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Paul Merrell

In Hearing on Internet Surveillance, Nobody Knows How Many Americans Impacted in Data C... - 0 views

  • The Senate Judiciary Committee held an open hearing today on the FISA Amendments Act, the law that ostensibly authorizes the digital surveillance of hundreds of millions of people both in the United States and around the world. Section 702 of the law, scheduled to expire next year, is designed to allow U.S. intelligence services to collect signals intelligence on foreign targets related to our national security interests. However—thanks to the leaks of many whistleblowers including Edward Snowden, the work of investigative journalists, and statements by public officials—we now know that the FISA Amendments Act has been used to sweep up data on hundreds of millions of people who have no connection to a terrorist investigation, including countless Americans. What do we mean by “countless”? As became increasingly clear in the hearing today, the exact number of Americans impacted by this surveillance is unknown. Senator Franken asked the panel of witnesses, “Is it possible for the government to provide an exact count of how many United States persons have been swept up in Section 702 surveillance? And if not the exact count, then what about an estimate?”
  • The lack of information makes rigorous oversight of the programs all but impossible. As Senator Franken put it in the hearing today, “When the public lacks even a rough sense of the scope of the government’s surveillance program, they have no way of knowing if the government is striking the right balance, whether we are safeguarding our national security without trampling on our citizens’ fundamental privacy rights. But the public can’t know if we succeed in striking that balance if they don’t even have the most basic information about our major surveillance programs."  Senator Patrick Leahy also questioned the panel about the “minimization procedures” associated with this type of surveillance, the privacy safeguard that is intended to ensure that irrelevant data and data on American citizens is swiftly deleted. Senator Leahy asked the panel: “Do you believe the current minimization procedures ensure that data about innocent Americans is deleted? Is that enough?”  David Medine, who recently announced his pending retirement from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, answered unequivocally:
  • Elizabeth Goitein, the Brennan Center director whose articulate and thought-provoking testimony was the highlight of the hearing, noted that at this time an exact number would be difficult to provide. However, she asserted that an estimate should be possible for most if not all of the government’s surveillance programs. None of the other panel participants—which included David Medine and Rachel Brand of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board as well as Matthew Olsen of IronNet Cybersecurity and attorney Kenneth Wainstein—offered an estimate. Today’s hearing reaffirmed that it is not only the American people who are left in the dark about how many people or accounts are impacted by the NSA’s dragnet surveillance of the Internet. Even vital oversight committees in Congress like the Senate Judiciary Committee are left to speculate about just how far-reaching this surveillance is. It's part of the reason why we urged the House Judiciary Committee to demand that the Intelligence Community provide the public with a number. 
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  • Senator Leahy, they don’t. The minimization procedures call for the deletion of innocent Americans’ information upon discovery to determine whether it has any foreign intelligence value. But what the board’s report found is that in fact information is never deleted. It sits in the databases for 5 years, or sometimes longer. And so the minimization doesn’t really address the privacy concerns of incidentally collected communications—again, where there’s been no warrant at all in the process… In the United States, we simply can’t read people’s emails and listen to their phone calls without court approval, and the same should be true when the government shifts its attention to Americans under this program. One of the most startling exchanges from the hearing today came toward the end of the session, when Senator Dianne Feinstein—who also sits on the Intelligence Committee—seemed taken aback by Ms. Goitein’s mention of “backdoor searches.” 
  • Feinstein: Wow, wow. What do you call it? What’s a backdoor search? Goitein: Backdoor search is when the FBI or any other agency targets a U.S. person for a search of data that was collected under Section 702, which is supposed to be targeted against foreigners overseas. Feinstein: Regardless of the minimization that was properly carried out. Goitein: Well the data is searched in its unminimized form. So the FBI gets raw data, the NSA, the CIA get raw data. And they search that raw data using U.S. person identifiers. That’s what I’m referring to as backdoor searches. It’s deeply concerning that any member of Congress, much less a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, might not be aware of the problem surrounding backdoor searches. In April 2014, the Director of National Intelligence acknowledged the searches of this data, which Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall termed “the ‘back-door search’ loophole in section 702.” The public was so incensed that the House of Representatives passed an amendment to that year's defense appropriations bill effectively banning the warrantless backdoor searches. Nonetheless, in the hearing today it seemed like Senator Feinstein might not recognize or appreciate the serious implications of allowing U.S. law enforcement agencies to query the raw data collected through these Internet surveillance programs. Hopefully today’s testimony helped convince the Senator that there is more to this topic than what she’s hearing in jargon-filled classified security briefings.
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    The 4th Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and *particularly describing the place to be searched, and the* persons or *things to be seized."* So much for the particularized description of the place to be searched and the thngs to be seized.  Fah! Who needs a Constitution, anyway .... 
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

#irespectmusic says 100 Years is Long Enough: The Danger of Pie-ism for All Creators - 0 views

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    [# ! Is not copyright to promote creation? so, it should we enough -for the 'creators' to hold the rights DURING Author's Life...? Everything beyond is a swindle...] Baiting the Pie Last year's hearings on music licensing at the House Judiciary Committee's IP Subcommittee revealed an old argument from broadcasters and a new twist on that argument adopted by webcasters. We already pay for music-you people go fight over that pie.
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    # ! copyright is not to promoe creation? so, it should we enough to hold the rightss DURING Author's Life? Everything beyond is a swindle... Baiting the Pie Last year's hearings on music licensing at the House Judiciary Committee's IP Subcommittee revealed an old argument from broadcasters and a new twist on that argument adopted by webcasters. We already pay for music-you people go fight over that pie.
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    [# ! Is not copyright to promote creation? so, it should we enough -for the 'creators' to hold the rights DURING Author's Life...? Everything beyond is a swindle...] Baiting the Pie Last year's hearings on music licensing at the House Judiciary Committee's IP Subcommittee revealed an old argument from broadcasters and a new twist on that argument adopted by webcasters. We already pay for music-you people go fight over that pie.
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    [# ! Is not copyright to promote creation? so, it should we enough -for the 'creators' to hold the rights DURING Author's Life...? Everything beyond is a swindle...] Baiting the Pie Last year's hearings on music licensing at the House Judiciary Committee's IP Subcommittee revealed an old argument from broadcasters and a new twist on that argument adopted by webcasters. We already pay for music-you people go fight over that pie.
Paul Merrell

4 Key Takeaways From Washington's Big Tech Hearing On 'Monopoly Power' : NPR - 1 views

  • Here are some key takeaways from the hearing:
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    Hearing was held by video-conference. Not much of substance came out of it. Still, the subcommittee has employed some high-power investigators who have spent hundreds of hours pawing through these companies' documents. I look for more substantive disclosures later.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

This same annoying whooping sound is in every popular song, from Katy Perry to Chris Br... - 2 views

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    "Once you hear it, you can't un-hear it. It will be forever with you. Just a warning."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Creating Heat: 10 Hot Companies to Watch Over the Next Year | Jeff Pollack - 2 views

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    [We're all constantly hearing about new cool sites, apps, and products on the market. Most of us forget 90% of these within a few hours of hearing about them...and for good reason. There's no way to keep an eye on everything that's out there. ...]
Paul Merrell

Lawmakers Change Their Tone on AT&T and Time Warner Deal - The New York Times - 0 views

  • When AT&T and Time Warner announced their $85.4 billion deal in October, lawmakers greeted the acquisition frostily. Now their tone is changing.At a hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday that was being closely watched for how mega-mergers will be viewed in the coming Trump administration, members of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee that oversees regulatory agencies that decide on mergers said the deal merited tough scrutiny. The chief executives of AT&T and Time Warner were grilled at the hearing about a range of issues related to the deal.But in a change from previous comments, lawmakers also questioned whether traditional ways of evaluating mergers are growing outdated as Silicon Valley companies like Facebook and Google become massive media platforms that threaten the television industry. Their tone was more circumspect than those that immediately followed the deal’s announcement, when lawmakers had been more critical.
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    I think it plain that we need a flat ban on the same company controlling both an ISP and a content company. Comcast, the ISP/content company has proved that it's willing to misuse its ISP powers to disfavor other content companies such as Hulu and Netflix via network throttling. AT&T plus Time Warner would undoubtedly do the same. And Comcast led the charge against net neutrality, attempting to expand its revenue base from its ISP subscribers to include new charges on content providing companies. We need a clean separation between ISPs and content companies.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Get what you paid for with open source | Opensource.com - 0 views

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    "The other day I heard the phrase every open source educator hates to hear: "Well, you get what you pay for..." So, this time in my talk to the group, instead of explaining that 'free' means 'free as in freedom' not 'free of cost', I changed it up. I replied, "You're right you do.""
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    "The other day I heard the phrase every open source educator hates to hear: "Well, you get what you pay for..." So, this time in my talk to the group, instead of explaining that 'free' means 'free as in freedom' not 'free of cost', I changed it up. I replied, "You're right you do.""
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Virtualization vs. Containers: What You Need to Know - Datamation - 1 views

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    "You have to try pretty hard not to hear about containers these days. They are the new "it" technology, garnering incredible buzz on Twitter and on various online publications. Since they are often discussed in conjunction with virtualization, there is the potential for confusion or comparison, when in fact they are complimentary."
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    "You have to try pretty hard not to hear about containers these days. They are the new "it" technology, garnering incredible buzz on Twitter and on various online publications. Since they are often discussed in conjunction with virtualization, there is the potential for confusion or comparison, when in fact they are complimentary."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Internet capacity crunch staved off | ITworld - 0 views

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    "We've been hearing about the exhaustion of IP4 addresses for years now, but that day has yet to come despite the periodic moments of hype"
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    "We've been hearing about the exhaustion of IP4 addresses for years now, but that day has yet to come despite the periodic moments of hype"
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

InterCommunity 2015 | InterCommunity 2015 | 7-8 July 2015 - 0 views

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    "7-8 July 2015 A global meeting of the Internet Society, on the Internet, for the Internet. This one-of-a-kind community event will give you the opportunity to share your unique perspectives on key Internet topics and issues. Connect with the Internet Society Board of Trustees Exchange ideas with Members around the globe Join lively discussions about Collaborative Governance, Collaborative Security, and Access & Development Hear insights from the 2nd annual Global Internet Report Share your views on critical issues facing the Internet How do I participate?"
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    "7-8 July 2015 A global meeting of the Internet Society, on the Internet, for the Internet. This one-of-a-kind community event will give you the opportunity to share your unique perspectives on key Internet topics and issues. Connect with the Internet Society Board of Trustees Exchange ideas with Members around the globe Join lively discussions about Collaborative Governance, Collaborative Security, and Access & Development Hear insights from the 2nd annual Global Internet Report Share your views on critical issues facing the Internet How do I participate?"
Gary Edwards

Brendan's Roadmap Updates: Open letter to Microsoft's Chris Wilson and their fight to s... - 0 views

  • The history of ECMAScript since its beginnings in November 1996 shows that when Microsoft was behind in the market (against Netscape in 1996-1997), it moved aggressively in the standards body to evolve standards starting with ES1 through ES3. Once Microsoft dominated the market, the last edition of the standard was left to rot -- ES3 was finished in 1999 -- and even easy-to-fix standards conformance bugs in IE JScript went unfixed for eight years (so three years to go from Edition 1 to 3, then over eight to approach Edition 4). Now that the proposed 4th edition looks like a competitive threat, the world suddenly hears in detail about all those bugs, spun as differences afflicting "JavaScript" that should inform a new standard.
  • In my opinion the notion that we need to add features so that ajax programming would be easier is plain wrong. ajax is a hack and also the notion of a webapp is a hack. the web was created in a document centric view. All w3c standards are also based on the same document notion. The heart of the web, the HTTP protocol is designed to support a web of documents and as such is stateless. the proper solution, IMO, is not to evolve ES for the benefit of ajax and webapps, but rather generalize the notion of a document browser that connects to a web of documents to a general purpose client engine that connects to a network of internet applications. thus the current web (document) browser just becomes one such internet application.
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    the obvious conflict of interest between the standards-based web and proprietary platforms advanced by Microsoft, and the rationales for keeping the web's client-side programming language small while the proprietary platforms rapidly evolve support for large languages, does not help maintain the fiction that only clashing high-level philosophies are involved here. Readers may not know that Ecma has no provision for "minor releases" of its standards, so any ES3.1 that was approved by TG1 would inevitably be given a whole edition number, presumably becoming the 4th Edition of ECMAScript. This is obviously contentious given all the years that the majority of TG1, sometimes even apparently including Microsoft representatives, has worked on ES4, and the developer expectations set by this long-standing effort. A history of Microsoft's post-ES3 involvement in the ECMAScript standard group, leading up to the overt split in TG1 in March, is summarized here. The history of ECMAScript since its beginnings in November 1996 shows that when Microsoft was behind in the market (against Netscape in 1996-1997), it moved aggressively in the standards body to evolve standards starting with ES1 through ES3. Once Microsoft dominated the market, the last edition of the standard was left to rot -- ES3 was finished in 1999 -- and even easy-to-fix standards conformance bugs in IE JScript went unfixed for eight years (so three years to go from Edition 1 to 3, then over eight to approach Edition 4). Now that the proposed 4th edition looks like a competitive threat, the world suddenly hears in detail about all those bugs, spun as differences afflicting "JavaScript" that should inform a new standard.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

The incoming European Commissioner Andrus Ansip declares his support for free software ... - 0 views

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    "Paris, October 8th, 2014, press release. During the course of his European Parliament hearing, Andrus Ansip, the designated EU Commissioner for the Digital Single Market, expressed his support for free software several times. April hopes that this is a sign towards the implementation of proactive policies in favour of free software."
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    "Paris, October 8th, 2014, press release. During the course of his European Parliament hearing, Andrus Ansip, the designated EU Commissioner for the Digital Single Market, expressed his support for free software several times. April hopes that this is a sign towards the implementation of proactive policies in favour of free software."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Why Kim Dotcom hasn't been extradited 3 years after the US smashed Megaupload | Ars Tec... - 0 views

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    "Why Kim Dotcom hasn't been extradited 3 years after the US smashed Megaupload An extradition hearing is set for June 2015. Based on history, don't hold your breath. by Cyrus Farivar - Jan 18, 2015 10:30 pm UTC Share Tweet 37 Kim Dotcom made his initial play for the Billboard charts in late 2011. Kim Dotcom has never been shy. And in December 2011, roughly a month before things for Dotcom were set to drastically change, he still oozed with bravado: Dotcom released a song ("The Megaupload Song") in conjunction with producer Printz Board. It featured a number of major pop stars-including the likes of Kanye West, Jamie Foxx, and Serena Williams-all singing that they "love Megaupload."" [ # ! this is not an #IntellectualProperty #enforcement #issue, # ! it is a bunch of #governments (& friend companies) saying # ! #citizens that #information & #culture belong to '#Them'... # ! ;/ # ! ... and this doesn't work this way. # ! :) ]
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    " Why Kim Dotcom hasn't been extradited 3 years after the US smashed Megaupload An extradition hearing is set for June 2015. Based on history, don't hold your breath. by Cyrus Farivar - Jan 18, 2015 10:30 pm UTC Share Tweet 37 Kim Dotcom made his initial play for the Billboard charts in late 2011. Kim Dotcom has never been shy. And in December 2011, roughly a month before things for Dotcom were set to drastically change, he still oozed with bravado: Dotcom released a song ("The Megaupload Song") in conjunction with producer Printz Board. It featured a number of major pop stars-including the likes of Kanye West, Jamie Foxx, and Serena Williams-all singing that they "love Megaupload.""
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Germany's Spies Grab 11 Billion Pieces Of Phone Metadata A Year -- And Pass On 6 Billio... - 1 views

    • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.
       
      [U.S. Spying On Europe: EU Confronts Washington Reports Of Spying On Allies [06/30/2013] ]
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    "from the bad-sex dept Given Germany's high-profile attachment to privacy, it's always interesting to hear about ways in which its spies have been ignoring that tradition. Here, for example, is a story in the German newspaper Die Zeit about the country's foreign intelligence agency BND gathering metadata from millions of phone records every day: "
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    "from the bad-sex dept Given Germany's high-profile attachment to privacy, it's always interesting to hear about ways in which its spies have been ignoring that tradition. Here, for example, is a story in the German newspaper Die Zeit about the country's foreign intelligence agency BND gathering metadata from millions of phone records every day: "
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

What's your vision for the FSF? Fill out our survey - Free Software Foundation - workin... - 1 views

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    [ by Zak Rogoff - Published on Jan 08, 2016 08:01 PM 2015 was the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) thirtieth year defending and advancing computer users' rights. The free software community has sustained the Foundation throughout these decades and been deeply involved in our work. We continue to rely on the expertise of the free software movement to inform our initiatives and strategies. Taking the first step into our next thirty years, we want to hear your feedback, your suggestions, and your vision for the future of the FSF. Fill out the survey now!]
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    [ by Zak Rogoff - Published on Jan 08, 2016 08:01 PM 2015 was the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) thirtieth year defending and advancing computer users' rights. The free software community has sustained the Foundation throughout these decades and been deeply involved in our work. We continue to rely on the expertise of the free software movement to inform our initiatives and strategies. Taking the first step into our next thirty years, we want to hear your feedback, your suggestions, and your vision for the future of the FSF. Fill out the survey now!]
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Piracy Claims Are No Basis to Terminate Internet Accounts, Court Hears - TorrentFreak - 0 views

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    [ Ernesto on October 15, 2015 C: 6 Breaking The copyright infringement notices rightsholders send to Internet providers should not lead to account terminations, the EFF and Public Knowledge have told a federal court in Virginia. Both groups submitted their opinion in the case between Cox and two music groups, stating that the interests of millions of subscribers are at risk. ]
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    [ Ernesto on October 15, 2015 C: 6 Breaking The copyright infringement notices rightsholders send to Internet providers should not lead to account terminations, the EFF and Public Knowledge have told a federal court in Virginia. Both groups submitted their opinion in the case between Cox and two music groups, stating that the interests of millions of subscribers are at risk. ]
Paul Merrell

What to Do About Lawless Government Hacking and the Weakening of Digital Security | Ele... - 0 views

  • In our society, the rule of law sets limits on what government can and cannot do, no matter how important its goals. To give a simple example, even when chasing a fleeing murder suspect, the police have a duty not to endanger bystanders. The government should pay the same care to our safety in pursuing threats online, but right now we don’t have clear, enforceable rules for government activities like hacking and "digital sabotage." And this is no abstract question—these actions increasingly endanger everyone’s security
  • The problem became especially clear this year during the San Bernardino case, involving the FBI’s demand that Apple rewrite its iOS operating system to defeat security features on a locked iPhone. Ultimately the FBI exploited an existing vulnerability in iOS and accessed the contents of the phone with the help of an "outside party." Then, with no public process or discussion of the tradeoffs involved, the government refused to tell Apple about the flaw. Despite the obvious fact that the security of the computers and networks we all use is both collective and interwoven—other iPhones used by millions of innocent people presumably have the same vulnerability—the government chose to withhold information Apple could have used to improve the security of its phones. Other examples include intelligence activities like Stuxnet and Bullrun, and law enforcement investigations like the FBI’s mass use of malware against Tor users engaged in criminal behavior. These activities are often disproportionate to stopping legitimate threats, resulting in unpatched software for millions of innocent users, overbroad surveillance, and other collateral effects.  That’s why we’re working on a positive agenda to confront governmental threats to digital security. Put more directly, we’re calling on lawyers, advocates, technologists, and the public to demand a public discussion of whether, when, and how governments can be empowered to break into our computers, phones, and other devices; sabotage and subvert basic security protocols; and stockpile and exploit software flaws and vulnerabilities.  
  • Smart people in academia and elsewhere have been thinking and writing about these issues for years. But it’s time to take the next step and make clear, public rules that carry the force of law to ensure that the government weighs the tradeoffs and reaches the right decisions. This long post outlines some of the things that can be done. It frames the issue, then describes some of the key areas where EFF is already pursuing this agenda—in particular formalizing the rules for disclosing vulnerabilities and setting out narrow limits for the use of government malware. Finally it lays out where we think the debate should go from here.   
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    "In our society, the rule of law sets limits on what government can and cannot do, no matter how important its goals. "
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    It's not often that I disagree with EFF's positions, but on this one I do. The government should be prohibited from exploiting computer vulnerabilities and should be required to immediately report all vulnerabilities discovered to the relevant developers of hardware or software. It's been one long slippery slope since the Supreme Court first approved wiretapping in Olmstead v. United States, 277 US 438 (1928), https://goo.gl/NJevsr (.) Left undecided to this day is whether we have a right to whisper privately, a right that is undeniable. All communications intercept cases since Olmstead fly directly in the face of that right.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

U.S. military official: Internet shutdowns don't help during conflict - Access Now - 0 views

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    "22 June 2016 | 4:49 pm Today the U.S. military gave a resounding rebuke to U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump's call to shut down the internet in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Politico reports from a House Armed Services Committee hearing that Acting Assistant Defense Secretary Thomas Atkins testified:"
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Ownership Chart: The Big Six | Free Press - 2 views

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    [Ownership Chart: The Big Six The U.S. media landscape is dominated by massive corporations that, through a history of mergers and acquisitions, have concentrated their control over what we see, hear and read. In many cases, these giant companies are vertically integrated, controlling everything from initial production to final distribution. In the interactive charts below we reveal who owns what. Click here to learn more about our campaign to stop big media and to support local ownership, diverse voices, and truly competitive media markets that serve the public interest. Select a chart: The Big Six Cable TV Print Telecom Radio ...]
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