Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

FCC Ponders Powerful and Free Internet Service for All… Again

By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | February 6, 2013

Free public access to government-created WiFi networks across the United States could become a reality in the near future, under a proposed plan by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The FCC idea could allow Americans to make phone calls or access the Internet without the need to do business with cell phone companies.

Not surprisingly, telecoms hate the FCC plan and intend to lobby heavily against it.

But the FCC does have its own heavyweights supporting the WiFi networks, namely Google, Microsoft and other tech giants who see free wireless service as a way to encourage innovation and new technology.

The new WiFi networks would reportedly be more powerful than existing wireless networks found in most households. “They could penetrate thick concrete walls and travel over hills and around trees. If all goes as planned, free access to the Web would be available in just about every metropolitan area and in many rural areas,” according to Cecilia Kang of The Washington Post.

Drawbacks to the plan include that it would take years to set up the networks, assuming the FCC can convince local television stations and other broadcasters to sell portions of their airwaves for the new access.

Critics add that once in operation, the government might not do a good job of managing the networks against crashes and bandwidth problems.

To Learn More:

Tech, Telecom Giants Take Sides as FCC Proposes Large Public WiFi Networks (by Cecilia Kang, Washington Post)

FCC Bends to Telecoms on Broadband Internet Development (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)

FCC Proposes Broadband Internet for All Americans (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

Related article

February 6, 2013 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Streetviewed: Google cars snooping on WiFi users not an accident

RT | 30 April, 2012

Google bosses were informed their Street View cars would collect e-mails, names, addresses and other personal data from Wi-Fi users around the world, a government report shows. But the company insists the message didn’t get through.

­Neither a mistake nor the work of an unauthorized engineer was behind Google’s massive harvesting of Wi-Fi communications that included e-mails, passwords and other sensitive personal information across three continents in 2007-2010, indicates the recent report filed by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The supervisors of the Street View program were well aware Google cars would go beyond photographing streetscapes. Or at least they should have been.

On Saturday, the web giant releases their own version of report – with employees’ names blacked out. An earlier version provided by the FCC had whole blocks of text blacked out.

The search giant said it wanted a more transparent version to be shown to the public as evidence that any wrongdoing by the company was inadvertent. Apparently, the company wants to avoid speculation over what could have been withheld from the initial release and thus limit any damage.

The report confirms Google’s engineer behind the data-collecting software voluntarily embarked on a project to gather personal e-mails and Web searches of potentially hundreds of millions of people. Identified as Engineer Doe, the individual declined to speak to the FCC, invoking Fifth Amendment rights, which protects citizens from being compelled to testify against themselves.

The design document prepared by Engineer Doe clearly shows his intention to collect payload data in addition to taking panoramic snapshots, as Google’s cars drove by. The private data would “be analyzed offline for use in other initiatives,” like finding how well Google’s other services are used, the document said.

Privacy consideration did come to his mind. “A typical concern might be that we are logging user traffic along with sufficient data to precisely triangulate their position at a given time, along with information about what they were doing,” the document says.

Engineer Doe decided that no harm will be done because Google’s data harvesters would not remain in the vicinity of any particular Wi-Fi user for “an extended period of time.” Nevertheless he added the following “to do” item: “Discuss privacy considerations with Product Counsel.”

“That never occurred,” the FCC report says.

The employee also “specifically told two engineers working on the project, including a senior manager, about collecting payload data.” It actually appears that at least seven Street View engineers had “wide access” to the plan to collect payload data back in 2007.

Engineer Doe’s code was used to collect some 200 gigabytes of payload data across the US between January 2008 and April 2010. Similar logging of private data happened across the world, which made Google the butt of investigations by respective authorities.

The report further cites a number of other people involved in the project as failing to recall knowing that collecting of payload data was happening at the time. Those include an engineer, whose job was reviewing Engineer Doe’s code line by line for bugs and a senior manager, who said he pre-approved the man’s document before it was written.

Following the investigation the FCC fined Google $25,000 for obstructing its investigation, including withholding an email, that openly discussed the engineer’s review of payload data with a senior manager on the Street view project.

It ruled that since the payload data collected was not encrypted, the act didn’t violate American wiretapping law, but said it has “significant factual questions” about why this ever happened.

Google denied stonewalling the probe and blamed the FCC for any delays.

Related articles

April 30, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What Could Your Organization Do With Its Own Radio Station?

By Bruce A. Dixon | BAR | April 17, 2012

What could your not for profit organization, community or arts group, labor union, school, or local church do with its own fully operational low power FM radio station? This is not a rhetorical question, it’s a very practical one. Late in 2012, or early in 2013, the Federal Communications Commission will be accepting license applications to operate what could be hundreds of neighborhood FM radio stations in cities and towns across the country.

For most of the last two decades, the Philadelphia-based Prometheus Radio Project, which you can find on the web at http://www.prometheus.org has led this fight, partnering with local forces to bring the technical knowledge, and doing the watchdogging and advocacy on the national level that got the laws passed and appropriate regulations enacted. And now the licensing window is almost here. It’s a moment that’s been a long time coming. Corporate broadcasters, and even so-called public broadcasters have spent millions to hire lobbyists and rented congressmen and senators to deny the broadcast microphone to anything or anybody that is not, or isn’t owned by a greedy for-profit corporation.

Commercial radio has impoverished our music, by preventing local artists from reaching local audiences. Commercial radio has starved our communities of news by withdrawing corporate support for the gathering and broadcasting of original news, especially local news. Without local artists reaching local audiences, without local news and without the ability of people to listen to and lead their own local conversations, we are NOT communities, we are ONLY markets. Turning our collective relations into exclusively market-mediated relations is in fact the vision of the corporate America.

The fight for the rights of nonprofit community broadcasters to access the radio dial is nothing less than a fight for the rights of people to hear their own voices. It’s a fight for the right to own and operate media which recognizes and builds communities, where commercial media ignores communities, instead recognizing only markets to be delivered to its advertisers.

What could your organization do with its own low power FM radio station? Think about it. Low power FM stations will broadcast to an area 12 miles in diameter. We’re talking about neighborhood radio that binds actual neighbors together around their own needs, concerns and objectives, the same needs, concerns and objectives that caused you to form your local not for profit organization in the first place.

While individual nonprofit organizations can apply for station licenses, preference will be given to coalitions of two, three and more local organizations, because a wider base ensures more success both at fundraising and at the production of original programming for your local radio station. The minimum financial barriers to application and station startup are not terribly high, either, often in the low to mid single-digit thousands. Do your organization’s capacity-building and community building efforts a favor, and find out just what your organization could do with its very own low power FM radio station.

To find out more about this once in a liftetime opportunity, join Black Agenda Report and Prometheus Radio for a one hour informational conference call with Prometheus Radio on Thursday, April 26, at 9PM EST, 8PM CST. That’s Thursday evening, April 26 at 9PM Eastern, 8 PM Central and 6PM Pacific time. To obtain the number and code, email us at radio@blackagendareport.com

Bruce A. Dixon lives in Marietta GA, and is a member of the state committee of the Georgia Green Party. Contact him at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.

Related articles

April 18, 2012 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment