Ranking Subcommittee Member Anna Eshoo (D-CA) said that she could not support the bill as currently drafted for that reason. "[I]t is with deep disappointment that I have to express my opposition to the legislation being considered before the Subcommittee today," Rep Eshoo said. She did not suggest the bill could not be fixed, and in fact will propose specific amendments to tweak it in the hopes that it, too, could be bipartisan. But she has several problems with the "government control" language. "Last Congress, our bipartisan work together resulted in the unanimous passage of a Sense of Congress aimed prospectively at the WCIT conference in Dubai," she said. That resolution, she added, "demonstrated our unwavering support for the Internet's multi-stakeholder model and avoided any complications that could develop as a result of placing a formal Policy Statement in statute." She says a number of agencies -- the FCC, State Department, NTIA and the Department of Justice -- have expressed concern that a policy statement turned into statute "could unintentionally impact ongoing or future agency litigation, or undermine Administration flexibility in conducting foreign policy.
Internet Governance Bill Draws Fire From Democrats
[Commentary] The House Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology is marking up of the so-called “Internet Freedom Bill.” We’re still on about that whole “the ITU will take control of the Internet and black helicopters will come for our servers” thing. Unfortunately, as keeps happening with this, it looks like some folks want to hijack what should be a show of unity to promote their own partisan domestic agenda. Specifically, does the bill as worded undercut (by accident or design) the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) authority to do things like Network Neutrality?
The concern arises from the very broad language of the proposed bill that “It is the policy of the United States to promote a global Internet free from government control.” The argument being that (a) unlike the almost identical non-binding almost identical to the [non-binding resolution] Congress passed last fall before the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), making this an actual law will apply to domestic policy and not just foreign policy; and (b) net neutrality constitutes “government control” of the Internet; (c) making this law transformed it from a non-binding ‘sense of Congress’ to not merely binding, but retroactively repealing any contrary statute or regulation by implication; so that, (d) the statute would affect an implied repeal of the FCC’s rules (and presumably any other regulation relating to the Internet).
Will Walden Wipe Out DMCA Just To Hack At Net Neutrality? Make My Day!