Oh boy, I’m tired tonight. It would be so tempting to give Tech at Night a pass tonight but I have clothes in the dryer anyway, so let’s go.
Let’s talk about Net Neutrality. In fact, let’s talk about who’s funding the voices supporting Net Neutrality. Bob Parks of Black and Right and posting right here at RedState did some digging and found that CREDO Mobile is funding some Net Neutrality advocates. And the Net Neuties claim they have no Evil Corporate Interests™ behind them. Never let them forget that the FCC acting on this issue is the FCC choosing to favor one set of corporations over another. And the losers are those that invest in the Internet… and we all know what happens when we punish investment in the internet: we get less of it in the future.
That’s why we’ve got to minimize the damage done by the FCC this month. We need a light, light, light touch if we have to have regulation at all.
Continue reading »
Good evening (it’s still Monday night for those of us in the west at least). Let’s start off tonight by remembering when Barack Obama and the democrats complained about so-called domestic spying under the Bush administration? Well, a team of organizations went after the FBI for watching possibly terrorist Islamic organizations. The FBI responded by saying they don’t need to already believe an organization is breaking the law in order to begin preliminary spying on that organization.
Now I’ll be blunt: I think this IPS news service is bunk. But it makes me laugh to remember that using modern technology to gather information about terrorists was supposedly a horrible thing when George Bush did it, but now that Barack Obama is using actual live, in-person spies you have to go to radical fringe groups to find out it’s even happening and see the progressive outrage.
Wouldn’t it be easier, safer, and more respectful of our rights just to tap the phones of foreign terrorists, than to send people into houses of worship on false pretenses?
Continue reading »
So, while Google may have seen the light on Net Neutrality (which is actually, amusingly enough, making the far left sound like me), they still have other issues going on. The WiSpy Street View spying issue is still ongoing, with South Korea raiding their offices and Germany pressuring the firm to be more transparent and responsive to privacy complaints about the program.
Because as I said earlier today, asking Eric Schmidt about privacy is like asking Phillip Morris about smoking. The conflict of interest is inherent. Everyone who hides his identity from Google Analytics, Google Adsense, and every other Google program is costing the firm money.
Continue reading »
Good evening. It’s going to be short tonight, because I don’t actually have anything new to say about G—– or F— P—- tonight, as against freedom as they both are.
But I will say this about Net Neutrality: competition from new technology is the way out of any problems we have with the ISP monopolies and duopolies that state and local regulators cram down our throats. It’s not theoretical, either: Sprint is deploying 4G WiMAX service over more and more of the country.
Technology, not Net Neutrality regulation, is what we need.
Continue reading »
A key story from today centers on John Dingell and his criticism of Chairman Julius Genachowski and the Obama FCC. Hillicon Valley reports that Dingell is criticizing the Commission harshly for failing to justify its Title II Reclassification plans to Deem and Pass Net Neutrality regulation of the Internet, and is telling them to stop and let the Congress do its job. Seriously, this is strong language from Democrat to Democrat:
“Unfortunately, the paucity of substantive responses to my [questions] has served only to substantiate my fear that the commission’s proposed path with respect to the regulation of broadband is based on unsound reasoning and an incomplete record, and is thus fraught with legal risk,” Dingell said.
He said the commission should instead look to Congress to grant it more power.
“In this way, the Congress and the commission may ensure the establishment of a steadfast legal foundation for an open Internet,” Dingell wrote.”
The fact is that the Free Press/Google “third way” to Net Neutrality is an illegal power grab online. Support for it is the radical extremist position.
Continue reading »
Good evening. Sure, it’s technically morning, but when I went to post tonight I realized I had nothing queued up to write about, so I had to make a crash run through my news feeds before I could get started.
But get started we shall tonight with Apple and the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress is apparently entrusted with setting rules for what forms of reverse engineering are allowed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a landmark bill which included (over)broad restrictions on software. In short, the DMCA pretty much bans reverse engineering or circumvention of software or hardware that enforces copyright. Exceptions are given though, and the Library of Congress has announced some more exceptions.
One of them is a doozy: Both major forms of Apple iPhone “jailbreaking” are now expressly legal in this country. It is allowed to circumvent Apple’s restrictions to install legitimate software otherwise inaccessible through the App Store. It is also allowed to buy a used iPhone and circumvent the AT&T carrier restriction in it.
In practice this might not mean much, as jailbreaking activity was already strong due to clear legality in other countries from the start. That fact forced Apple to fight jailbreaking technologically, rather than legally. But now the full might of American engineering may be brought to bear on iPhone jailbreaking, and Apple might have a tougher time going forward.
Continue reading »