Month: December 2015

The Internet of Things. A tempest in a teapot?

The US Department of Homeland Security has announced that its Silicon Valley Office (SVO)—the agency's liaison point with the technology industry—will hold an event on December 10 to kick off a recruiting drive for startups and "non-traditional small businesses" interested in latching onto government funding. The Industry Day, being held at the Menlo Park, California, offices of SRI International, will be focused on the current leading source of worry for DHS officials: the "Internet of Things" (IoT).

The DHS posting describes the three-hour event as a time to:

1)Describe the homeland security challenges associated with IoT

2) Describe the benefits of the SVO Innovation Program to startups

3) Show you how to apply for funding

And IoT is high on the DHS' funding list. Earlier this year, the agency's Science and Technology Directorate launched a Cyber Physical Systems Security (CPSSEC) program intended to spur development of security measures as part of the design process for IoT devices. In an amendment to a DHS five-year procurement program, the S&T Directorate described the crux of the problem: the "cyber physical" systems hitting the market now have largely "not been subjected to comprehensive threat analyses, have both known and unknown vulnerabilities, and lack security as an integral part of design." The more IoT devices that are deployed, the bigger the problem will be, DHS officials noted.

(credit: Wikipedia)

Fox News is winning more than just the news network ratings wars. It's also winning the battle against copyright's fair use doctrine.

In August, a federal judge sided (PDF) with the news station's copyright-infringement lawsuit against a television and radio clipping service known as TVEyes, which charges as much as $500 a month for its service. A New York federal judge ruled that wanton sharing, time searching, and downloading of Fox News' news segments is not fair use. Then in November, US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled TVEyes could not allow its clients—like the White House, American Red Cross, members of Congress, and others—to download Fox News clips. The judge also ordered TVEyes to block users from searching Fox News clips and from allowing them to share them on social media.

TVEyes shall implement a blocking feature that will prevent links to FNC or FBN clips stored on any servers owned or leased by TVEyes from playing when they are accessed from links posted to the major social sharing services on the internet. TVEyes will also block plays linked from domain names associated with the blocked sites (such as "url shorteners") to ensure that its list of blocked domains remains comprehensive. Examples of such social media sites include: twitter.com; t.co (Twitter's URL shortener); facebook.com; fb.me (Facebook's URL shortener); linkedin.com; pinterest.com; plus.google.com; tumblr.com; vine.co; snapchat.com; hubs.ly (Hubspot, a social media posting system); bit.ly (Bitly, a social media posting system); buff.ly (Buffer, a social media posting system); and reddit.com."

Fox News is seeking unspecified damages in the case, too, at a trial. But on Monday, TVEyes and Fox News temporarily set aside their differences and agreed to allow the appellate courts to review Hellerstein's decisions. The judge's orders were to take effect on December 14, but the agreement indefinitely delays implementation pending the outcome of the case before the New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals. That's the same appeals court that ruled in October that it's legal to scan books even if you don't own the copyright.

(credit: Mike Mozart)

AT&T Senior VP Bob Quinn says his company has avoided offering some new services because of worries about violating net neutrality rules. Quinn, head of the telco's federal regulatory division, provided little detail on what kinds of services AT&T might offer if not for the rules issued by the Federal Communications Commission this year. “Since the Open Internet Order came out we've had weekly calls with the business units and literally 15 lawyers who are all trying to figure out whether that stuff we've invested in... would be a violation of the order," he said at the Phoenix Center's Annual US Telecoms Symposium yesterday, according to Politico. "We've had to shelve a bunch of stuff because we've got to wait and see.”

AT&T has "paused plans to offer some new services" because of legal uncertainty, Politico wrote. While Quinn was apparently light on detail here, he said that AT&T didn't want to be the first carrier to offer something similar to T-Mobile's new Binge On video streaming program because it wasn't clear how the FCC would respond.

AT&T's claim that it will pause offering new services is reminiscent of its statement a year ago that it would "pause" investments in fiber networks because of net neutrality rules. But after the rules were approved, AT&T continued expanding fiber and agreed to deploy fiber to 12.5 million potential customers.

The forecast: hot, with a chance of severe data breaches.

According to a government official quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, China is responsible for a breach at the Bureau of Meteorology, which may have allowed attackers to gain access to sensitive national security data. The Australian weather bureau hosts a high-performance computing center used by multiple government agencies and has network connections to Australia's Department of Defence.

The breach was described as "massive" by the unnamed government official, who told ABC News that he was certain "it was China" that breached the systems. He added that fixing the Bureau of Meteorology's network to close the holes used to gain access would cost millions of dollars.

There has been no official statement on the breach. Australia's Federal Police would not comment on the ABC report, and the government has made it a policy not to speak about specific computer security events. A spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry has said the report contains "groundless accusations."