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NBP: Broadband for everyone by 2020, but who foots the bill?
“Everyone in the United States today should have access to broadband services supporting a basic set of applications that include sending and receiving e-mail, downloading Web pages, photos and video, and using simple video conferencing,” opens the chapter of the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan titled “Availability.” What would that mean in terms of performance? “An initial universalization target of 4Mbps of actual download speed and 1Mbps of actual upload speed, with an acceptable quality of service for interactive applications, would ensure universal access,” the NBP says. The document calls this the “National Broadband Availability Target.” Read the comments on this post
Continue reading »Obama Supports DNA Sampling Upon Arrest
Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties Knight In Shining Armor many were expecting. Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted . The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction.
Continue reading »Sweden Probing Cisco, NASA Hacks
Swedish investigators are probing a hacker U.S. authorities accuse of unlawfully intruding into Cisco Systems, NASA’s Ames Research Center and NASA’s Advanced Supercomputing Division, the authorities said Monday. Philip Gabriel Pettersson, known in the hacking world as “ Stakkato ,” allegedly seized computer code that controls internet traffic.
Continue reading »RIAA Rejects Reduced File-Sharing Judgment
After having offered to settle the case with Jammie Thomas for as little as $25,000, down from the $1.92 million original verdict, and from the most recent $54,000 judgment reduction on appeal. Last Friday the case of accused file-sharer Jammie Thomas grew more complex after Judge Davis of the United States District Court lowered the original $1.92 million verdict against Jammie Thomas, the first person convicted of illegal file-sharing in the US, from $80,000 per song to $2,250 per song, saying “statutory damages must still bear some relation to actual damages.” If you recall, back in June 2009, the jury awarded the recording industry $1.92 million in statutory damages as a punishment for using the KaZaA file-sharing program to download 24 songs which amounted to $80,000 per song. “The need for deterrence cannot justify a $2 million verdict for stealing and illegally distributing 24 songs for the sole purpose of obtaining free music,” reads the ruling .
Continue reading »Net Neutrality: Now cures all wickedness – and Loompa scurvy, too
The lynch mob and the FCC Delicious news from the United States, where ‘Net Neutrality’ is again being recast for a new political purpose.…
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