🌎 Discussion: Online Piracy, AI, Net Neutrality, Killswitch, and Other Internet Issues II

[Steyin]

The era of cable monopoly is coming to an end dude thanks to all sorts of factors.

Got a long way to go on that.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Got a long way to go on that.

I agree it's a ways off but it is closer than the cable company would like to admit. The problem is most peoples options are to cut the cable and do stuff through streaming and basically being dependent on the net which most of the time the cable company also controls. So the new FCC stuff is a good start to make sure they don't get out of control but they are very powerful and throw around a lot of money. Also the big problem is usually the big cable company in the area has control over the actual receiving end that is at the customers house. That's why if we can get municipalities to compete with them it would be best for customers. If everyone has 3 or 4 options for good, fast ISPs that will help bring down the cable monopolies

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

The "Great Cannon": How China Turns Its Websites Into Cyberweapons

When anti-Chinese censorship services got hit with a crippling distributed-denial-of-service attack last month, researchers quickly pegged China as the culprit. Now, Citizen Lab has pinpointed the Chinese tool that made this attack happen. They’re calling it the Great Cannon.

Separate from but located within China’s Great Firewall, this “Great Cannon” injects malicious code as a way to enforce state censorship, by using cyberattacks to damage services that help people within China see banned content.

The Great Cannon is not simply an extension of the Great Firewall, but a distinct attack tool that hijacks traffic to (or presumably from) individual IP addresses, and can arbitrarily replace unencrypted content as a man-in-the-middle.​

With this most recent DDoS attack, the Great Cannon worked by weaponizing the web traffic of visitors to Baidu or any website that used Baidu’s extensive ad network. This means anyone visiting a Baidu-affiliated from anywhere in the world was vulnerable to getting their web traffic hijacked and turned into a weapon to flood anti-censorship websites with too much traffic.

This particular attack had a narrow target: Specific sites known to circumvent Chinese censorship. But Citizen Lab thinks the Great Cannon could be used in a much broader way. Since it is capable of producing a full-blown man-in-the-middle attack, it could be used to intercept unencrypted emails, for example.

The attack launched by the Great Cannon appears relatively obvious and coarse: a denial-of-service attack on services objectionable to the Chinese government. Yet the attack itself indicates a far more significant capability: an ability to “exploit by IP address”. This possibility, not yet observed but a feature of its architecture, represents a potent cyberattack capability.​

As Citizen Lab’s researchers note, it’s pretty strange that China would show off this powerful weapon by using it in such a pointed attack.

Conducting such a widespread attack clearly demonstrates the weaponization of the Chinese Internet to co-opt arbitrary computers across the web and outside of China to achieve China’s policy ends.​

The only silver lining here is that this may prompt a more urgent push to switch to HTTPS, since the Great Cannon only works on HTTP. This attack makes it painfully obvious that using HTTPS isn’t just a smart safeguard— it’s a necessary precaution against powerful state-sponsored cyberattacks.

https://citizenlab.org/2015/04/chinas-great-cannon/

That is a scary prospect

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Massive Online Protests in India Over Net Neutrality

[YT]mfY1NKrzqi0[/YT]

Just as the United States seems on the brink of accepting net neutrality regulations, protests over a similar issue are erupting in India and Europe. Though net neutrality looks a little different in these regions, the issues are still fundamentally the same.

According to Jayadevan PK, writing in The Times of India:

In one of the biggest online protests in India, Internet users have sent more than [150 thousand] emails over the weekend to the telecom regulator asking to protect network neutrality in the country. In the last few hours, at nearly 10 emails a minute, the pace of such emails have touched record speed flooding the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s inbox.

“This is completely unprecedented. We thought we’ll get about 15000 emails in 10 days,” said Kiran Jonnalagadda, one of people behind the campaign. Earlier, the telecom regulator had sought views from the public on regulating ‘over the top’ service providers like Whatsapp and Skype.​

In India, as in Europe, most internet customers have data plans where you pay for data by the gigabyte — there are few “unlimited data” options like people have in the U.S. So the service provider Airtel tried to attract customers by offering “Airtel Zero,” a service where “over the top” apps like Whatsapp and Skype would be free. The idea was that Whatsapp or other companies would pay Airtel to get preferential treatment, garnering more customers than alternative services offered by other companies.

PK continues:

By paying to be on Airtel Zero, companies can make sure that their users get free access to their service, while smaller players are at a disadvantage. Airtel has said that zero rating does not violate net neutrality as it lowers the cost of access and it is “non-discriminatory”.”Saying that zero rating is not a part of net neutrality is denying a fact. Any price discrimination is a net neutrality issue as well,” said Pahwa.​

Protests in Europe, meanwhile, have centered on a proposal that would give some services “preferential” access to the internet and allow providers to block content.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...-over-net-neutrality/articleshow/46906553.cms

It's a good thing this is being tackled around the globe

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Researchers Accuse China of Over 10 Years' Cyber Espionage and Attack

China recently admitted that it has an array of cyber warfare units. Now, a team of researchers accuses the country—or at least residents of it—of conducting cyber espionage and attack operations for the last decade.

In a report issued by the security firm FireEye, the researchers describe a long line of spying and hacking carried out by China against other Asian countries, including India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Nepal, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia and more. The researchers claim these attacks started in 2005.

While the report is based upon much research conducted by FireEye, they point in particular to operating manuals and a code base for the attacks that have been developed in China. The researchers have dubbed the group behind the scheme APT30—where the APT stands for “advanced persistent threat.”

The report suggests that operations have been carried out to acquire knowledge of military, economic, and political details of the targeted countries. That was done using over 200 versions of advanced malware, which was even capable of attacks on air-gapped networks. The report explains:

APT30 malware includes the ability to steal information (such as specific file types), including, in some cases, the ability to infect removable drives with the potential to jump air gaps. Some malware includes commands to allow it to be placed in ‘hide’ mode and to remain stealthy on the victim host, presumably for long-term persistence.​

It also appears that the attacks were persistent and seemingly went unnoticed:

Our analysis of APT30 illuminates how a group can persistently compromise entities across an entire region and subcontinent, unabated, with little to no need to significantly change their modus operandi. Based on our malware research, we are able to assess how the team behind APT30 works: they prioritize their targets, most likely work in shifts in a collaborative environment, and build malware from a coherent development plan.​

While evidence pins the operations to China, there’s no firm proof that they can be traced back to the Chinese government. FireEye notes that the operations seem to have been in search of “sensitive information theft for government espionage”—but that alone is not enough to lay the blame at the government’s feet.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/12/8395381/cyber-espionage-china-fireeye-report

Not surprised in the least

 

[jmc]

Nothing the other major governments of the world haven't also done.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

New Geo-Inference Attack Uses Browser Cache to Identify Your Location

Who knows where you are? According to a team of researchers from the National University of Singapore many websites could—using what they call a “geo-inference attack” to identify your location

In what the researchers describe as a “new attack” with a “big impact” to the Daily Dot, such attacks can mine your browser cache to identify your country, city or even street address. Many sites identify your location—if you allow them too—in order to improve service: so, for example, Google can work out whether to serve your google.com or google.co.uk.

The information gathered to do that can be stored in your browser’s cache—but there, it’s susceptible to third-party website running special scripts, the researchers find. Depending on the sites you use, attackers could find more or less information: Cragslist can reveal your city, for instance, while Google Maps can give away your street address.

The researchers claim that 62 percent of the Alexa top 100 websites in the US, Australia, Japan, Singapore, and the UK all leak location data—to some extent—via the cache. The problem affects Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera.

Using private browsing does help—because the cache is deleted after a session—but leaves you open to attack whilst you’re using sites, while the researchers suggest the latest versions of Tor can be used to avoid the problem. But for anyone not using the service, the best bet is simply delete your cache regularly. The question is: can you bring yourself to do that?

http://www.dailydot.com/crime/geo-inference-attack-google-craigslist-maps/

I use crap cleaner to clean my laptop once a week or so

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Google vs. the EU: A Fight for the Right to Screw With Search Results

Google is the most popular search engine in the world, to the point where I feel dumb typing “Google is the most popular search engine in the world” because holy crap, you already know. But ubiquity is not synonymous with benevolence. The EU’s new lawsuit against the search giant brings up larger issues.

The European Union has officially charged Google in an antitrust suit for abusing its position of dominance and manipulating search results. Google has ten weeks to respond, and while the giant has a relentless fire hose of cash it can shoot at its problems, this is the biggest antitrust case since Microsoft got slapped by EU antitrust charges in the 2000s. The outcome is going to color how Google operates. And even Google’s profusion has limits: EU fines may be as much as $6.4 billion. It’s a big deal.

Google is skewing your search results...

The EU’s Statement of Objections for Google focuses on how its search engine arranges results about shopping. Its complaint alleges that Google prioritizes results from the shopping sites it owns over its competitors. It says Google shows results according to their relevance for making itself stacks of cash, not their actual relevance to the person searching.

The Commission is concerned that users do not necessarily see the most relevant results in response to queries - this is to the detriment of consumers, and stifles innovation. The Commission’s preliminary view is that to remedy such conduct, Google should treat its own comparison shopping service and those of rivals in the same way.​

“Google’s abuse of its dominant position comes in various shapes and forms but some patterns exist and have been observed over the last few years,” Arthur Ravier, a policy officer at Open Internet Project (a group that urged the EU to ban Google) told me. Ravier cited the way Google rankings for restaurants give places with lots of Google+ reviews a boost over those with lots of Yelp or TripAdvisor reviews as a prime example of manipulations that hurt Google users.

This EU suit isn’t the first time Google’s been accused of sneaky, anti-competitive tactics. A leaked report shows that the Federal Trade Commission nearly sued Google back in 2012 for its search-result skewing. In that case, in addition to simply prioritizing its own services, Google was accused of stealing content from rivals. But an antitrust suit never happened. FTC’s commissioners agreed to back off and let Google voluntarily change some of its policies in 2013.

...And it’s not denying it

Google’s reply to all this: It’s not a monopoly, and competition is flourishing, so there’s no evidence that its Google-centric search results are harming anybody. With competitors like Bing drawing larger shares of the search market (it just surpassed 20% for the first time in the US), Google definitely has a point there.

Note that Google does not deny allegations that it manipulates search results to favor itself. The argument here basically amounts to, if you don’t like it, use Bing!

Bing Bing Bing

It’s not up for debate that Google has immense power over how we discover information. Obviously a company tasked with ordering the known internet is going to have to make choices about how to siphon relevance from the noise of a monster data-dump, and many of those choices will hinge on that company’s subjective taste on what’s important. Google is pretty flagrant in the ways it shows that company policy = our stuff is the most important.

What’s up for debate here isn’t that Google manipulates search results, it’s whether that manipulation is ruining competition, specifically in comparison shopping.

And that’s probably a good debate to have, but it really doesn’t cut to the heart of what’s wrong with search. There is a more pernicious issue with the way Google prioritizes its results, and it has less to do with screwing over competitors than it does with creating a digital world that is tilted towards commerce over knowledge.

Whether or not Google’s preference for its own brand is tantamount to a monopoly, money drives Google search far more than knowledge. As Motherboard’s Brian Merchant recently pointed out, Google often yanks up commercial search results— a search for “watch,” for example, will lead you right to Apple Watch, even though Apple’s wearable tech is both very new and very not a generic watch.

The assumption is that you’re looking to buy something when you’re looking to find information on something. “The logic that our chief aim is to consume is written directly into the engine’s DNA,” Merchant writes.

People are starting to notice Google’s tendency towards hyper-commercialization— children’s groups just complained that the company’s new YouTube Kids app is basically just a commercial-viewing tool. But it’s telling that the bulk of criticism and complaints lobbed at Google’ search functions are about hurting competitors rather than its slow metamorphosis into an online shopping tool.

http://gizmodo.com/google-vs-the-eu-a-fight-for-the-right-to-screw-with-1692617455

Some really good points made in this article that I had never thought of

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

The DEA Is Buying Off-the-Shelf Spyware From a Sketchy Company

http://forums.superherohype.com/showpost.php?p=31150831&postcount=230

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

How to Combine Multiple Internet Connections Into One Super Fast Pipe

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-combin...nnections-into-one-s-1699431630/+alissawalker

Cool thing to know how to do

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Homeland Security Secretary Begs Silicon Valley to Stop the Encryption

Today at massive security tech conference RSA in San Francisco, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson told a packed audience that DHS would be forging alliances with Silicon Valley. He described plans to build an office here, in order to work directly with tech companies on key issues for the DHS.

He said:

I am pleased to announce that the Department of Homeland Security is also finalizing plans to open up a satellite office in Silicon Valley, to serve as another point of contact with our friends here. We want to strengthen critical relationships in Silicon Valley and ensure that the government and the private sector benefit from each other’s research and development.​

This move appears to be a response to a growing rift between the government and Silicon Valley. DHS seems to want to position itself as a tech innovator, attracting engineers away from the private sector.

At the same time, DHS wants to work with Silicon Valley companies, to “promote information sharing and cybersecurity best practices” as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s C3 voluntary program. Johnson also said the President has tasked him with encouraging “private Information Sharing and Analysis Organizations.” Broadly speaking, these are all efforts aimed at getting private industry to share critical information about infosec threats with the government. So this new DHS outpost is part of a much larger agenda to bring Silicon Valley companies into the national security fold.

Johnson also emphasized that DHS has a specific agenda, which is to push back on the call for encryption that’s come from many tech companies, including Yahoo and Google.

Johnson asked the audience at RSA to help the government have more access to unencrypted data to help them stop threats to our digital infrastructure. He said:

The current course we are on, toward deeper and deeper encryption in response to the demands of the marketplace, is one that presents real challenges for those in law enforcement and national security.

Let me be clear: I understand the importance of what encryption brings to privacy. But, imagine the problems if, well after the advent of the telephone, the warrant authority of the government to investigate crime had extended only to the U.S. mail.

Our inability to access encrypted information poses public safety challenges.

In fact, encryption is making it harder for your government to find criminal activity, and potential terrorist activity.

We in government know that a solution to this dilemma must take full account of the privacy rights and expectations of the American public, the state of the technology, and the cybersecurity of American businesses.

We need your help to find the solution.​

Let’s hope that the solution is not to encourage backdoors and key escrow so that DHS can decrypt whatever it wants.

http://gizmodo.com/dhs-secretary-begs-silicon-valley-to-stop-the-encryptio-1699273657

Screw em, encrypt everything

 

[wiegeabo]

Maybe if you had actually just eavesdropped on things where you actually had a warrant, people wouldn't be needing to do this and make your job harder.

If the government's policy to stop terrorists is to wiretap everything, then they've already failed to stop the terrorists, and they're a failure in general. How about building some real relationships with these countries instead. Maybe some trade to share cultures, demystify both sides to one another, and make it harder to attack someone you're economically tied to.

That way you're stopping the terrorists before they even start.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Two Controversial Cybersecurity Bills Just Passed the House

The House of Representatives has passed two cybersecurity bills over the past three days. Intended to help stop cybercrime by helping companies share information with the government, the bills have received close scrutiny from privacy advocates worried that they’ll further bulk up surveillance efforts.

The National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act passed yesterday with overwhelming support. It’s a complementary bill to the Protecting Cyber Networks Act, which was passed the day before. Protecting Cyber Networks Act is sort of like a watered-down version of CISA, the cybersecurity bill that’s been brought forth a number of times and continually shot down due to privacy concerns.

House members amended the Protecting Cyber Networks Act in response to complaints that it set up snooping powers that were too broad, but these bills are still concerns for privacy advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which isn’t happy about the broad support these bills are getting:

The bills are not cybersecurity “information sharing” bills, but surveillance bills in disguise. Like other bills we’ve opposed during the last five years, they authorize more private sector spying under new legal immunity provisions and use vague definitions that aren’t carefully limited to protect privacy.​

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/23/house-passes-complementary-cyber-information-sharing-bill/

More BS from Washington

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Rand Paul Wants to Kill Net Neutrality All By Himself

There are plenty of hair-brained plans to destroy net neutrality rules, but the latest is, like, hair-brained minus the brain part. You won’t be surprised to hear that the man behind it is attention addict and presidential hopeful Rand Paul. We need to have a chat about facts, Rand.

Long story short: Rand Paul wants to ruin the internet by repealing the new—and widely loved—net neutrality rules from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). “Ruin the internet” is a strong phrase, but it’s exactly what many very smart internet experts say will happen if strong net neutrality rules aren’t implemented.

Senator Paul has now introduced a bill to the Senate that he intends to push through Congress with the help of a nebulous law that removes procedural hurdles when trying to repeal new regulations. Senator Paul has no cosponsors on the bill.

So avoiding the political idiocy of going alone with an unpopular opinion on net neutrality, let’s just focus on the facts that Rand Paul is spitting in America’s direction. Because they’re not facts at all! They’re just plain incorrect. Here are three lines from Senator Paul’s statement about the bill:

This regulation by the FCC is a textbook example of Washington’s desire to regulate anything and everything, and will do nothing more than wrap the Internet in red tape.​

Well that’s wrong. There’s actually very little red tape involved in the FCC’s net neutrality rules. The rules are basically written to preserve the internet as it currently exists which, it should be made clear, is pretty unregulated. (More on this in a second.) You might call the provisions to prohibit internet fast lanes, traffic throttling, and website blocking “red tape.” But you might also call laws that prohibit injustice, theft, and censorship “red tape” as well.

The Internet has successfully flourished without the heavy hand of government interference.​

Nope! The internet has long been regulated by existing communications laws, however minimally. The FCC classified broadband as an information service back in 2002, after the dot com bubble burst, and imposed a specific set of regulations that’s governed the internet for the past decade and a half.

However, those regulations allowed internet service providers to do things that were good for their profits but bad for American consumers. That’s why the FCC crafted new rules that treat the internet more like a public utility—for the good of American consumers. Presidential hopefuls should probably be on board with that.

Stated simply, I do not want to see the government regulating the Internet.​

Oh here we go. This might actually be a true thing that Rand Paul believes, but it’s utterly misguided. If Rand Paul didn’t want the government regulating the internet, he should’ve spoken up back in 2002, when he was just an eye doctor in Kentucky. Or even further back, like in 1985, when the first .com domain was registered. Or maybe back to the 1960s, when the dang government helped invent the internet.

Rand Paul is obviously entitled to his own opinions—as misguided as they usually are. He should really get his facts straight before using loopholes to pushing legislation through Congress that would make the internet worse for everyone.

It’s kind of like a presidential candidate saying that a $15 piece of plastic with his name on it will prevent the NSA from spying on you. Which is exactly what Rand Paul did earlier this month, by the way. This kind of misinformation isn’t just dumb, it’s dangerous.

http://gizmodo.com/noted-dumbass-rand-paul-wants-to-kill-net-neutrality-1701200879

The more I read and here about Rand the more convinced I get that he is a complete moron

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

The FCC Continues Kicking Ass By Subsidizing Broadband Internet

A little over a year ago, the Federal Communications Commission seemed like an evil cabal of cronies, threatening to ruin the US as we know it. Today, the agency is making decisions to help securing the future of the internet, giving broadband to poor people, and banning robocalls. Isn’t this a pleasant surprise.

Net Neutrality Turnaround

It’s easy to get pissed off at powerful, bureaucratic government agencies, and people got pissed indeed last year when the FCC passed open internet rules that would’ve wrecked net neutrality as we know it. At the time, my fellow Gizmodo writers and I wrote pretty fiercely about how the agency must think we’re all idiots, and we weren’t the only ones. The public comment process turned out to be record-breaking, with more than 4 million people weighing in on how much the FCC was f***ing up.

This is where it gets crazy: The FCC actually listened.

After many months and a pretty assertive intervention from President Obama, the agency passed new open internet rules and declared the internet should be treated as a public utility, following the advice of many smart internet experts. It sent a strong message that big telecom companies no longer got free reign over our internet service, and that needed to happen because the Comcasts and Verizons of the world haven’t missed an opportunity to indicate that they care more about their bottom line than their customers—a dangerous situation when the telecom business effectively runs like a natural monopoly.

Subsidized Broadband

The fun doesn’t stop there. On Thursday the FCC moved forward with a plan that would offer subsidies so that poor Americans could get broadband access. That’s probably as close as we’ll come to declaring internet access a human right here in the States. It’s also a strong indication that agency is committed to the public good despite the fact that so many of its commissioners—including Chairman Tom Wheeler—have close ties with big telecom.

Oh, and as a bonus, the FCC also cracked down on robocalls and spam texts. That’s great! Those are the worst.

Clearing the Way for Municipal Internet

There’s reason to be optimistic. As I’ve said before, America’s internet is crappy and slow for myriad, complicated reasons, but this year, the FCC has addressed some of those head on.

The agency is redefining broadband to bring Americans, especially those in rural areas, faster speeds. It also overruled state laws blocking municipal broadband projects, an act that ensures more cities can offer its citizens blazingly fast internet. Did you know that Chattanooga, Tennessee has the fastest internet in the country, and the city sells service directly to consumers for just $70 a month? Just imagine if all cities made that kind of commitment to improving internet access.

Apparently the chorus of concerned citizens yelling at the FCC worked. In fact, the agency’s kicking ass right now. Let’s hope it keeps it up.

http://gizmodo.com/the-fcc-is-kicking-ass-1712385250

This is really awesome news

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

The Reason Your City Can't Have Fast Internet Access

Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission voted to ease the way for cities to become Internet service providers. So-called municipal broadband is already a reality in a few towns, often providing Internet access and faster service to rural communities that cable companies don’t serve.

The cable and telecommunications industry have long lobbied against city-run broadband, arguing that taxpayer money should not fund potential competitors to private companies.

The telecom companies have what may seem like an unlikely ally: states. Roughly 20 states have restrictions against municipal broadband.

And the attorneys general in North Carolina and Tennessee have recently filed lawsuits in an attempt to overrule the FCC and block towns in these states from expanding publicly funded Internet service.

North Carolina’s attorney general argued in a suit filed last month that the “FCC unlawfully inserted itself between the State and the State’s political subdivisions.” Tennessee’s attorney general filed a similar suit in March.

Tennessee has hired one of the country’s largest telecom lobbying and law firms, Wiley Rein, to represent the state in its suit. The firm, founded by a former FCC chairman, has represented AT&T, Verizon and Qwest, among others.

James Tierney, director of the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School, said it is not unusual for attorneys general to seek outside counsel for specialized cases that they view as a priority.

Asked about the suit, the Tennessee attorney general’s office told ProPublica, “This is a question of the state’s sovereign ability to define the role of its local governmental units.” North Carolina Attorney General’s office said in a statement that the “legal defense of state laws by the Attorney General’s office is a statutory requirement.”

As the New York Times detailed last year, state attorneys general have become a major target of corporate lobbyists and contributors including AT&T, Comcast and T-Mobile.

North Carolina is no exception. The state’s Attorney General Roy Cooper received roughly $35,000 from the telecommunications industry in his 2012 run for office. Only the state’s retail industry gave more.

The donations are just a small part of contributions the industry has made in the states. In North Carolina’s 2014 elections, the telecommunications industry gave a combined $870,000 to candidates in both parties, which made it one of the top industries to contribute that year. Candidates in Tennessee received nearly $921,000 from AT&T and other industry players in 2014.

The FCC’s decision came after two towns – City of Wilson in North Carolina and Chattanooga in Tennessee – appealed to the agency to be able to expand their networks.

The vote has rattled some companies. In a government filing earlier this year, Comcast cited the FCC’s decision as a risk to the company’s business: “Any changes to the regulatory framework applicable to any of our services or businesses could have a negative impact on our businesses and results of operations.”

If the court upholds the FCC’s authority to preempt restrictions in North Carolina and Tennessee, it may embolden other cities to file petitions with the agency, according to lawyer Jim Baller, who represents Wilson and the Chattanooga Electric Power Board. “A victory by the FCC would be a very welcome result for many communities across America,” said Baller.

For some residents in and outside of Chattanooga, clearing the way to city-run broadband would mean the sort of faster Internet access that others might take for granted.

For 12 years, Eva VanHook, 39, of Georgetown, Tennessee, lived with a satellite broadband connection so slow that she’d read a book while waiting for a web page to load. In order for her son to access online materials for his school assignments, she’d drive him 12 miles to their church parking lot, where he could access faster WiFi.

Charter, the local Internet service provider, declined several requests by her husband to build lines out to her home. Only last month did Charter connect her home to the Internet. “Even the possibility to jump on [the local utility’s] gigabit network would blow our minds right now,” VanHook said. “There is nothing faster than Chattanooga. Just through meeting them and hearing them speak and having them understand what’s going on, that’s the kind of place I want to do business.”

http://gizmodo.com/the-reason-your-city-cant-have-fast-internet-access-1714252025

Let's hope the FCC wins this battle

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren Are Fighting for Cheaper Internet

Internet-loving Americans have been waiting way too long for a team of benevolent juggernauts in Washington to take on massive money-hungry cable companies. This week, four freedom-fighting senators took their first swing in the form of a strongly worded letter to the Federal Communications Commission. The message was clear: Bring down broadband prices.

Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken, and Ed Markey joined forces in asking the FCC to investigate companies that are charging “ridiculous prices” for cable and broadband services. The consumer advocates—quite correctly—argue that this country’s citizens are forced to buy internet from “de facto monopolies.” The letter reads:

As the telecommunications industry becomes increasingly concentrated, this lack of choice has resulted in huge price increases and often poor service customers for consumers.​

Then, the internet advocates get specific:

In addition to steeply rising prices, consumers are often unaware of the various fees that are tacked onto their monthly bills because of the lack of transparency in pricing. To cite just one example, Time Warner Cable began charging a cable modem rental fee in 2012 of $3.95 a month. TWC then raised the price to $5.99 a month in 2013. Today it charges $8 a month, a 203 percent increase in three years’ time, in addition to monthly broadband charges.​

That’s BS! But it’s familiar BS because these kinds of charges and terrible customer service have become commonplace, when dealing with big cable. We’ve known for a while that America’s internet is awful, but now the nation’s top lawmakers are essentially the calling the monopolistic industry un-American.

Of course, a strongly worded letter to the FCC doesn’t not quite constitute an all-out war on big cable. The FCC will have to cooperate, though it helps that this is an issue that President Obama has been pushing for months now.

Inevitably, with celebrity consumer advocates like Elizabeth Warren and Al Franken fighting the good fight, it’s certainly a good start. The fact that net neutrality pioneer Ed Markey and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders are backing them up bodes well for everyone. After all, we have to put up with this crappy internet. We might as well band together to fix it.

http://gizmodo.com/bernie-sanders-and-elizabeth-warren-are-fighting-for-ch-1717100787

Glad to see someone finally manned up and is trying to take these companies on

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Wow, that hits close to home.

I'm currently desperately looking for a replacement wireless provider because the local Telecom giant bought out our dirt cheap provider.

It's ridiculous what these mega corporations get away with and they are so incredibly greedy.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

It actually makes perfect sense that they get away with this BS since they all buy their own politicians to put their bills so that they can never be stopped and do whatever the hell they want.

Sorry to hear about your net troubles though. Have you checked if Verizon FIOS is in your area? That's what I have and it's still a bit pricey but a good alternative to the other meg-corporation I have the option of and they have been laying lines like mad men trying to make it available to more people over the last few years

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

It actually makes perfect sense that they get away with this BS since they all buy their own politicians to put their bills so that they can never be stopped and do whatever the hell they want.

Sorry to hear about your net troubles though. Have you checked if Verizon FIOS is in your area? That's what I have and it's still a bit pricey but a good alternative to the other meg-corporation I have the option of and they have been laying lines like mad men trying to make it available to more people over the last few years

Thanks, I'll look into it.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

US Presidential Candidates' Internet Policies, Ranked

With 20-odd US presidential candidates in the mix, everyone’s trying to pick the winning position on the issues that matter most to Americans. The future of the internet is obviously a big one. Here’s what’s been proposed so far — the good, the bad, and the utterly insane.

With the Federal Communication Commission’s new open internet rules hung up in litigation, pretty much anything goes. The craziest of candidates are talking about how liberals want to create a government-run internet that would amount to an apocalypse. (This will never happen.) The most sensible of candidates are proposing ways we could break up the big cable monopolies that provide Americans with ****** service at high prices. (This is harder than it sounds.) Inevitably, the would-be winner will help decide the fate of the network of networks, for better or for worse.

Here’s what’s being proposed so far:

8. Ted Cruz - Net Neutrality = Obamacare

The Republican senator from Texas says a lot of dumb stuff. Perhaps the dumbest came during the heat of the net neutrality debate, not long before he declared his candidacy for president:

@SenTedCruz: "Net Neutrality" is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government.

As we said at the time, this take isn’t just dumb, it’s dangerous.

7. Jeb Bush - Stuck in 1934

Dubya’s brother is almost as clueless as Ted Cruz. This past march, Bush said of net neutrality: “The idea of regulating access to the Internet with a 1934 law is one of the craziest ideas I’ve ever heard.” The Republican presidential candidate apparently doesn’t understand how the FCC’s open internet rules work, nor does he know that the 1934 Telecommunications Act has been updated many times.

6. Carly Fiorina - What Is Internet?

The former CEO of Hewlett-Packard should realize that the FCC’s open internet rules are good for Silicon Valley. Instead, she doesn’t seem to know how they work. She claims that the rules would give the government “nearly unlimited authority to micromanage how, when and where Internet companies innovate.” That’s just wrong.

5. Rand Paul - Deregulate Everything

Quite ironically, Rand Paul’s take on preserving the open internet misunderstands what liberty is. “This regulation by the FCC,” Paul said of the FCC rules, “is a textbook example of Washington’s desire to regulate anything and everything, and will do nothing more than wrap the Internet in red tape.” But the fact of the matter is we’ve learned that lack of regulation has actually led to monopolies that create bureaucracies that create ... red tape.

4. Chris Christie - More Networks, Fewer Rules

The New Jersey governor is famous for appealing to all kinds of voters, and he gets the internet half right. In a policy speech, he said quite clearly, “The fact is we need more broadband and wireless networks, not fewer.” But in the same breath he said that the government wants “to set prices and rules.” Which isn’t really true.

3. Mike Huckabee - Still Driving On the Information Superhighway

This one’s a bit of a mystery, but it’s a hopeful one. Huckabee’s stayed quiet on the internet issue this year. However, when he ran in 2007, the Republican suggested he was open minded about net neutrality: “In many ways we can look at the Internet kinda like we do an Interstate highway. Everybody has a right to get on that highway.”

2. Hillary Clinton - More ISPs, More Consumer Choices

This Democratic frontrunner knows how to look for middle ground. In an economic policy speech in July, she said she’d “make sure there is a greater diversity of providers so consumers have more choice.” This is an agreeable way of suggesting a policy that appeals to business interests and consumer advocates alike. Competition is good! Heck if Obama thinks it’s a good idea, Hillary should, too.

1. Bernie Sanders - No More Monopolies

Vermont’s favorite hippie lawmaker is not beating around the bush. Sanders sent a letter to the FCC asking them to investigate “de facto monopolies” in the cable business. “This lack of choice has resulted in huge price increases and often poor service customers for consumers,” he wrote. Nobody likes monopolies. Whether the president could break them up, however, is a whole other issue.

http://gizmodo.com/us-presidential-candidates-internet-policies-ranked-1717543323

Is anyone surprised most of the Republicans are behind the curve on yet another key issue for the future?

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Obama Has a Plan to End America's Internet Access Inequality Problem

“Today, high speed broadband is not a luxury, it’s a necessity,” President Obama said earlier this year. Yet home internet access is still an extravagance out of reach for many Americans. Today, the White House announced a program designed to change that.

Less than half of the poorest households in the US have home internet access, according to a report released today from the White House Council of Economic Advisers. It’s a grim statistic, which is why there’s a new program launching to start closing the access gap.

The White House and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development launched a pilot program called ConnectHome today to for 275,000 low-income homes in 27 cities and one tribal area, according to the New York Times:

The program will involve city officials; eight Internet providers, like Cox Communications; at least one university; and even Best Buy, which will offer computer training to residents in some cities.​

As part of the initiative, Google is offering free home internet access to public housing residents in its twelve Google Fiber markets. In places that are part of the pilot program that don’t have Google Fiber yet, like New Orleans, there’s heavily discounted broadband hookups available for around $10 a month.

It’s a first step towards closing the wide gap between the kind of internet access that middle-to-upper income Americans enjoy and the dearth of access amongst low-income America.

http://gizmodo.com/obama-has-a-plan-to-end-americas-internet-access-inequa-1717965333

This is fantastic news

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

FBI Struggling With Cybersecurity Because of Crap Pay and Drug Tests

It’s no secret that American businesses and the government are under constant attack from hackers around the world. That’s just the nature of living in the 21st century. But a new audit says that America is even less prepared to defend against these attacks than we thought.

The problem? Competent people don’t want to work for the FBI because of non-competitive pay and a tough requirement relating to a potential employee’s drug history—going back as far as ten years.

The new report from the Justice Department explains the the FBI’s Next Generation Cyber Initiative, launched in 2012, has seen plenty of set-backs. Chief among them is that they just can’t snag the top level cybersecurity experts that they’d like.

The private sector is simply offering people more money than the Justice Department. And even if the FBI finds someone good, they often have to turn them down because of antiquated background check rules.

From the report:

Another FBI official told us that the FBI loses a significant number of people who may be interested because of the FBI’s extensive background check process and other requirements, such as all employees must be United States citizens and must not have used marijuana in the past 3 years, and cannot have used any other illegal drug in the past 10 years. Another factor may be that private sector entities are able to offer technically trained, cyber professionals higher salaries than the FBI can offer.​

These and other policies have left the FBI’s task force understaffed. The report found that of the 134 computer scientists that it had been authorized to hire under the Initiative, it still had 52 open positions. What’s perhaps more astounding was that of the 56 FBI field offices, five didn’t even have a single computer scientist assigned to that office’s Cyber Task Force.

The FBI is currently examining the recruitment methods of the NSA and CIA with the hopes of attracting qualified candidates for employment. Some of those techniques will no doubt include higher pay.

http://gizmodo.com/fbi-struggling-with-cybersecurity-because-of-****-pay-a-1721337348

They need to get with the times

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Facebook's Internet Drone Looks Like an Angry Boomerang

After years of teasing, Facebook has finally revealed an air-ready, solar-powered drone designed to beam internet to Earth’s surface. It looks like a really expensive and sort of pissed off boomerang. All it lacks is the data-delivering laser that will deliver websites to remote African villages. Facebook says that part’s almost ready.

http://gizmodo.com/facebooks-internet-drone-looks-like-an-angry-boomerang-1721166223

I'm still not sold on all these people being dependant on Bookface to get their internet

 

[wiegeabo]

FBI Struggling With Cybersecurity Because of Crap Pay and Drug Tests

http://gizmodo.com/fbi-struggling-with-cybersecurity-because-of-****-pay-a-1721337348

They need to get with the times

Doesn't the government understand that if they just paid hackers in pizza, soda, and weed we'd have the greatest cybersecurity on the planet?