Benton RSS Feed

The robots are watching us.

They’re announcing to the world that we just looked at Eames chairs on Pinterest and that we’ve listened to Taylor Swift and Conway Twitty on Spotify. They’re sending us ads labeled “Being Conservative in South Carolina” simply because we checked our e-mail in Charleston. They’re broadcasting the fact that we just read an article called “How to Satisfy Your Partner in Bed.” They’re trumpeting — with an undue amount of enthusiasm — that we just scored 6 points on Words With Friends for making the word “cat.” When Facebook bought Instagram, the social photo app for iPhone and Android devices, on April 9, a chorus of concern emanated from the Twittersphere: Facebook would have access to Instagram users’ uploaded photos. Would that photo of Aunt Letty in her bathing suit suddenly show up in an ad for embolism stockings? Granted, some of these invasions of privacy are the result of our not having correctly wrangled an app’s privacy control settings. But when did privacy become a choice rather than a given? And why does slogging through a new app’s voluminous terms of service or figuring out how to activate a site’s privacy control settings sometimes feel as if it requires a graduate degree in tiny print? Yes, the Obama administration has rallied for a privacy bill of rights that would give consumers more control over the online data that is collected about them, and many people in the tech industries support a do-not-track mechanism that would let users opt out of having some, but not all, companies keep data about our online activities. But the slightly creepy, Big Brother-like invasions of our privacy continue apace. You can’t sunbathe nude in this backyard without constantly looking over your shoulder.

[Commentary] The United States is vulnerable to cyberattacks by unfriendly nations and nonstate actors. Attacks through the Internet are now stealing billions of dollars of intellectual property from American businesses. Internet attacks can also bring down such critical infrastructure as the electricity supply, the air-traffic system and the stock market. Congress can and should act to protect us from this widespread and increasing danger.

While ordinary manufacturing and service companies that are not part of the critical infrastructure should decide for themselves how much they want to spend to protect their computer systems, we all have a stake in protecting the critical infrastructure. A failure of the electric grid or the stock market computers or the railroads would hurt us all. The infrastructure companies should be required to meet a high standard of protection and to cooperate with government agencies in preventing incoming malware. But the cost of doing that should be born by the country as a whole, just as we pay for the military or other public goods like the weather service. If necessary, funds should be diverted to cyberdefense from other areas of the military budget. Protecting the nation from cyberattacks that steal technology and that can disrupt our daily lives should be at the top of the government's agenda.

Though television may be losing viewers to online video, it has been holding on to advertisers. But with online-video outlets this week making their most organized push yet for ad dollars, that may be starting to change.

Early expectations are that TV networks will win an increase in total ad commitments for the fall season in the coming weeks of negotiations with advertisers known as the upfront. Yet, some big marketers, including General Motors Co. and Samsung Electronic Co.'s mobile arm, say they are planning to shift some of their TV budgets to the Web. "Online-video sites are becoming a legitimate alternative to cable and network TV options for reaching consumers," said Craig Atkinson, chief digital officer of PHD, a media-buying unit of Omnicom Group Inc. Even so, TV is expected to attract a little more money from advertisers than last year.

A US-based Web site that has aggressively covered China’s biggest political scandal in decades was the victim of a disruptive attack that was accompanied by threats to the service that registers its domain name, the site’s manager said.

The site was rendered inaccessible for much of April 19, depriving readers of coverage of the latest developments in the downfall of Chinese Communist Party official Bo Xilai, said Watson Meng, 47, who runs the Chinese-language site from Durham (NC). Chinese viewers are able to gain access through proxy servers that get them around China’s Internet firewall, which the government uses to block certain content. Meng said he believes some element of the government ordered the disruption, but said he has no forensic proof. The site, Boxun, has been targeted previously while publishing material considered sensitive by the Chinese government.