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Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at: May 01, 2013 Cellphone Thefts Grow, but the Industry Looks the Other Way QUOTE: new nationwide database for stolen cellphones, which tracks a phone’s unique identifying number to prevent it from being activated, theoretically discouraging thefts. But police officials say the database has not helped....Some law enforcement authorities, though, say there is a bigger issue — that carriers and handset makers have little incentive to fix the problem.
New York Times Mar 01, 2013 Will the “Six Strikes” Copyright Alert System Hurt Consumers And Small Businesses? QUOTE: On Monday, the Copyright Alert System, or “Six Strikes”, went into affect across the five biggest ISPs in the U.S. The system hopes to catch those pirating content over P2P networks, and send them a notice detailing their infringement. The hope is that those who are caught will start using legal alternatives. To better understand the CAS, we have to look at what the Center for Copyright Information is doing with it. First, there are three tiers to the CAS that consumers should be aware of with each tier having two levels within it. The three tiers are as follows – educational alerts, acknowledgement alerts and mitigation measures.
WebProNews Jul 13, 2012 That’s No Phone. That’s My Tracker. QUOTE: Thanks to the explosion of GPS technology and smartphone apps, these devices are also taking note of what we buy, where and when we buy it, how much money we have in the bank, whom we text and e-mail, what Web sites we visit, how and where we travel, what time we go to sleep and wake up — and more. Much of that data is shared with companies that use it to offer us services they think we want.
New York Times Oct 26, 2011 When Secrets Aren’t Safe With Journalists (Op-Ed) QUOTE: operational computer security is still not taught in most journalism schools, and poor data security practices remain widespread in news organizations....Until journalists take their security obligations seriously, it will be safer to leak something to WikiLeaks — or groups like it — than to the mainstream press.
New York Times Aug 19, 2011 Your Voice Mail May Be Even Less Secure Than You Thought QUOTE: AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile do not require cellphone customers to use a password on their voice mail boxes, and plenty of people never bother to set one up. But if you don’t, people using a service colloquially known as caller ID spoofing could disguise their phone as yours and get access to your messages. This is possible because voice mail systems often grant access to callers who appear to be phoning from their own number.
New York Times May 08, 2011 Suit Opens a Window Into Google QUOTE: In the smartphone market....“Google has the same problem today that Microsoft had 20 years ago, when Windows started to take off in the personal computer market,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “It needs to maintain the integrity of its technology, and control it.”
New York Times Feb 10, 2011 The Ethics of Free Cellphone Calls QUOTE: The trick relies on a handy feature of Google Voice: you can place outgoing calls through Google instead of your phone company... There’s nothing technically illegal about it; it’s clearly an unintended loophole. But you aren’t paying for the calls.
New York Times Jun 02, 2010 Heaviest Users of Phone Data Will Pay More QUOTE: The trouble for AT&T was that a fraction of users — fewer than 2 percent — made such heavy use of the network that they slowed it down for everyone else. Starting on Monday, AT&T will offer tiered pricing. People will pay based on what they use, which the company says is fairer to everyone.
New York Times May 13, 2010 Recording Customer Service Calls to India QUOTE: Last month, I wrote a Bucks post, “When and Why You Should Record Customer Service Calls,” with resources and guidelines for recording customer service calls....in this age of outsourcing, customer service representatives are often in other countries, like India or Ireland or a few other places. Which begs the question: What recording guidelines should one follow if the customer service representative is elsewhere?
New York Times May 02, 2010 Web’s Users Against Its Gatekeepers QUOTE: With the majority of Internet traffic expected to shift to congestion-prone mobile networks, there is growing debate on both sides of the Atlantic about whether operators of the networks should be allowed to treat Web users differently, based on the users’ consumption.
New York Times Apr 22, 2010 Is Google the new Rome? Cloud computing may be leading to a federation-like worldview on data management, but national laws will be a major obstacle QUOTE: Google's Rome-like worldview extends to how it will treat the location of customer data. Google is not offering U.S. businesses any specific assurance that their data will be stored in a U.S.-based data center.
InfoWorld Dec 01, 2009 Sprint fed customer GPS data to cops over 8 million times QUOTE: Christopher Soghoian... has made public an audio recording of Sprint/Nextel's Electronic Surveillance Manager describing how his company has provided GPS location data about its wireless customers to law enforcement over 8 million times.
Ars Technica Nov 05, 2009 Who's in Big Brother's Database? QUOTE: these new centers in Utah, Texas, and possibly elsewhere will likely become the centralized repositories for the data intercepted by the NSA in America's version of the "big brother database" rejected by the British.
New York Review of Books (NYRB) Oct 09, 2009 FCC to investigate "gating" role of middle-mile access lines QUOTE: As DSL or cable customers, consumers usually pay directly for that last-mile access. But large businesses and other ISPs shell out humongous sums for middle and secondary transport services to connect their networks or cell towers with the Internet backbone.
Ars Technica Oct 09, 2009 Epicenter The Business of Tech The Empire Strikes Back: FCC Probes Google Voice (Updated) (Epicenter) QUOTE: AT&T has just given Google a taste of its own mandated openness medicine, successfully goading federal regulators into officially looking into why Google’s Voice service blocks phone calls to certain rural numbers.
Wired Aug 28, 2009 Court tosses "arbitrary" FCC cable market share cap QUOTE: The United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has just thrown out the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) rule limiting each cable provider to no more than 30 percent of the overall video marketplace.
Ars Technica Aug 28, 2009 FCC launches far-reaching investigation of cellular industry: The FCC has launched an investigation of the wireless industry that takes the agency into new, and for some, uncomfortable terrain. QUOTE: the three Notices of Inquiry that the agency [Federal communications Commission] announced at its Open Commission meeting notably and perhaps even radically expand the array of questions that it usually asks of the wireless service sector.
Ars Technica Aug 25, 2009 ISPs, rights groups react to gov't P2P proposals (Intellectual property Toolkit) QUOTE: The [United Kingdom] Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) proposed on Tuesday that disconnection should be considered in the case of those who persistently share copyrighted material online.
Aug 20, 2009 FCC asks us all: what, exactly, is broadband? The FCC wants you to tell the agency what you mean by "broadband," and how the Commission should redefine the term as technology changes. QUOTE: The FCC has put out a Public Notice asking the wise to help them define "broadband [Internet]."
Ars Technica Aug 18, 2009 Cellphones problematic for 911 QUOTE: r the millions of Americans giving up their land lines in favor of cellphones, dialing 911 may no longer mean a quick response. It can lead to misrouted calls, delayed information about the location of the caller and, most important, a slower emergency response.
USA TODAY Aug 18, 2009 Why AT&T Killed Google Voice: Telecom operators are yesterday's business. It's time for a national data policy that encourages innovation. QUOTE: AT&T is dragging down the rest of us by overcharging us for voice calls and stifling innovation in a mobile data market critical to the U.S. economy.
Wall Street Journal, The (WSJ) Aug 18, 2009 A Scheme For Protecting Content QUOTE: Intertrust holds a treasure trove of patents that help content owners manage digital rights; it has spent five years and tens of millions of dollars developing a standard called Marlin, which aims to keep content secure in a way that legitimate consumers won't find offensive.
Forbes Aug 14, 2009 Major Carriers Shun Broadband Stimulus: Funds Would Come With Tighter Rules QUOTE: The Obama administration made a national priority of spreading high-speed Internet access to every American home and offered stimulus money to help companies pay for it, but the biggest network operators are staying away from the program.
Washington Post Aug 05, 2009 Responsible Twittering: The company's security issues are well-known, but users also need to be more responsible about what they tweet. QUOTE: While this [network hacking] highlights the risks associated with applications in the cloud, it isn't the only security risk associated with Twitter. In addition there are risks with people spoofing other identities, risks of people disclosing sensitive data and people creating risks by talking about some of their activities.
Forbes Aug 03, 2009 DPI vendor says 90% of ISPs engage in traffic discrimination QUOTE: Sandvine makes deep packet inspection hardware that can identify and then block... user traffic coming from particular applications such as Skype or BitTorrent clients. The 160 worldwide ISPs who use the company's products love this particular capability so much that a full 90 percent of them employ it to "manage" their networks in a discriminatory way.
Ars Technica Aug 01, 2009 Space Junk: Earth is being engulfed in a dense cloud of hazardous debris that won't stop growing. QUOTE: Experts calculate that debris will now strike one of the 900 active satellites in LEO every two or three years. For the first time, junk is the single biggest risk factor to equipment in some orbits.
Newsweek Jul 31, 2009 Probing The iPhone's Secrets: FCC investigates Apple ban on Google Voice. QUOTE: Some of the great iPhone mysteries--including the secret terms of any deal between AT&T and Apple to limit what tricks iPhones can perform--could soon be made public, thanks to a series of pointed letters from the Federal Communications Commission.
Forbes Jul 30, 2009 Take Back the Beep Campaign (From the Desk of David Pogue) QUOTE: Last week, in The Times and on my blog, I've been ranting about one particularly blatant money-grab by U.S. cellphone carriers: the mandatory 15-second voicemail instructions.
New York Times Jul 29, 2009 Average UK broadband speeds only half as fast as advertised QUOTE: UK telecoms regulator Ofcom today released the results of a lengthy study that compared advertised download speeds with the actual speeds received by home users... —average speeds are only half what is advertised.
Ars Technica Jul 24, 2009 One strike: UK ISP goes medieval on P2P users, relents QUOTE: Who needs "three strikes" before disconnecting Internet users? Not UK ISP Karoo, which has voluntarily resorted to beanballing its own users after receiving just a single copyright infringement allegation from rightsholders.
Ars Technica Jul 18, 2009 Drivers and Legislators Dismiss Cellphone Risks (Driven to Distraction Part 2 of 3) QUOTE: [Americans] increasingly use phones, navigation devices and even laptops to turn their cars into mobile offices, chat rooms and entertainment centers, making roads more dangerous. A disconnect between perception and reality worsens the problem. New studies show that drivers overestimate their own ability to safely multitask, even as they worry about the dangers of others doing it.
New York Times Jul 07, 2009 Employee: Military Health System was unethical in awarding contract QUOTE: The Military Health System has engaged in unethical contracting with a technology company that is developing one of government's most complex and high-profile computer networks...
Jun 18, 2009 Exclusive Wireless Contracts Examined: Critics Say Deals Stifle Competition QUOTE: growing debate on whether the practice of locking in cellphones to exclusive contracts with only one carrier has led to higher prices and fewer choices for consumers and stifled competition...
Washington Post Jun 18, 2009 The future of broadband And access for all: Fast internet for everyone, and a new tax to help pay for it QUOTE: Spending public money on whizzy new networks appeals to technophiles, but the benefits are not clear for others.
Economist Jun 17, 2009 Text-message fees recommended for antitrust scrutiny QUOTE: Prices [for text messaging] at Verizon, AT & T, Sprint and T-Mobile have risen sharply and around the same time, Sen. Herb Kohl says. Companies deny any collusion.
Los Angeles Times Jun 12, 2009 IRS Seeks to Simplify Workers' Cellphone Tax Law QUOTE: the Internal Revenue Service is weighing whether a portion of a work-related cellphone bill should be taxed as income....The law was designed to prevent employees from using employee-issued cellphones for personal calls and then writing them off as a work-related tax deduction.
Washington Post Jan 01, 2009 The Plot to Kill Google QUOTE: The company's [Google] growth, ambitions, and politics have made it a target of some of the country's most powerful businesses and interest groups.
Wired Nov 05, 2008 Google Wins the Presidential Election (So Does Obama) QUOTE: if Lessig has Obama's ear, you might see more policies leaning towards "fair use" of other people's copyrighted works. That also dovetails with Google's agenda, which needs net neutrality and could use less content protection so it can take over the world by providing other people's content and its own advertising over other people's pipes.
PC Magazine Nov 04, 2008 AT&T Tries Out Bandwidth Caps QUOTE: The days of all-you-can-eat bandwidth appear to be numbered. AT&T, one of the largest broadband providers in the country, has set usage caps as an experiment....setting limits on broadband use in an attempt to crackdown on so-called "bandwidth hogs."
Wired Oct 24, 2008 Debate to delay 'white space' vote heats up QUOTE: Google and Microsoft, support the use of "white spaces," because they believe the spectrum can be used to help deliver new wireless broadband services. After more than four years, and over 30,000 filings by the public, broadcasters now accuse the commission of a rush to judgment on the white spaces.
CNET Oct 16, 2008 ISPs are pressed to become child porn cops: New law, new monitoring technology raise concerns about privacy QUOTE: New technologies and changes in U.S. law are adding to pressures to turn Internet service providers into cops examining all Internet traffic for child pornography....Privacy advocates are raising objections to such tools, saying that monitoring all traffic would be an unconstitutional invasion....But such monitoring just became easier with a law approved unanimously by the Congress and signed on Monday by President Bush.
MSNBC Oct 06, 2008 China's Eye on Web Chatter ABSTRACT: In China, you can't search for anything you want on popular search engines like Yahoo! or Google. The government has set filters on words that it's leaders think may jeopardize the political state of China. In addition to this search limitation movement, there has been a surveillance scheme employed. In fact, the United States has assisted in the scheme.
Technology Review Oct 03, 2008 Skype: We didn't know about security issues QUOTE: ...Josh Silverman, Skype's president, explained he did not realize that TOM-Skype, Skype's partner in China, was logging and storing users' instant messages that were deemed offensive by the Chinese government. He said the company knew that instant-messaging chats were monitored by the government...
CNET Oct 01, 2008 Surveillance of Skype Messages Found in China QUOTE: A group of Canadian human-rights activists and computer security researchers has discovered a huge surveillance system in China that monitors and archives certain Internet text conversations that include politically charged words.
New York Times Sep 08, 2008 Exclusive: Widespread cell phone location snooping by NSA? QUOTE: If you thought that the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping was limited to AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, think again.
CNET Jul 28, 2008 Comcast Spoiling for Fight With FCC QUOTE: Comcast is poised for legal showdown with the Federal Communications Commission as the agency moves to fine the cable giant for blocking file-sharing traffic on its Web network.
Wired Jul 07, 2008 Telecoms Sue Over High-Speed Links QUOTE: Telecommunications companies are suing cities around the nation to stop the construction of publicly owned fiber optic systems to bring high-speed Internet, telephone and cable television to communities far from metropolitan centers. Attorneys for cities say the telecommunications suits, whether brought under state law, the Federal Telecommunications Act or other laws, are veiled attempts to stop construction of competing public systems providing an essential utility in the digital age.
National Law Journal, The (NLJ) Jun 20, 2008 Surveillance Bill Offers Protection To Telecom Firms: Deal Would Extend U.S. Wiretap Power, Shield Providers Facing Privacy Lawsuits QUOTE: The agreement extends the government's ability to eavesdrop on espionage and terrorism suspects while effectively providing a legal escape hatch for AT&T, Verizon Communications and other telecom firms. They face more than 40 lawsuits that allege they violated customers' privacy rights by helping the government conduct a warrantless spying program after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Washington Post Apr 03, 2008 Did Google Game FCC Spectrum Auction? QUOTE: Google on Thursday admitted that its ultimate goal in the recent 700 MHz spectrum auction was to drive up the price of the c-block, but denied that it had no intention of placing serious bids. Google's top priority heading into the auction was to make sure that bidding on the so-called C-Block reached the $4.6 billion reserve price that would trigger the important 'open applications' and 'open handsets' license conditions,"
PC Magazine Mar 22, 2008 Moving in a Wired World: Tips to Get You Connected Quickly in Your New Place QUOTE: consider upgrading to newer technologies when you move. Planning and flexibility may enable improvements not possible where you have been living. In fact, technology can shape your home search.
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