Wednesday, August 10, 2011

8.10 :: Unnamed Official Somewhere Tuesday Eve Said... :: Software > Oil :: Convince Companies to File Absurd Patents and then Sue Each Other ::

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CyberTelecom News
Federal Internet Law and Policy
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The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in
Meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin
Engines stop running, but I have no fear

FCC: We won't let LightSquared hurt GPS, CW
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission won't allow LightSquared's proposed mobile broadband service to interfere with GPS signals, even though the potential interference would be caused by GPS receivers picking up signals outside of their spectrum, a group of FCC officials said Tuesday.
http://rss.computerworld.com/~r/computerworld/news/feed/~3/ozhyWhnDtC8/FCC_We_won_t_let_LightSquared_hurt_GPS
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/broadband/gps.htm

How To Make A Mockery Of Your Own Law School: Sue Your Critics, Techdirt
Someone named "tuna" was the first of a few of you to point us to the ongoing debacle that is the Thomas M. Cooley Law School. Apparently administrators there aren't too happy about the fact that some of its students were not pleased with the school, and gave the school negative reviews online. So, rather than responding to the complaints or figuring
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110808/02404115428/how-to-make-mockery-your-own-law-school-sue-your-critics.shtml
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/cda/firsta.htm

Online Defamation, Injunctive Relief, and the Future of Prior Restraint, Citizen's Media
It's sitting there in pretty much every online speech-related defamation complaint you'll find: right along side a request for a visit from our friend Stacks O'Cash, the plaintiff asks for an injunction, forcing the defendant to take down the (allegedly defamatory) post.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CitizenMediaLawProject/~3/J6tR7JZ5zJo/online-defamation-injunctive-relief-and-future-prior-restraint
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/cda/firsta.htm

ISPs Covertly Hijacking Search Traffic - 10 ISPs Using Paxfire Tech to Track Users, Hijack Results, dslreports
Earlier this year, ICSI researcher Nicholas Weaver told me he and other Berkeley researchers had discovered some strange ISP shenanigans related to search traffic hijacking that went well beyond the traditional DNS Redirection ad services we've talked about over the years. It took a few months to shore up their research with the help of the EFF,
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ISPs-Covertly-Hijacking-Search-Traffic-115547
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/ci/neutralnot.htm

Small ISPs use "malicious" DNS servers to watch Web searches, earn cash, Ars Technica
Nearly 2 percent of all US Internet users suffer from "malicious" domain name system (DNS) servers that don't properly turn website names like google.com into the IP addresses computers need to communicate on the 'Net. And, to make matters worse, the problem isn't caused by hackers or malware, but by the local ISPs people pay for access
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/small-isps-turn-to-malicious-dns-servers-to-make-extra-cash.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/ci/neutralnot.htm

Christian Kreibich, Nicholas Weaver and Vern Paxson, with Peter Eckersley, Widespread Hijacking of Search Traffic in the United States, EFF
Earlier this year, two research papers reported the observation of strange phenomena in the Domain Name System (DNS) at several US ISPs. On these ISPs' networks, some or all traffic to major search engines, including Bing, Yahoo! and (sometimes) Google, is being directed to mysterious third party proxies
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/07/widespread-search-hijacking-in-the-us
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/ci/neutralnot.htm

Nicholas Weaver, ICSI, Christian Kreibich, ICSI, Boris Nechaev, HIIT & Aalto University, Vern Paxson, ICSI & UC Berkeley, Implications of Netalyzr's DNS Measurements, ICSI
Netalyzr is a widely used network measurement and diagnosis tool. To date, it has collected 198,000 measurement sessions from 146,000 distinct IP addresses. One of the primary focus areas of Netalyzr is DNS behavior, including DNS resolver
http://www.icir.org/christian/publications/2011-satin-netalyzr.pdf
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/ci/neutralnot.htm

Chao Zhang, Polytechnic Institute of NYU, Cheng Huang, Microsoft Research, Keith W. Ross, Polytechnic Institute of NYU, David A. Maltz, Microsoft Research, Jin Li, Microsoft Research, Inflight Modifications of Content: Who are the Culprits?, Paper
When a user requests content from a cloud service provider, sometimes the content sent by the provider is modified inflight by third-party entities. To our knowledge, there is no comprehensive study that examines the extent and primary root causes of the content modifica
http://www.usenix.org/event/leet11/tech/full_papers/Zhang.pdf
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/ci/neutralnot.htm

Open Government and the National Plan, White House
Over the last two and a half years, President Obama has demonstrated a strong commitment to making government information more accessible to the public and to involving citizens in decisions that affect their lives. The resulting commitment to "Open Government" has spurred a wide range of initiatives. Most recently, the United States has worked with many other nations to create an Open Government Partnership that will promote that commitment around
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/08/08/open-government-and-national-plan
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/egov/

Wall Street: Software more valuable than oil, CW
The tech industry's answer to this week's stock market roller coaster was delivered on Tuesday by Apple Inc., which briefly surpassed Exxon Mobil as the most valuable company in the U.S.
http://rss.computerworld.com/~r/computerworld/news/feed/~3/DvZRwi-KEAE/Wall_Street_Software_more_valuable_than_oil
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/industry/

FCC May Thwart AT&T's Expansion Ambitions, Ecommerce Times
With one brief letter, the Federal Communications Commission has put a stop to any hopes that two pending AT&T deals -- its $1.9 billion purchase of spectrum licenses from Qualcomm and its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/73043.html
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/industry/att.htm

Cablevision's Earnings Stumble - As Carrier Continues to Bleed Basic Cable Subs, dslreports
Like many cable companies, Cablevision continues to struggle with losing basic video subscribers, the company's earnings report today stating Cablevision lost 23,000 subscribers on the quarter. Like other carriers, Cablevision blamed a traditionally weak second quarter showing on a still-stumbling economy, increased pressure from
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Cablevisions-Earnings-Stumble-115598
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/industry/cablevision.htm

Verizon Wireless Falls Flat in Response to Free Press App-Blocking Complaint, Free Press
On Monday, Verizon Wireless submitted its response to Free Press' complaint about the carrier's decision to block subscribers from accessing "tethering" applications on their 4G phones.
http://www.freepress.net/press-release/2011/8/8/verizon-wireless-falls-flat-response-free-press-app-blocking-complaint
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/industry/verizon.htm

When Even Dilbert Is Making Fun Of The Absurdity Of The Patent System..., Techdirt
The general awfulness of the patent system seems to be reaching deeper and deeper into the mainstream these days. As a whole bunch of you sent in, even Scott Adams is mocking the patent system via a recent Dilbert strip:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110807/23461115424/when-even-dilbert-is-making-fun-absurdity-patent-system.shtml
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/ip/

EFF: Court Refuses to Return Seized Domain Name, Circleid
Corynne McSherry reporting from EFF: "In a cursory opinion issued today that left us scratching our heads, a federal judge has ruled that the government does not have to return a domain name seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), because its seizure did not create a substantial hardship. ... Puerto 80, the Spanish company
http://www.circleid.com/posts/eff_court_refuses_to_return_seized_domain_name/
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/ip/copyright.htm

When a cloud service vanishes: How to protect your data, CW
Cloud services are useful and convenient, but when they fail, they can take your data with them. Here are some of the dangers of trusting your data to the cloud, and how to protect yourself.
http://rss.computerworld.com/~r/computerworld/news/feed/~3/DsTFoHL9Ti4/When_a_cloud_service_vanishes_How_to_protect_your_data
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/notes/cloud.htm

Amazon cloud outage downs Netflix, Quora, CNET
The brief network connectivity issues strike Amazon's northern Virginia site, derailing many sites that depend on the widely used service.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20089866-93/amazon-cloud-outage-downs-netflix-quora/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/notes/cloud.htm

Remarks to the Joint Center Forum on Privacy, Verizon
The Internet economy is sparking tremendous innovation. During the past fifteen years, networked information technologies – personal computers, mobile phones, wireless connections and other devices – have been transforming our social, political and economic
http://policyblog.verizon.com/BlogPost/822/RemarkstotheJointCenterForumonPrivacy.aspx
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/privacy/

DOJ Had 400% More Emergencies That Required Immediate Warrantless Info From ISPs?, Techdirt
Well this seems questionable. Chris Soghoian has received info from a Freedom of Information Act request (which only took 11 months) that shows that the Justice Department made use of a special "emergency" claim to get ISPs to turn over info without a warrant 400% more times in 2009 than in 2008. Of course, in 2009 there was a new
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110805/03270515402.shtml
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/security/bigbrother.htm

Level 3's Top Ten Reasons For Cut Fiber - Hungry Squirrels and Idiots With Guns, dslreports
Light Reading directs our attention to a new post over at the Level 3 Communications blog discussing the top ten causes for severed fiber strands. Not too surprisingly, people not researching before they dig was the biggest culprit. The blog has a few amusing statistics, such as the fact that a huge number of cuts are due to squirrels chewing
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Level-3s-Top-Ten-Reasons-For-Cut-Fiber-115576
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/security/reliability.htm

U.S. v. Smallwood, JOLT Digest
The District Court for the Northern District of Texas rejected a First Amendment challenge to the CAN-SPAM criminal statute, which prohibits the computer transmission of "multiple commercial electronic mail messages, with the intent to deceive or mislead recipients . . . . as to the origin of such messages."
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/district-courts/u-s-v-smallwood
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/spam/canspam.htm

Bringing Broadband to Rural America: The Home Stretch on USF and ICC Reform, FCC
Since we voted unanimously in February to frame a path forward for fiscally responsible reform of the Universal Service Fund's high-cost program and intercarrier compensation system, the Commission has been diligently reviewing comments, engaging with stakeholders, crunching numbers, and refining proposals. Three public workshops
http://www.fcc.gov/blog/bringing-broadband-rural-america-home-stretch
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/usf/rural.htm

Another VoIP-Related Access Charge Issue Makes its Way to the FCC, Telecom Law Monitor
The Commission's long-standing refusal to classify VoIP services continues to feed litigation between telecommunications carriers. Previously, a coalition of carriers asked the courts to decide the issue and it appears likely the FCC will address VoIP at least prospectively, but in the meantime, cases like this will persist.
http://feeds.lexblog.com/~r/TelecomLawMonitor/~3/bR4zQH8pZTg/
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/voip/fcc.htm

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