Chris Lefkow at Yahoo News reports that the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). The controversial legislation has garnered intense criticism from groups such as Electronic Freedom Foundation and Computer and Communications Industry Association, that claim the bill “threatens Internet openness and freedom,” and will result in “Internet censorship.”
Click here to see read the bill in its entirety.
Sam Churchill over at DailyWireless reports on some early reviews of the product – so far, “[r]eviewers appear underwhelmed.” Churchill also covers some developments with Hulu and Netflix.
Joseph Menn over that the FT Tech Blog discusses remarks made by FCC Chairman Genachowski in which he claimed the companies’ agreement had harmed his efforts to garner broad consensus on net neutrality principles.
Kate Murphy writing for the NYT reports on efforts by major cellular carriers to control the production, distribution, and usage of cellular signal boosters. AT&T and Verizon issued separate filings from the CTIA, while Sprint and T-Mobile have evidently not brought any complaints on the matter.
Cardozo Law Professor Susan Crawford writes that the only (tenable) solution to the current broadband access stagnation is for the FCC to relabel it “telecommunications,” thereby enabling the agency to fulfill this administration’s (and previous ones) mandate for affordable broadband access to all Americans.
Erica Marat writing at the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia blog reports on the Kazakh government’s recent move to lift a two year ban on access to the blog portal LiveJournal. Marat notes that LiveJournal has become a valuable tool for dissidents in Russia and other countries, providing an open forum in an otherwise propaganda-saturated environment.
Ranjit Lall writing at FT’s Beyondbrics discusses a Google White Paper in which the company calls for governments to ensure a free and open Internet. Lall highlights three measures for which Google advocates:
- Focus on and publicly highlight as unfair trade barriers those practices by governments that restrict or disrupt the flow of online information services.
- Take appropriate action where government restrictions on the free flow of online information violate international trade rules.
- Establish new international trade rules under bilateral, regional, and multilateral agreements that provide further assurances in favor of the free flow of information on the Internet.
Lall points out the uncertainty of Google’s motives, as the company has been somewhat weak-kneed in standing against Internet censorship. You can read Google’s whitepaper here.
Stew Magnuson at National Defense Magazine has a post on how in April 2010, China Telecom Corp. triggered many US-based ISPs to route their traffic through China. He notes that the company was able to absorb the information (15% of Internet traffic) and continue routing it without any noticeable disruption. Magnuson writes:
Also, the list of hijacked data just happened to include preselected destinations around the world that encompassed military, intelligence and many civilian networks in the United States and other allies such as Japan and Australia, he said. “Why would you keep that list?” Alperovitch asked.
William Maclean reporting for Reuters discusses the mounting evidence that the Stuxnet worm was aimed at particular converter drive frequencies which have limited applications – including control of gas centrifuges. An excerpt:
“This finding strongly points to a controller for a module in a gas centrifuge cascade,” [Leading German cyber expert Ralph Langner] blogged. “One reasonable goal for the attack could be to destroy the centrifuge rotor by vibration, which causes the centrifuge to explode.
Julia Angwin writing in tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal reports on new efforts by the White House to strengthen online privacy. Angwin notes that the shift towards regulation is due in part to the increased role of personal data in the digital economy, and doubts as to whether the Internet industry can do enough “self-policing.”
Marvin Ammori 