conflux
Cellular-News
Legal
plans to force handset recycling
"California's District Assembly member, Fran Pavley has introduced legislation requiring cell phone retailers to take back obsolete cell phones at no cost to the consumer and to provide for their recycling.
"Almost 45,000 cell phones are thrown away every day in California Ð either into a drawer somewhere or worse, into the trash," said Pavley. "Their circuit boards contain myriad toxins such as arsenic, lead and mercury, many of which are Persistent Bioaccumulative Toxin (PBTs), and have the potential to be released into the air and groundwater when burned in incinerators or disposed of in landfills. That's a serious threat to human health and our environment and we need to provide a real alternative.""
redux [01.01.04]
"Entrepreneurs and environmental groups are getting ready for a surge of old computers, cell phones and other electronic devices that could be recycled or reused.
A recent tax law and new recycling requirements are expected to increase the supply of gadgets that can be given new life.
The tax break gives businesses an added 50 percent "bonus deduction" from a company's profit for equipment purchased between last May 5 and the end of next year. The deduction, in a law signed by President Bush, is on top of the 30 percent first-year write-off that many businesses take on new equipment."
redux [11.25.03]
"The long-awaited arrival of local number portability hits Monday, meaning for the first time, anyone who wants to change their service can keep their phone number -- long cited by consumers as the biggest pain with switching companies. Typically, when people change providers, they upgrade their phones, which relegates old phones to the dusty back of a junk drawer, or worse, the landfill.
There are a lot of phones to recycle. A 2002 study by the environmental group Inform, Inc., showed by 2005, there will be 130 million phones discarded annually."
redux [09.27.03]
"Californians, it's time to clean out the basements, garages and closets: The state will soon provide a safe place to ditch ancient computers and televisions."
"The [Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003] charges retailers and manufacturers a small fee, ranging from $6 to $10 depending on the product, to fund a statewide recycling infrastructure. The money, collected at the point of purchase, will be distributed to local governments and electronic waste recyclers to set up collection points and drop-off sites where consumers can unload their useless machines."
redux [07.07.03]
"Most people viewing the carcass of an abandoned motherboard would see a useless collection of plastic shards and mangled wires.
Hewlett-Packard's Chris Altobell sees silver and gold.
Altobell is the marketing manager of HP's Product Recycling Solutions unit in Roseville, Calif., which processes 3 million pounds of used computer machinery each month, transforming giant corporate printers and cast-off 386 consumer machines into materials that can be spun into precious metals and plastic containers."
[requires 'free' registration]
"Responding to concerns from both customers and environmental advocates, Dell Computer announced yesterday that it would no longer rely on prisons to supply workers for its computer recycling program.
Dell, the world's largest seller of PC's, said it had canceled its contract with Unicor, a branch of the Federal Bureau of Prisons that employs prisoners for electronics recycling and other industries."
redux [06.27.03]
[requires 'free' registration]
"The nation's two largest personal computer makers, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, handle recycling of the waste from computer products in remarkably different ways, according to a report by environmentalists released today.
The report was prepared by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, a group that also focuses on health issues, and the Computer Take Back Campaign. It commended Hewlett-Packard for using "state of the art" practices in partnership with an expanding commercial recycling industry, while criticizing Dell for using low-cost prison labor in association with Unicor, an industrial prison system within the Justice Department."
redux [06.04.03]
"Every year, 1.5 million old, but working, computers are buried in landfill sites. Now, an impending EU directive could mean these discarded machines, and many others, enjoy a more useful life.
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Weee) Directive makes electronics firms responsible for what happens to the gadgets and devices they produce once people have done with them."
redux [02.25.03]
"This is the end of the road for the toxic end-product of the computer age.
In towns such as this one on China's south-eastern coast, vast quantities of obsolete electronics shipped in from the United States, Europe and Japan are piled in mountains of waste."
"The real costs are being borne by the people on the receiving end of the 'e-waste'. In towns along China's coast as well as in India and Pakistan, adults and children work for about US$1.20 (S$2.08) a day in unregulated and unsafe conditions."
redux [02.05.03]
"The computer maker is testing a program that gives those who recycle their old computers, monitors, printers or other gear a coupon worth up to $50 for any purchase of $60 or more on HP's online store. Under a program announced nearly two years ago, HP charges anywhere from $17 to $31 to recycle products. The company says the coupon will offset the amount customers must pay for the service, which ensures none of the gear ends up in landfills.
The need for recycling is growing, particularly as nonprofit agencies become less willing to accept older gear, said Renee St. Denis, manager of HP's recycling effort. The problem of what to do with all this aging equipment has become a major issue facing the tech industry."
redux [01.26.03]
"So what are the environmental impacts of producing and using a 32-megabyte DRAM computer chip that weighs a mere 2 grams? The UNU team found that to make every one of the millions manufactured each year requires 32 kg of water, 1.6 kg of fossil fuels, 700 grams of elemental gases (mainly nitrogen), and 72 grams of chemicals (hundreds are used, including lethal arsine gas and corrosive hydrogen fluoride).
To make matters worse, Williams believes his findings are conservative. "We think the real numbers may be twice that," he said, adding that rapid advances in technology aggravate the problem. "The fact that a chip has such a short lifespan, because the technology turns over so quickly, exacerbates the environmental impact.""
redux [01.10.03]
""The leadership continues to be by and large the Japanese companies, and the U.S. companies tend to be far behind," Smith said.
"A lot of (U.S. manufacturers') initiatives are piecemeal and not really designed to address the vast majority of consumer concerns," he added. "There is still an enormous amount of computer waste being exported to China.""
"The report also criticizes Dell's use of federal prison labor to recycle old computers, which it says exposes inmates to toxic chemicals without the same health and safety protections as workers at other facilities."
redux [12.03.02]
"In a shift that will change how toxic electronic waste is recycled in California and possibly nationwide, Hewlett-Packard has said it will support state legislation to require PC manufacturers to bear the cost of computer disposal.
""The combined HP-Compaq company is the single largest manufacturer of PCs in the world. They are the linchpin for producer responsibility,'' said Smith, whose group helped expose the primitive recycling industry in China. ``The fact that they have changed their position vastly improves the likelihood we'll get a very good e-waste bill in the new session.""
redux [11.13.02]
"If we all had to lug around the true environmental weights of the microchips in our iPods, cellphones or laptops, most of those portable gadgets would never make it off their docking stations, much less out the front door.
It takes 3.7 pounds of fossil fuels and other chemicals and 70.5 pounds of water to produce a single two-gram microchip, according to a forthcoming study in the Dec. 15 issue of Environmental Science & Technology, a publication of the American Chemical Society."
redux [05.22.02]
"California high-tech manufacturing companies are degrading the environment in developing countries, a new research report confirms.
Case studies done in Taiwan, Malaysia, India, Thailand, and Costa Rica by the California Global Corporate Accountability Project document water pollution and inadquate waste management resulting from component production."
redux [04.06.02]
"Americans will throw out about 10 million old computers this year. About two-thirds of these will be shipped to Asia for dismantling by rural villagers. The computers all contain mercury and lead, and the resulting toxic waste has become a threat to villagers' health and environment.
"A coalition of activists and lawmakers has been working to improve the situation, and in recent weeks they've gotten a signed pledge from electronic manufacturers in the United States to consider a new solution."
"Workers in Silicon Valley's semiconductor plants toil in head-to-toe protective clothing designed to keep impurities from contaminating the microchips. But Mother Jones magazine reports that the growing incidence of health problems among these workers suggests that it is they who need protection. At least 250 workers have filed lawsuits against high-tech companies, charging that the toxic soup of chemicals in production areas has triggered high rates of miscarriages, birth defects, and cancer."
redux [05.04.00]
"Behind the well-paid geeks in cubicles and the sharp-dressed entrepreneurs is an industry that consumes as many resources, uses as many lethal chemicals, and generates as much toxic waste as some of the worst culprits of the pre-Internet age. And both industry workers and the people who live near the plants are feeling the effects: the toxins damage aquatic life in the bay, poison drinking water, and, increasing evidence suggests, kill high-tech industry workers.
While the federal government, local agencies, and hundreds of thousands of Bay Area residents and company workers are dealing with the computer industry's mess here in America, the same (or worse) problems are spreading worldwide."
8:36 PM 0 comments
PC World
Who's Guarding the Internet?
""I wouldn't say that the critical infrastructure is fully protected at this point by a long stretch," Stanco says. While the government can protect its own Web sites and servers, protecting its section of the infrastructure won't make that much difference unless the banks, electrical companies, and other major corporations match the government's efforts, he notes.
"I'm not sure private industry's going to do it by itself," Stanco adds."
redux [11.14.03]
""The goal of terrorism is to change society through the use of force or violence, resulting in fear," he explained. "I want to put this cyberterrorism thing to rest. It's a theory, it's not a fact.""
Even though there were examples of attacks that have physical consequences--such as the case of Vitek Boden, sentenced to two years in prison for releasing up to 1 million liters of sewage into the river and coastal waters of the town of Maroochydore, in Queensland, Australia, in 2001--they could not be described as terrorist acts, Mogull explained. To a large extent, it comes down to motive, he said."
"Verton criticized the IT security community for what he called appeasement, accepting unacceptable levels of risk and focusing on past threats rather than future dangers.
"This is going to be one of the primary battlefields of the future," he said. "We need to have a discussion of cybervulnerabilities today, before the next failure occurs.""
redux [09.03.03]
Nearly half of all Americans surveyed say they are worried that terrorists could launch attacks through the networks connecting home computers and powerful utilities, a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found.
Some industry analysts consider this level of concern a triumph of sorts, signifying that their lobbying efforts and public awareness campaigns have had an effect."
redux [08.17.03]
"The bigger risk is a digital attack. Richard Clarke, former cyberspace security czar in the Bush Administration, thinks an attack on the electricity- generating system is more likely to come from computer hackers than bombers. "The power grid is controlled by software, so the question is, Is there a way you can get into the control system?" Clarke asks. "And, yeah, there is."
A skilled hacker could disable a network of several plants without ever entering a facility by seizing digital controls at the point where computers meet the infrastructure they run."
redux [08.01.03]
""Based on what we knew at the time, the most likely scenario was an attack from cyberspace, not airliners slamming into buildings," said Sachs, in an interview after his keynote."
"While he stops short of saying that Washington's cyber terror obsession was a blunder, Sachs acknowledges that, in hindsight, the effort was misdirected. "We had spent a lot of time preparing for a cyber attack, not a physical attack," says Sachs. "Our priorities had to change a little bit.""
redux [06.20.03]
"The threat of cyberterrorism is causing much alarm these days. We have been told to expect attacks since 9/11; that cyberterrorists would try to cripple our power system, disable air traffic control and emergency services, open dams, or disrupt banking and communications. But so far, nothing's happened. Even during the war in Iraq, which was supposed to increase the risk dramatically, nothing happened. The impending cyberwar was a big dud. Don't congratulate our vigilant security, though; the alarm was caused by a misunderstanding of both the attackers and the attacks."
redux [04.09.03]
"In his first appearance on Capitol Hill since leaving the White House in February, Richard A. Clarke warned lawmakers against the "dangerous" tendency to dismiss the consequences of an attack on the nation's computer networks.
"For many, the cyberthreat is hard to understand: No one has died in a cyberattack, after all. There has never been a smoking ruin for cameras to see," said Clarke, now a security consultant. "It is the kind of thinking that said we never had a major foreign terrorist attack in the United States, so we never would; al Qaeda has just been a nuisance, so it never will be more than that.""
redux [03.14.03]
"The threat posed by cyber-terrorism has been overhyped and the net is unlikely to become a launch pad for terror attacks.
That was the conclusion of a panel of security and technology experts brought together at the CeBIT technology fair to consider the threat posed by net attacks on businesses and consumers."
""The hype is coming from the US Government and I don't know why," [Bruce Schneier] said."
redux [03.04.03]
"How else to explain the credulity with which the Bush administration's National Strategy To Secure Cyberspace was greeted last month? The 76-page document is chock full of what computer-security experts term "FUD"--geek shorthand for spreading bogus "fear, uncertainty, and doubt." Never mind that the hype over alleged "cyberterrorism" has been thoroughly debunked, time and time again. The government's information technology sages still trot out dubious stats in support of a looming "cyberwar," claiming that hostile nations possess legions of computer-savvy shock troops ready to knock out New York's electricity, zap the nation's phone lines, or open up the Hoover Dam.
Yet here we are in 2003, and the cyberterrorism casualty list is still barren. Sure, some Serb hackers slowed down the NATO Web site during the Kosovo conflict, and a couple of Chinese hackers defaced sites in the wake of their country's embassy being bombed. But, honestly, did either incident get you quaking in your Keds?"
redux [02.28.03]
"We can say with some certainty, al Qaeda loves the Internet. When the latter first appeared, it was hailed as an integrator of cultures and a medium for businesses, consumers, and governments to communicate with one another. It appeared to offer unparalleled opportunities for the creation of a "global village." Today the Internet still offers that promise, but it also has proven in some respects to be a digital menace. Its use by al Qaeda is only one example. It also has provided a virtual battlefield for peacetime hostilities between Taiwan and China, Israel and Palestine, Pakistan and India, and China and the United States (during both the war over Kosovo and in the aftermath of the collision between the Navy EP-3 aircraft and Chinese MiG). In times of actual conflict, the Internet was used as a virtual battleground between NATO's coalition forces and elements of the Serbian population. These real tensions from a virtual interface involved not only nation-states but also non-state individuals and groups either aligned with one side or the other, or acting independently."
redux [02.18.02]
"The retirement of Richard Clarke is appropriate to the reality of the war on terror. Years ago, Clarke bet his national security career on the idea that electronic war was going to be real war. He lost, because as al Qaeda and Iraq have shown, real action is still of the blood and guts kind.
In happier times prior to 9/11, Clarke -- as Bill Clinton's counter-terror point man in the National Security Council -- devoted great effort to convincing national movers and shakers that cyberattack was the coming thing. While ostensibly involved in preparations for bioterrorism and trying to sound alarms about Osama bin Laden, Clarke was most often seen in the news predicting ways in which electronic attacks were going to change everything and rewrite the calculus of conflict.
redux [12.20.02]
"To all those Chicken Littles clucking frantically about the imminent threat of a terrorist attack on U.S. computer networks, a new report says: Knock it off."
""The idea that hackers are going to bring the nation to its knees is too far-fetched a scenario to be taken seriously," said Jim Lewis, a 16-year veteran of the State and Commerce Departments."
""Nations are more robust than the early analysts of cyberterrorism and cyberwarfare give them credit for," Lewis wrote in the report. "Infrastructure systems (are) more flexible and responsive in restoring service than the early analysts realized, in part because they have to deal with failure on a routine basis.""
redux [10.29.02]
"Politically motivated hack attacks are rising "sharply," London-based computer security firm mi2g said Tuesday, citing in particular the rise of what it called "Islamic interest hacking groups." And while political hacks account for just a fraction of all hacking activity, security experts worry that may soon change."
"October, mi2g said, has already qualified as the worst month for overt digital attacks since its records began in 1995, with an estimated 16,559 attacks carried out on systems and Web sites."
redux [09.18.02]
"CSIS analyst Arnaud de Borchgrave, a former editor-in-chief of the Washington Times and United Press International, warned that a "cyberattack" was just around the corner.
"It is later than we think. The next generation of transnational terrorists understands that a hand on a mouse can be more lethal than a finger on the trigger," said de Borchgrave, who co-authored a report that concluded: "Cyberattacks now arise whenever disputes occur anywhere in the world...Can cyberterrorism and cyberwar be far behind?""
redux [08.14.02]
"THE FIRST THOUGHT that comes to my mind when people mention cyberwar is: What kind of attack are they really talking about? We've seen Web page defacements traded between Palestinian and Israeli cyberactivists. The Yaha worm, thought to have originated in India, recently caused a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Pakistani government's main Web site. In the grand scheme of things, however these are relatively minor inconveniences compared with a major military ground or air attack."
"No one has ever made it clear to me exactly what a cyberwar would entail--and I'm betting I'm not the only one who's confused here. "
"A mock cyberwar enacted by faculty of the US Naval War College and analysts from Gartner does not appear to have fulfilled the Clancyesque predictions of mass devastation envisioned by the leading security paranoiacs of the Clinton and Bush Administrations.
The exercise, named "Digital Pearl Harbor," apparently in tribute to US CyberSecurity Czar and Chief Alarmist Richard Clarke, brought together a team of experts in several areas related to critical infrastructure for a three-day hackfest."
redux [10.04.01]
"Netwar is an emerging mode of conflict in which the protagonists - ranging from terrorist and criminal organizations on the dark side, to militant social activists on the bright side - use network forms of organization, doctrine, strategy, and technology attuned to the information age. The practice of netwar is well ahead of theory, as both civil and uncivil society actors are increasingly engaging in this new way of fighting. We suggest how the theory of netwar may be improved by drawing on academic perspectives on networks, especially those about organizational network analysis. As for practice, strategists and policymakers in Washington and elsewhere have begun to discern the dark side of the network phenomenon - especially in the wake of the "attack on America" perpetrated apparently by Osama bin Laden's terror network. But they still have much work to do to begin harnessing the bright side, by formulating strategies that will enable state and civil-society actors to work together better."
[requires 'free' registration]
""People aren't going to be killing us with computers," Mr. Hunker said, "but our life may be hell because of computer attacks."
The likeliest use of the technology, he said, would be to complicate matters further after a real-world attack, a tactic he describes with the military phrase "force multiplier." That could involve planting false information on the Web to create a panic or taking down crucial computers in the financial or communications sectors."
redux [08.19.01]
""Taiwan has one of the world's largest computer software and hardware manufacturing bases," said D.K. Matai, managing director of the British-based Mi2. "The computer software programmers in Taiwan are world class. Our view is that getting involved in any kind of conflict with Taiwan, given the kind of intellectual capacity the country has, may prove detrimental."
The Chinese government has been quite open about its future strategic military objective. In paper appearing in the spring issue of China Military Science journal, a member of the Chinese Committee of Science, Technology and Industry of the System Engineering Institute, wrote: "We are in the midst of a new technology in which electronic information technology is the central technology. The technology provides unprecedented applications for the development of new weaponry...Military battles during the 21st century will unfold around the use of information for military and political goals.""
redux [09.06.00]
"The thesis of this think piece is that the information revolution will cause shifts both in how societies may come into conflict, and how their armed forces may wage war. We offer a distinction between what we call "netwar" -- societal-level ideational conflicts waged in part through internetted modes of communication -- and "cyberwar" at the military level. These terms are admittedly novel, and better ones may yet be devised. But for now they illuminate a useful distinction and identify the breadth of ways in which the information revolution may alter the nature of conflict short of war, as well as the context and the conduct of warfare.
While both netwar and cyberwar revolve around information and communications matters, at a deeper level they are forms of war about "knowledge" -- about who knows what, when, where, and why, and about how secure a society or military is regarding its knowledge of itself and its adversaries."
redux [01.04.01]
"Scenes of street violence are played out day after day in Palestinian towns across Gaza and the West Bank. But another modern-day arena for battle between the Palestinians and the Israelis is growing ever more heated, so much so that the Internet war waged by computer-savvy political activists is being dubbed an "e-Jihad.""
redux [03.22.00]
"A group of Pakistani hackers has used the conflict in Kashmir as a reason to deface almost 600 Web sites in India and take control of several Indian government and private computer systems, according to the group."
"Unlike the majority of Web vandals, the MOS members say they secretly take control of a server, then deface the site only when they "have no more use" for the data or the server itself.
"The servers we control range from harmless mail and Web services to 'heavy duty' government servers," says the MOS representative. "The data is only being categorically archived for later use if deemed necessary."
"Take the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade several weeks ago. Rage spread across China and hackers from the mainland attacked the Web sites of the US Departments of Energy and the Interior, and the National Park Service. A subsequent attack brought down the White House Web site for three days. The attacks generated headlines across the country.
What the news media didn't report was that the US government had known for a long time that someone had been in its computer systems - they just didn't know who. Then, in a fit of anger, the Chinese hackers caused some real damage - and gave away the hidden "location" of several "backdoors" they had built in US government networks."
"The US Government Accounting Office estimates 120 groups or countries have or are developing information-warfare systems. According to a report issued by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 23 nations have cyber-targeted the US."
8:00 PM 0 comments
The Christian Science Monitor
'Nickel and diming' across the Internet
"A September report from the Online Publishers Association termed the growth of micropayments to its members over the past 18 months "dramatic," rising from 2.6 percent of all single- payment revenues in the first quarter of 2002 to 8 percent in the second quarter of 2003. Hoping to cash in on that growth, new companies are offering micropayment systems that they say make tiny transactions easy and secure. One such firm, BitPass in Palo Alto, Calif., expects to process more than 1 million micropayments by year's end.
"It's a matter of getting the timing right," Mr. Frey says of micropayments."
redux [01.14.04]
"Although many e-businesses in other industries have come back from the dot-com brink with stronger models and clearer goals, micropayment specialists have yet to make another splash. Companies like BitPass and Paystone Technologies may have survived the crash, but they have a much lower profile than their now-defunct predecessors.
"Will the concept of micropayments fade into the footnotes of e-commerce history, or will this business model find new success in the future?"
redux [01.08.03]
[requires 'free' registration]
"THE early days of Internet commerce offered many promises, none of them brighter than the chance for people to set up Web sites and sell inexpensive digital goods like songs, articles and photos.
But most of the pioneering companies that devised transaction systems for low-cost online purchases faded away, dogged not only by the giveaway ethos of the Internet but also by cumbersome technology and fees that ate up the profit on items that often sold for less than a dollar.
Times have changed, though, and electronic micropayment systems may yet be born again."
redux [12.02.03]
"An idea that seemingly evaporated along with dot-com mania is back: that the Internet would realize its full grass-roots potential if Web surfers could pay small amounts for tidbits of online content."
""Times have definitely changed," said Ron Rivest, a prominent Massachusetts Institute of Technology encryption researcher who co-founded micropayment provider Peppercoin in 2001. "I think the market is ready.""
redux [11.03.03]
"Apple Computer's online music store has won attention for its stylish ease of use, and deservedly so. Yet one of its most interesting features has drawn little notice -- the ability to buy something online that costs less than a dollar.
The iTunes service is one of the first truly useful examples of digital "micropayments." The notion has been hyped and lampooned, with skeptics having the better case, but new technologies and services may bring this genre of money to a more prominent place in 21st-century commerce."
redux [09.07.03]
"Mental transaction costs create a minimum level of inconvenience that cannot be removed simply by lowering the dollar cost of goods.
Worse, beneath a certain threshold, mental transaction costs actually rise, a phenomenon is especially significant for information goods. It's easy to think a newspaper is worth a dollar, but is each article worth half a penny? Is each word worth a thousandth of a penny? A newspaper, exposed to the logic of micropayments, becomes impossible to value."
Mental transaction costs help explain the general failure of micropayment systems. (See Odlyzko, Shirky, and Szabo for a fuller accounting of the weaknesses of micropayments.) The failure of micropayments in turn helps explain the ubiquity of free content on the Web."
8:39 PM 0 comments
Wired News
Net Dissidents Jailed in China
"In its ongoing repression of Internet speech, the Chinese government has sentenced five Falun Gong members to prison for posting an article to a discussion board that accused authorities of mistreating a jailed colleague."
"As China's Internet economy burgeons, so have the government's attempts to battle "subversive" content on home computers and in the country's 110,000 cybercafes. According to some estimates, China employs 30,000 technocrats to police the Internet."
"Iranian authorities have followed official harassment of pro-reformist newspapers with an attack against online news publications, said Reporters Without Borders, which protested at the latest development."
"Weblogs - personal or collective pages in which Internet users make their own comments about the news - are also subjected to censorship by the conservatives."
"As Friday's parliamentary elections approached, however, there was a distinct tone of worry that conservatives expected to regain control of parliament would step up pressure to censor the Internet.
"It will be the end of the blog era in Iran," said a Tehran-based blogger who operates pinkfloydish.com, the name indicative of her love of Western music."
redux [02.20.03]
"It's easy to assume that the Internet is a friend of democracy and a facilitator of the free flow of ideas. Ronald Reagan once said, "The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip." Shanthi Kalathil wasn't so convinced. She and fellow researcher Taylor Boas studied the effect of the Internet on eight authoritarian regimes, and what they found challenges conventional wisdom. Kalathil joins guest host Lynn Neary to discuss their findings."
redux [01.25.03]
"IF THE internet will force difficult changes on democracies by handing power to individual citizens, it seems reasonable to believe that it will have a devastating impact on dictatorships. But it is not impossible that instead of undermining repressive regimes, the internet could become the most effective tool of social control that autocratic rulers have ever wielded."
"As more human interactions are conducted and recorded electronically, as the ability to analyse databases grows and as video and other offline surveillance technologies become cheaper and more effective, it will become ever easier for authoritarian governments to set up systems of widespread surveillance. George Orwell's Big Brother of "1984" might yet become a reality, a few decades later than he expected."
redux [01.09.03]
"In today's networked, globalized world, many presume that the Internet will pose a grave threat to authoritarian regimes. Such has been the power of this conventional wisdom that it remains for the most part unchallenged, and largely unexamined.
A new book, Open Networks, Closed Regimes, offers the most comprehensive and thought-provoking work on this subject to date. Authors Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas trace Internet use in eight authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries: China, Cuba, Singapore, Vietnam, Burma, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. They discover that authoritarian governments, far from fearing the information age, have chosen to direct Internet development in ways that bolster the state. At the same time, many regimes are struggling to cope with the potent challenges posed by new technologies. The authors encourage policy makers in the U.S. and other industrialized democracies to promote specific Internet-based initiatives that foster political liberalization, rather than perpetuating the myth of the Internet as an unstoppable "virus of freedom.""
redux [06.06.02]
""Without the internet the story may still have got out," said Mr Zheng. "With so many people killed it would have been hard to keep it a secret for ever, but it would have been much more difficult."
The internet is changing China in subtle but profound ways. Information is now being spread and exchanged in ways unthinkable just a few years ago.
The Chinese state's once total control on information has been broken and hard as it may try it has little hope of regaining that control."
redux [04.16.02]
"A decade or so ago, it was all clear: the Internet was believed to be such a revolutionary new medium, so inherently empowering and democratizing, that old authoritarian regimes would crumble before it. What we've learned in the intervening years is that the Internet does not inevitably lead to democracy any more than it inevitably leads to great wealth.
The idea that the Internet itself is a threat to authoritarian regimes was a bit of delusional post-Cold War optimism."
redux [03.21.02]
"Mao once said, "Political power grows from the barrel of a gun." The entrepreneurs in China Dawn seem to want to change the last phrase to "ISP access."
But their enthusiasm betrays a streak of naivete. As Tiananmen so amply demonstrated, in China today, political power still grows from the barrel of a gun. And the prediction that the rise of the Internet will liberate Chinese from authoritarian rule is far from certain."
"One notable loophole in the content watch list are weblogs. Weblogs are content websites maintained by ordinary users that can act as introspective online diaries, soapboxes to rant opinions, and a vehicle guide the horde of Internet users to swarm to other obscure links to be found on the net. They are easy to update, cheap to maintain, and difficult to block because so many new ones appear each day. They utilize a client relationship with a server and can be updated with a simple browser."
The bureaucrats and censors in China who block and monitor websites will be hard pressed to try and control the future flow of weblogs both in and out of China due to the number and diversity of this new information platform. Having met actual Internet content censors from China, they are decent people but come from a different time and different place in terms of technology. They don't really get it yet since weblogs remain a concept difficult for them to understand for now."
redux [08.08.01]
"It is widely believed that the Internet poses an insurmountable threat to authoritarian rule. But political science scholarship has provided little support for this conventional wisdom, and a number of case studies from around the world show that authoritarian regimes are finding ways to control and counter the political impact of Internet use. While the long-term political impact of the Internet remains an open question, we argue that these strategies for control may continue to be viable in the short to medium term."
"In this paper we illustrate how two authoritarian regimes, China and Cuba, are maintainng control over the Internet's political impact through different combinations of reactive and proactive strategies. These cases illustrate that, contrary to assumptions, different types of authoritarian regimes may be able to control and profit from the Internet. Examining the experiences of these two countries may help to shed light on other authoritarian regimes' strategies for Internet development, as well as help to develop generalizable conclusions about the impact of the Internet on authoritarian rule."
redux [10.26.00]
"The world is changing fundamentally. Images and information respect neither time nor borders. Hierarchy is giving way to networking. Openness is crowding out secrecy and exclusivity. Ideas and capital move swiftly and unimpeded across a global network of governments, corporations, and nongovernmental organizations. In this world of instantaneous information, traditional diplomacy struggles to sustain its relevance."
"Nations once connected by foreign ministries and traders are now linked through millions of individuals by fiber optics, satellite, wireless, and cable in a complex network without central control. The Internet, with 100 million users today, will reach one billion people by 2005 and will be available to half the world's population by 2010. The network will become the central nervous system of international relations."
redux [10.10.00]
"Metaphors, symbols and sayings are mighty mind-setters. They captivate our minds and focus our attention to one main point, effectively excluding others. Putin used the burning of the Ostankino television tower, once hailed as a symbol of Soviet supremacy, as a metaphor for the desperate economic need of Russia. The global media played along with this tune, once again showcasing images of Russia's decay. But there is another largely untold story to be extracted from Putin's metaphor: TV towers are more than symbols - indeed they are very concrete centers of mind control, distributing the flow of information and entertainment."
"Who chose the crumbling Berlin Wall as the icon and metaphor for the breakdown of communism and the end of the Cold War? Wouldn't a TV tower in flames be more accurate? It wasn't about the free flow of capital. It was about the free flow of information."
8:50 PM 0 comments
USA Today
Internet phone fees spark FCC debate
"AT&T cannot avoid paying hefty fees to local phone companies to connect long-distance calls by carrying big chunks of the calls on the Internet, the Federal Communications Commission is soon expected to rule.
The decision is sparking a debate at the FCC about regulation of Internet phone calls. It eventually could spell higher fees for new retail Internet phone services, such as those offered by Vonage and cable companies, and for their customers."
"The Federal Communications Commission, in a split decision, approved a request from voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider Pulver.com to be immune from the hefty stack of government rules, taxes and requirements that applied to 20th-century telephone networks."
"Other applications covered by the decision include Skype and instant-messaging programs from Microsoft, Yahoo and America Online. But the ruling appears to leave in limbo VoIP services from Vonage Holdings, cable giants and others that allow calls to be placed from a computer over a broadband connection to any phone number in the world, and vice versa."
redux [01.23.04]
"The top U.S. telecom regulator said Thursday that he has no intention of setting rules for Internet telephony, which he said could have a dramatic impact on voice communications."
""It's probably the most significant paradigm shift in the entire history of modern communications, since the invention of the telephone," Michael Powell, chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, told journalists at the World Economic Forum."
redux [01.12.04]
"U.S. Sen. John Sununu said he's preparing legislation to keep broadband telephone service providers from being "smothered by state and federal regulators."
The New Hampshire Republican described the proposed law at the Consumer Electronics Show as a "clear, pre-emptive remedy" that directs state utility regulators to take a hands-off regulatory stance on what's called voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)."
"The California Public Utilities Commission will now take its time to decide whether to regulate Internet telephone service providers, according to a commissioner."
"Because of California's size, some industry insiders believe that the state's tactical shift could have an effect on New York and the handful of other states that are now weighing up the regulatory future of what are known as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service providers."
[requires 'free' registration]
"But Mr. Davidson is more than an adventuresome consumer. As a member of the Florida Public Service Commission, he is a regulator who is eager to see Internet telephone service spread because he predicts it can make the nation's phone services less expensive and richer in features.
That is why Mr. Davidson wants the federal and state governments to let Internet-based phone service blossom, free from regulation, taxes and surcharges. Like a growing number of officials who advocate minimal oversight of the service - including Michael K. Powell, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission - Mr. Davidson says Internet telephone service should be treated just like other unregulated Internet services, including e-mail messaging and Web surfing."
redux [12.01.03]
"When the FCC examines VoIP in landmark hearings Monday, the battle lines in the debate will be sharply drawn between the country's two sunny states -- California and Florida. California wants to regulate VoIP, Florida doesn't.
Each state is sending a public regulatory commissioner to argue its respective merits."
redux [11.13.03]
"When IBM talks, Corporate America listens. So Big Blue created quite a stir on Nov. 7 when a top exec told a tech conference in Atlanta that it hopes to move 80% of its 300,000 employees to voice-over-IP phone systems by 2008."
"[The] IBM announcement signifies that the end may be far nearer than previously thought for the legacy copper-wire phone networks that have built fortunes for the Baby Bells such as Verizon (VZ ) and SBC (SBC ) as well as AT&T (T ) and Sprint (FON ). When the largest tech company on the planet announces it no longer needs the phone company to manage its calls, you can bet the communications landscape has fundamentally changed."
"The agency has waived the usual public comment period, which is often the first step before making such a ruling, Hundt said. Though the hearing is scheduled for Dec. 1, Powell wrote that the agency planned to issue a Notice of Public Rule Making (NPRM) "shortly after the hearing," in an effort to gather comments from the public.
Hundt said that language indicates that the agency had already made up its mind about what rules it plans to issue, and that the December hearing would be little more than a formality.
"I ran this agency," Hundt said. "I know you should be suspicious.""
"Time Warner plans to begin selling Internet phone service in California next year and will cooperate with regulators by seeking a telephone operator's license in the state, if necessary."
""We don't think it's a good idea to regulate VoIP right now. We want a debate and full airing," said Peter Casciato, an attorney representing Time Warner Cable, who attended the hearing. "(But) we want to be a very good corporate citizen.""
redux [10.19.03]
"But not only does VoIP challenge the business structure of large telecommunications carriers, it also threatens to turn the regulatory structures that govern the industry on their head. That's because VoIP calls are carried over a structure that does not track geographic origins and destinations - the central basis for regulations that govern and set rates for calls placed over traditional networks.
"It's no surprise that regulators smell blood and see a lot of money on the table," said a representative of one VoIP company that did not want to be identified. "What we don't need is the regulators coming down and quashing us just as this is getting started. It's similar to taxing the Internet. Let us get our legs under us.""
"Since the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, regulators have sought to draw a strict division between voice networks and data networks. But with the rise of VoIP, that distinction is rapidly collapsing.
"It's a mess," said Kevin Werbach, founder of consulting firm Supernova Group and former FCC counsel for new technology. "The distinction between information and telecommunications services is in the 1996 act, but it assumes they are completely distinct...Today, all networks are digital and can provide many services in many different ways. (Regulators) are trying to come to an end result within a flawed legal framework.""
redux [10.08.03]
"Internet phone providers have won the first round in a clash with state regulators, providing needed momentum for the upstart industry.
In ruling from the bench late Tuesday, Minneapolis federal Judge Michael J. Davis permanently barred Minnesota from applying traditional telephone rules to Vonage, a pioneer in technology that lets consumers bypass the traditional phone network by making voice calls over a broadband connection."
redux [10.01.03]
"There is no risk of everyone swooping out and buying VoIP phones and eliminating the plain old telephone service (POTS) overnight. However, in the next five years there is going to be some serious worry at the traditional phone companies about how they will make money."
"The local phone companies, or incumbent local exchange carriers, will do whatever they can to slow the growth of VoIP, but the fact that the phone traffic is on the Internet will make VoIP impossible to stop. Vonage, for example, isn't a phone company at all in the eyes of the Federal Communications Commission."
"The race is on among the states to regulate voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) service, or at least consider the regulation of VoIP.
Even though fewer than 150,000 American consumers use IP telephony over phone, cable or other wires, lawmakers and policymakers in up to 11 states--Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Illinois, Texas, Alabama, Colorado and Virginia--are now mulling over some type of regulatory conditions, rules or restrictions on the service. And the list seems to be getting longer almost every week"
"The Golden State is the largest state to decide that voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers are subject to the same rules and regulations as all other telephone service providers."
"Because of its size and national stature, California's decision to bring VoIP providers into the regulatory fold could have enormous sway on the dozens of other state's now investigating a similar step."
"Vonage, a Voice over Internet Protocol provider, has begun charging customers a $1.50 per month "regulatory recovery" fee.
"The fees were announced just as a growing number of states are clamoring for VoIP providers to pay taxes or fees to fund staple services such as 911 connections."
"Q: What kind of VoIP regulations do you see as necessary? Should VoIP providers be treated just like Verizon Communications or other carriers?
A: We'll probably initiate something to look at it this fall. But let me emphasize that we're going to look at it. That doesn't say what we're going to do about it. We only know that it's a growing issue. Basically, the advanced platforms permit divorcing services and applications from the infrastructure. That's very different from the ancient telephone models, when the application was the same as the distribution."
"This whole deal reminds me of some work I did for a UK advertising company years ago. I got to have lunch with the MD and Creative Director, who had just done market research for a cigarette lighter company on who their competition was. Was it Ronson, the low-end player? Or Dupont or Dunhill, the high-end players? Turns out that it actually was Parker Pen. The company learned that they were in the gift market.
My take is that telephone companies still think that other phone companies are their competition, and that the rules and givens of phone company competition will work in their favor. But actually they are actually in connection. And with increasingly wrong numbers."
redux [08.25.03]
"A cheap, Internet-based alternative to traditional telephone service is facing a sudden regulatory backlash that could slow adoption of the fast-growing technology, raise prices and put financially shaky start-ups out of business.
Two weeks ago, Minnesota drew first blood. It ordered so-called VoIP (voice over IP) provider Vonage Holdings to file for a telephone operator's license. Many see the move, the first attempt by a state public utilities commission to regulate an Internet telephony provider, as the beginning of a new regulatory framework for Internet telephone operators in the state."
redux [12.16.02]
[requires 'free' registration]
"After all, telecommunications and technology companies lost $7.6 billion in global market value from March 2000 to September 2002, as the industry was gripped by stunning collapses, financial scandals and an effort to absorb excess capacity on globe-spanning communications systems.
But alongside the industry's search for its direction after such turmoil are trends that threaten to destabilize global telecommunications further in 2003. These trends could be described as the start of a cannibalization of established services by disruptive new technologies."
redux [08.07.02]
"Of course The Economist is not alone in this fundamental error but "Crash" story is a useful foil for addressing this misunderstanding.
It is a tragic misunderstanding since the woes of the Telecom industry are seen as representing the state of the economy rather than the collapsing of a facade of a Potemkin industry. In 1900's there was a real telecommunications industry just like in the 1800's when there was a thriving business in transporting ice from frozen lakes to warmer climes. Just as refrigeration put an end to the need for buying ice, the Internet has put an end to the need to buy telecommunications services from others. We just need commodity connectivity."
redux [02.08.02]
"Despite the darkened outlook, new communications capabilities are within reach that will make the current Internet look like tin cans and string. The technical know-how exists. Radically simplified technologies can blast bits a million times faster than the current network at a millionth of the cost. These are sitting in laboratories undeveloped, in warehouses undeployed, and in the field underutilized.
It's not even that the communications revolution has been derailed by inept or self-aggrandizing behavior by incumbent telephone companies and their government regulators. Something more fundamental is at work."
8:00 PM 0 comments
Editor & Publisher
'NY Times' Fails to Acknowledge Its Role in WMD Hype
"The New York Times offered a sharp editorial Tuesday critiquing the indisputable role of the White House in distorting the intelligence on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, and in stampeding Congressional and public opinion by spinning worst-case scenarios -- "inflating them drastically" -- to justify an immediate invasion last March to repel an alleged imminent threat to the United States. Indeed, the logical implication of the editorial might well have been to charge senior officials -- in particular the vice president -- with an impeachable offense.
However, strangely missing from the paper of record was any indictment of the national press, starting with the Times, for its obvious role in gravely misleading the institutions of government and the public when hyping the WMD threat."
redux [02.09.04]
"Watching and reading all this, one is tempted to ask, where were you all before the war? Why didn't we learn more