Sorry for missing Tech at Night on Friday. After that near-miss with a cold, I decided to start the weekend a little early that night. But we’re back. So with five days of news to catch up on, let’s see what we have here.
Here’s a reminder of why Net Neutrality was a terrible idea. Making people pay for what they use creates opportunities for innovation. If ESPN wants to negotiate bulk rates for wireless data, let them!
And yet that John McCain would add more regulations. We need less micromanagement of cable, not more.
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I’m on antihistamines and hoping I’m not getting too sick, so this is going to be less… focused than it usually will be. Hang on.
Let’s recap the CISPA situation. Anonymous is proving why we need it (though BGR is delusional for thinking Anonymous was “attacking North Korea” when it hacked Twitter accounts, though BGR does sometimes go gaga for radical propaganda). China is, too. But the administration is opposing CISPA on “privacy” grounds. Hold that thought.
The Obama administration is not opposing and may back government mandates for “wiretapping” Internet communications – that is, government-mandated backdoors into encrypted communications. What was that about privacy, again?
At least Republicans are still serious on the matter, looking at the large scale of thefts and spying going on. Make no mistake: this is aimed at China. In theory it would affect Iran, but we already embargo them, so this affects China.
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Here we go again. The Weekend-at-Bernies-ificatoin of Aaron Swartz continues. He made an example of himself to become an anti-copyright martyr, and now we’re supposed to degrade property rights online to give him his way anyway. Pass.
Computer Fraud and Abuse is a problem, but foreign threats are an issue, too. That’s why we also need to pass CISPA which started off as the low-regulatory, small-government alternative to the Democrat power grab, if you recall. Funny how the so-called libertarians only rally agains the GOP proposal, and stayed silent against Lieberman-Collins last time.
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I meant to post over the weekend, but with RedState so active for Easter, I decided just to cancel the Friday Tech.
Hey folks, here’s more evidence: Population density matters for Internet speeds. Wealth also matters. Those who don’t adjust for these factors, and tell you US Internet speeds are slow or bad, are selling something. Usually government.
And yes, it’s still a problem that the Obama administration isn’t doing enough to oppose global Internet regulation through the ITU. Some say the administration was duped, but I think they just don’t oppose global regulation and governance. Obama wants to bow to foreign countries by letting global tyrants hijack the Internet from the free peoples of the world.
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An interesting development in the President’s Cybersecurity order: his people are going hat in hand looking for industry buy-in. Perhaps they fear actual legislation?
Of course, when it comes to industry and the administration, their relationships can’t always be as cozy as Google’s with the President’s men, including the FTC Chairman. Google really is the caricature of Halliburton that existed in the minds of the radicals.
Microsoft is beginning to realize their ad campaign is failing because nobody cares about privacy, it appears.
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Google is a target now. The EU is threatening to do its people a disservice by trying to fight Google innovation as hard as they fight Microsoft innovation. Because here’s the thing: people who voluntarily use Google software are not at all the same as people who were snooped on by Google Street View vans. They’re not victims. They’re people choosing to sign their privacy away. The EU, in attacking Google, is restricting choice for Europeans.
Meanwhile, in the US, I have to disagree with Scott Cleland on Google’s FTC issues. Regular readers know I’m hard on Google when it’s warranted: in the Wi Spy mess, and in the Safari hack, I supported regulatory action against the firm. But the antitrust and Search Neutrality disputes are stupid, and are themselves political power grabs. The Obama regulators are themselves political power seekers. Google is not politicizing any process. Obama and his people already did.
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Top story: the FCC is moving forward with spectrum auctions, providing incentives for television stations to auction off their spectrum for wireless Internet use. We could see the auctions completed by the end of 2014.
Everyone admits there’s a spectrum crunch, and on the right and left of the FCC they say it’s a difficult question of how to transfer spectrum to alleviate it. Greg Walden is right though that this is good “if implemented well.” Bruce Mehlman of iia calls it “a terrific start” and that’s also true.
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John McCain. Lisa Murkowski. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Saxby Chambliss. Richard Burr. Dan Coats.
No, I’m not listing the centrist wing of the Senate Republicans. I’m listing some of the co-sponsors of SECURE IT, the bill that Senate Republicans have been forced to bring forth because the extremist Cybersecurity bill by Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins just couldn’t be bargained with. That’s right, John McCain of McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, and McCain-Lieberman couldn’t find a way to negotiate a compromise on this.
It’s the right bill to pass. It’s since gotten oversight champion Chuck Grassley and TEA Party favorite Ron Johnson on board, among others. It addresses the key security problems we face without giving the proven-incompetent feds any new powers over the Internet. Here’s KBH on the bill.
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When I read the President’s Executive Order Accelerating Broadband Infrastructure Deployment, I’m reminded of the scene in Spaceballs when Dark Helmet tells the crew of Spaceball One “What are you preparing? You’re always preparing. Just go!”
For the Obama administration to spend a year preparing whether or not to address a list of reforms, instead of just doing them, suggests to me the administration simply isn’t serious about getting government out of the way.
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Previously in the Tech at Night series we saw CLIP, the Communications Liberty and Innovation Project of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. A group talking tech with a slogan like “Liberty drives Innovation” is one that interests me.
So now we have a brief email interview with Fred Campbell, Director of CLIP.
Tech at Night: What are your biggest policy concerns today?
Fred Campbell: The two biggest concerns are calls for international regulation of the Internet and the ongoing spectrum crisis.
China and Russia are trying to seize control of the Internet from the United States through the United Nations. The International Telecommunication Union, a specialized agency of the UN that governs international telephone services, is meeting this December to consider expanding its authority to include the Internet. Some nations have already proposed limiting Internet privacy rights, imposing international network standards, and taxing international Internet usage. Ceding control of these issues to authoritarian governments would destroy the free market foundations that made the Internet a success and weaken liberty throughout the world. If these nations have their way, it would limit future innovation, slow economic growth, and chill political expression.
The other big issue concerns the mobile Internet. CTIA reports that, as of December 2011, there were over 331 million wireless connections in the US, and, according to the FCC, more smartphones were sold in 2011 than PCs. The result is a massive increase in the use of mobile data services by businesses and consumers, which is turning the Internet into the mobile Internet. Mobile Internet growth is driving innovation across all communications sectors from app developers and mobile content providers to mobile service providers. The same growth that is helping drive our economy is also creating a need for more mobile spectrum. Mobile devices use this spectrum, also known as radio waves, to connect to the Internet. When consumers use their mobile devices more, the increased usage also uses more spectrum, and we are starting to run out. According to Cisco, mobile data traffic grew 133 percent in 2011, and is expected to grow another 18-fold by 2016. We need more spectrum to meet the increase in demand, but the government controls our nation’s spectrum resources, and it’s moving too slowly on this issue. The lack of spectrum is already beginning to have an adverse impact on consumers, and it’s going to get much worse if we don’t act now. We have to start moving a lot faster on spectrum issues.
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