Editor's Note Technology Daily will not publish on Monday, Feb. 20, in recognition of Presidents Day. We will resume publication on Tuesday, Feb. 21.
Broadband
House Panel To Nix 'Network Neutrality' Safeguards
by David Hatch
In a major blow to Internet firms like Amazon.com and Google, the House Energy and Commerce Committee expects to scrap plans for "network neutrality" safeguards in telecommunications legislation, Capitol Hill and industry sources said Friday.
Instead, the panel would move a streamlined video-franchising bill sought by AT&T and Verizon Communications, which are deploying video services that will compete with cable companies.
Under draft legislation floated by the panel, net neutrality would limit how much control high-speed Internet providers have over their networks. Internet companies like eBay, Microsoft and Yahoo worry that without such restrictions, companies such as AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon might act as content gatekeepers. The Bells say they would not discriminate against competitors.
The Bells technically support net neutrality but only if they could offer premium tiers of broadband service favoring their own content -- something Internet companies oppose. The cable industry opposes net neutrality mandates, but cable operators insist that they follow voluntary guidelines. One source privately warned that without neutrality restrictions, companies that control broadband pipes could do what they want.
For months, network neutrality has been the centerpiece of a sweeping draft telecom bill pending before House Energy and Commerce. The issue has garnered national headlines, with many observers saying the Internet's future lies in how the term is defined in the bill.
Officially, the committee said the situation is in flux. "The dialogue among committee leaders and staff about the best approach continues, and we're making progress," spokesman Kevin Schweers wrote in an e-mail. "However, the legislation remains a work in progress, and no final decisions have been made."
But sources told Technology Daily on Friday that the committee is likely to drop net neutrality altogether because lawmakers cannot reach a consensus. Also expected to be dropped are portions governing municipal broadband networks and the interconnection of telecom carriers.
The provisions face the chopping block for several reasons. There are not enough days left in the congressional session to reach agreement, sources said. And some committee members think net neutrality should be addressed by the FCC, though the agency's authority in that area is unclear.
Instead of a comprehensive bill, the committee now is expected to adopt Verizon's idea for a streamlined measure primarily addressing video franchising. The bill would place new video competitors under FCC authority when they enter markets. New entrants would pay franchise fees and fulfill other obligations but would not negotiate with localities.
Once a new entrant has reached a threshold of 15 percent market penetration, the dominant cable provider would be subject to the same deregulation. The measure could be debated in March by the Energy and Commerce Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee.
The streamlined bill also would include language requiring providers of Internet telephone service to offer "enhanced 911" emergency service, sources said.
Courts
Government Wants Court Hearing On BlackBerry Usage
by Sarah Lai Stirland
A court adjudicating a patent spat over the BlackBerry communications device needs to hold a hearing on the technical details of exempting government users from a potential blackout, the Bush administration said Thursday.
"The government requests that the court grant it leave to intervene ... for the limited purpose of appearing and being heard, taking discovery relating to implementation of any injunction, and participating in any evidentiary hearing relating to implementation of any injunction," a Feb. 16 filing with a Virginia federal district judge said.
The Justice Department filing is the latest salvo in the ongoing saga over whether Judge James Spencer will order the BlackBerry maker Research in Motion to stop distributing and supporting its ubiquitous communications device in the United States.
Under federal law, government users are exempt from injunctions in patent-infringement cases and instead can pay royalties. But the government is worried about the effectiveness of any technical solutions implemented to shield government BlackBerry users and its thousands of contractors from an injunction.
The administration wants Spencer to hold an additional hearing on the matter.
Robert McIntosh, an attorney for Justice, noted in the court filing that the plaintiff, patent holder NTP, had suggested several technical plans for government BlackBerry users. But Justice wants NTP to identify only one plan and for both NTP and RIM to agree to that plan in a hearing.
NTP should choose the plan and provide information and evidence to the government on how it would work, McIntosh said. Then the judge should schedule a hearing to resolve outstanding issues that might arise before he issues an injunction.
To exempt users from a service blackout, those government officials and contractors first must be identified. As outlined in the government's brief, there appear to be several methods of doing so, but the process of collecting the information involves significant legwork.
McIntosh said in the court filing that to save time, the government wants to ensure that any technical proposal will work and will be all-inclusive.
After talking to telecommunications carriers, the government determined that the carriers could not identify BlackBerry users, McIntosh wrote.
The government also needs to agree with NTP on which contractors to exempt from a blackout.
McIntosh noted that NTP does not want any more delays of the injunction against RIM. But many critical government departments, including Defense, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services depend on the devices, which justifies the additional hearing, McIntosh wrote.
Budget
Networking, High-End Computing To Get More Money
by Randy Barrett
The Bush administration's fiscal 2007 budget request for networking and high-end computing research is up 8 percent, but some programs would suffer hits, according to a new analysis.
The interagency Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program released its annual budget analysis of 12 agencies on Friday. The report shows that most would be big winners as the administration plans to pump new money into IT research for its American competitiveness initiative.
The White House has requested $3.074 billion for the sector, up $219 million over fiscal 2006.
"It is a positive development to have budgets increasing at this level in a tight budget environment," said Simon Szykman, director of the national coordinating office at the National Science Foundation.
The budget for high-end computing research and development would see the largest gain, up 15 percent, to $440 million. Other efforts that would enjoy boosts include: cyber security and information assurance programs, up 9 percent, to $176 million; human-computer interaction and information management programs, up 8 percent, to $825 million; and high-end computing infrastructure and applications programs, up 7 percent, to $884 million.
"This is not surprising with the renewed emphasis on high-end computing," Szykman said.
Big agency winners in networking and computing R&D would include: the Energy Department, up 40 percent, to $345 million; the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, up 27 percent, to $466 million; and the National Science Foundation, up 12 percent, to $904 million.
Cray Research lobbyist Chris Jehn agreed that the fiscal 2007 request would be a big improvement over last year. "There is a lot of good news in the budget," he said.
But he added that some programs would be cut. Specifically, the networking and computing research budget at the National Security Agency would be down 16 percent, to $118 million. And the Pentagon's service research accounts would be down 9 percent, to $498 million.
Szykman noted that the Homeland Security Department was not included in this year's budget analysis. The department would enjoy a 40 percent increase in related funding for fiscal 2007, he said. The department will be included in next year's analysis.
Privacy
New Traffic Cameras In Illinois Trigger Privacy Debate
by Gene Koprowski, for Technology Daily
Chicago -- Police in Chicago and throughout Illinois last week dramatically expanded their use of stealth cameras to catch alleged traffic violators. But legal experts said the cameras may be a massive invasion of privacy and are calling for precautions to be taken with the surveillance data.
"Two reactions," said Harold Krent, a law professor and dean of the law school at the Illinois Institute of Technology. "First, Chicago must afford some way for those ticketed to say, 'Right car; right license plate; wrong person.' Secondly, and more importantly to me, Chicago needs to embrace a system to determine how long its surveillance images will be kept and [to limit] access to such images."
The new camera technology of the Chicago Police Department is mounted on the roofs of enhanced Chevy Tahoe sport-utility vehicles -- with $85,000 of accoutrements -- and can scan more than 3,600 vehicles per hour, the police said. The SUVs also use thermal-imaging technology -- akin to what U.S. troops are using in Iraq -- to track alleged speeders.
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley last week called the vans the "police cars of the future."
Testing of the SUVs began recently, just as Illinois State Police debuted their own anti-speeding plan based on high-resolution cameras. The cameras enhance the productivity of troopers who are writing tickets by 16 times, the state police said.
Both surveillance systems merge their information with government computer networks and then send wide-angle images of suspected speeding vehicles and pictures of drivers' faces. They also note the locations of the alleged incidents, the vehicle speeds and the posted speed limits.
Fifteen years ago, experts said, Illinois agencies tried to implement traffic surveillance technology, but civil-liberties concerns undermined the plan. Last summer in Virginia, meanwhile, legislators shut a similar program.
The national office of the American Civil Liberties Union has opposed red-light cameras in places such as Washington, D.C. The group said the cameras intrude on the constitutionally protected right to privacy.
The ACLU reckons that the cameras shift the burden of proof from government to citizens and unfairly penalize car owners, not necessarily red-light runners.
Krent said that a few years ago, valet parking attendants in Chicago were caught illegally parking patrons' cars, leaving them no way to fight the tickets. "Those ticketed should be able to challenge whether the surveillance machinery had been checked, calibrated, etc.," he said.
In addition, many red-light camera systems are installed under contracts that give some ticket revenue to the contractors. The ACLU said that creates an obvious incentive for contractors to "game" the system to increase revenue.
There also is concern that those who capture the images could sell them to divorce attorneys or paparazzi, if the alleged speeders are famous or rich.
"Privacy can be damaged more by lax controls on information after it has been collected than through the collection itself," Krent said.
Culture
U.N. Eyes Policy Coordination For Networked RFIDs
by William New, for Technology Daily
GENEVA -- Every object in the world may become "intelligent" if the private and public technology visionaries gathered here this week have their way.
But key issues must be resolved for the successful implementation of a new "Internet of things," where millions or billions of miniscule, radio-frequency identification tags with greater capabilities will proliferate and communicate with each other.
At issue are networked RFIDs, the future wave of the widely used tracking tags. Standardization for networked RFIDs was discussed at a Feb. 14-15 conference at the U.N. International Telecommunication Union. Ideas from the event are to be further discussed at an ITU committee meeting on Thursday, according to an official.
The concept calls for joining RFIDs with sensors and nanotechnology so that any object may reveal, through devices like cellular telephones, information about itself, its location and any movements. If products with such capabilities are made cheaper and more available, the applications could multiply.
The technology heavily relies on microchips but appears to be moving to technology without chips, according to Jean-Pascal Curty of the Swiss company Sokymat.
Envisioned applications would enhance existing RFID uses, such as controlling building access (about one-third of the RFID market); transporting containers, vehicles and animals; and enhancing security via passports.
Many other uses also could emerge. For instance, one could obtain the English translation of the inscription on a statue in an Italian museum (plus an advertisement for a related book about the subject). Or one could use a cell phone to purchase a paperless ticket for a sports event, enter the stadium and receive a live map to the seat once inside.
Those were among the ideas presented by the range of industry representatives from top global technology firms at the event.
The meeting brought together industry and government leaders in the field to discuss the future and begin developing a "standardization roadmap," meeting Chairman Pierre-Andre Probst said.
After two days, areas of common interest included architecture for distributed applications, capabilities to support present and future applications, a format for data, negotiation of content, spectrum allocation for RFID devices, and improved cooperation among key organisations.
Participants debated the need for a numbering system for RFIDs. Tony Rutkowski of VeriSign and others voiced a need for globally ubiquitous standards and for prioritizing objects so the most critical get their signals out first.
Florent Frederix of the European Commission said that given the economic importance of RFIDs, the commission "cannot step aside" but should promote the technology's growth. The commission is organizing five consultations on RFIDs.
The key policy issues will be privacy, security and spectrum allocation.
ITU officials showed an interest in playing a role on standards and cooperation. ITU divisions and other global bodies already are involved.
As to the usual fight between agencies over jurisdiction on issues, Probst said: "Not yet. That will come later on."
On The Hill
Top Bills Cover E-Gambling, Web Filtering Abroad
by Winter Casey
The top technology-related measures introduced this week cover Internet gambling and the role of U.S. companies in aiding Internet content restrictions abroad.
Dozens of lawmakers co-sponsored the measure, H.R. 4777, to ban Internet gambling. "I have been continuously committed to putting an end to gambling on the Internet," lead bill sponsor Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said on his Web site in resurrecting the issue.
On the Internet filtering front, meanwhile, a number of lawmakers have raised concerns about U.S. companies complying with foreign laws when operating abroad.
A House International Relations subcommittee this week held a hearing on Internet censorship issues in China, and subcommittee Chairman Chris Smith, R - NJ, introduced his related bill, H.R. 4780, the next day. The measure would restrict U.S. companies from helping foreign governments repress information online -- and violations of the proposal would carry hefty fines.
Another measure, H.R. 4741, calls for technologies to combat Internet "jamming" of politically sensitive Web sites in countries like China.
Two new bills also were introduced on the health front.
The first, H.R. 4769, would require all Internet pharmacies to meet the same prescription requirements s traditional pharmacies before shipping controlled drugs. "Ninety percent of Internet pharmacies are shipping controlled substances without prescriptions and if a local pharmacist did the same he would go to prison," said bill sponsor Charlie Norwood, R-Ga.
The other measure, S. 2282, seeks to provide access to telehealth services in the home.
On the Senate side, a new bill, S. 2302, would make the Federal Emergency Management Agency an independent agency again. And Barack Obama, D-Ill., filed legislation, S. 2280, aimed at fraud. The measure would increase funding for federal law enforcement, create new criminal penalties for frauds and require industry reports on suspicious activity.
Obama and co-sponsor Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said the measure was inspired by news reports on the seriousness of mortgage fraud. The senators are concerned with how crooks employ technologies and face-to-face scams, particularly in low-income neighborhoods.
The bill would establish a national database of mortgage professionals and require the FBI to update bankers on fraudulent activity. Obama also introduced S. 2319 for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.
Other new tech-related measures from this week are:
-- H.R. 4781, which would authorize grants for information technology centers in rural areas;
-- H.R. 4790, which would expand expense-related tax write-offs for small businesses;
-- H.R. 4742, which would let the Patent and Trademark Office waive patent and trademark statutes in certain emergencies;
-- H.R. 4755, which would make changes in the personnel management system at the Federal Aviation Administration;
-- S. 2317, which would require the U.S. trade representative to identify trade enforcement priorities;
-- H. Con. Res. 342, which urges a U.S.-Taiwan free-trade agreement;
-- H. Res. 676, which would prohibit members and employees of the House from accepting gifts from registered lobbyists.
-- And H. Res. 681, which urges support for the goals of National Engineers Week.
Today's Feature:
Executive Summary
The Senate could clear a revamped USA PATRIOT Act in about two weeks, after members this week rejected a move to postpone the approval of several amendments to the 2001 anti-terrorism law.
Every Friday, read the Executive Summary by Technology Daily editors
E-briefs
Broadband: Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday announced an initiative to expand high-speed Internet services in 71 of the most rural communities in the state. He credited a new state telecommunications law for sparking competition and allowing broadband to reach underserved areas. Texas passed a measure last year to deregulate the telecom market and let companies obtain statewide video franchises. Perry said the new rules have induced competition for cable, telephone and Internet services, and attracted cutting-edge investments. "By introducing competition to video and telecommunications, we are opening the door to new investments, new services and new opportunities," Perry said in a release.
E-Government: The Association for Computing Machinery on Thursday released a report with guidelines for state and local election officials on how to securely implement voter registration databases. The 10 recommendations focus on five issues that the authors feel are important to establishing and maintaining registration databases: accuracy, privacy, usability, security and reliability. The report contains detailed analysis on how election officials can ensure that the databases meet those goals. ACM issued the report to help state and local election officials better comply with a changeover in their election systems as mandated by a 2002 federal law, which requires that the systems establish computerized registration databases. "These guidelines will enable the more than 20 states that have not yet met these federal deadlines to avoid Election Day problems," report committee co-Chairwoman Barbara Simons said.
Net Governance: The Internet governance forum established by the World Summit on the Information Society likely will be a "multi-stakeholder" process loosely governed by a program committee, following a two-day consultation with various interested parties in Geneva. The first forum meeting is expected to be three to five days in Athens, Greece. After 10 more days of input, the U.N. secretary-general's office will decide on meeting details, including a date expected in October or November. At this week's consultation on the issue in Geneva, participants generally agreed that the forum should meet once a year, and many called for it to address policy issues such as unsolicited commercial e-mail, cyber security, consumer protection, interconnection costs and multilingualism on the Internet. Governments disagreed on whether the forum focus should be narrow or broad. Brazil and some other participants called for an international treaty on Internet policy issues. There remains no funding for the forum.
E-Government: The Army's radio-frequency identification program for tagging military cargo was among five winners of an award announced earlier this week recognizing "best practices" in government information sharing. The system, used throughout the Defense Department, employs electronic tags to track and provide information on the contents of containers, vehicles and equipment. The program was one of several Pentagon-related initiatives to win a nomination for the annual Excellence.gov awards from the Industry Advisory Council. The awards highlight the best federal information-sharing practices. Another Defense-related program, a health information exchange done jointly with the Veterans Affairs Department, also was named a winner by a panel of 23 judges from both government and the private sector. The other winners were an Interior Department geospatial initiative, a State Department data-exchange application and the national sex-offender registry of the Justice Department.
E-Government: The U.S. government must increase its efforts to battle Muslim terrorists' sophisticated use of the media to alter public perception, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday. "Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but for the most part we -- our country -- has not, whether our government, the media, or our society generally," Rumsfeld said during a speech to the Council for Foreign Relations in New York City. "For the most part, the U.S. government still functions as a 'five-and-dime' store in an eBay world." The government will have to establish 24-hour press operation centers and focus on dealing with non-traditional media, Rumsfeld said. One example of that thinking is Defense's launch of an online communications center that produces information that hundreds of Web logs have received and redistributed, he said.
Courts: The investment banking and brokerage firm Merrill Lynch said Friday that it had agreed to pay $164 million to settle 23 class-action lawsuits over its flawed Internet company research reports. As a result, 11 of the outstanding cases will be dropped, and only two of the original 41 class actions against the company remain. "Merrill Lynch is vigorously defending these two suits, including one in which the parties are awaiting a decision from the United States Supreme Court," the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Former star analyst Henry Blodget landed his job at Merrill Lynch after predicting in 1998 that Amazon.com shares would rise to $400. But the SEC charged him with securities fraud after law enforcers discovered a series of Blodget e-mails that denigrated the companies he had publicly promoted.
