Oct 11, 2016
THE NEWS
Yahoo secretly scanned emails at
the behest of the U.S. government, reports Joseph Menn at Reuters. Last year,
Yahoo apparently built a secret program designed to scan all emails
coming into Yahoo’s servers for keywords determined by the NSA or
FBI. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer reportedly agreed to develop the
software over objections by other Yahoo Senior
Executives.
This news comes during a
difficult month for Yahoo, and it all comes as Yahoo and Verizon
have been negotiating what started out as a $4.8 billion acquistion
of Yahoo by Verizon. But late last month, Yahoo announced
hackers accessed personal information in some 500 user accounts,
causing Verizon to ask for a $1 billion discount on the
purchase.
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David Sanger and Charlie Savage at
the New York Times reported that the Obama administration --
namely, National Intelligence Director James Clapper -- has
formally accused Russia of hacking into the servers of the
Democratic National Committee and servers belonging to other
influentials in order to influence the U.S. presidential
elections. Clapper’s
statement noted that only Russia’s QUOTE “senior most officials
could have authorized these activities. Clinton campaign Chairman
John Podesta was hacked soon after the statement was released. It
is not clear how the Obama administration will respond.
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A federal contractor by the name
of Harold Thomas Martin, III who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton was
arrested in August at his home in Glen Burnie, MD for stealing
highly classified data and information -- according to information
provided by U.S. officials just last week. Booz Allen is also
Edward Snowden’s former employer.
Officials are trying to figure out
whether Martin played a role in posting online a cache of top
secret NSA hacking tools. Ellen Nakashima has the full story for
the Washington Post.
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Senate Commerce Committee Chair
Republican
John Thune joined a chorus of cable
industry lobbyists and several civil rights groups last week by
going after FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, asking him to release the
latest version of the set top box rules. The FCC delayed a vote on the new set-top box
rules which would open up the set-top box market to more
competition, giving consumers a choice between the set-top box they
lease from their carrier, and a set-top box they can use to access
the content they have already paid their provider for as well as
content from so-called over-the-top providers such as YouTube and
Netflix.
Chairman Wheeler has kept the
current rule under wraps and cable industry advocates are
challenging him to release a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
on the set-top box rules -- rules they are expected to oppose
anyway. So it’s basically like like “come on punk! Come on
punk! I dare you to release the rules! I dare you!”
Schoolyard bully
stuff.
Ali Breland has the story at the
Hill.
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FCC
Chairman Tom Wheeler also announced last week that the Commission
will vote on new Internet Service Provider privacy rules at its
next open meeting on October 27th. In a blog post, the Chairman
wrote QUOTE “Under the
proposed rules, an ISP would be required to notify consumers about
what types of information they are collecting, specify how and for
what purposes that information can be used and shared, and identify
the types of entities with which the ISP shares the
information.
In addition,
ISPs would be required to obtain
affirmative ‘opt-in’ consent before using or sharing sensitive
information. Information
that would be considered ‘sensitive’ includes geo-location
information, children’s information, health information, financial
information, social security numbers, web browsing history, app
usage history, and the content of communications such as the text
of emails. All other individually identifiable information would be
considered non-sensitive, and the use and sharing of that
information would be subject to opt-out consent.” END
QUOTE
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Today, for the first time in 120
years,
the Supreme Court will hear oral
arguments in a design patent case -- this one between Samsung and
Apple. The lower court
awarded Apple some $584 million back in December. Samsung wants to
claw back about $400 million of that, saying it's excessive because
it's based on Samsung's total profits, rather than the profits
attributable to the 3 patents the court found Samsung to have
violated (the rounded corners on the face of the smartphone, the
metal rim around the phone, and the display grid).