Slide 1 Figure 5-1 Page 92 CHAPTER 5: EVOLUTION AND BIODIVERSITY: ORIGINS, NICHES AND ADAPTATION.
Figure of the week 92% - Markle
Transcript of Figure of the week 92% - Markle
Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011
Insulin Pumps, Monitors Vulnerable to Hacking
Even the human bloodstream isn't safe
from computer hackers.
By Jordan Robertson, AP Technology Writer
A security researcher who is diabetic has identified flaws that could allow an attacker to remotely control insulin pumps and alter the readouts of blood-sugar monitors. As a result, diabetics could get too much or too little insulin, a hormone they need for proper metabolism.
Jay Radcliffe, a diabetic who experimented on his own equipment, shared his findings with The Associated Press before releasing them Thursday at the Black Hat computer security conference in Las Vegas.
"My initial reaction was that this was really cool from a technical perspective," Radcliffe said. "The second reaction was one of maybe sheer terror, to know that there's no security around the devices which are a very active part of keeping me alive."
Increasingly, medical devices such as pacemakers, operating room monitors and surgical instruments including deep-brain stimulators are being made with the ability to transmit vital health information from a patient's body to doctors and other professionals. Some devices can be remotely controlled by medical professionals.
Although there's no evidence that anyone has used Radcliffe's techniques, his findings raise fears about the safety of medical devices as they're brought into the Internet age. Serious attacks have already been demonstrated against pacemakers and defibrillators.
Medical device makers downplay the threat from such attacks. They argue that the demonstrated attacks have been performed by skilled security researchers and are unlikely to occur in the real world.
But hacking is like athletics. Showing that a far-fetched attack is possible is like cracking the 4-minute mile. Once someone does it, others often follow. Free or inexpensive programs eventually pop up online to help malicious hackers automate obscure attacks.
Though there has been a push to automate medical devices and include wireless chips, the devices are typically too small to house processors powerful enough to perform advanced encryption to scramble their communications.
More at http://bit.ly/rcyifu
Figure of the week
92% The results of a Pew survey conducted
in May found that 92 percent of online
adults use search engines to hunt for
information on the Web, and 59
percent do so on a typical day.
Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 2
Privacy and Security
On Its Own, Europe Backs Web Privacy Fights
By Suzanne Daley, The New York Times
All 90 people wanted information deleted from the Web.
Among them was a victim of domestic violence who discovered that her address could easily be found through Google. Another, well into middle age now, thought it was unfair that a few computer key strokes could unearth an account of her arrest in her college days.
They might not have received much of a hearing in the United States, where Google is based. But here, as elsewhere in Europe, an idea has taken hold —individuals should have a ―right to be forgotten‖ on the Web.
Spain‘s government is now championing this cause. It has ordered Google to stop indexing information about 90 citizens who filed formal complaints with its Data Protection Agency. The case is now in court and being watched closely across Europe for how it might affect the control citizens will have over information they posted, or which was posted about them, on the Web.
Whatever the ruling in the Spanish case, the European Union is also expected to weigh in with new ―right to be forgotten‖ regulations this fall. Viviane Reding, the European Union‘s justice commissioner, has offered few details of what she has in mind. But she has made clear she is determined to give privacy watchdogs greater power.
―I cannot accept that individuals have no say over their data once it has been launched into cyberspace,‖ she said last month. She said she had heard the argument that more control was impossible, and that Europeans should ―get over it.‖
But, Ms. Reding said, ―I don‘t agree.‖
On this issue, experts say, Europe and the United States have largely parted company. ―What you really have here is a trans-Atlantic clash,‖ said Franz Werro, who was born and raised in Switzerland and is now a law professor at Georgetown University. ―The two cultures really aren‘t going in the same direction when it comes to privacy rights. ―
For instance, in the United States, Mr. Werro said, courts have consistently found that the right to publish the truth about someone‘s past supersedes any right to privacy. Europeans, he said, see things differently: ―In Europe you don‘t have the right to say anything about anybody, even if it is true.‖
Mr. Werro says Europe sees the need to balance freedom of speech and the right to know against a person‘s right to privacy or dignity, concepts often enshrined in European laws. The European perspective was shaped by the way information was collected and used against individuals under dictators like Franco and Hitler and under Communism. Government agencies routinely compiled dossiers on citizens as a means of control.
More at http://nyti.ms/py59Et
The War on Web Anonymity
The Internet has always been a refuge of anonymity. Anyone could hide behind the cloak
of namelessness and express the most offensive views. Now politicians and companies—including
Google and Facebook—want to change that.
By Marcel Rosenbach and Hilmar Schmundt
The Avenue de l'Opéra in Paris is a respectable address, surrounded by banks, boutiques and cafés. The tenants listed on door plaques include a language school and an airline. But the name of the building's most famous tenant is not listed: Google. The global corporation values privacy -- its own privacy, at least.
"We take data protection seriously," says Peter Fleischer, Google's Global Privacy Counsel. "We don't know our users by name," he insists. "We just store anonymous identifiers, but no personal data." This is an important distinction for Fleischer, who says that Google's primary goal is to improve the accuracy of targeted advertising. According to Fleischer, the identities of the people behind the numbers are irrelevant. "We don't even want to know the names of users," he says.
These statements were made only three years ago, and yet they seem to be from a different era. In the past, the Internet was a sea of anonymity dotted with username islands, but now the relationship is being reversed. Anonymity is being declared the exception -- and a problem.
In June, Google launched a frontal attack on competitor Facebook and began testing its own social network: Google+. Suddenly Google is asking for precisely what Fleischer so vehemently declared was of no interest to the company in 2008 -- real names.
The company has repeatedly blocked the accounts of users who refuse to provide their real names instead of a pseudonym, because this is a violation of its "community standards." Those rules stipulate the following: "To help fight spam and prevent fake profiles, use the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you."
Today Google is no longer satisfied with pseudonyms, and it isn't alone. Politicians and law enforcement agencies have also declared war on anonymity, a fundamental characteristic of the Internet.
More at http://bit.ly/oyLFkR
Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 3
Information Sharing
Enter the Cyber-dragon
Hackers have attacked America’s defense
establishment, as well as companies
from Google to Morgan Stanley to security giant
RSA, and fingers point to China as the culprit.
By Michael Joseph Gross, Vanity Fair
Lying there in the junk-mail folder, in the spammy mess of mortgage offers and erectile-dysfunction drug ads, an e-mail from an associate with a subject line that looked legitimate caught the man‘s eye. The subject line said ―2011 Recruitment Plan.‖ It was late winter of 2011. The man clicked on the message, downloaded the attached Excel spreadsheet file, and unwittingly set in motion a chain of events allowing hackers to raid the computer networks of his employer, RSA. RSA is the security division of the high-tech company EMC. Its products protect computer networks at the White House, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, most top defense contractors, and a majority of Fortune 500 corporations.
The parent company disclosed the breach on March 17 in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The hack gravely undermined the reputation of RSA‘s popular SecurID security service. As spring gave way to summer, bloggers and computer-security experts found evidence that the attack on RSA had come from China. They also linked the RSA attack to the penetration of computer networks at some of RSA‘s most powerful defense-contractor clients—among them, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and L-3 Communications. Few details of these episodes have been made public.
The RSA and defense-contractor hacks are among the latest
battles in a decade-long spy war. Hackers from many countries
have been exfiltrating—that is, stealing—intellectual property
from American corporations and the U.S. government on a
massive scale, and Chinese hackers are among the main
culprits. Because virtual attacks can be routed through
computer servers anywhere in the world, it is almost
impossible to attribute any hack with total certainty. Dozens of
nations have highly developed industrial cyber-espionage
programs, including American allies such as France and Israel.
And because the People‘s Republic of China is such a massive
entity, it is impossible to know how much Chinese hacking is
done on explicit orders from the government. In some cases,
the evidence suggests that government and military groups are
executing the attacks themselves.
In others, Chinese authorities are merely turning a blind eye to
illegal activities that are good for China‘s economy and bad for
America‘s. Last year Google became the first major company to
blow the whistle on Chinese hacking when it admitted to a
penetration known as Operation Aurora, which also hit Intel,
Morgan Stanley, and several dozen other corporations. (The
attack was given that name because the word ―aurora‖ appears
in the malware that victims downloaded.) Earlier this year,
details concerning the most sweeping intrusion since
Operation Aurora were discovered by the cyber-security firm
McAfee. Dubbed ―Operation Shady rat ,‖ the attacks (of which
more later) are being reported here for the first time.
Most companies have preferred not to talk about or even
acknowledge violations of their computer systems, for fear of
panicking shareholders and exposing themselves to lawsuits—
or for fear of offending the Chinese and jeopardizing their
share of that country‘s exploding markets. The U.S.
government, for its part, has been fecklessly circumspect in
calling out the Chinese.
A scattered alliance of government insiders and cyber-security
experts are working to bring attention to the threat, but
because of the topic‘s extreme sensitivity, much of their
consciousness-raising activity must be covert. The result in at
least one case, according to documents obtained by Vanity
Fair, has been a surreal new creation of American
bureaucracy: government-directed ―hacktivism,‖ in which an
intelligence agency secretly provides information to a group of
private-sector hackers so that truths too sensitive for the
government to tell will nevertheless come out.
More at http://bit.ly/oR6wLu
They steal secrets and identities—and are skilled at covering
their tracks. (Illustration by Brad Holland for Vanity Fair)
Page 4 Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011
Health IT
Physician Groups Comment on Medicare Plan
to Release Claims Data
By Joseph Goedert, Health Data Management
The American Medical Association and 81 other physician
organizations have submitted comments on a proposed rule
published on June 8 to make available standardized extracts of
Medicare claims data to measure the performance of providers
and suppliers.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' rule, covering
Medicare Parts A, B and D, is mandated under the Affordable
Care Act.
Qualified entities may receive the data for the sole purpose of
evaluating providers and suppliers and to generate specified
public reports, according to the proposed rule.
The entities must pay a fee equal to the cost of making the data
available, and must combine it with claims data from other
sources when conducting evaluations.
The medical associations support much of the proposed rule,
HHS Launches Disaster-App Challenge
By Joseph Conn, ModernHealthcare.com
What can you do in a natural disaster, such as an earthquake,
tornado or hurricane?
The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and
Response at HHS will pay money to help make the social
network application Facebook a place where people can turn
for help, according to a notice officially published today in the
Federal Register.
The HHS agency is sponsoring the ―Lifeline Facebook App
Challenge‖ aimed at inducing ―multidisciplinary teams of
technology developers, entrepreneurs, and members of the
disaster preparedness, response and recovery communities‖ to
come up with disaster-relief applications for the platform.
HHS is asking that the new applications provide individuals
with "actionable steps … to increase their own personal
preparedness and strengthen connections within their social
networks for the sake of personal preparedness and
community resilience.‖
The HHS challenge also aims to ―provide useful tools for public
health promotion and protection.‖
The challenge has a few rules: One is that the new applications
that enable a user to invite three Facebook friends to become
―Lifelines,‖ acting as contacts and sources of support during
disasters.
Developers who enter also are encouraged "to creatively
leverage Facebook's existing networking and geo-locating
capabilities to enhance the apps' ability to increase personal
preparedness, locate potential disaster victims, and streamline
information sharing among social networks during disasters,‖
the rules state.
Submissions will be accepted beginning Aug. 15 through one
minute before midnight on Sept. 15.
Prizes are $10,000 for first place, $5,000 for second place and
$1,000 for third place. Each entrant will retain all intellectual
property rights to their applications.
More at http://bit.ly/oRcddv
but ask for numerous clarifications.
For instance, "It is critical that CMS provide standardized
specifications for the measures that may be used with
Medicare and non-Medicare, private health plan data,"
according to the comment letter.
"This is to ensure that consistent measures and analytics are
used in developing public reports that are valid, reliable and
actionable."
The organizations also urge CMS to consult with key industry
stakeholders, including the physician community, to develop
standardized and user-friendly formats for public reports on
the performance measures.
The associations also call on CMS to ensure physicians can
review their data for accuracy and appeal any errors before the
information is made public.
More at http://bit.ly/pVf486
Page 5 Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011
Health IT - (cont.)
Plug in the Patient: A Planetary
Monitoring Network
By Katie Fehrenbacher, GigaOm.com
Thank the humble, cheap sensor, the standard wireless radio
and basic data bases for the future of planetary assistance. A
massive sensor and data network called the National
Ecological Observatory Network, or NEON, could go under
construction as soon as this summer and will pull data from
the air, water and soil across the U.S. and act as the first
comprehensive and free data depository for scientists,
researchers and educators.
While NEON has been under development for years (having
already spent $80 million and with 140 staff members), the
nonprofit group behind the network was recently allocated
$434 million from the National Science Foundation to begin
construction of the network, reports Nature (via Scientific
American).
The funding has acted like a gun at the starting line of the
project, and NEON is expected to start streaming data by next
year and be up and running within five years.
The U.S.-wide network will have 100 tracking towers, 30
aquatic sites, 3 air-born platforms and will use mobile and
fixed data collection technology, ground and air sensors, and
finally smart staff to observe environmental conditions.
All of that data will be drawn into a depository and made
available online for free to researchers. What a goldmine of big
data!
Think of it as a brand new planetary monitoring system,
similar to the vital health checks a patient gets in the ICU. If
you look at all the reports of extreme weather and record
temperatures this year, it‘s a little bit like the world is running
a slight fever.
Scientists can then leverage all of the data from NEON to
conduct tests, answer questions and propose solutions around
climate change and other ecological problems.
The NEON project is placing a large emphasis on enabling all
of its data to be used in standard formats so that scientists can
compare the necessary data sets to data outside of the network.
Data for all
Climate scientists have long turned to the data crunched via
super computers to do important climate change modelling,
and the NEON project is a little like bringing a part of that
computing power into the hands of distributed and less well-
funded researchers.
But it‘s only with the real time sensor monitoring and always-
on networks that scientists can get a more clear picture of
what‘s happening with the planet.
Other groups are working on similar, though less ambitious,
networks that will likely be able to contribute to NEON.
Earth Networks, the weather sensor company behind the
WeatherBug app, announced in January of this year that it
planned to build what it says will be the world‘s largest global
sensor network to track green house gas emissions.
Earth Networks will be focusing on monitoring green house
gas emissions, and will initially be working with Picarro, a
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based startup that sells $50,000 greenhouse
gas-detecting sensor boxes.
While the National Science Foundation is funding NEON,
other areas of the government are working on opening up big
data sets that have already been collected.
For example the Environmental Protection Agency has dozens
of data sets that it is encouraging developers to use to create
new apps.
More at http://bit.ly/oDZjat
Page 6 Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011
New Reports and Papers
Restrictions on the Use of Prescribing Data for
Drug Promotion
By Michelle M. Mello, J.D., Ph.D., Harvard School of Public Health and Noah A. Messing, J.D. , Yale Law School
Pharmaceutical manufacturers spend billions of dollars each
year sending sales representatives, known as detailers, into
physicians‘ offices. To promote their drugs, detailers show up
at medical offices bearing product information and valuable
drug samples. They also wield a third critical tool: reports
about the doctor‘s prescribing history.
Pharmaceutical companies buy these reports from prescription
drug intermediary (PDI) companies that obtain prescription
records from pharmacies across the country and link them to
physician information that they purchase from the American
Medical Association (AMA) (Figure 1).
Sales representatives can use the information to identify
physicians who are high or low prescribers and early or late
adopters, to decide which points to emphasize in their
The Future of Spectrum
By Jeffrey Rosen, The Brookings Institution
Executive Summary
In recent years, growth in demand for wireless services has
sparked a boom in the mobile phone and wireless data sector.
During the past four years, the number of mobile phone
subscribers tripled, and the number of jobs in the
telecommunications field has nearly quintupled.
New, better, and faster mobile devices, such as tablets and
smartphones, have created multi-billion dollar industries of
their own, such as Google Android and the Apple iOS ―app
stores.‖ And those technologies have contributed to the
dawning of an always-on, always-connected culture.
But this growing demand for mobile Internet access requires a
growing amount of wireless radio spectrum, portending
serious problems for the future.
At the moment, the United States has designated 547 MHz of
spectrum to wireless broadband services, but the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) predicts a need for 637
MHz of spectrum by 2013, and 822 MHz of spectrum by 2014.
Without more spectrum allocated to wireless Internet
connectivity, America risks short-circuiting the mobile
broadband revolution.
The National Broadband Plan proposes a solution. It sets forth
a detailed plan to make 300 MHz of spectrum available for
wireless broadband use within the next five years, and another
200 MHz in the five years after that.
It seeks to achieve this freeing of spectrum by auctioning
unused spectrum, lifting burdensome regulations to enable
wireless broadband service in certain spectrum ranges, and
reallocating spectrum from other services – notably broadcast
television – to enable such spectrum to be used for wireless
broadband.
Though many of these provisions are controversial, the FCC
has already done serious work to achieve these goals. If the
FCC can achieve its goals to enable the growth of wireless
broadband, America will be able to unlock the full potential of
the wireless broadband revolution and realize the potential of a
new wave of American innovation.
More at http://bit.ly/pUvz8k
presentations, and to assess how effective their visits have
been in modifying prescribing behavior. This practice, known
as data mining, enhances the effectiveness of sales calls.
Although government agencies, researchers, and health
insurers use prescribing databases, pharmaceutical
manufacturers are the primary consumer.
Critics object that detailing — particularly detailing with
prescribing information — raises health care costs by boosting
the prescription of branded drugs and their addition to
hospital formularies, jeopardizes patient safety by promoting
new drugs for which safety and effectiveness data are limited,
and impinges on the privacy of both patients and physicians.
Physicians tend to have mixed feelings about detailing. They
recognize that sales presentations can be biased and generally
disapprove of the use of their prescribing data, but many still
find the presentations and free samples valuable.
Concern about detailing has prompted at least 25 states to
consider legislation to curtail it by restricting the transfer and
use of physician-identifiable prescribing data.13
More at http://bit.ly/oB6gka
Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 7
Reports and Papers - (cont.)
The Power of Open
By Creative Commons
The world has experienced an explosion of openness. From
individual artists opening their creations for input from others,
to governments requiring publicly funded works be available to
the public, both the spirit and practice of sharing is gaining
momentum and producing results. Creative Commons began
providing licenses for the open sharing of content only a
decade ago. Now more than 400 million CC-licensed works are
available on the Internet, from music and photos, to research
findings and entire college courses.
Creative Commons created the legal and technical
infrastructure that allows effective sharing of knowledge, art
and data by individuals, organizations and governments. More
importantly, millions of creators took advantage of that
infrastructure to share work that enriches the global commons
for all humanity.
The Power of Open collects the stories of those creators. Some
are like ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative news
organization that uses CC while partnering with the world‘s
largest media companies. Others like nomadic filmmaker
Vincent Moon use CC licensing as an essential element of a
lifestyle of openness in pursuit of creativity. The breadth of
uses is as great as the
creativity of the
in div iduals a n d
o r g a n i z a t i o n s
choosing to open
their content, art and
ideas to the rest of
the world.
As we look ahead, the
field of openness is
approaching a critical
mass of adoption that
could result in
sharing becoming a
default standard for
the many works that
were previously made
available only under
the all-rights-reserved framework. Even more exciting is the
potential increase in global welfare from the use of Creative
Commons‘ tools and the increasing relevance of openness to
the discourse of culture, education and innovation policy.
More at http://thepowerofopen.org/
Survey Reveals Docs' Perceptions of EHRs as
Potential Buyers, Users
By Molly Merrill, Healthcare IT News
Meaningful use remains the strongest driver to implement
electronic health records for physicians, according to a new
survey that finds both potential EHR buyers and current users
valuing the technology, but with substantially different
perceptions and expectations.
Sage Healthcare Division, a developer of electronic health
records for medical practices across North America, worked
with Forester to conduct a survey among physicians
nationwide in an effort to examine perceptions and determine
attitudes toward these systems.
The sample included both physicians using EHR and those in
the market for the technology.
The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of
potential cost savings, benefits of these systems to small and
mid-sized practices and to find any intangibles of using EHRs,
such as physicians providing care from multiple locations or
helping physicians have more time away from the office
because of increased mobility and connectivity.
―Implementation of EHRs in the U.S. continue to grow as an
increased number of physicians and staff gain a better
understanding of the efficiency and cost-saving benefits of
using the technology,‖ said Betty Otter-Nickerson, president of
the Sage Healthcare Division.
―However, a significant number of office-based practices have
yet to implement an EHR solution. Sage‘s survey was
conducted to examine current perceptions and predominant
trends that will help us design the best solutions to maximize
the benefits of EHR.‖
The survey findings indicated that meaningful use incentives
are still one of the strongest drivers for most physicians (64
percent) to implement EHR technology, but for 32 percent of
those who are in the market for EHRs, insufficient capital is
still a key challenge to the switch.
More at http://bit.ly/nzXC2O
Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 8
Reports and Papers - (cont.)
How Trustworthiness Seals Can Highlight
Information and Influence Decisions
By Rick Hayes-Roth, Naval Postgraduate School
Abstract
People making decisions require information about their
options. Across a wide range of tasks, they receive information
from diverse sources, such as the Web, print, radio and
television.
As the Internet Age progresses, each decision maker must
increasingly assess the credibility of the author, the credibility
of the evidence the author cites, and the credibility of the
publisher in order to gauge the credibility of the information.
We wanted to determine whether publishers and authors could
affix ―trustworthiness seals‖ to stated claims to increase their
persuasiveness.
We created pairs of descriptions for comparable options that
employed no seals, some weak generic seals, and some strong
seals guaranteeing veracity.
Experimental subjects rated their preferences for each option
promoted with an advertisement bearing some of these seals
and also made forced choices between pairs of comparable
options.
The results show that all seals have a significant effect on
perceived attractiveness of options and that the strong seals
produce the greatest increase.
This study suggests that authors, advertisers and publishers
can significantly boost their effectiveness through an
independent validation and by guaranteeing the truthfulness
of their claims.
This potential can pave the way for market mechanisms that
reward truth-telling and improved tools for filtering
information based on information credibility.
Introduction
People making decisions require information about their
options. Across a wide range of tasks, they receive information
from diverse sources, such as the Web, print, radio and
television.
As the Internet Age progresses, each decision maker must
increasingly assess the credibility of the author, the credibility
of the evidence the author cites, and the credibility of the
publisher in order to gauge the credibility of the information.
We wanted to determine whether publishers and authors could
affix ―trustworthiness seals‖ to stated claims to increase their
persuasiveness.
We created pairs of descriptions for comparable options that
employed no seals, some weak generic seals, and some strong
seals guaranteeing veracity.
More at http://bit.ly/pxHodi
Is Informed Consent Broken?
By Gail E. Henderson, PhD, University of North Carolina
Abstract
For as long as the federal regulations governing human
subjects research have existed, the practice of informed
consent has been attacked as culturally biased, legalistic,
ritualistic and unevenly enforced.
Its focus on meeting the regulatory requirements is seen as
undermining a truly ethical process that produces informed
and voluntary participation in medical research.
Recent changes in the clinical translational research
enterprise, with large scale genomic and other data sharing
made possible by advanced bioinformatic technologies, may
further challenge this goal.
Study participants are asked to consent to future studies with
unspecified aims, broad data sharing policies and ongoing
uncertainties regarding confidentiality protections and the
potential benefit of incidental genomic research findings.
Because more research is conducted under these new
conditions, the very nature of the researcher-subject
relationship is shifting and will require new governance
mechanisms to promote the original goals of informed
consent.
More at http://bit.ly/pXjPUE
Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 9
Reports and Papers - (cont.)
Organization of Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) Communications
Outlook 2011
By OECD Publishing
Executive Summary
The eleventh biennial OECD Communications Outlook
examines recent developments in the communications sector,
which has emerged from the global financial crisis (GFC) with
a resilience and underlying strength reflecting its critical role
in today‘s economies.
This latest edition covers developments such as the emergence
of next generation access (NGA) networks and the imminent
exhaustion of unallocated IPv4 addresses, and aims to provide
an overview of efforts on the part of countries to promote
competition and foster innovation in communication markets
through regulation.
It also examines the issues surrounding broadcasting markets,
Internet infrastructure, communications expenditure and use
by households and businesses, and trends in trade in
telecommunications services.
Main Trends
The communication services industry has fared relatively well
during the global financial crisis. In part, as has been discussed
in previous editions, the industry‘s experience in, and
emergence from, the "dotcom bubble" has placed it in a much
stronger position to meet recent challenges. Certainly, parts of
the industry have characteristics – similar to other utilities –
that make it more resistant to financial downturns.
That being said, the industry‘s resilience must also be
attributable, at least in part, to its need to deal with extremely
rapid commercial and technological changes.
Recent Communication Policy Developments
Next generation access networks (NGA) are in a critical phase
of development. Present policy decisions are likely to have an
impact over the next decades in terms of market structure,
service provision, investment and innovation. Furthermore,
the rise of smartphones and other devices is driving the boost
in mobile broadband traffic and usage.
More at http://bit.ly/qeOJtg
Constitutionalizing Information Privacy by
Assumption
By Mary D. Fan, University of Washington
Abstract
For more than three decades, the hypothetical constitutional
right of information privacy has governed by assumption in the
lower courts.
The Supreme Court assumed the right into being in two cases
decided in 1977, Whalen v. Roe and Nixon v. Administrator of
General Services, and persisted in assuming the right exists
without deciding recently in NASA v. Nelson.
In the fertile murk of indecision, a hodgepodge of standards
from interest balancing all the way up to strict scrutiny and a
quasi-constitutional law of intuitions have arisen in the lower
courts.
What constitutes a violation of this assumed right? The law
struggles for a standard to define a violation, but we know it
intuition regarding the proper balance of state and citizen
power and unease over incursions in times of social change.
The article is also about how to translate the powerful moral
intuition that the Constitution should have something to say
(even if its text does not quite say it) when the government
does something creepy or outrageous with our intimate infor-
mation into respectable law that helps sort out the manifold
meritless claims predicated on privacy as knee-jerk reaction
rather than right and allows policy innovation in the laborato-
ries of states and political branches.
The article argues that privacy is a transitional lens that opens
up our vision of the liberty and freedoms safeguarded in the
Constitution. We need not invent or recognize a new atextual
right of information privacy.
Rather the concept of information privacy is a lens that bring
into focus a richer vision of the meanings of textually inscribed
constitutional freedoms and what it means to vindicate them.
More at http://bit.ly/mUMNLP
Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 10
Internet Governance
Chinese Paper Says Hacking Claim
'Irresponsible'
Cyberattacks targeting more than 70 government
entities, nonprofit groups and corporations
By Gillian Wong, Associated Press
A Chinese state newspaper on Friday rejected suggestions
Beijing might be behind global cyberattacks over the past five
years targeting more than 70 government entities, nonprofit
groups and corporations.
The ruling Communist Party flagship People‘s Daily said it was
―irresponsible‘‘ to link China with Internet hacking attacks
reported by computer security firm McAfee Inc. on
Wednesday.
McAfee‘s report said the attacks have targeted a broad range of
organizations, including the United Nations, the International
Olympic Committee and companies mostly in the United
States.
Some experts quoted in news reports said the targets of the
attacks suggested that China was a prime suspect.
McAfee did not say who may be behind the attacks but said the
culprit is likely a nation state, a claim the Chinese newspaper
criticized.
―McAfee‘s new report alleges that ‗a government‘ carried out a
large-scale Internet espionage hacking action but its analysis of
the justification is obviously groundless,‘‘ the People‘s Daily
said.
China has not officially commented on the report but has
denied all charges of hacking in the past and says the country
itself is a victim of hacking.
The newspaper said China is often accused of being the
perpetrator of cyberattacks.
―Linking China with Internet hackers is irresponsible,‘‘ it said.
―In fact, as hacking attacks against internationally renowned
companies or international organizations have increased this
year, some Western media have repeatedly described China as
‗the black hand behind the scenes.‘‘‘
More at http://bo.st/os1SdV
Twitter’s Role in London Riots Being Reviewed,
U.K. Police Say
By Lindsay Fortado, Bloomberg Business Week
London police will review the role messages sent via Twitter
Inc.‘s messaging service and other social-networking sites
played in two nights of rioting that led to more than 215 arrests
and injured at least 35 police officers.
―The police are ahead of the curve in information technology
and would have experience of the use of social- networking
sites by troublemakers,‖ said Steve O‘Connell, a member of the
Metropolitan Police Authority, which monitors London‘s
Metropolitan Police Service.
―The bad guys were using these sites to target areas quickly.
Small bands of ne‘er-do- wells were descending on high-
quality stores to loot.‖
The disturbances began Aug. 6 in the north London suburb of
Tottenham, after a local man, Mark Duggan, was killed in an
exchange of gunfire with police.
Last night, police battled rioters and looters in several areas of
the capital. Officers also dispersed youths at Oxford Circus in
London‘s main West End shopping district and today were
trying to suppress incidents in the east London borough of
Hackney.
Social media have been used to coordinate demonstrations
against Middle Eastern regimes, campaign for Saudi women‘s
right to drive and for lower prices for cottage cheese in Israel.
In the U.K., the use by troublemakers of Twitter -- and mobile
phones -- may help authorities identify them and restore peace
to London, O‘Connell said by telephone.
―My expectation is that the police, like all of us, can access
Twitter,‖ he said. ―I would expect the Met to use every
technology available to get it sorted out, make the arrests, and
bring peace back to our neighborhoods.‖
U.K. Home Secretary Theresa May broke off her vacation to
return to the U.K. and meet today with the Met Police‘s Acting
Commissioner Tim Godwin and other police chiefs, Prime
Minister David Cameron‘s spokesman, Steve Field, told
reporters in London.
More at http://buswk.co/oMDQlB
Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 11
Internet Governance - (cont.)
London Rioters' Unrequited Love For
BlackBerry
Rioters in North London have been using BBMs to
rally, presuming RIM's phone-to-phone, encrypted
messages won't land in the hands of authorities.
But in an increasingly familiar move, RIM has
now pledged to work with those authorities.
By Nidhi Subbaraman, Fast Company
Rioters in London have selected BlackBerry Messages as their
favorite way to communicate during flare-ups this weekend.
Too bad BlackBerry doesn't feel the same way about the
protestors.
The riots were reportedly initiated by the police shooting to
death a man in Tottenham, North London, but have become
more about overall anger at the current government.
BlackBerry Messages (BBMs) were as innocuous as "unite and
hit the streets" and as incendiary as those promising "pure
terror and havoc & free stuff."
Research In Motion (RIM), the Canada-based makers of the
smart device, are quickly making their stance clear.
@UK_BlackBerry tweeted: "We feel for those impacted by the
riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist
in any way we can."
This assistance could come in the form of cooperation with the
British police force, who have already hinted that Twitter users
who played a role in escalating riots could face arrest.
Compared to tweets, Blackberry Messages‚ "BBMs," are harder
to trace. The data sent through the devices is encrypted and
stored in RIM's locked-down data centers, which they'll open,
the Telegraph suggests, if the U.K. government asks nicely.
RIM is working with authorities in other words, but it declined
initially to answer questions about specifics. A RIM
spokesperson did offer Fast Company the following statement:
"As in all markets around the world where BlackBerry is
available, we cooperate with local telecommunications
operators, law enforcement, and regulatory officials. Similar to
other technology providers in the UK, we comply with The
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and co-operate fully
with the Home Office and UK police forces."
More at http://bit.ly/rmqCEF
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) Responds to Association of
National Advertisers (ANA) Criticism
By Hayley Tsukayama, The Washington Post
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
answered criticism from the Association of National
Advertisers, saying that its new top-level domain program
adequately protects trademarks and prevents fraud. The ANA
sent a letter to ICANN on Aug. 4, saying that the program was
harmful to intellectual property holders because the wide
range of new TLDs would force them to buy their brands and
invest in several domain names. The association also raised
questions about whether ICANN followed its own procedures
before approving the program in June. In the reply letter,
ICANN President and CEO Rod Beckstrom said that the ANA‘s
assertions ―are either incorrect or problematic in several
respects.‖
Beckstrom included documentation of collaboration ICANN
had with stakeholders regarding the new program, including
responses it has issued to the ANA in the past.
Addressing worries that the new program will hurt trademark
holders, Beckstrom said those concerns are unfounded. In
reply to the ANA‘s assertion that companies will have to apply
for their own gTLDs (think .apple or .washpost) before other
people buy them out from under their noses. Beckstrom said
that the program is designed to encourage no such thing.
―Operating a gTLD means assuming a number of significant
responsibilities; this is clearly not for everyone,‖ he wrote,
adding that there are trademark protections in place to make
sure that rightsholders have the first opportunity to secure the
domain names they want and that there is both a suspension
and dispute mechanism in place in cases of infringement.
ICANN will also require a more detailed ―Whois‖ location and
demographic profile of anyone registering for a new generic
top-level domain, to make sure that it‘s ―easier to locate
wrongdoers than in the current environment.‖
More at http://wapo.st/oVtqiM
Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 12
Points of View
Data Breach Bills Exclude Health Information
By Harley Geiger, Center for Democracy & Technology
One of the negative side-effects of the sectoral approach the
United States has taken to privacy regulation is confusion over
whether certain types of personal information are protected
under existing rules. Specifically, many people – and, it
appears, legislators – seem to assume that all health
information is protected under HIPAA. This is incorrect,
however, and the assumption that health information is
already fully protected in commercial contexts may be leading
to its exclusion in proposed data breach bills currently
circulating in Congress. Not only do the bills fail to protect
health data, but the preemption clauses in some of the bills
would prevent state legislatures from enacting their own health
privacy safeguards. As a result, if any of the data breach bills
introduced in this Congress pass as currently written, a
commercial entity that loses, say, your full name and a list of
your medications would not be obligated to notify you.
HIPAA Provides Limited Coverage
The HIPAA Privacy Rule is the nation‘s foremost health
privacy regulation. The Privacy Rule only applies to certain
organizations, collectively referred to as ―covered entities‖ – 1)
health plans, 2) health care clearinghouses, and 3) health care
providers. The Privacy Rule requires covered entities to notify
individual patients when they suffer a data breach of
identifiable health information. (See our previous blog post for
more on HIPAA breach notification requirements.)
HIPAA‘s limited reach means that the Privacy Rule does not
apply to health information held by a company or organization
that is not a covered entity. This was less of a problem even five
years ago, when fewer non-covered companies and
organizations held such information.
But with the explosive growth of health IT systems and the
rapid digitization of health information, urged along by
government incentive programs, health information is
increasingly finding its way into commercial products and
services. Examples include mobile health apps and social
networking sites devoted to medical conditions. Personal
health record products offered by HIPAA covered entities are
subject to HIPAA data breach rules, while the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) has issued data breach rules for personal
health records not covered by HIPAA.
More at http://bit.ly/nal3GF
Beijing's Crash Course in News Censorship
China's inability to control new media has emboldened
the traditional press.
By L. Gordon Crovitz, The Wall Street Journal
There's a long list of industries made more difficult by digital
technology. But spare a moment of commiseration for the tens
of thousands of people with the job that may be the most
challenged by the Internet: censors in China. Censorship was
easier in the analog days.
In the 1500s, the Catholic Church had its Index Expurgatorius
of prohibited books. Britain's Star Chamber limited the
number of printers so as to stop "dyvers contentious and
disorderlye persons professinge the arte or mystere of
pryntings or selling of books." More recently, information
ministries could outlaw typewriters, as in communist
Romania, or edit political enemies out of photos, as under
Stalin in the Soviet Union.
Today, individuals around the world have the ability to publish
in the palm of their hands, through their smartphones. In
China, some 500 million people are online, many of them
using Twitter-like microblogging services. Even with its "Blue
Army" of Web censors, Beijing can't fully control digital
communications. As a result, its hold on traditional media may
also be loosening.
Beijing's failure to cover up the fatal collision of one high-
speed train into another near the city of Wenzhou last month
exposes the growing gap between government diktats and facts
on the ground. As details emerge about how government
censorship failed, Beijing must now deal with a new
combination of individuals on the scene posting photos, videos
and commentary online, in the process giving courage to news
professionals to ignore government edicts.
The crash led to 40 deaths and almost 200 injuries. Passengers
posted photos and videos in real time. The Communist Party
newspaper, People's Daily, ran an editorial declaring that
China "needs development, but does not need blood-smeared
GDP."
More at http://on.wsj.com/oc2CaP
Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 13
Points of View - (cont.)
Our Web Freedom at the Mercy of Tech Giants
By Rebecca MacKinnon, New America Foundation
Wael Ghonim, Google executive by day, secret Facebook
activist by night, famously declared right after Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak stepped down in February: "If you
want to liberate a society just give them the Internet."
Overthrowing a government is one thing. But building a
sustainable democracy is turning out to be more difficult, and
the Internet's role in that process is much less clear.
In March, Egyptian activists stormed state security offices
around the country. Some people found their own surveillance
files, still intact, full of transcripts of their mobile phone text
messages, e-mail exchanges and even Skype chats.
One activist even found a contract sent from a Western
company to the Egyptian state security bureau for the sale of
surveillance technology. Activists in Egypt assume that the
transitional government still has such technologies at its
disposal.
In Tunisia, censorship returned in May, not nearly as extensive
as before, but still the transitional government decided that
some Web pages could incite violence and therefore needed to
be blocked.
Slim Amamou, a digital activist and member of the transitional
government, resigned in protest over the renewed censorship.
But other Tunisians who supported the revolution disagreed
with him, arguing that speech involving slander, hatred and
violence still needs to be controlled.
The question is: Who decides? And how do you prevent the
deciders from abusing their power?
The fact of the matter is, the world's democracies do not have
clear answers for the people of Egypt and Tunisia: In managing
our digital networks, we are fighting our own battles over how
to balance genuine economic and security concerns on the one
hand with civil liberties and free speech on the other.
In the United States, even people with mixed feelings about
WikiLeaks and its mercurial leader Julian Assange are
troubled by the reactions of some members of the U.S.
government and some businesses.
In December, Amazon Web hosting dropped WikiLeaks as a
customer soon after receiving a phone call from U.S. Sen. Joe
Lieberman, despite the fact that WikiLeaks was neither
charged, let alone convicted, of breaking any U.S. law.
More at http://bit.ly/qz5Dr9
Cyber War Worrywarts
By Mark Thompson, TIME
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta whipped up the cyber-threat
Friday during his get-acquainted visit to Nebraska's Offutt Air
Force Base, home of the U.S. Strategic Command.
"We could face a cyber attack that could be the equivalent of
Pearl Harbor," he said. Such an attack, Panetta warned, could
"take down our power grid system, take down our financial
systems in this country, take down our government systems,
take down our banking systems.
They could virtually paralyze this country. We have to be
prepared to deal with that."
The whole debate over cyber war is getting really interesting.
The ratio of scaremongers to calm logic -- currently about a 2-
to-1 edge in favor of the Jules Verne crowd -- is reflected in a
trio of major stories on the topic recently.
This is from a recent Bloomberg BusinessWeek cover story:
This Code War era is no superpower stare-down; it's more like
Europe in 1938, when the Continent was in chaos and global
conflict seemed inevitable.
Here's the latest from Vanity Fair (which is where I always
turn for the latest in balanced, relevant reporting on national-
security matters):
Hackers from many countries have been exfiltrating—that is,
stealing—intellectual property from American corporations
and the U.S. government on a massive scale, and Chinese
hackers are among the main culprits.
So it was a little like being a thirsty man stumbling into an
oasis after weeks in the desert to drink the cool water provided
by Michael Hirsh in National Journal:
In truth, cyberskeptics abound…These skeptics say that much
of the alarm stems from a fear of the unknown rather than
from concrete evidence of life-and-death threats.
More at http://ti.me/qwwPeU
Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 14
Points of View - (cont.)
Tech Industry Remains Poster Child for
Success, Despite Economic Woes
By Josh Smith, National Journal
Innovation is often tough to define and even tougher to
produce, but amid all the fiscal doom and gloom, technology
companies still say they have the right stuff to get the U.S.
economy back on track.
Representatives from Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T,
Accenture, Siemens, and other companies joined President
Obama at an event on Friday to announce new efforts to help
military veterans find jobs.
―Today‘s announcement brings people, companies, and
agencies together to increase the impact we can have on
helping the job situation,‖ Curt Kolcun, Microsoft‘s vice
president for the U.S. public sector, said in a telephone
interview afterward. Microsoft pledged to provide 10,000
technology training and certification packages to veterans.
―All jobs require some kind of tech skills … and I think this is
an opportunity relative to tech jobs in the United States,‖
Kolcun said.
AT&T, for example, launched two new online programs
designed to help veterans transfer their military skills to jobs at
the wireless company.
Under political pressure to jumpstart the economy, Obama has
said that Americans live in a ―fundamentally different‖ world
than previous generations, and argued that investment in high
-tech programs is key to economic growth.
But despite all the rhetoric, funding for research, development,
and education is often included in the discretionary spending
cuts that lawmakers at all levels of government are looking at.
With the debt-limit debate over for the moment, the tech
industry is looking ahead to the so-called congressional super
committee tasked with reducing government spending.
―The committee has a unique opportunity to make
recommendations that could encourage private-sector
investment in innovation and stimulate job growth and
productivity today and far into the future,‖ TechAmerica
President Phil Bond said on Tuesday. He said lawmakers
should remember that the technology sector is ―one of the few
areas of the economy that is currently expanding and is leading
the way to fiscal recovery.‖
More at http://bit.ly/oDB0M4
There's No Such Thing as Big Data
Even if you have petabyes of data, you still need to
know how to ask the right questions to apply it.
By Alistair Croll, O’Reilly Radar
―You know,‖ said a good friend of mine last week, ―there‘s
really no such thing as big data.‖
I sighed a bit inside. In the past few years, cloud computing
critics have said similar things: that clouds are nothing new,
that they‘re just mainframes, that they‘re just painting old
technologies with a cloud brush to help sales. I‘m wary of this
sort of techno-Luddism. But this person is sharp, and not
usually prone to verbal linkbait, so I dug deeper.
He‘s a ridiculously heavy traveler, racking up hundreds of
thousands of miles in the air each year. He‘s the kind of flier
airlines dream of: loyal, well-heeled, and prone to last-minute,
business-class trips. He's is exactly the kind of person an
airline needs to court aggressively, one who represents a
disproportionally large amount of revenues. He‘s an outlier of
the best kind. He‘d been a top-ranked passenger with United
Airlines for nearly a decade, using their Mileage Plus program
for everything from hotels to car rentals.
And then his company was acquired.
The acquiring firm had a contractual relationship with
American Airlines, a competitor of United with a completely
separate loyalty program. My friend‘s air travel on United and
its partner airlines dropped to nearly nothing.
He continued to book hotels in Shanghai, rent cars in
Barcelona, and buy meals in Tahiti, and every one of those
transactions was tied to his loyalty program with United. So
the airline knew he was traveling -- just not with them.
Astonishingly, nobody ever called him to inquire about why
he'd stopped flying with them. As a result, he‘s far less loyal
than he was.
More at http://oreil.ly/qShQkK
Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 15
Points of View - (cont.)
This is the Internet, Do Not Power It Down
By Dominic Basulto, Electric Artists
This past weekend saw the confluence of three different events
— the 20th anniversary celebrations of both the World Wide
Web and Lollapalooza, and the unprecedented S&P downgrade
of the U.S. government‘s sovereign debt. These events
happened days after the shuttering of the U.S. space shuttle
program in July. It feels as if we‘re witnessing the end of an
era.
The young men and women coming of age in 1991 could never
have predicted the changes that would take place over the next
two decades, as the World Wide Web established itself as one
of the greatest information and communication tools ever
created. The college graduates of 2011 are coming of age when
the Internet is nearly ubiquitous.
Today, it is commonplace to communicate with friends and
followers scattered across the globe. The dream of Tim Berners
-Lee twenty years ago — to create a truly World Wide Web —
has come true.
When the Web launched twenty years ago with a single website
and a single server (‖This machine is a server, do not power it
down! ―), it was entirely non-commercial and intended to
provide open access to a universe of hyper-linked documents.
The past twenty years, when seen as part of a larger
technological cycle, is a period of openness and global
participation.
This era gave rise to a uniquely social architecture that
encourages the rapid proliferation of information to everyone.
In fact, the very first Web site Berners-Lee created included
easy-to-follow instructions for anyone to create their own
website.
In technology circles, there is a tendency to create linear
narratives about the trajectory of innovation, in which one
technological innovation leads inevitably to the next. These
narratives reassure us that, when it comes to the increasingly
fast pace of technological change, there is a method to the
madness.
Today, when asked what comes next for technology, we usually
hear quick, easy answers like this: ―Every year, mobile phones
will become smaller.‖ And don‘t forget this classic: ―Each
iteration of an operating system will be faster and more
powerful.‖ And then there‘s this oft-repeated answer: ―Each
new online innovation will make the world more democratic
and more open.‖
More at http://wapo.st/qNjR5A
Network Effects: Social Media's Role in the
London Riots
Facebook and Twitter can fuel uprisings by allowing
participants to coordinate action and to see
themselves as part of a larger movement
By Mathew Ingram, GigaOm.com
In the wake of a controversial police shooting, Britain‘s capital
city has been rocked by two straight days of widespread rioting
and looting. As with previous riots—such as those in
Vancouver, B.C., following the Stanley Cup finals—everyone
seems to be looking for a culprit, with some blaming Twitter
and Facebook, and others pinning the violence on BlackBerry
(RIMM) and its instant messaging abilities.
But that‘s a little like blaming individual trees for the forest
fire. As we‘ve pointed out before with respect to the uprisings
in Tunisia and Egypt, these are just aspects of our increasingly
real-time, mobile, and connected lives, and they can be an
incredibly powerful force for both good and bad.
Although they are completely different in important ways,
there are also some interesting similarities between the riots in
London this weekend and the uprisings in Egypt‘s Tahrir
Square. Both were triggered by the death of a man whom some
believed was unfairly targeted by the authorities. In Britain, it
was Mark Duggan—a 29-year-old father of four shot dead after
being stopped by the police—and in Egypt, it was Khaled Said,
a 28-year-old businessman who was pulled from an Internet
cafe and beaten to death by security forces. Both deaths also
led to the creation of Facebook pages that became the focus of
a social media effort that ultimately fueled the protests.
Different Causes, Same Network Effects
That said, the two demonstrations obviously had completely
different causes and outcomes. In Egypt, the protests were the
result of decades of corrupt and authoritarian rule by a
dictator, as well as food shortages, unemployment, and so on—
and they led to the toppling of the government, followed by the
military taking control of the country.
More at http://buswk.co/pkTHSP
Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 16
Points of View - (cont.)
Web Tracking Has Become a Privacy Time
Bomb
The coolest free stuff on the Internet actually comes at
a notable price: your privacy.
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY
For more than a decade, tracking systems have been taking
note of where you go and what you search for on the Web —
without your permission. And today many of the personal
details you voluntarily divulge on popular websites and social
networks are being similarly tracked and analyzed.
The purpose for all of this online snooping is singular: Google,
Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Facebook and others are intent on
delivering more relevant online ads to each and every one of us
— and bagging that advertising money.
Trouble is, the tracking data culled from your Internet
searches and surfing can get commingled with the information
you disclose at websites for shopping, travel, health or jobs.
And it's now possible to toss into this mix many of the personal
disclosures you make on popular social networks, along with
the preferences you may express via all those nifty Web
applications that trigger cool services on your mobile devices.
As digital shadowing escalates, so too have concerns about the
erosion of traditional notions of privacy. Privacy advocates
have long fretted that health companies, insurers, lenders,
employers, lawyers, regulators and law enforcement could
begin to acquire detailed profiles derived from tracking data to
use unfairly against people.
Indeed, new research shows that as tracking technologies
advance, and as more participants join the burgeoning
tracking industry, the opportunities for privacy invasion are
rising.
"It is a mistake to consider (online) tracking benign," cautions
Sagi Leizerov, executive director of Ernst & Young's privacy
services. "It's both an opportunity for amazing connections of
data, as well as a time bomb of revealing personal information
you assume will be kept private."
These developments are acting like kerosene on the already
contentious national debates in Congress over how privacy
ought to be recast to fit the Internet age. Much is at stake. The
corporations involved are vying for the juiciest claims on a
golden vein. Research firm eMarketer projects global spending
for online ads to climb to $132 billion by 2015, up from $80.2
billion this year.
The technology, retail and media giants shaping this brave new
world of online advertising insist that they respect — and can
be trusted to preserve — individuals' privacy, even as they
compete to dissect each person's likes and dislikes.
Tracking mobile apps
However, startling findings, to be released on Thursday here at
the Black Hat security conference, indicate otherwise. Website
security company Dasient recently found examples of PC-
based tracking techniques getting extended in a troublesome
way to Internet-connected mobile devices.
Dasient analyzed 10,000 free mobile apps that enable gaming,
financial services, entertainment and other services on Google
Android smartphones. Researchers found more than 8%, or
842, of the Android apps took the unusual step of asking users'
permission to access the handset's International Mobile
Equipment Identity number, the unique code assigned to each
cellphone. The IMEI was then employed as the user ID for the
given app. In a number of instances, the app subsequently
forwarded the user's IMEI on to an online advertising network,
says Neil Daswani, Dasient's chief technology officer.
"The fact that an ad network is getting your IMEI means they
can know how long you've used your phone and which mobile
apps you use most often," Daswani says. "The full implications
of this aren't clear, but with privacy you've got to be careful."
More at http://usat.ly/mWqHgb
Page 17 Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011
Calendar of Events
AUGUST 15 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM. The Heritage Foundation (HF) will host a panel discussion titled "National EMP Recognition Day: The Threat That Can't Be Ignored". The speakers will be Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), Peter Pry (EMPact America), Frank Gafney (Center for Security Studies), Drew Miller, and James Carafano (HF). This event is free and open to the public.
Location: Washington, D.C.
More at http://www.heritage.org/Events/2011/08/EMP-Day
AUGUST 16 2011 Physician Quality Reporting System & Electronic Prescribing Incentive Program 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services‘ (CMS) Provider Communications Group will host a national provider call with a question and answer session on the 2011 Physician Quality Reporting System and Electronic Prescribing (eRx) Incentive Program.
Location: Teleconference
More at http://www.eventsvc.com/palmettogba/register/1df934a3-0a10-4b0c-87dc-
bf200e8529a3
AUGUST 17 12:30 - 1:30 PM. The American Bar Association (ABA) will host a webcast panel discussion titled "Tax Aspects of Technology Transactions". The speakers will be Roger Royse (Royse Law Firm) and Kenneth Appleby (Foley & Lardner). Prices vary. CLE credits.
Location: Webcast
More at http://apps.americanbar.org/cle/programs/t11tat1.html
AUGUST 19 1:00 - 2:30 PM. The American Bar Association (ABA) will host a webcast panel discussion titled "Ownership of Digital Media and Electronic Privacy". The speakers will be Ben Kleinman (Manatt Phelps), Sharra Brockman (Verv), Eric Crusius (Centre Law Group), and Paul Roberts (Hogan Lovells). Prices vary. CLE credits.
Location: Webcast
More at http://apps.americanbar.org/cle/programs/t11dmp1.html
Featured Conference
of the Week
Fifth SENS Conference:
Rejuvenation Biotechnologies
AUGUST 31 TO SEPTEMBER 4, 2011
The purpose of the SENS conference
series, like all the SENS initiatives (such
as the journal Rejuvenation Research),
is to expedite the development of truly
effective therapies to postpone and treat
human aging by tackling it as an
engineering problem: not seeking
elusive and probably illusory magic
bullets, but instead enumerating the
accumulating molecular and cellular
changes that eventually kill us and
identifying ways to repair - to reverse -
those changes, rather than merely to
slow down their further accumulation.
This broadly defined regenerative
medicine - which includes the repair of
living cells and extracellular material in
situ - applied to damage of aging, is
what we refer to as rejuvenation
biotechnologies.
August
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
31 01 02 03 04 05 06
07 08 09 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31 01 02 03
More at http://bit.ly/oQnNPi
Page 18 Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011
Sites Compendium
www.brookings.edu
www.businessweek.com
www.cdt.org
www.fastcompany.com
www.gigaom.com
www.healthcareitnews.com
www.healthdatamanagement.com
www.modernhealthcare.com
www.msnbc.msn.com
www.nationaljournal.com
www.nejm.org
www.newamerica.net
www.nytimes.com
www.oecdbookshop.org
www.radar.oreilly.com
www.sens.org
www.sfgate.com
www.spiegel.de
www.thepowerofopen.org
www.time.com
www.usatoday.com
www.vanityfair.com
www.washingtonpost.com
www.wsj.com
Book Review
Cloud Culture
The Future of Global Cultural Relations
By Charles Leadbetter
The internet, our relationship with it, and our culture is about
to undergo a change as profound and unsettling as the
development of Web 2.0 in the last decade, which saw Google
and YouTube, Facebook and Twitter become mass, world-wide
phenomena.
Over the next ten years, the
rise of cloud computing will
not only accelerate the
global battle for control of
the digital landscape, but
will almost certainly recast
the very ways in which we
exercise our creativity and
forge relationships across
the world‘s cultures.
Yet even in its infancy, the
extraordinary potential of
cloud culture is threatened
on all sides – by vested
interests, new monopolists
and governments, all intent
on reassert ing their
authority over the web.
In this ground-breaking report, Charles Leadbeater argues that
we are faced with the greatest challenge of our time: the clash
of cloud culture and cloud capitalism.
Who will own the cloud? How can we keep it open and reap its
vast benefits? And how can it empower the world‘s poorest
people?
More at http://bit.ly/r3cNQj
Research and Selection: Stefaan Verhulst
Production: Kathryn Carissimi & Lauren Hunt
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