Category Archives: Government

Pathetic NTIA Broadband Report: Inflated ZIP Codes and BPL

bpl.gif U.S. Commerce Secretary hails “dramatic growth of broadband” in the U.S., citing a report from National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). That report not only uses the U.S. tinyband definition of 256Kbps as “broadband”, it still uses ancient metrics such as this:
By December 2006, 91.5 percent of ZIP codes had three or more competing service providers and more than 50 percent of the nation’s ZIP codes had six or more competitors.

— Gutierrez Hails Dramatic U.S. Broadband Growth, Government Technology, Feb 1, 2008, News Report

So any provider that has service available to at least one user in a ZIP code is counted as a “competitor”.

Meanwhile, the ARRL says the NTIA report inflates broadband over powerline (BPL) figures: Continue reading →

Shades of NSFNet: EDUCAUSE Proposes 100Mbps Nationwide Broadband

fibre.gif Shades of NSF:
EDUCAUSE, the association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology, today proposed bringing the federal government, state governments, and the private sector together as part of a new approach to making high-speed Internet services available across the country.

The group, whose membership includes information technology officials from more than 2,200 colleges, universities, and other educational organizations, said that a new “universal broadband fund” would be necessary so that “Big Broadband” — services of 100 mbps — could be made widely available.

— EDUCAUSE Proposes New Approach to Broadband Development, Wendy Wigen, Peter B. Deblois, EDUCAUSE, 29 Jan 2008

Back in the 1980s, in the time of standalone dialup Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes), the National Science Foundation (NSF) deployed a nationwide backbone network called NSFNet that eventually ran at the blazing fast for the times speed of 1.55Mbps. NSF also promoted development of NSFNet regional networks, many of which eventually figured in the commercialization of Internet that took off in 1991 when former dialup network UUNET started selling Internet connectivity and former personnel of an NSFNet regional formed PSINet and also started selling Internet connectivity.

Nowadays, when the fastest most people can get as so-called broadband is 1-3Mbps DSL from telcos or maybe 3-5Mbps from cablecos, maybe it’s time to do it again. Is this a plan that would work? Continue reading →

Policing Cyberspace: any e-mail, file transfer, or Web search

022807-mcconnell-200.jpg A few days ago I remarked that potential loss of liability protection probably wouldn’t stop the telcos from filtering all Internet traffic because they’d get immunity, possibly in the FISA legislation currently being debated in the Senate. A few days later, the New Yorker revealed that the White House indeed has a plan for that:
“The real question is what to do about industry,” McConnell told me. “Ninety-five per cent of this is a private-sector problem.” He claimed that cyber-theft accounted for as much as a hundred billion dollars in annual losses to the American economy. “The real problem is the perpetrator who doesn’t care about stealing—he just wants to destroy.” The plan will propose restrictions that are certain to be unpopular. In order for cyberspace to be policed, Internet activity will have to be closely monitored. Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving government the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer, or Web search. “Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation,” he said. Giorgio warned me, “We have a saying in this business: ‘Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.’ ”

— The Spymaster, by Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, 21 January 2008

Bruce Schneier has already demolished the “privacy vs. security” canard: it’s really liberty vs. control.

It figures that it would be Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell pushing monitoring the whole Internet, since he’s one of the key figures behind retroactive telecom immunity for illegal warrantless wiretapping. That was a bad idea, and this is also a bad idea.

But it’s also why AT&T may have good reason to believe there’d be no liability for filtering the entire Internet.

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Retroactive Immunity and Administrative Discipline: It’s Not About Telcos

nixonillegal.320.240.jpg Retroactive immunity for whom?
Telecoms already have immunity under existing FISA law where they acted pursuant to written government certification or where they prove they acted in good faith (see 18 USC 2520 (d)). There is no reason that the federal courts presiding over these cases can’t simply make that determiniation, as they do in countless other cases involving classified information.

— Jay Rockefeller’s unintentionally revealing comments, Glenn Greenwald, Unclaimed Territory, Salon.com, Thursday January 24, 2008 07:33 EST

There’s even a two year statue of limitations in the Code.

Here’s one version of what this is really about: Continue reading →

Forensic FCC Oversight

JDD_Headshot_2004.jpg Preventive Congressional oversight had no effect on the FCC. We’ll see if forensic oversight does any better:
Bipartisan leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee launched an investigation of the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday, three weeks after the agency’s controversial vote to ease media ownership restrictions.

In a letter sent to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, the committee asked that all electronic records and personal e-mails related to FCC work be saved.

The committee has “initiated a formal investigation into FCC regulatory procedures to determine if they are being conducted in a fair, open, efficient, and transparent manner,” said the letter written by Chairman John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, and ranking Republican Joe Barton of Texas.

“This investigation will also address a growing number of allegations received by the committee relating to management practices that may adversely affect the agency’s operation,” the letter said.

— House panel launches probe of FCC practices, Reuters, Tue Jan 8, 2008 4:15pm EST

Maybe Congress will slap the FCC with another stern letter. I’m sure Kevin Martin is quaking in his boots.

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Canada: Throttling Ahead

michael_geist.gif A law professor in Ottawa sums up the Canadian net neutrality situation in a paragraph:
Net neutrality concerns mount but politicians do not respond.

Net neutrality, which has been simmering as an issue in Canada over the past three years, will reach a boiling point this year as leading ISPs implement traffic throttling technologies that undermine the reliability of some Internet applications and experiment with differing treatment for some content and applications. Despite consumer concerns, politicians and regulators will do their best to avoid the issue.

— Tech law issues to watch in 2008, Michael Geist, thestar.com, Jan 07, 2008 04:30 AM

No smokescreen about we can’t regulate the net. straightforward as to who is causing the problem: ISPs busily implementing throttling while complacent politicians look the other way.

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Obama’s CTO

obama3.jpg U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama says he will appoint a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the government, and he has specific tasks for this person, which go well beyond the current administration’s reactive defensive technology policies. For example:
He wants Cabinet officials, government executives and rulemaking agencies to hold meeting that are open to the public and transmitted with a live feed. The CTO’s mandate will be to ensure this happens. Specifically, Obama wants the public to be able to comment on the White House website for five days before legislation is signed.

— Exclusive: Barack Obama to name a “Chief Technology Officer”, By Matt Marshall, VentureBeat, 13 November 2007

Well, that would be a bit different from the current FCC, which doesn’t even announce hearings on its own web pages. Continue reading →

Privacy: U.S. Government Taking the Gloves Off

PH2005090102080.jpg In a previous job, Donald Kerr said he was concerned about
the “hollowing out” of U.S. manufacturing of satellite components. Although he said the design capability for the vehicles has remained in this country, “so much production has moved offshore that potentially has left us weaker.”

— Reconnaissance Office Role to Be Reviewed, Satellite Agency’s Place Is Uncertain, By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, September 2, 2005; Page A27

In his current job as deputy director of national intelligence, what he’s recommending will drive more production offshore, because fewer qualified people will want to work in the U.S. Plus a government that wants to know everything about everyone online is not a government that will facilitate competition among ISPs, so the U.S. will continue to fall farther behind in Internet access, speed, and applications.
Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information.

— Intel official: Expect less privacy By Pamela Hess, Associated Press Writer, Updated: 11/11/07 11:47 PM

The article is full of bad arguments by Kerr. I suppose real arguments don’t matter when you’re taking the gloves off and revealing the true hand of government intervention in private matters. Continue reading →

Legislation Proposed for Net Neutrality

Defining net neutrality is simple:
If I pay to connect to the Net with a certain quality of service, and you pay to connect with that or greater quality of service, then we can communicate at that level.

— When I invented the Web, I didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission. Tim Berners-Lee

Implementing it is difficult, whether technically (stifling, throttling, blocking, proxying, etc.), legally (spam, phishing, other abuse, fraud, theft, etc.). And politically perhaps even harder. Witness the network neutrality legislation proposed by Senators Dorgan and Snowe:
`SEC. 12. INTERNET NEUTRALITY .

`(a) Duty of Broadband Service Providers- With respect to any broadband service offered to the public, each broadband service provider shall–

`(1) not block, interfere with, discriminate against, impair, or degrade the ability of any person to use a broadband service to access, use, send, post, receive, or offer any lawful content, application, or service made available via the Internet;’

— Internet Freedom Preservation Act (Introduced in Senate), S 215 IS, 110th CONGRESS, 1st Session, S. 215, To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to ensure net neutrality . Mr. DORGAN (for himself, Ms. SNOWE, Mr. KERRY, Mrs. BOXER, Mr. HARKIN, Mr. LEAHY, Mrs. CLINTON, Mr. OBAMA, and Mr. WYDEN) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, January 9, 2007

OK, that’s basically TBL’s definition. But what about devices (think Carterfone)? Continue reading →

Normative net neutrality: Milton Mueller on free association and free trade

milton-mueller-1.jpg Free as in free speech, free association, and free trade: Milton Mueller drafts an Internet governance paper using net neutrality as its central principle.
… as a normative guide to policy, network neutrality transcends domestic politics. The network neutrality debate addresses the right of Internet users to access content, services and applications on the Internet without interference from network operators or overbearing governments. It also encompasses the right of network operators to be reasonably free of liability for transmitting content and applications deemed illegal or undesirable by third parties. Those aspects of net neutrality are relevant in a growing number of countries and situations, as both public and private actors attempt to subject the Internet to more control. Because Internet connectivity does not conform to national borders, net neutrality is really a globally applicable principle that can guide Internet governance.

— Net Neutrality as Global Principle for Internet Governance, Milton Mueller, Internet Governance Forum, 5 November, 2007

Basically, instead of getting mired in discussions of bandwidth or technical methods of stifling, throttling, or censorship, let’s get back to deriving net neutrality from general political and economic principles, which turns out to make net neutrality a convenient lens by which to view those principles and to apply them to the Internet. Continue reading →