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Old 05-12-18, 07:21 AM   #1
JackSpratts
 
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Default Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - December 8th, ’18

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"Labor has chosen to allow terrorists and paedophiles to continue their evil work in order to engage in point scoring." – Defence Minister Christopher Pyne


"I have spent 30 years of my life deeply immersed in the security affairs of this nation. I've watched friends lost and killed in operations against terrorists. I've washed the blood of friends from my uniform. And I won't be told by a member of this House that I am 'running a protection racket for terrorists'. That was grossly offensive and was not a contribution to this debate." – Colonel Dr Mike Kelly


"History will record this as one of the most profound failures of leadership of the Australian Labor party." – Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John






































December 8th, 2018




Space Odyssey Helps Launch First 8K TV Channel
Chris Fox

Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey will help launch the world's first super-high definition 8K television channel on Saturday.

Japanese broadcaster NHK said it had asked Warner Bros to scan the original film negatives in 8K for its new channel.

Super-high definition 8K pictures offer 16 times the resolution of HD TV.

However, few people currently have the necessary television or equipment to receive the broadcasts.

Super hi-vision

NHK says it has been developing 8K, which it calls super-hi vision, since 1995.

As well as improved picture resolution, broadcasts can include 24 channels of audio for immersive surround sound experiences.

It is hoping to broadcast the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games using the new format.

Television manufacturers including Samsung and LG have announced 8K-capable television sets, but they are still prohibitively expensive for widespread adoption.

NHK's new channel BS8K will broadcast programmes for about 12 hours a day.

The first programme at 10:00 local time (01:00 GMT) will be an information broadcast, highlighting future shows on the channel.

The channel will also broadcast live from Italy to showcase "popular tourist attractions from Rome, as well as food, culture and history".
Space Odyssey

NHK said it had chosen to broadcast 2001: A Space Odyssey on its launch night so that viewers could enjoy a "masterpiece of film history".

Although many movies are shot on 35mm film, 2001: A Space Odyssey was shot on 70mm film, which was the highest quality available at the time.

Warner Bros was able to scan the original film negatives, repair scratches and provide an 8K version of the film that captures the "power and beauty of the original".

"The many famous scenes become even more vivid, with the attention to detail of director Stanley Kubrick expressed in the exquisite images, creating the feeling of really being on a trip in space, allowing the film to be enjoyed for the first time at home," NHK said in a statement.

In March, the channel will broadcast My Fair Lady starring Audrey Hepburn, which was also shot on 70mm film.
A new strategy

Japanese electronics-maker Sharp began selling its first 8K television in 2015. At launch it cost $133,000 (£104,000). Currently, a Samsung 8K television costs about $15,000 (£11,700) to buy.

Viewers will also need an 8K-capable satellite receiver. Sharp produces one that costs 250,000 yen (£1,750; $2,200). It requires four HDMI cables to get the pictures into a Sharp TV set, and another cable for sound.

Since 8K televisions and receivers are not yet owned by many people, NHK intends to showcase equipment in venues around Japan.

It hopes live events will tempt people to tune in, but will also repeat programmes regularly.

"8K is at the moment based around watching at the time of broadcast," it said in a statement. "We plan to increase the number of chances to watch through rebroadcasts."

"Content has always been crucial for a new TV technology to take off," Joe Cox, editor-in-chief of technology news site What Hi-Fi, told the BBC.

"The launch of the world's first 8K TV channel is great news, even if it is only in Japan. But realistically, mass market adoption is still a long, long way off.

"While the likes of Amazon and Netflix have charged head first into 4K this year, the BBC is only at the trial stage, and others are still struggling to stream HD, so 8K remains a pipedream in the UK.

"But with TV brands suggesting 8K resolution screens can improve 4K and even HD pictures, expect to see plenty more 8K TVs in 2019, even if the content doesn't come so quickly."
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46403539





It’s the Beginning of the End of Satellite TV in the US
Ashley Rodriguez

“We’ve launched our last satellite,” John Donovan, CEO of AT&T Communications, said in a meeting with analysts on Nov. 29.

The AT&T executive effectively declared the end of the satellite-TV era with that statement. AT&T owns DirecTV, the US’s largest satellite company—and second largest TV provider overall, behind Comcast.

DirecTV will continue offering satellite-TV service—it had nearly 20 million satellite video subscribers as of September, per company filings. But the company will focus on growing its online video business instead, Donovan said. It has a new set-top box, where people can get the same TV service they’d get with satellite, through an internet-connected box they can install themselves. It expects that box to become a greater share of its new premium-TV service installations in the first half of 2019. It also sells cheaper, TV packages with fewer channels through its DirecTV Now and WatchTV streaming services, which work with many smart TVs and streaming media players like Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices.

The practice of getting TV through satellite dishes propped up in backyards and perched on rooftops first took hold in the US in the last 1970s and early 1980s, after TV networks like HBO and Turner Broadcasting System started sending TV signals to cable providers via satellites. People in areas without cable or broadcast TV began putting up their own dishes to receive the TV signals, and that grew into a TV business of its own. But in recent years, consumers have shifted to new digital TV offerings like Netflix and Hulu or the live, PlayStation Vue service. That shift away from traditional TV services has hit satellite particularly hard. The US pay-TV industry reportedly lost a record number of TV subscribers last quarter, and the satellite services from DirecTV and Dish Network (which also owns internet-TV service Sling TV) were the hardest hit.

In 2017, AT&T lost 554,000 satellite video subscribers, and it continued to hemorrhage customers this year, according to company filings.

“He’s not going to launch more satellites,” AT&T’s top boss, chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson, said of Donovan, during the meeting. “We’re kind of done.”
https://qz.com/1480089/att-just-decl...era-in-the-us/





AT&T Makes it More Expensive to Cancel DirecTV or Internet Service

AT&T: No more prorated final bills when you cancel DirecTV, Internet, or phone.
Jon Brodkin

AT&T will start charging customers for the full month after they cancel TV or Internet service, ending its customer-friendly practice of providing a prorated credit for the final month.

Even if you cancel on the first day of a new billing period, you'll be charged for the full month and service will continue for the rest of the month whether you want it or not. To avoid paying for a month of service you don't want, you'd need to cancel by the last day of the previous billing period.

The change will take effect on January 14, 2019 and apply even when a customer is paying on a month-to-month basis and no longer under contract.

"We bill in advance for DirecTV, U-verse TV, AT&T Phone, AT&T Internet, and Fixed Wireless Internet accounts per our service agreements," AT&T said in its announcement of the change. "Currently, if you cancel any of these services, we give you prorated credits for the remaining days in your bill period. Starting January 14, 2019, if you disconnect these services before the bill period is over, we won't offer those prorated credits anymore. But, you can still use your services until the last day of your bill period."

AT&T noted that it already charges for the full final month when you cancel mobile service. But instead of changing the mobile policy to match the more forgiving TV-and-broadband policy, AT&T is changing the TV-and-broadband policy to match the more draconian terms of its cellular service.

"We're making this change so our video and broadband services follow the same billing policies as our mobility services," AT&T wrote.

The charge for the final month is separate from AT&T's Early Termination Fee, which applies when customers cancel before the end of a contract.
Customers in some states escape new policy

The new policy of charging for the full final month does not apply to any accounts in California, Illinois, and New York. The change also doesn't apply to "U-verse TV, AT&T Phone, or AT&T Internet accounts in Michigan," AT&T said.

AT&T is applying different policies in those states in order to comply with local regulations. “A limited number of customers will continue to receive prorated credits, either as a result of local or state regulations or for other specific reasons," AT&T told Ars.

The no-proration policy also won't apply to service changes such as upgrades or downgrades, moving your account to a new location, or to DirecTV for businesses. The full month charge also won't apply when customers switch from one AT&T service to another, such as a switch between DirecTV and U-verse TV.

Proration policies vary by provider. Comcast, the nation's biggest home Internet provider and second largest TV provider after AT&T, apparently does prorate the final bill. Altice's Optimum service (formerly Cablevision), by contrast, does not prorate the final month. Other carriers that don't prorate the final bill after a customer cancels include Verizon FiOS and Charter Spectrum. Dish's policy says that "no credits, refunds, price reductions or any other form of compensation will be provided in connection with the cancellation or disconnection of Services."
https://arstechnica.com/information-...ernet-service/





Supreme Court Denies Review of Fox News Fight Against TVEyes

The media monitoring service doesn't get another crack at its fair use argument.
Eriq Gardner

The U.S. Supreme Court won't be reviewing a big copyright lawsuit brought by Fox News against TVEyes, a media monitoring services that stores a massive amount of television news programming for use by researchers. The decision to deny review leaves in place an opinion from a lower appellate circuit that affirmed TVEyes' copyright liability for making verbatim reproduction of Fox News' content.

The development is a blow for TVEyes, which has become a critical tool for journalists to keep tabs on what is said on the air by Fox News commentators. That features has become especially important during the administration of President Donald Trump, who is often influenced by Fox News. TVEyes is also used by PR folks to track when their clients are mentioned in the news.

In February, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Fox News that a service that provided its video and audio to customers — almost in real time — and then allowed clips to be shared through email and social media violates its copyrights.

"[b]ecause [TVEyes] deprives Fox of revenue that properly belongs to the copyright holder, TVEyes has failed to show that the product it offers to its clients can be justified as a fair use," wrote Circuit Judge Dennis Jacobs.

In a cert petition, TVEyes presented the case as a critical one of exceptional importance that would balance copyright law with the First Amendment right to criticize and comment about the copyright holders. The appellant pointed out that the Supreme Court hadn't taken up a fair use case in two decades and noted how when Fox News licenses its works, it has a special restriction prohibiting the use of licensed clips "in a way that is derogatory or critical."

TVEyes wanted the high court to address the presumption of market harm for Fox News and put emphasis on the cable news channel's "outsized relevance to national political debate," explicitly noting the feedback loop between Trump and Fox News commentators.

In opposition, Fox News downplayed the stakes except for copyright holders in the news business.

"As the Second Circuit recognized, criticism of the media is alive and well, and is in no way dependent on TVEyes' efforts to profit from copying and distributing the media's copyrighted content," wrote Fox News' attorney. "Indeed, it is TVEyes that poses the real threat to First Amendment values, as depriving the media of its entitled copyright protection will serve to dampen public discourse by hindering the viability of media services that depend on receiving fees for their content."

On Monday, the justices announced a bunch of cases that wouldn't be reviewed. The TVEyes petition was among those denied cert without further comment. The case now goes back to the trial court, which will further consider the scope of the injunction and potentially set up a trial to examine damages.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/th...tveyes-1165714





Tell the Senate Not to Put the Register of Copyrights in the Hands of the President
Katharine Trendacosta

With just a week left for this Congress, one of the weirdest bad copyright bills is back on the calendar. The “Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act” would make the Register of Copyrights a presidential appointee, politicizing a role that should not be made a presidential pawn.

On Tuesday, December 4, the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration is scheduled to vote on S. 1010, the Senate version of the “Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act” already passed by the House of Representatives as H.R. 1695. If it passes out of the committee, the whole Senate will be able to vote on it with only days left in the 2018 session.

Currently, the Register of Copyrights is appointed by the Librarian of Congress, as the Copyright Office is part of the Library. This bill would take the appointment out of the hands of the Librarian and put it in the hands of the President.

The Register of Copyrights does a number of important, nonpartisan, non-political jobs. As the name implies, they register copyrightable material. But they are also charged with providing advice to Congress and “information and assistance” to others in the federal government on copyright. It’s important to note that, except in rare, narrow circumstances, the Register of Copyrights does not make copyright policy. Congress does.

The Register of Copyrights does not do the same things the heads of executive departments and judges do. Picking someone for that job the same way those are picked—appointed by the President and a confirmation process in the Senate—does not make sense for it.

Because the Register is charged with providing advice and information and not with making policy, making the job as apolitical as possible is a good thing. A Presidential appointee, chosen for adherence to the beliefs of the President, is more politicized, not less. A Presidential appointment also means more avenues of influence by special interests, including the major media and entertainment companies that continually seek to expand the scope of copyright for their own benefit, not for individual creators or users. The unusual (and possibly unconstitutional) procedure set out in the bill compounds this problem: the Register would be chosen by the President from a list of people compiled by the leaders of the House and Senate, who themselves may be beholden to the entertainment industry and other special interests.

Copyright affects how we interact with so many things, from the obvious—movies, books, and music—to the less obvious—tractors, cars, and phones. And the Copyright Office has a hand in deciding, for example, what kind of research security experts can do. Why? Because Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it illegal to break access controls on copyrighted material without an exemption from the Copyright Office, and security researchers often need to do just that to determine how safe the devices in our homes really are.

When the Copyright Office wades into policy, we get things like its support of the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and its allowance of MPAA lobbying to undermine the FCC’s plan to bring competition to the cable box market. An appointee charged with an agenda from the President and nominated by politicians who depend on big-money corporate donors for their re-election can only be worse. The Copyright Office has gotten more political over time, but the solution is not to help it along.

We don’t need a Register that is a Presidential pawn. We don’t need this bill. Tell your Senators to vote against it.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/1...ands-president





Nexstar to Acquire Tribune Media for $4.1 Billion

The deal, worth $6.4 billion when including debt, will make the company the largest operator of local U.S. television stations.
Georg Szalai , Etan Vlessing

Nexstar Media Group agreed to acquire Tribune Media Co. for $4.1 billion in a deal set to create the largest operator of local television stations in the U.S.

Including the assumption of debt, the takeover price amounts to $6.4 billion. Nexstar, based in Irving, Texas, currently operates more than 100 TV stations in 58 markets, covering about 18 percent of U.S. TV households.

In August, Sinclair Broadcast Group's planned $3.9 billion takeover of Tribune was canceled and a lawsuit was filed by Tribune seeking "compensation for all losses incurred as a result of Sinclair's material breaches of the merger agreement." Sinclair currently operates the most TV stations in the U.S.

Nexstar and Tribune made the deal official early Monday.

During an analyst call Monday morning Nexstar chairman, president and CEO Perry Sook argued the deal for Tribune Media creates a "leading pure-play broadcast operator" offering local news, entertainment, sports, lifestyle and network programming and content via broadcast and digital media platforms. Nexstar eyed a possible deal for Tribune Media in 2017, but was ultimately out-bid by Sinclair Broadcasting for the TV station group.

Sook said the Tribune stations had since then performed better as a portfolio than Nexstar had anticipated when first kicking the tires last year. "The company is just in a better place now and the management team has done a great job," Sook said.

Sook added he spoke Monday morning to Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai as he began discussions to secure regulatory approval for the deal. Nexstar has a divestiture plan drawn up to secure regulatory approval from the FCC as it has 13 overlapping markets with existing Tribune Media markets in which it has offered to sell TV stations.

"There's a number of ways to solve the equation here," Sook told analysts. He anticipates around $1 billion in asset sales, depending on which mix of TV stations Nexstar and the FCC agree on. The deal for Tribune Media is expected to close in the third quarter of 2019.

Nexstar anticipates around $160 million in synergies from the deal in its first year. That includes $20 million in corporate overhead savings, another $65 million in station and digital group operating cost reductions, and $75 million in net retransmission revenue.

Sook said Nexstar has no immediate plans to sell off Tribune’s WGN-TV in Chicago, but would consider a deal if "someone is willing to pay a significant premium." Thomas Carter, Nexstar executive vp and CFO, echoed that view over the 31 percent stake in the Food Network cable channel to be acquired, which has recurring cash flow from its distribution revenues, heralding no early sale.

"We don't see that there is a headlong rush to monetize that asset, and certainly not at any price," Carter said. Sook also pointed to the benefits of recurring cash flow from the 31 percent stake in the Food Network cable TV channel to be acquired, and growing political advertising revenue anticipated from the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign and election, to justify the Tribune Media deal.

"We are delighted to have reached this agreement with Nexstar as it provides Tribune shareholders with substantial value and a well-defined path to closing," Tribune Media CEO Peter Kern added in a statement. "Together with Nexstar we can better compete by delivering a nationally integrated, comprehensive and competitive offering across all our markets. We believe this combination will produce an even stronger broadcast and digital platform that builds on the accomplishments of both companies and benefits our viewers and advertisers."
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ne...illion-1165662





“What is the FCC Hiding?” Pai Still Won’t Release Net Neutrality Server Logs

FCC denies NYT appeal, says producing requested records is too hard.
Jon Brodkin

The Federal Communications Commission has once again refused a New York Times request for records that the Times believes might shed light on Russian interference in the net neutrality repeal proceeding.

The Times made a Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request in June 2017 for FCC server logs and sued the FCC in September of this year over the agency's ongoing refusal to release the records. The court case is still pending, but the Times had also appealed directly to the FCC to reverse its FoIA decision. The FCC denied that appeal in a decision released today.

The Times' FoIA request was for server logs related to the system for accepting public comments on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's repeal of net neutrality rules. The Times sought the information in order to investigate Russian involvement in fraudulent public comments. A similar request was made by Buzzfeed News, and the FCC rejected the requests from both news organizations in its order today.

Although the Times narrowed its records request to satisfy the FCC's privacy and security concerns, the FCC says it still won't provide any of the requested data. Doing so, the agency asserts, would require more than a simple database search and require the FCC to "create records that do not already exist."

Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel was the only FCC commissioner to dissent from the new ruling against the FoIA request. "What is the Federal Communications Commission hiding?" Rosenworcel asked in her dissenting statement. (Since the departure of Mignon Clyburn, Rosenworcel is the only Democratic commissioner.)

Rosenworcel pointed to the widespread fraud in the net neutrality proceeding, saying that "as many as 9.5 million people had their identities stolen and used to file fake comments, which is a crime under both federal and state laws."

"Something here is rotten—and it's time for the FCC to come clean," Rosenworcel said. "Regrettably, this agency will not do this on its own. So it falls to those who seek to investigate from outside its walls."

Pai fired back at Rosenworcel in a statement of his own, complaining that Rosenworcel didn't support Pai's efforts to improve FCC transparency during the Obama administration, when Democrats held the commission majority.

"What has changed between then and now? Literally nothing, other than the political affiliation of the FCC's leadership (and a lot more transparency now than the agency ever had then)," Pai wrote. "What is required in this matter, as in any other, is sober analysis of the facts and the law—not partisan gamesmanship. Fortunately, the Commission majority embraces that ethos in this item."

Pai accused Rosenworcel of ignoring court precedents and FCC staff analysis that support the FCC majority's position. He wrote that Rosenworcel neglected to mention "the fact that the half-million comments submitted from Russian email addresses and the nearly eight million comments filed by email addresses from email domains associated with FakeMailGenerator.com supported her position on the issue!"

In another public records case, a US district court judge ruled that the FCC must disclose email addresses that were used to submit bulk comments in the net neutrality repeal proceeding.

FCC cites FoIA exemptions

Pai said that today's FCC decision "relies on clear judicial precedent and careful analysis of the facts to uphold the career staff's determination that disclosure of certain server logs is inappropriate under FOIA Exemptions 6 and 7(E)."

Exemption 6 lets agencies withhold information that "would invade another individual's personal privacy." Exemption 7(E) relates to law enforcement techniques and procedures—the FCC notes that it has law enforcement powers and says the server logs would reveal sensitive information about how it defends its IT infrastructure against attacks.

The Times previously agreed to narrow its public records request to eliminate a request for comments, names, and timestamps. The narrowed request sought "only (1) originating IP addresses and timestamps, and (2) User-Agent headers and timestamps," the Times said in its court complaint. This addressed the FCC's privacy concerns because "the originating IP addresses would not be linked to any specific comment," the Times said.

The Times also argued that revealing IP addresses and User-Agent headers by themselves would not reveal any of the security measures used by the FCC.

The FCC denial today mostly addresses the Times' original, broader records request, and it repeats the FCC's arguments that the original request would invade commenters' privacy and reveal sensitive information about the FCC's IT systems.

The FCC doesn't dispute the Times' argument that the narrowed request would satisfy the commission's privacy and security concerns. But the FCC still refuses to release the IP addresses, user-agent headers, and timestamps, saying that producing them would be complicated.

"Although agencies are required to conduct simple database searches under the FoIA, the FoIA does not require agencies to create new records to satisfy requests," the FCC said. "Processing the request as modified by [Times reporter Nicholas] Confessore would go well beyond a straightforward database query; it would require the Commission to create records that do not already exist."

Rosenworcel said the FCC should produce the records, saying that the information could help identify "where this fraud in our public record came from, assess who could have orchestrated it, and identify who could have paid for it to occur." She continued:

[i] nstead of providing news organizations with the information requested, in this decision the FCC decides to hide behind Freedom of Information Act exemptions and thwart investigative journalism. In doing so, the agency asserts an overbroad claim about the security of its public commenting system that sounds no more credible than its earlier and disproven claim that the system was the subject of distributed denial of service attack. It appears this agency is trying to prevent anyone from looking too closely at the mess it made of net neutrality. It is hiding what it knows about the fraud in our record, and it is preventing an honest account of its many problems from seeing the light of day.

Separately, Pai's FCC has failed to fulfill an Ars request for records related to the FCC's measurement of in-home broadband speeds. The FCC hasn't released any new data from its speed tests in nearly two years, and we've been trying to get information about the future of the program.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...lity-comments/





Ajit Pai Says It's 'Fact' Russian Accounts Filed Net Neutrality Comments, But FCC Says Different in Court
Dell Cameron

Does the Federal Communications Commission believe that more than half a million comments about net neutrality originated from Russia last year? It depends on who you ask. Remarks offered by Chairman Ajit Pai as recently as yesterday appear in stark relief to claims the FCC recently filed in court.

In a memorandum published Monday to the FCC’s website, Pai tossed around the word “fact” while referring to a “half-million comments” he claims were “submitted from Russian e-mail addresses.” This chairman was referencing a fraction of the 23 million comments submitted to the FCC last year amid Pai’s ultimately successful effort to roll back Obama-era net neutrality rules.

But in a court filing just a few weeks ago, an assistant U.S. attorney assigned to represent the FCC in a case brought by the New York Times made a notably divergent claim: that the commission remains unconvinced of any meddling by Russian bots, residents, or government officials in the FCC comment system.

Pai’s remark, about “the fact that” a “half-million comments” were “submitted from Russian e-mail addresses,” accompanied his agency’s rejection of two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by the New York Times and BuzzFeed, which sought “IP addresses” and “server logs,” respectively, associated with public comments submitted during Pai’s net neutrality docket.

Changes in FCC rules are typically subject to a process known as “notice and comment” rulemaking, whereby the FCC announces its intention to adopt or modify rules and then gives the public a period of time to comment. Using FOIA, reporters at BuzzFeed and the Times are hoping to uncover the truth behind inconsistencies reported in the net neutrality comments, including why a significant portion of them originated overseas.

The FCC and its DOJ attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In August 2017, a study was released of the email accounts associated with comments. It concluded as many as 444,925 were of Russian origin. Further, the study determined that the Russian-linked accounts comprised nearly 25 percent of the estimated 1.72 million comments linked to foreign domains.

The group behind the study, Emprata, which was tasked with the research by a telecom industry group that favored Pai’s position, also connected “a large percentage of comments” that opposed Pai to the website FakeMailGenerator.com; roughly 7.75million, or 23 percent of the overall comments, to be exact.

It is unclear whether the half-million “Russian” accounts are owned by actual Russian citizens. Even more likely, perhaps, is that they are bots, controls of which could be in virtually anyone’s hands. (A separate Pew Research Center study found only 6 percent of comments—from a pool of over 21.7 million—contained a unique message, suggesting the remaining 94 percent were auto-generated.)

The FCC first acknowledged the Emprata study in a November 2017 press release titled, “Myth vs. Fact: Setting the Record Straight on Chairman Pai’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order.” In an attempt to rebut the claim that the comments “overwhelmingly” favored preserving net neutrality, as had been reported in the press, the chairman’s office wrote, in part: “[O]ver 400,000 comments supporting Title II purport to come from ‘individuals’ residing at the same address in Russia.”

In July, amid reports of automated bot usage and allegations of foreign meddling, Pai informed lawmakers of his plans to request new funding to overhaul the Electronic Comment Filing System in an effort to “minimize the potential for abusive behavior.” (He had been criticized earlier in the year for refusing to cooperate with state law enforcement investigations, principally led by former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who resigned in May amid multiple sexual abuse allegations.) But other substantive actions arising from the internal disorder and loss of public faith, if there’ve been any, have been much harder to detect.

In fact, it is the lack of closure on this issue—largely due to the absence of actual, trustworthy analysis on the FCC’s part—that has piqued the interest of reporters at so many outlets.

After months of back and forth with the agency, the Times went to court, accusing it of denying or failing to respond properly to a legitimate request: a list of IP addressed linked to the FCC comments and other related data.

In a September complaint, the Times described the litigation as an attempt to “shed light” on the allegations of Russian interference in the FCC’s rulemaking process. This from “paragraph 2" of the Times’ complaint (emphasis ours):

2. The request at issue in this litigation involves records that will shed light on the extent to which Russian nationals and agents of the Russian government have interfered with the agency notice-and-comment process about a topic of extensive public interest: the government’s decision to abandon “net neutrality.” Release of these records will help broaden the public’s understanding of the scope of Russian interference in the American democratic system.

Using standard legalese, the FCC responded that it “denies knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth” of the Times’ statement—that the record would help shed light on the extent of Russian involvement (whether that be some or not at all).

The Times contends further down in the complaint: “Some of these automated messages originated from Russia.”

Again, the FCC says it has no proof.

Separate from the lawsuit, the FCC administratively denied the Times’ record request in a letter released Monday. To emphasize how fiercely opposed his office is to releasing the IP logs, Pai attached a statement to the rejection letter, an unusual happening, prompted the agency’s lone Democratic commissioner, Jessica Rosenworcel, to issue her own reply.

Even more bizarre is the mudslinging. Pai used the opportunity to politically attack Rosenworcel near the end of his nine-paragraph statement, writing (emphasis ours):

My dissenting colleague says—a lot. But nothing about the U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Nothing about the on-point district court decision. Nothing about why our career information technology staff’s determination that releasing these server logs could undermine our agency’s efforts to defend against cyberattacks is wrong. Indeed, nothing whatsoever about any of the actual analysis the FCC or its career staff have proffered.

Instead, one finds the now-standard overheated rhetoric about “net neutrality” (omitting, as usual, the fact that the half-million comments submitted from Russian e-mail addresses and the nearly eight million comments filed by e-mail addresses from e-mail domains associated with FakeMailGenerator.com supported her position on the issue!).


Ajit Pai either knows for sure that his plans to repeal net neutrality led to a deluge of Russian-based comments, or his agency is clueless as to whether its logs reflect any Russian involvement at all. The latter casts suspicion on whether any “actual analysis” has been performed at all. And it wouldn’t be the first time the FCC has claimed to have “analysis” of something and later fail to produce the receipts.

Possibly, it’s just that Pai statement contains a politically convenient distortion so that he could sound clever in criticism of his colleague—even if meant misrepresenting to the public the facts as his agency understands them. Possibly, the only facts Pai relies on are the ones produced in studies funded by people who support his positions.

Ironically, it is the FCC’s own response to this situation—complete stonewalling—that best underscores the need for records-seeking journalists to ferret out facts agencies can’t be trusted to provide, and why freedom of information will always be the greatest stalwart against extreme and gratuitous secrecy.
https://gizmodo.com/ajit-pai-says-it...utr-1830855844





Net Neutrality could Face a Powerful Foe in Trump’s Nominee for Attorney General

Willam P. Barr, who was nominated today, has long opposed net neutrality rules, which would be welcome news for major ISPs like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast.
Frank Bass

Corporations that have spent millions to gut Obama-era net neutrality laws may soon get more influential help to thwart state measures aimed at protecting consumers from having to pay extra for internet “fast lanes.”

William P. Barr, nominated today to become the nation’s top law enforcement official in the Trump administration, is a former chief lawyer for Verizon Communications who has opposed net neutrality rules for more than a decade. Barr, who served as attorney general under former President George H.W. Bush from 1991-93, warned in 2006 that “network neutrality regulations would discourage construction of high-speed internet lines that telephone and cable giants are spending tens of billions of dollars to deploy.”

Barr’s appointment would be welcome news for at least three major internet service providers and a trade organization—including Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association—that have spent more than $600 million lobbying on Capitol Hill since 2008, according to a MapLight analysis. Their lobbying on a key issue was rewarded last December, when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), led by another former Verizon lawyer-turned-Trump appointee, overruled popular opinion by voting to scrap rules that banned internet companies from giving preferential treatment to particular websites or charging consumers more for different types of content.

Since then, at least four states–California, Vermont, Oregon, and Washington–have defied the federal government by passing their own net neutrality legislation. Governors in at least six states have signed executive orders designed to preserve net neutrality rules, according to an analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation on September 30 that essentially restored net neutrality protections for the nation’s most populous state. The Trump White House filed suit later on the same day to block the California law.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month turned down a Trump White House request to throw out a 2016 appellate court ruling that upheld the right of the Obama administration to issue net neutrality rules. Although the high court ruling didn’t overturn the 2017 FCC vote to scrap the Obama-era guidelines, it set a legal precedent that could assist net neutrality advocates in future cases.
Potential conflicts of interest

Barr’s previous employment with Verizon foreshadows credibility problems similar to those faced by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, also a former Verizon lawyer. Barr, however, is likely to face even more scrutiny stemming from his role as a member of WarnerMedia’s board of directors. The entertainment conglomerate, which includes HBO, Turner Broadcasting, and Warner Bros. Entertainment Group, was created in the aftermath of AT&T’s 2016 purchase of Time Warner Inc.

The $85 billion acquisition was opposed on antitrust grounds by Trump’s Justice Department (DOJ); AT&T has speculated that the opposition is based on Trump’s hatred for CNN, a Time Warner subsidiary that the White House has frequently accused of biased reporting. Barr has argued with Justice Department lawyers about the merger, filing an affidavit disputing their accounts of being threatened by Time Warner executives at a tense November 8 meeting.

“Our opinion of the government’s lawsuit is no secret, and we appreciate former Attorney General Barr stepping forward to provide his firsthand account of the DOJ’s interactions with us in the days prior to filing suit,” an AT&T spokeswoman told Variety in a statement.

So far, the White House has failed to persuade a judge to block the AT&T deal; appellate court judges who heard arguments last week appeared inclined to allow the purchase to proceed, according to a Washington Post account of the hearing.

The Time Warner acquisition has been particularly troubling for net neutrality advocates because there are no practical rules in place to prevent AT&T from blocking or slowing down access to competitors such as Netflix. AT&T already favors some wireless customers by allowing them to view its DirecTV service without fully counting it against a monthly data cap; meanwhile, viewing Netflix or Hulu shows count against AT&T wireless customer caps.

Barr has argued that net neutrality rules will discourage internet service providers from investing in high-end delivery systems, such as fiber-optic networks. “Companies are going to make these kinds of investments only if they see an opportunity to earn a return that is commensurate with the risk, and only if they have the freedom to innovate, differentiate, and make commercially sensible decisions that they need to compete and win in the market,” he said at a 2006 Federalist Society convention.

Barr claimed that 81% of the nation’s roughly 40,000 zip codes have three or more choices of broadband providers; a PC Magazine study last year found only 30% of 20,000 zip codes had three or more broadband options.

Conservative ties

Barr’s law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, is the world’s highest-grossing law firm, according to American Lawyer magazine. It’s also a major contributor to federal campaigns. The Chicago-based legal powerhouse gave almost $2.1 million in campaign contributions during the midterm election cycle.

Eight of the 10 top recipients of its campaign donations during the midterm were Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), a former Kirkland & Ellis lawyer, was the single biggest beneficiary of the law firm’s largesse, receiving $115,650 for his 2018 re-election bid. The firm’s second- and third-largest contributions were made to a pair of Democrats often mentioned as potential 2020 presidential candidates: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, (D-NY) ($54,520), and Representative Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) ($40,147).

When it comes to institutional donations, however, the firm has given heavily to Republican interests. Their largest contributions went to organizations that included the National Republican Congressional Committee ($83,400), National Republican Senatorial Committee ($65,500), and Republican National Committee ($63,700).

The firm also has deep ties to conservative legal organizations. Wendy Long, a former Kirkland & Ellis lawyer, helped found the Judicial Crisis Network, a dark money organization that’s been credited with paving the way for the confirmations of conservatives Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

The Federalist Society, an influential conservative nonprofit organization, cites more than a dozen current and former Kirkland & Ellis lawyers as program contributors, including Kavanaugh, National Security Adviser John Bolton, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, and former Whitewater Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90278505...torney-general





Digital Divide Is Wider Than We Think, Study Says
Steve Lohr

Ferry County in northeastern Washington spans more than 2,200 square miles of mostly forestland, rivers and lakes. And according to the Federal Communications Commission, everyone in the sprawling county has access to broadband internet.

But that is not the reality experienced by the roughly 7,500 residents of this county, which is rich in natural beauty but internet-poor.

The county seat, Republic, has basic broadband service, supplied by a community cable TV company owned by residents. But go beyond the cluster of blocks in the small town, and the high-speed service drops off quickly. People routinely drive into town to use Wi-Fi in the public library and other spots for software updates, online shopping or schoolwork, said Elbert Koontz, Republic’s mayor.

“We don’t really have broadband coverage across the county,” Mr. Koontz said. “We’re out in the woods.”

A new study by Microsoft researchers casts a light on the actual use of high-speed internet across the country, and the picture it presents is very different from the F.C.C. numbers. Their analysis, presented at a Microsoft event on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., suggests that the speedy access is much more limited than the F.C.C. data shows.

Over all, Microsoft concluded that 162.8 million people do not use the internet at broadband speeds, while the F.C.C. says broadband is not available to 24.7 million Americans. The discrepancy is particularly stark in rural areas. In Ferry County, for example, Microsoft estimates that only 2 percent of people use broadband service, versus the 100 percent the federal government says have access to the service.

Fast internet service is crucial to the modern economy, and closing the digital divide is seen as a step toward shrinking the persistent gaps in economic opportunity, educational achievement and health outcomes in America. In some areas with spotty or no service, children do their homework in Wi-Fi-equipped buses or fast-food restaurants, small businesses drive to internet hot spots to send sales pitches and medical records are transported by hand on thumb-drive memory sticks.

Accurate measurements on the reach of broadband matter because the government’s statistics are used to guide policy and channel federal funding for underserved areas.

“It’s a huge problem,” said Phillip Berenbroick, a telecommunications expert at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit technology policy group. “The result is that we’re not getting broadband coverage and funding to areas that really need it.”

Telecommunications experts and some politicians have pointed to the shortcomings of the official F.C.C. statistics for years. Last year, the agency began a formal review, still in progress, of how to improve its broadband measurements.

“Maintaining updated and accurate data about broadband deployment is critical to bridging the digital divide,” Ajit Pai, the commission chairman, said at the time. “So we’re teeing up ideas for collecting more granular and standardized data.”

The Microsoft researchers shared their analysis with F.C.C. officials. The agency declined to comment on the findings.

The issue with the current F.C.C. statistics, experts say, is that they rely on simplistic surveys of internet service providers that inherently overstate coverage. For example, if one business in an area has broadband service, then the entire area is typically considered to have broadband service available.

The Microsoft researchers instead looked at the internet speeds of people using the company’s software and services, like Office software, Windows updates, Bing searches and maps, and Xbox game play. The Microsoft data is much more detailed than the official government statistics, said John Kahan, Microsoft’s chief data analytics officer for external affairs.

Microsoft plans to put the national comparisons, as well as state and county data, on a website this month.

The Microsoft analysis also includes county unemployment data, which points to the strong correlation between joblessness and low rates of broadband use. The unemployment rate in Ferry County, for example, is 11 percent, more than twice the statewide rate.

“The worst place to be is in a place where there is no access to the technology everyone else is benefiting from,” said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft.

Expanding broadband also benefits Microsoft and other tech companies because it enlarges the market for their products and services. And like others, Microsoft is promoting a potential solution.

Microsoft’s plan is a mix of old and new technology that involves harnessing the unused channels between television broadcasts, known as white spaces. The technology is sometimes called “super Wi-Fi” because it behaves like regular Wi-Fi but uses low-powered television channels to cover greater distances than wireless hot spots. It is a less expensive alternative to wiring homes, particularly in less-populated and remote regions.

The technology is promising, experts say, but one tool among a handful needed to bring broadband connectivity to rural America. Other tools include fiber networks, satellite coverage and high-speed mobile service.

A key challenge is bringing down the cost of devices that use white-space technology. In mid-2017, they cost $800, but are now just $300, Microsoft says. The goal is to get the price to $100.

Last year, Microsoft announced plans to work with internet providers and hardware firms to propel the adoption of white-space technology. To date, the company says, it has deals in 13 states to bring broadband to over a million people in rural areas.

Microsoft on Tuesday said its Airband initiative planned to reach three million rural residents by July 2022, a million more than its target announced last year.

Microsoft is urging the government to keep the white-space broadcast spectrum open for public use. It is also pushing to get a larger portion of the more than $4 billion a year that the F.C.C. and the Agriculture Department spend in grants and subsidies to bring broadband to rural areas.

Microsoft competitors and critics say one of the wealthiest companies in the world is lobbying for an advantage and government money. Broadcasters also worry the white-space technology could interfere with local television service.

“Broadcasters have always supported rural broadband deployment,” said Dennis Wharton, executive vice president for communications at the National Association of Broadcasters. “But we’re skeptical whether Microsoft can deliver that service without significant interference and disruption to local television signals in smaller markets.”

In Ferry County, a white-space broadband effort will begin next year. Declaration Networks, a company that focuses on bringing broadband to rural areas, has just received a commitment for money from the F.C.C. for the project.

“Ferry County has a lot of needs, and we’re going to try address that,” said Bob Nichols, chief executive of Declaration Networks, which is based in Vienna, Va.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/t...microsoft.html





More than Half of Your Internet Traffic is Ads and Trackers [My Internet log analysis]
Michał

I sincerely hope this article will be an eye opener for you. Recently I have installed a Pi-Hole at home. To keep it short, this lets me see the home internet traffic live and, if needed, block unwanted requests. The list of ads and trackers has been taken from open source repos like this. Equipped with this combo, I have decided to turn off all of the privacy add-ons that I use and browse the polish internet just like a layman for 20 minutes. Websites I have visited include popular news portals, facebook etc.

As it turns out, every time I have entered a website e.g. tvn24.pl, Microsoft Edge has made multiple requests to different websites like gemius.pl (tracking company), twitter.com, google-analytics.com, facebook.com, adocean.pl (polish ad company). Websites I sometimes do not wish to inform that I am browsing a post or an article.

During 20 mins of browsing web, my browser has made 1232 requests! This is one request per second! And I have visited 10, maybe 20 different portals. Out of those 1232, 798 were ads and trackers and were blocked! That is 64%! I have blocked 64% of my internet traffic and it was working without any problems. This is a reason, why you are using more and more internet bandwidth.

But let us dig deeper and analyze the log. I have visualized the data in the pivot chart in Excel. The log is available below.

Blue area represents ads and trackers, orange standard requests (although I believe, you could block some of those too). As you see the ratio of trackers is high through out the experiment. It ranges from 28% at the end, up to crazy 95% when visiting wp.pl (47th minute).

And the top 10 trackers are.

The top tracker in this scenario is for a website pracuj.pl, which is a job board. I guess, you, as a candidate, are a pretty valuable product. However, if it wasn’t for this one website (which tracks you only within the website), the first place would be taken by Google! If summed up, Google would have 189 requests, which is around 20% of all trackers.

Second place goes to Gemius.pl – a polish “research” company. As you see, it has created quite a wide network among polish portals, tracking users through the day. Blocking cookies or incognito mode will not help – only addons like uBlock Origin, uMatrix or similar. Some time ago I read an article (polish only) about gemius.pl. It was explaining how the internet portal of one of the major polish banks was sending information to gemius. Basically, each time you used the website to see your account the bank would share your balance with a “research” company. Obviously, the bank later claimed that it was due to an “error” and the script was deactivated. This shows you that tracking you is a serious business.

Finally, third would be Facebook. Notice that the request is not made to facebook.com, but rather connect.facebook.net – this way facebook knows, which websites you visit. Now you know, where this sweet revenue comes from.

What is interesting is that even after I reject data collection in a bit GDPR pop up, what I see in Pi-Hole after entering wp.pl is:

Some of those naturally come from other services, but as you see that GDPR pop up changes nothing…
http://cwiok.pl/index.php/en/2018/12...-log-analysis/





'Ralph Breaks the Internet' Wins No. 1 Again, 'Crazy Rich Asians' Fails in China
Jake Coyle

On a typically sleepy post-Thanksgiving weekend in movie theaters, leftovers led the box office with Disney's "Ralph Breaks the Internet" repeating at No. 1 with $25.8 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The "Wreck-It Ralph" sequel dropped steeply (54 percent) after nearly setting a Thanksgiving record last weekend. But with only one new film in wide release, nothing came close to "Ralph Breaks the Internet," which sends John C. Reilly and Sarah Silverman's video-game characters into cyberspace. In 11 days of release, the $175 million film has cleared $207 million worldwide.

Still going strong in its fourth week of release, "The Grinch" came in second with $17.7 million in ticket sales. The Dr. Seuss movie, with Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of the Christmas curmudgeon, surpassed $200 million domestically and edged in front of last week's No. 2 film, the "Rocky" sequel "Creed II."

Like "Ralph Breaks the Internet," the boxing drama also slid sizably after a big holiday opening, declining 53 percent. "Creed II," with Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed, took in $16.8 million in its second weekend. It has thus far grossed $81.2 million on a $50 million budget.

Rounding out the top five: New "Fantastic Beasts" movie "The Crimes of Grindelwald," the "Harry Potter" prequel starring Eddie Redmayne and Johnny Depp, finished fourth with $11.2 million in the film's third weekend. Queen biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody," with Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, held at No. 5 in its fifth weekend with $8.1 million.

The week's lone new wide release, the horror film "The Possession of Hannah Grace," opened modestly with $6.5 million. "Anna and the Apocalypse," a well-reviewed indie mashup – your standard zombie-comedy-musical – debuted in five theaters, with about $50,000 in ticket sales.

The breakout summer hit "Crazy Rich Asians" was a dud in China. The acclaimed romantic comedy, which earned $173 million domestically, debuted in China with just $1.2 million. John M. Chu's Singapore-set film took months to secure a release date, a delay some have attributed to the film's depiction of extremely wealthy Chinese Singaporeans.

"Crazy Rich Asians" was a hit at the Singapore box office, but, like most comedies, it hasn't been as much a sensation abroad as it was in the U.S.; it's earned $64 million overseas.

One film that didn't dip much was "Green Book," which grossed $3.9 million on 1,065 screens, dropping 29 percent. The uplifting 1962 road trip drama, starring Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, has struggled to match Oscar buzz with box office. But last week, "Green Book" was named the year's best film by the National Board of Review.

"Free Solo" became the year's fourth documentary to cross $10 million. The documentary, which tracks Alex Honnold's ropeless ascent of Yosemite National Park's El Capitan rock face, has joined the most lucrative batch of documentaries ever released in a year: "Three Identical Strangers," ''RBG" and "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"

Final figures are expected Monday.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/...ce/2183651002/





China Announces Punishments for Intellectual-Property Theft

38 penalties include issuing bonds or other financing tools
Move follows Xi pledge to resolve U.S. concerns on practices

China announced an array of punishments that could restrict companies’ access to borrowing and state-funding support over intellectual-property theft, a key sticking point in its trade conflict with the U.S.

News of the measures came just days after President Xi Jinping promised to resolve the U.S.’s “reasonable concerns” about IP practices in a statement after meeting President Donald Trump at the Group of 20 summit on Saturday in Argentina. The White House said the sides agreed to hold off on tariff action for at least 90 days as they negotiate to resolve specific U.S. complaints.

China set out a total of 38 different punishments to be applied to IP violations, starting this month. The document, dated Nov. 21, was released Tuesday by the National Development and Reform Commission and signed by various government bodies, including the central bank and supreme court.

“I think it’s potentially significant if they are implemented and result in a reduction in IP theft,” Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “We’ve been down this road with China many times on IP. The attention companies pay to IP theft has risen dramatically, and despite the great attention it’s getting the violations have increased.”

Late last month, Beijing batted down a U.S. accusation that China is continuing a state-backed campaign of IP and technology theft, saying it was based on hearsay and ignores reality.

The Trump administration began levying tariffs on China in July after the so-called Section 301 investigation by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office alleged that China’s IP and technology transfer policies are causing multiple billions of dollars in damage to U.S. companies.

In an update released last month, USTR said China was continuing its unfair IP policies and it accused Beijing of continuing a state-backed campaign of cyber-attacks on American companies that were both intensifying and growing in sophistication.

China says violators would be banned from issuing bonds or other financing tools, and participating in government procurement. They would also be restricted from accessing government financial support, foreign trade, registering companies, auctioning land or trading properties.

In addition, violators will be recorded on a list, and financial institutions will refer to that when lending or granting access to foreign exchange. Names will be posted on a government website.

Key Insights

• “This is an unprecedented regulation on IP violation in terms of the scope of the ministries and severity of the punishment,” said Xu Xinming, a researcher at the Center for Intellectual Property Studies at China University of Political Science and Law. The newly announced punishments are “a security net of IP protection” targeting repeat offenders and other individuals who aren’t in compliance with the law, he said.
• Chinese law enforcers have been hampered by insufficient means of punishment in the past, Xu said, but the new regulations could render IP violators “unable to move even a single step.”
• The punishments are an attempt to extend the government’s “social credit” system to the IP sector and punish untrustworthy business and individuals, according to the release. That’s another step in the government’s campaign to influence the behavior of its more than 1.3 billion citizens.

With assistance by Dandan Li, Shawn Donnan, and Jenny Leonard
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...property-theft





The Race Is On to Protect Data From the Next Leap in Computers. And China Has the Lead.
Cade Metz and Raymond Zhong

The world’s leading technology companies, from Google to Alibaba in China, are racing to build the first quantum computer, a machine that would be far more powerful than today’s computers.

This device could break the encryption that protects digital information, putting at risk everything from the billions of dollars spent on e-commerce to national secrets stored in government databases.

An answer? Encryption that relies on the same concepts from the world of physics. Just as some scientists are working on quantum computers, others are working on quantum security techniques that could thwart the code-breaking abilities of these machines of the future.

It is a race with national security implications, and while building quantum computers is still anyone’s game, China has a clear lead in quantum encryption. As it has with other cutting-edge technologies, like artificial intelligence, the Chinese government has made different kinds of quantum research a priority.

“China has a very deliberate strategy to own this technology,” said Duncan Earl, a former researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory who is president and chief technology officer of Qubitekk, a company that is exploring quantum encryption. “If we think we can wait five or 10 years before jumping on this technology, it is going to be too late.”

Quantum computing is based on quantum mechanics, the science that explains the strange behavior exhibited by extremely small particles of matter.

With traditional computers, transistors store “bits” of information, and each bit is either a 1 or a 0. Those are the fundamental slices of data that tell a computer what to do.

When some types of matter are extremely small or extremely cold, they behave differently. That difference allows a quantum bit, or qubit, to store a combination of 1 and 0. Two qubits can hold four values at once. As the number of qubits grows, a quantum computer becomes exponentially more powerful.

Like quantum computing, quantum encryption relies on the nonintuitive behavior of very small objects. The codes that keep data secret are sent by photons, the tiniest particle of light. With the right equipment it is easy to tell if they have been tampered with, not unlike the seal on an aspirin bottle. If carried out properly, the technique could be unbreakable.

There is no guarantee that a viable quantum encryption network could be built over long distances. But if it does happen, China’s willingness to experiment and put government, academic and commercial resources behind the effort could have a big payoff.

The country has invested tens of millions of dollars building networks that can transmit data using quantum encryption. Last year, a Chinese satellite named Micius, after an ancient philosopher, managed a video call between Beijing and Vienna using quantum encryption. A dedicated quantum communication network between Beijing and Shanghai was also put into operation last year, after four years of planning and construction.

For now, quantum encryption works only over a limited distance. The satellite link between Beijing and Vienna stretched this limit to a record 4,630 miles. On the ground, using optical fiber lines, the ceiling is about 150 miles.

Among China’s investments in quantum encryption, the Micius satellite has received the most attention. The University of Science and Technology of China, the government-backed university that helped launch Micius, led the construction of the ground network, which spans about 1,200 miles — perhaps a hint of aspirations for drastic improvement.

The governments of Anhui and Shandong Provinces, through which the fiber-optic network passes, together invested $80 million in the project. Like all major infrastructure projects in China, the plans have had high-level support from the Chinese government.

This main line is being extended to other cities and regions. The goal by 2030 is a Chinese-built network for sharing quantum encryption keys across the globe.

Some security experts question the effectiveness of quantum encryption. Because it is so new, it has not been put through anywhere close to the rigorous testing that would give it a stamp of approval from skeptical cryptographers.

But Chao-Yang Lu, a professor of physics at the University of Science and Technology of China, said the Beijing-Shanghai quantum network was a significant upgrade.

With communications sent by traditional means, eavesdroppers can intercept the data stream at every point along a fiber-optic line. A government could tap that line just about anywhere. Quantum encryption cut the number of vulnerable spots in the Beijing-Shanghai line to just a few dozen across 1,200 miles, Professor Lu said.

“We admit that it’s an intermediate solution,” he said. “It’s not the final solution. But it’s already a huge improvement in terms of security.”

In the United States, the government and industry have viewed quantum encryption as little more than a science experiment. Instead, researchers have focused on using ordinary mathematics to build new forms of encryption that can stand up to a quantum computer. This technology would not require new infrastructure.

But now, spurred by activity in China and recent advances in quantum research, some in the United States are playing catch-up.

Qubitekk, a Southern California start-up, is working to secure power grids in Tennessee using the technology. A second start-up, Quantum Xchange, is building a quantum encryption network in the Northeast, hoping to serve Wall Street banks and other businesses. Researchers at Stony Brook University on Long Island are preparing a third venture.

Small start-ups like Qubitekk are unlikely to match the millions of dollars in infrastructure already created in China for quantum encryption. But many experts believe the more important work will happen in research labs, and the Department of Energy is funding a test network in Chicago that could eclipse the kind of systems deployed in China.

The Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories are working with Qubitekk to secure power grids with quantum technology, and Quantum Xchange is moving equipment into 60 Hudson Street, the old Western Union telegraph hub, which now serves as an internet hub for Lower Manhattan.

Quantum Xchange is building a quantum encryption link between Manhattan and Newark, with plans to connect big banks operating in the two cities. Eventually, it hopes to extend this network up and down the East Coast.

At places like the University of Chicago, researchers hope to go a step further, exploring what are called quantum repeaters — devices that could extend the range of quantum encryption.

“We’re not there yet,” said David Awschalom, a professor at the University of Chicago who oversees much of the university’s quantum research. “But I am confident this will happen in the next couple of years.”

Quantum communication techniques require new hardware. This includes vast networks of fiber lines — and perhaps satellites — as well as specialized devices capable of detecting individual photons of light.

As Qubitekk worked on quantum encryption networks, it could not obtain the special light detectors it needed to do the work. The start-up originally bought detectors from a small manufacturer in New Jersey, Princeton Lightwave. But in April, this lone American manufacturer handed the detector business over to a company in China, RMY, and Qubitekk’s supply line ran dry.

RMY has promised hardware to Qubitekk but recently told it that, because of production issues, additional detectors won’t be available until March.

Small companies in Europe are selling somewhat similar detectors, and labs across the globe are developing a more advanced type of hardware. But for now, supplies, particularly in the United States, are slim.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/t...ncryption.html





Australia Now has Encryption-Busting Laws as Labor Capitulates

So-called protections in the Bill are necessary, Opposition leader Bill Shorten has said.
Chris Duckett

Labor has backed down completely on its opposition to the Assistance and Access Bill, and in the process has been totally outfoxed by a government that can barely control the floor of Parliament.

After proposing a number of amendments to the Bill, which Labor party members widely called out as inappropriate in the House of Representatives on Thursday morning, the ALP dropped its proposals to allow the Bill to pass through Parliament before the summer break.

"Let's just make Australians safer over Christmas," Bill Shorten said on Thursday evening.

"It's all about putting people first."

Shorten said Labor is letting the Bill through provided the government agrees to amendments in the new year.

Under the new laws, Australian government agencies would be able to issue three kinds of notices:

• Technical Assistance Notices (TAN), which are compulsory notices for a communication provider to use an interception capability they already have;
• Technical Capability Notices (TCN), which are compulsory notices for a communication provider to build a new interception capability, so that it can meet subsequent Technical Assistance Notices; and
• Technical Assistance Requests (TAR), which have been described by experts as the most dangerous of all.

The final vote in the Senate to pass the Bill was 44-12, with Labor and the Coalition voting for it.

Earlier in the day, Defence Minister Christopher Pyne said Labor was holding the Bill hostage in the Senate.

"Labor has chosen to allow terrorists and paedophiles to continue their evil work in order to engage in point scoring," he wrote on Twitter in a now-deleted tweet.

How the day went down

The House of Representatives opened with the Assistance and Access Bill as the first item on the agenda, and it turned into a procession of Labor MPs detailing how unsatisfactory the Bill was, and how they would still vote for it.

"We do this because we understand that in conferring new powers to protect our nation's security, it's vital that we do not compromise the very freedoms and way of life that we're seeking to protect," Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said.

Dreyfus pointed out that the Bill lacked an appropriate definition of systemic weakness, one of the few clauses that allow vendors to push back on notices from law enforcement, and could endanger cooperation with the CLOUD Act in the United States.

"In order to enter into an agreement with United States under the CLOUD Act, the US attorney-general must certify, with the concurrence of the secretary of state, that the foreign government affords 'robust substantive and procedural protections for privacy and civil liberties'," Dreyfus said.

"Labor members of the intelligence committee were very concerned that unless it is significantly amended, the Access Bill could imperil Australia's chances of entering into a CLOUD Act agreement with the United States."

Mark Dreyfus would vote for the Bill.

Colonel Dr Mike Kelly struck out at government accusations that the Labor party was running a protection racket for terrorists.

"[i] have spent 30 years of my life deeply immersed in the security affairs of this nation. I've watched friends lost and killed in operations against terrorists," Kelly said.

"I've washed the blood of friends from my uniform. And I won't be told by a member of this House that I am 'running a protection racket for terrorists'. That was grossly offensive and was not a contribution to this debate."

Despite also pointing out that there was not a proper definition of systemic weakness in the Bill, Dr Kelly would vote for it.

Vocal on Twitter during the week, and guaranteeing that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) report would be worth waiting for -- it wasn't -- Tim Watts pointed out further issues.

"This Bill doesn't resolve, and may even make more difficult, the mutual legal assistance treaties and the CLOUD Act problems in us accessing data from these providers overseas," he said.

"In this Bill, we can only access information from the targets of these warrants. This Bill is not about 'Donald Trump reading your emails', as Senator Steele-John has suggested, nor is it about putting spyware into everyone's devices or spying on unions, as some people have suggested to me. This is a targeted regime that gives ministers the power to issue notices."

The Labor MP said the powers are not a form of mass surveillance.

"If you are not a subject of law enforcement inquiries, you are not going to have to worry about being a target of this Bill. If you are not a security threat, as identified by ASIO, you are not going to have to be worried about being a target of the Bill," Watts said.

Along with Labor, Watts would vote for the Bill.

Labor member Ed Husic detailed the problems of oversight, and needing examination by informed individuals.

"The type of judicial oversight offered in this process is tissue-tough. I don't think it cuts the grade of what people would expect," Husic said.

"People want a specialist judge backed by a team of people who can assess warrants and applications made to gain access under the TCN arrangement. They want to know that people who are capable of making judgments on applications can do so."

Husic called for reporting on how many notices and requests are issued, so would fall into line and vote for the Bill.

Labor Member for Bruce Julian Hill claimed the party was doing the "sensible, grown-up thing" as a party of government and passing the Bill, before foreshadowing what may happen after Australia's 2019 election.

"The best we could get out of this initial compromise was judicial review from a retired judge. A judicial review is a very poor second cousin to judicial oversight," he said.

"This should be fixed next year, as the committee's inquiry continues. But if it's not fixed by this government, I think it should be fixed by the next federal Labor government."

Hill would vote for the Bill.

Read: Australian encryption Bill raises bar for outrageous legislation: Comms Alliance

Manager of Opposition Business Tony Burke complained that government amendments made to the Bill were only provided at 6.30am AEDT on Thursday morning.

"There are 173 of them. In the time that the opposition have had to go through them, we see that there are areas where the amendments that are currently in front of us do not yet properly reflect the findings of the intelligence committee," he said.

Nevertheless, Burke would back the Bill. In the crucial vote in the House, only Australian Greens member Adam Bandt and Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie would vote against the Bill.

"They said, 'We fixed it, because we have forced the government to accept a definition of 'systemic weakness'," Bandt said, referring to the Labor party, and went on to ask what a systemic weakness is.

"[Does it ] count as a systemic weakness if you say: 'I'm just introducing a backdoor into your app for a particular group of particular people. It's only them that we're going to spy on'?

"Who knows? Probably. What does it mean by 'a whole class of technology'? Does that mean a particular app? What if a particular app is operating in a particular state or with a particular group of people, are they exempt? Who knows? It still doesn't deal with the fundamental point that I raised before, which is that once you open that door, you create a systemic weakness," Bandt said.

Bandt then hit out at Labor's backdown after it "showed a bit of spine" earlier in the week.

"What we're seeing here is a repeat of every time that the Liberals bowl up something that threatens people's liberty and security -- as long as they put the stamp 'national security' on the front of it, Labor falls into line," he said.

"It doesn't matter what threat it has to our industry, what threat it has to our security, or what threat it has to our safety; Labor will do it."

Wilkie added that far too often, Australia's major Coalition and Labor parties hand over whatever powers the country's national security agencies ask for.

"We should never just say yes to every request, because it's in the nature of the security services to ask for every possible tool they can get their hands on, to the point where they would have way more than is in the public interest if you gave them everything they wanted. So sometimes, in this place, we've got to be prepared to say no," he said.

"If the security services were able to access any and all encrypted communications, I agree that that would help the security services. But at what point do you rein them in and say: 'You're asking for too much. You are asking us to extend the power of the state beyond what is reasonable'?

"If you were to give the security services everything they want, they'd probably have rockets and missiles and be able to do who knows what. You've got to rein them in. That's our job. Our job is just as much to be a check on the power of our security services as it is to give them the tools they need.

And I do worry that, in this country nowadays, governments, supported by oppositions, are too quick to give the security services everything they want."

The Bill then entered the Senate, and the government and certain members of the crossbench were using delaying tactics to prevent a Bill on the release of refugee children in detention on Nauru from being sent back to the House before it adjourned.

The tactics were successful, and members of the House left for the summer break.

Australian Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John said the Bill was one of the "most dangerous and least thought through pieces of legislation" to be presented to Parliament.

"History will record this as one of the most profound failures of leadership of the Australian Labor party," Steele-John said.

"These decrepit laws, these insults to the Australian people will be repealed.

"I warn you now, there is a whole internet out there -- you are being watched. The internet remembers, the betrayal will not be forgotten."

At 6.40pm AEDT on Thursday, December 6, 2018, Labor leader Bill Shorten, alongside Dreyfus, strode out in front of the cameras, and gave a press conference detailing how Labor would capitulate because the House was no longer sitting.

Labor withdrew its amendments, which earlier in the day Dreyfus had said were "important".

The Bill would become law. Australia's fate was sealed. It was a complete victory for the Morrison government.

Attorney-General Christian Porter later said that the government would only consider Labor's amendments, meaning there is no agreement to pass them.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/austra...r-capitulates/





EU Governments Agree to Tougher Stance on E-Evidence
Foo Yun Chee

EU governments agreed on Friday to toughen up draft rules allowing law enforcement authorities to get electronic evidence directly from tech companies such as Facebook and Google stored in the cloud in another European country.

The move underlines the growing trend in Europe to rein in tech giants whether on the regulatory front or the antitrust front.

The e-evidence proposal also came in the wake of recent deadly terrorist attacks in Europe, pressure on tech companies to do more to cooperate with police investigations and people’s growing tendency to store and share information on WhatsApp, Facebook, Viber, Skype, Instagram and Telegram.

The European Commission, the EU executive, came up with the draft legislation in April, which includes a 10-day deadline for companies to respond to police requests or 6 hours in emergency cases, and fines up to 2 percent of a company’s global turnover for not complying with such orders.

The proposal covers telecoms services providers, online marketplaces and internet infrastructure services providers and applies to subscriber data and other data on access, transactional and content.

France, Spain, Ireland and Belgium backed the draft while Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Greece had abstained from supporting it.

“Electronic evidence is becoming a vital element in criminal proceedings. Nowadays criminals use rapid cutting-edge communication technology which does not stop at borders,” Austrian Justice Minister Josef Moser said.

Tech lobbying group CCIA, whose members include Amazon, e-Bay, Facebook and Google, criticized the stance taken by EU governments, which it said was tougher than the Commission’s proposal and lacks adequate checks and balances.

“We regret that today’s Council vote increases the risks of conflicts between laws for companies and poses risks to individuals’ fundamental rights,” Alexandre Roure, CCIA’s senior public policy manager, said.

BSA | The Software Alliance, which represents the global software industry, was equally critical.

“We seriously doubt that the Council’s approach will deliver upon the initial goal of an effective law enforcement procedure. We need to be able to properly protect our customers’ data from abusive production orders,” its director general, Thomas Boue, said.

Once the European Parliament has decided on its position, lawmakers, EU governments and the Commission will negotiate a common stance which will become legislation.

Reporting by Foo Yun Chee
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-e...-idUSKBN1O6271





New Metal-Air Transistor Replaces Semiconductors

A novel field emission transistor that uses air gaps could breathe life into Moore’s Law
John Boyd

It is widely predicted that the doubling of silicon transistors per unit area every two years will come to an end around 2025 as the technology reaches its physical limits. But researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, believe a metal-based field emission air channel transistor (ACT) they have developed could maintain transistor doubling for another two decades.

The ACT device eliminates the need for semiconductors. Instead, it uses two in-plane symmetric metal electrodes (source and drain) separated by an air gap of less than 35 nanometers, and a bottom metal gate to tune the field emission. The nanoscale air gap is less than the mean-free path of electrons in air, hence electrons can travel through air under room temperature without scattering.

“Unlike conventional transistors that have to sit in silicon bulk, our device is a bottom-to-top fabrication approach starting with a substrate. This enables us to build fully 3D transistor networks, if we can define optimum air gaps,” says Shruti Nirantar, lead author of a paper on the new transistor published this month in Nano Letters. “This means we can stop pursuing miniaturization, and instead focus on compact 3D architecture, allowing more transistors per unit volume.”

Using metal and air in place of semiconductors for the main components of the transistor has a number of other advantages, says Nirantar, a Ph.D. candidate in RMIT’s Functional Materials and Microsystems Research Group. Fabrication becomes essentially a single-step process of laying down the emitter and collector and defining the air gap. And though standard silicon fabrication processes are employed in producing ACTs, the number of processing steps are far fewer, given that doping, thermal processing, oxidation, and silicide formation are unnecessary. Consequently, production costs should be cut significantly.

In addition, replacing silicon with metal means these ACT devices can be fabricated on any dielectric surface, provided the underlying substrate allows effective modulation of emission current from source to drain with a bottom-gate field.

“Devices can be built on ultrathin glass, plastics, and elastomers,” says Nirantar. “So they could be used in flexible and wearable technologies.”

Replacing the solid-channel transistors in space circuitry is another potential application. Because the electrons flow between the electrodes just as well in a vacuum (think vacuum tube) as in air, radiation will not modulate channel properties, making ACT devices suitable for use in extreme radiation environments and space.

Now that the researchers have proof of concept, the next step is to enhance stability and improve component efficiency by testing different source and drain configurations and using more tolerant materials. In fabricating the prototype ACTs, the researchers used electron-beam lithography and thin-film deposition, while tungsten, gold, and platinum were evaluated as metals of choice.

“We also need to optimize the operating voltage as the electrode metal tips are experiencing localized melting due to concentrated electric fields,” notes Nirantar. “This decreases their sharpness and emission efficiency. So we’re looking at designs that will increase collector efficiency to decrease stress on the emitter.” She believes this can be accomplished over the next two years.

Looking further ahead, she points out that the theoretical speed of an ACT is in the terahertz range, some 10 thousand times as fast as the speed at which current semiconductor devices work. “So further research is needed to find and demonstrate the operational limits,” she adds.

As for commercialization, Nirantar says access to industrial fabrication facilities and support from industry to scale up to 3D networks of the transistors will be necessary. “With such help and sufficient research funding, there is the potential to develop commercial-grade field emission air-channel transistors within the next decade—and that’s a generous timeline. With the right partners, this could happen more quickly.”
https://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/...semiconductors





The Digital-Media Bubble is Bursting. That’s Hurting a Generation of Promising Young Journalists.
Margaret Sullivan

About five years ago, I was asked to visit the newsroom at Mic, a digital-media start-up backed by venture capital and focused on news for the millennial audience.

As the public editor of the New York Times, I suppose I was seen as an expert in traditional journalism ethics — especially through the eyes of Mic’s reporters and editors, mostly in their 20s, and many in their first jobs out of school. And because I was active on Twitter and writing a frequent blog, perhaps I looked like I knew how to build a bridge from old-school newspapering to the digital-first present.

I remember how smart, engaged and hopeful the Mic staffers were as we talked, in their Lower Manhattan newsroom, about topics such as conflict of interest, objectivity vs. fairness, and possible career paths.

Could this exciting venture — then only two or three years old — thrive long into the future? Could these young journalists build their lives and careers on it?

In 2013, that seemed possible, despite some flashing danger signs.

But last week, Mic was the latest of its ilk to crash and burn. More than 100 employees were fired, amid word that its staffless shell would be sold to another media company.

And because Mic’s demise happened so suddenly and so mercilessly, it seemed like one of the worst.

“A gutting experience” was how top editor Kerry Lauerman, formerly of The Washington Post, put it. (Along with his boss, Publisher Cory Haik, who also had been a Post executive, he resigned just before the editorial staff was let go last week.)

For former Mic reporter Marie Solis, the gutting experience came last year when Mic decided to emphasize video rather than traditional text stories.

The young Vassar graduate, who now works at Broadly — an offshoot of Vice — told me a few weeks ago in a phone interview that she lost her job with no warning as the company pivoted.

That move to video didn’t pay off, not for Mic or the many other similar media companies that took their cues from all-powerful Facebook. The promises of more traffic — which turned out to be based on false interpretations of data — never came to fruition, and as Heidi Moore wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review, “Publishers must acknowledge the pivot to video has failed.”

Now Mic is being scrapped for parts, as its name and technology are being sold to Bustle for a reported $5 million — a pittance, considering that the company had raised $60 million in venture capital, once boasted 17 million unique visitors and had a (theoretical) valuation of more than $100 million.

“We cannot imagine a move more cynical or perverse than terminating your entire staff, only to cede the ‘brand’ to a new buyer who will presumably pick the scraps from the carcass of a newsroom that we all spent years building,” Mic’s employee union said in a statement last week.

They have every reason to feel sold out and angry.

“When you are a good manager, you bring someone in to do good work, with the understanding that they’ll be taken care of, and will have a future,” said Aram Zucker-Scharff, who writes, teaches and consults about the new economy of journalism. (Also the director of advertising technology at The Post, he made it clear in a phone interview Monday that he is not speaking for our mutual employer.)

“But a lot of venture-capital-based media companies are built with the idea that your fate is to be fired,” he told me, although that reality goes unsaid.

“It’s unethical,” he added. “You’re hiring them to be disposable cogs.”

And, as he wrote in a widely read Twitter thread, “the numbers were never really there. Eventually they were always going to disappear as fraudulent traffic and metrics fell apart.”

What worries him, and me, is the human cost — and the cost to tomorrow’s journalism — when this happens over and over again.

With the tragic demise of local newspapers, places like Mic have become the entry point into the craft for a lot of young journalists. What’s more, their newsrooms have been admirably diverse, a diversity that their journalism has admirably reflected.

As they go under, such entry points disappear. And the journalists who have been through this ugly process — sometimes more than once — burn out.

“They are taking the brunt of this,” Zucker-Scharff said, “and it’s psychologically damaging.”

As these young people search for work among few options, or leave the field altogether, journalism stands to lose a generation of diverse talent.

Maybe I should have told the Mic newsroom five years ago to get out while the getting was good — before the venture-capital bubble burst, before the pivot failed, before their workplace lost its soul.

But I’m (almost) consoled by the words of 25-year-old Marie Solis, who managed to land on her feet, post-Mic: “I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...48f_story.html

















Until next week,

- js.



















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