Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011

Insulin Pumps, Monitors Vulnerable to Hacking

Even the human bloodstream isn't safe

from computer hackers.

By Jordan Robertson, AP Technology Writer

A security researcher who is diabetic has identified flaws that could allow an attacker to remotely control insulin pumps and alter the readouts of blood-sugar monitors. As a result, diabetics could get too much or too little insulin, a hormone they need for proper metabolism.

Jay Radcliffe, a diabetic who experimented on his own equipment, shared his findings with The Associated Press before releasing them Thursday at the Black Hat computer security conference in Las Vegas.

"My initial reaction was that this was really cool from a technical perspective," Radcliffe said. "The second reaction was one of maybe sheer terror, to know that there's no security around the devices which are a very active part of keeping me alive."

Increasingly, medical devices such as pacemakers, operating room monitors and surgical instruments including deep-brain stimulators are being made with the ability to transmit vital health information from a patient's body to doctors and other professionals. Some devices can be remotely controlled by medical professionals.

Although there's no evidence that anyone has used Radcliffe's techniques, his findings raise fears about the safety of medical devices as they're brought into the Internet age. Serious attacks have already been demonstrated against pacemakers and defibrillators.

Medical device makers downplay the threat from such attacks. They argue that the demonstrated attacks have been performed by skilled security researchers and are unlikely to occur in the real world.

But hacking is like athletics. Showing that a far-fetched attack is possible is like cracking the 4-minute mile. Once someone does it, others often follow. Free or inexpensive programs eventually pop up online to help malicious hackers automate obscure attacks.

Though there has been a push to automate medical devices and include wireless chips, the devices are typically too small to house processors powerful enough to perform advanced encryption to scramble their communications.

More at http://bit.ly/rcyifu

Figure of the week

92% The results of a Pew survey conducted

in May found that 92 percent of online

adults use search engines to hunt for

information on the Web, and 59

percent do so on a typical day.

Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 2

Privacy and Security

On Its Own, Europe Backs Web Privacy Fights

By Suzanne Daley, The New York Times

All 90 people wanted information deleted from the Web.

Among them was a victim of domestic violence who discovered that her address could easily be found through Google. Another, well into middle age now, thought it was unfair that a few computer key strokes could unearth an account of her arrest in her college days.

They might not have received much of a hearing in the United States, where Google is based. But here, as elsewhere in Europe, an idea has taken hold —individuals should have a ―right to be forgotten‖ on the Web.

Spain‘s government is now championing this cause. It has ordered Google to stop indexing information about 90 citizens who filed formal complaints with its Data Protection Agency. The case is now in court and being watched closely across Europe for how it might affect the control citizens will have over information they posted, or which was posted about them, on the Web.

Whatever the ruling in the Spanish case, the European Union is also expected to weigh in with new ―right to be forgotten‖ regulations this fall. Viviane Reding, the European Union‘s justice commissioner, has offered few details of what she has in mind. But she has made clear she is determined to give privacy watchdogs greater power.

―I cannot accept that individuals have no say over their data once it has been launched into cyberspace,‖ she said last month. She said she had heard the argument that more control was impossible, and that Europeans should ―get over it.‖

But, Ms. Reding said, ―I don‘t agree.‖

On this issue, experts say, Europe and the United States have largely parted company. ―What you really have here is a trans-Atlantic clash,‖ said Franz Werro, who was born and raised in Switzerland and is now a law professor at Georgetown University. ―The two cultures really aren‘t going in the same direction when it comes to privacy rights. ―

For instance, in the United States, Mr. Werro said, courts have consistently found that the right to publish the truth about someone‘s past supersedes any right to privacy. Europeans, he said, see things differently: ―In Europe you don‘t have the right to say anything about anybody, even if it is true.‖

Mr. Werro says Europe sees the need to balance freedom of speech and the right to know against a person‘s right to privacy or dignity, concepts often enshrined in European laws. The European perspective was shaped by the way information was collected and used against individuals under dictators like Franco and Hitler and under Communism. Government agencies routinely compiled dossiers on citizens as a means of control.

More at http://nyti.ms/py59Et

The War on Web Anonymity

The Internet has always been a refuge of anonymity. Anyone could hide behind the cloak

of namelessness and express the most offensive views. Now politicians and companies—including

Google and Facebook—want to change that.

By Marcel Rosenbach and Hilmar Schmundt

The Avenue de l'Opéra in Paris is a respectable address, surrounded by banks, boutiques and cafés. The tenants listed on door plaques include a language school and an airline. But the name of the building's most famous tenant is not listed: Google. The global corporation values privacy -- its own privacy, at least.

"We take data protection seriously," says Peter Fleischer, Google's Global Privacy Counsel. "We don't know our users by name," he insists. "We just store anonymous identifiers, but no personal data." This is an important distinction for Fleischer, who says that Google's primary goal is to improve the accuracy of targeted advertising. According to Fleischer, the identities of the people behind the numbers are irrelevant. "We don't even want to know the names of users," he says.

These statements were made only three years ago, and yet they seem to be from a different era. In the past, the Internet was a sea of anonymity dotted with username islands, but now the relationship is being reversed. Anonymity is being declared the exception -- and a problem.

In June, Google launched a frontal attack on competitor Facebook and began testing its own social network: Google+. Suddenly Google is asking for precisely what Fleischer so vehemently declared was of no interest to the company in 2008 -- real names.

The company has repeatedly blocked the accounts of users who refuse to provide their real names instead of a pseudonym, because this is a violation of its "community standards." Those rules stipulate the following: "To help fight spam and prevent fake profiles, use the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you."

Today Google is no longer satisfied with pseudonyms, and it isn't alone. Politicians and law enforcement agencies have also declared war on anonymity, a fundamental characteristic of the Internet.

More at http://bit.ly/oyLFkR

Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 3

Information Sharing

Enter the Cyber-dragon

Hackers have attacked America’s defense

establishment, as well as companies

from Google to Morgan Stanley to security giant

RSA, and fingers point to China as the culprit.

By Michael Joseph Gross, Vanity Fair

Lying there in the junk-mail folder, in the spammy mess of mortgage offers and erectile-dysfunction drug ads, an e-mail from an associate with a subject line that looked legitimate caught the man‘s eye. The subject line said ―2011 Recruitment Plan.‖ It was late winter of 2011. The man clicked on the message, downloaded the attached Excel spreadsheet file, and unwittingly set in motion a chain of events allowing hackers to raid the computer networks of his employer, RSA. RSA is the security division of the high-tech company EMC. Its products protect computer networks at the White House, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, most top defense contractors, and a majority of Fortune 500 corporations.

The parent company disclosed the breach on March 17 in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The hack gravely undermined the reputation of RSA‘s popular SecurID security service. As spring gave way to summer, bloggers and computer-security experts found evidence that the attack on RSA had come from China. They also linked the RSA attack to the penetration of computer networks at some of RSA‘s most powerful defense-contractor clients—among them, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and L-3 Communications. Few details of these episodes have been made public.

The RSA and defense-contractor hacks are among the latest

battles in a decade-long spy war. Hackers from many countries

have been exfiltrating—that is, stealing—intellectual property

from American corporations and the U.S. government on a

massive scale, and Chinese hackers are among the main

culprits. Because virtual attacks can be routed through

computer servers anywhere in the world, it is almost

impossible to attribute any hack with total certainty. Dozens of

nations have highly developed industrial cyber-espionage

programs, including American allies such as France and Israel.

And because the People‘s Republic of China is such a massive

entity, it is impossible to know how much Chinese hacking is

done on explicit orders from the government. In some cases,

the evidence suggests that government and military groups are

executing the attacks themselves.

In others, Chinese authorities are merely turning a blind eye to

illegal activities that are good for China‘s economy and bad for

America‘s. Last year Google became the first major company to

blow the whistle on Chinese hacking when it admitted to a

penetration known as Operation Aurora, which also hit Intel,

Morgan Stanley, and several dozen other corporations. (The

attack was given that name because the word ―aurora‖ appears

in the malware that victims downloaded.) Earlier this year,

details concerning the most sweeping intrusion since

Operation Aurora were discovered by the cyber-security firm

McAfee. Dubbed ―Operation Shady rat ,‖ the attacks (of which

more later) are being reported here for the first time.

Most companies have preferred not to talk about or even

acknowledge violations of their computer systems, for fear of

panicking shareholders and exposing themselves to lawsuits—

or for fear of offending the Chinese and jeopardizing their

share of that country‘s exploding markets. The U.S.

government, for its part, has been fecklessly circumspect in

calling out the Chinese.

A scattered alliance of government insiders and cyber-security

experts are working to bring attention to the threat, but

because of the topic‘s extreme sensitivity, much of their

consciousness-raising activity must be covert. The result in at

least one case, according to documents obtained by Vanity

Fair, has been a surreal new creation of American

bureaucracy: government-directed ―hacktivism,‖ in which an

intelligence agency secretly provides information to a group of

private-sector hackers so that truths too sensitive for the

government to tell will nevertheless come out.

More at http://bit.ly/oR6wLu

They steal secrets and identities—and are skilled at covering

their tracks. (Illustration by Brad Holland for Vanity Fair)

Page 4 Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011

Health IT

Physician Groups Comment on Medicare Plan

to Release Claims Data

By Joseph Goedert, Health Data Management

The American Medical Association and 81 other physician

organizations have submitted comments on a proposed rule

published on June 8 to make available standardized extracts of

Medicare claims data to measure the performance of providers

and suppliers.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' rule, covering

Medicare Parts A, B and D, is mandated under the Affordable

Care Act.

Qualified entities may receive the data for the sole purpose of

evaluating providers and suppliers and to generate specified

public reports, according to the proposed rule.

The entities must pay a fee equal to the cost of making the data

available, and must combine it with claims data from other

sources when conducting evaluations.

The medical associations support much of the proposed rule,

HHS Launches Disaster-App Challenge

By Joseph Conn, ModernHealthcare.com

What can you do in a natural disaster, such as an earthquake,

tornado or hurricane?

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and

Response at HHS will pay money to help make the social

network application Facebook a place where people can turn

for help, according to a notice officially published today in the

Federal Register.

The HHS agency is sponsoring the ―Lifeline Facebook App

Challenge‖ aimed at inducing ―multidisciplinary teams of

technology developers, entrepreneurs, and members of the

disaster preparedness, response and recovery communities‖ to

come up with disaster-relief applications for the platform.

HHS is asking that the new applications provide individuals

with "actionable steps … to increase their own personal

preparedness and strengthen connections within their social

networks for the sake of personal preparedness and

community resilience.‖

The HHS challenge also aims to ―provide useful tools for public

health promotion and protection.‖

The challenge has a few rules: One is that the new applications

that enable a user to invite three Facebook friends to become

―Lifelines,‖ acting as contacts and sources of support during

disasters.

Developers who enter also are encouraged "to creatively

leverage Facebook's existing networking and geo-locating

capabilities to enhance the apps' ability to increase personal

preparedness, locate potential disaster victims, and streamline

information sharing among social networks during disasters,‖

the rules state.

Submissions will be accepted beginning Aug. 15 through one

minute before midnight on Sept. 15.

Prizes are $10,000 for first place, $5,000 for second place and

$1,000 for third place. Each entrant will retain all intellectual

property rights to their applications.

More at http://bit.ly/oRcddv

but ask for numerous clarifications.

For instance, "It is critical that CMS provide standardized

specifications for the measures that may be used with

Medicare and non-Medicare, private health plan data,"

according to the comment letter.

"This is to ensure that consistent measures and analytics are

used in developing public reports that are valid, reliable and

actionable."

The organizations also urge CMS to consult with key industry

stakeholders, including the physician community, to develop

standardized and user-friendly formats for public reports on

the performance measures.

The associations also call on CMS to ensure physicians can

review their data for accuracy and appeal any errors before the

information is made public.

More at http://bit.ly/pVf486

Page 5 Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011

Health IT - (cont.)

Plug in the Patient: A Planetary

Monitoring Network

By Katie Fehrenbacher, GigaOm.com

Thank the humble, cheap sensor, the standard wireless radio

and basic data bases for the future of planetary assistance. A

massive sensor and data network called the National

Ecological Observatory Network, or NEON, could go under

construction as soon as this summer and will pull data from

the air, water and soil across the U.S. and act as the first

comprehensive and free data depository for scientists,

researchers and educators.

While NEON has been under development for years (having

already spent $80 million and with 140 staff members), the

nonprofit group behind the network was recently allocated

$434 million from the National Science Foundation to begin

construction of the network, reports Nature (via Scientific

American).

The funding has acted like a gun at the starting line of the

project, and NEON is expected to start streaming data by next

year and be up and running within five years.

The U.S.-wide network will have 100 tracking towers, 30

aquatic sites, 3 air-born platforms and will use mobile and

fixed data collection technology, ground and air sensors, and

finally smart staff to observe environmental conditions.

All of that data will be drawn into a depository and made

available online for free to researchers. What a goldmine of big

data!

Think of it as a brand new planetary monitoring system,

similar to the vital health checks a patient gets in the ICU. If

you look at all the reports of extreme weather and record

temperatures this year, it‘s a little bit like the world is running

a slight fever.

Scientists can then leverage all of the data from NEON to

conduct tests, answer questions and propose solutions around

climate change and other ecological problems.

The NEON project is placing a large emphasis on enabling all

of its data to be used in standard formats so that scientists can

compare the necessary data sets to data outside of the network.

Data for all

Climate scientists have long turned to the data crunched via

super computers to do important climate change modelling,

and the NEON project is a little like bringing a part of that

computing power into the hands of distributed and less well-

funded researchers.

But it‘s only with the real time sensor monitoring and always-

on networks that scientists can get a more clear picture of

what‘s happening with the planet.

Other groups are working on similar, though less ambitious,

networks that will likely be able to contribute to NEON.

Earth Networks, the weather sensor company behind the

WeatherBug app, announced in January of this year that it

planned to build what it says will be the world‘s largest global

sensor network to track green house gas emissions.

Earth Networks will be focusing on monitoring green house

gas emissions, and will initially be working with Picarro, a

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based startup that sells $50,000 greenhouse

gas-detecting sensor boxes.

While the National Science Foundation is funding NEON,

other areas of the government are working on opening up big

data sets that have already been collected.

For example the Environmental Protection Agency has dozens

of data sets that it is encouraging developers to use to create

new apps.

More at http://bit.ly/oDZjat

Page 6 Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011

New Reports and Papers

Restrictions on the Use of Prescribing Data for

Drug Promotion

By Michelle M. Mello, J.D., Ph.D., Harvard School of Public Health and Noah A. Messing, J.D. , Yale Law School

Pharmaceutical manufacturers spend billions of dollars each

year sending sales representatives, known as detailers, into

physicians‘ offices. To promote their drugs, detailers show up

at medical offices bearing product information and valuable

drug samples. They also wield a third critical tool: reports

about the doctor‘s prescribing history.

Pharmaceutical companies buy these reports from prescription

drug intermediary (PDI) companies that obtain prescription

records from pharmacies across the country and link them to

physician information that they purchase from the American

Medical Association (AMA) (Figure 1).

Sales representatives can use the information to identify

physicians who are high or low prescribers and early or late

adopters, to decide which points to emphasize in their

The Future of Spectrum

By Jeffrey Rosen, The Brookings Institution

Executive Summary

In recent years, growth in demand for wireless services has

sparked a boom in the mobile phone and wireless data sector.

During the past four years, the number of mobile phone

subscribers tripled, and the number of jobs in the

telecommunications field has nearly quintupled.

New, better, and faster mobile devices, such as tablets and

smartphones, have created multi-billion dollar industries of

their own, such as Google Android and the Apple iOS ―app

stores.‖ And those technologies have contributed to the

dawning of an always-on, always-connected culture.

But this growing demand for mobile Internet access requires a

growing amount of wireless radio spectrum, portending

serious problems for the future.

At the moment, the United States has designated 547 MHz of

spectrum to wireless broadband services, but the Federal

Communications Commission (FCC) predicts a need for 637

MHz of spectrum by 2013, and 822 MHz of spectrum by 2014.

Without more spectrum allocated to wireless Internet

connectivity, America risks short-circuiting the mobile

broadband revolution.

The National Broadband Plan proposes a solution. It sets forth

a detailed plan to make 300 MHz of spectrum available for

wireless broadband use within the next five years, and another

200 MHz in the five years after that.

It seeks to achieve this freeing of spectrum by auctioning

unused spectrum, lifting burdensome regulations to enable

wireless broadband service in certain spectrum ranges, and

reallocating spectrum from other services – notably broadcast

television – to enable such spectrum to be used for wireless

broadband.

Though many of these provisions are controversial, the FCC

has already done serious work to achieve these goals. If the

FCC can achieve its goals to enable the growth of wireless

broadband, America will be able to unlock the full potential of

the wireless broadband revolution and realize the potential of a

new wave of American innovation.

More at http://bit.ly/pUvz8k

presentations, and to assess how effective their visits have

been in modifying prescribing behavior. This practice, known

as data mining, enhances the effectiveness of sales calls.

Although government agencies, researchers, and health

insurers use prescribing databases, pharmaceutical

manufacturers are the primary consumer.

Critics object that detailing — particularly detailing with

prescribing information — raises health care costs by boosting

the prescription of branded drugs and their addition to

hospital formularies, jeopardizes patient safety by promoting

new drugs for which safety and effectiveness data are limited,

and impinges on the privacy of both patients and physicians.

Physicians tend to have mixed feelings about detailing. They

recognize that sales presentations can be biased and generally

disapprove of the use of their prescribing data, but many still

find the presentations and free samples valuable.

Concern about detailing has prompted at least 25 states to

consider legislation to curtail it by restricting the transfer and

use of physician-identifiable prescribing data.13

More at http://bit.ly/oB6gka

Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 7

Reports and Papers - (cont.)

The Power of Open

By Creative Commons

The world has experienced an explosion of openness. From

individual artists opening their creations for input from others,

to governments requiring publicly funded works be available to

the public, both the spirit and practice of sharing is gaining

momentum and producing results. Creative Commons began

providing licenses for the open sharing of content only a

decade ago. Now more than 400 million CC-licensed works are

available on the Internet, from music and photos, to research

findings and entire college courses.

Creative Commons created the legal and technical

infrastructure that allows effective sharing of knowledge, art

and data by individuals, organizations and governments. More

importantly, millions of creators took advantage of that

infrastructure to share work that enriches the global commons

for all humanity.

The Power of Open collects the stories of those creators. Some

are like ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative news

organization that uses CC while partnering with the world‘s

largest media companies. Others like nomadic filmmaker

Vincent Moon use CC licensing as an essential element of a

lifestyle of openness in pursuit of creativity. The breadth of

uses is as great as the

creativity of the

in div iduals a n d

o r g a n i z a t i o n s

choosing to open

their content, art and

ideas to the rest of

the world.

As we look ahead, the

field of openness is

approaching a critical

mass of adoption that

could result in

sharing becoming a

default standard for

the many works that

were previously made

available only under

the all-rights-reserved framework. Even more exciting is the

potential increase in global welfare from the use of Creative

Commons‘ tools and the increasing relevance of openness to

the discourse of culture, education and innovation policy.

More at http://thepowerofopen.org/

Survey Reveals Docs' Perceptions of EHRs as

Potential Buyers, Users

By Molly Merrill, Healthcare IT News

Meaningful use remains the strongest driver to implement

electronic health records for physicians, according to a new

survey that finds both potential EHR buyers and current users

valuing the technology, but with substantially different

perceptions and expectations.

Sage Healthcare Division, a developer of electronic health

records for medical practices across North America, worked

with Forester to conduct a survey among physicians

nationwide in an effort to examine perceptions and determine

attitudes toward these systems.

The sample included both physicians using EHR and those in

the market for the technology.

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of

potential cost savings, benefits of these systems to small and

mid-sized practices and to find any intangibles of using EHRs,

such as physicians providing care from multiple locations or

helping physicians have more time away from the office

because of increased mobility and connectivity.

―Implementation of EHRs in the U.S. continue to grow as an

increased number of physicians and staff gain a better

understanding of the efficiency and cost-saving benefits of

using the technology,‖ said Betty Otter-Nickerson, president of

the Sage Healthcare Division.

―However, a significant number of office-based practices have

yet to implement an EHR solution. Sage‘s survey was

conducted to examine current perceptions and predominant

trends that will help us design the best solutions to maximize

the benefits of EHR.‖

The survey findings indicated that meaningful use incentives

are still one of the strongest drivers for most physicians (64

percent) to implement EHR technology, but for 32 percent of

those who are in the market for EHRs, insufficient capital is

still a key challenge to the switch.

More at http://bit.ly/nzXC2O

Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 8

Reports and Papers - (cont.)

How Trustworthiness Seals Can Highlight

Information and Influence Decisions

By Rick Hayes-Roth, Naval Postgraduate School

Abstract

People making decisions require information about their

options. Across a wide range of tasks, they receive information

from diverse sources, such as the Web, print, radio and

television.

As the Internet Age progresses, each decision maker must

increasingly assess the credibility of the author, the credibility

of the evidence the author cites, and the credibility of the

publisher in order to gauge the credibility of the information.

We wanted to determine whether publishers and authors could

affix ―trustworthiness seals‖ to stated claims to increase their

persuasiveness.

We created pairs of descriptions for comparable options that

employed no seals, some weak generic seals, and some strong

seals guaranteeing veracity.

Experimental subjects rated their preferences for each option

promoted with an advertisement bearing some of these seals

and also made forced choices between pairs of comparable

options.

The results show that all seals have a significant effect on

perceived attractiveness of options and that the strong seals

produce the greatest increase.

This study suggests that authors, advertisers and publishers

can significantly boost their effectiveness through an

independent validation and by guaranteeing the truthfulness

of their claims.

This potential can pave the way for market mechanisms that

reward truth-telling and improved tools for filtering

information based on information credibility.

Introduction

People making decisions require information about their

options. Across a wide range of tasks, they receive information

from diverse sources, such as the Web, print, radio and

television.

As the Internet Age progresses, each decision maker must

increasingly assess the credibility of the author, the credibility

of the evidence the author cites, and the credibility of the

publisher in order to gauge the credibility of the information.

We wanted to determine whether publishers and authors could

affix ―trustworthiness seals‖ to stated claims to increase their

persuasiveness.

We created pairs of descriptions for comparable options that

employed no seals, some weak generic seals, and some strong

seals guaranteeing veracity.

More at http://bit.ly/pxHodi

Is Informed Consent Broken?

By Gail E. Henderson, PhD, University of North Carolina

Abstract

For as long as the federal regulations governing human

subjects research have existed, the practice of informed

consent has been attacked as culturally biased, legalistic,

ritualistic and unevenly enforced.

Its focus on meeting the regulatory requirements is seen as

undermining a truly ethical process that produces informed

and voluntary participation in medical research.

Recent changes in the clinical translational research

enterprise, with large scale genomic and other data sharing

made possible by advanced bioinformatic technologies, may

further challenge this goal.

Study participants are asked to consent to future studies with

unspecified aims, broad data sharing policies and ongoing

uncertainties regarding confidentiality protections and the

potential benefit of incidental genomic research findings.

Because more research is conducted under these new

conditions, the very nature of the researcher-subject

relationship is shifting and will require new governance

mechanisms to promote the original goals of informed

consent.

More at http://bit.ly/pXjPUE

Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 9

Reports and Papers - (cont.)

Organization of Economic Cooperation and

Development (OECD) Communications

Outlook 2011

By OECD Publishing

Executive Summary

The eleventh biennial OECD Communications Outlook

examines recent developments in the communications sector,

which has emerged from the global financial crisis (GFC) with

a resilience and underlying strength reflecting its critical role

in today‘s economies.

This latest edition covers developments such as the emergence

of next generation access (NGA) networks and the imminent

exhaustion of unallocated IPv4 addresses, and aims to provide

an overview of efforts on the part of countries to promote

competition and foster innovation in communication markets

through regulation.

It also examines the issues surrounding broadcasting markets,

Internet infrastructure, communications expenditure and use

by households and businesses, and trends in trade in

telecommunications services.

Main Trends

The communication services industry has fared relatively well

during the global financial crisis. In part, as has been discussed

in previous editions, the industry‘s experience in, and

emergence from, the "dotcom bubble" has placed it in a much

stronger position to meet recent challenges. Certainly, parts of

the industry have characteristics – similar to other utilities –

that make it more resistant to financial downturns.

That being said, the industry‘s resilience must also be

attributable, at least in part, to its need to deal with extremely

rapid commercial and technological changes.

Recent Communication Policy Developments

Next generation access networks (NGA) are in a critical phase

of development. Present policy decisions are likely to have an

impact over the next decades in terms of market structure,

service provision, investment and innovation. Furthermore,

the rise of smartphones and other devices is driving the boost

in mobile broadband traffic and usage.

More at http://bit.ly/qeOJtg

Constitutionalizing Information Privacy by

Assumption

By Mary D. Fan, University of Washington

Abstract

For more than three decades, the hypothetical constitutional

right of information privacy has governed by assumption in the

lower courts.

The Supreme Court assumed the right into being in two cases

decided in 1977, Whalen v. Roe and Nixon v. Administrator of

General Services, and persisted in assuming the right exists

without deciding recently in NASA v. Nelson.

In the fertile murk of indecision, a hodgepodge of standards

from interest balancing all the way up to strict scrutiny and a

quasi-constitutional law of intuitions have arisen in the lower

courts.

What constitutes a violation of this assumed right? The law

struggles for a standard to define a violation, but we know it

intuition regarding the proper balance of state and citizen

power and unease over incursions in times of social change.

The article is also about how to translate the powerful moral

intuition that the Constitution should have something to say

(even if its text does not quite say it) when the government

does something creepy or outrageous with our intimate infor-

mation into respectable law that helps sort out the manifold

meritless claims predicated on privacy as knee-jerk reaction

rather than right and allows policy innovation in the laborato-

ries of states and political branches.

The article argues that privacy is a transitional lens that opens

up our vision of the liberty and freedoms safeguarded in the

Constitution. We need not invent or recognize a new atextual

right of information privacy.

Rather the concept of information privacy is a lens that bring

into focus a richer vision of the meanings of textually inscribed

constitutional freedoms and what it means to vindicate them.

More at http://bit.ly/mUMNLP

Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 10

Internet Governance

Chinese Paper Says Hacking Claim

'Irresponsible'

Cyberattacks targeting more than 70 government

entities, nonprofit groups and corporations

By Gillian Wong, Associated Press

A Chinese state newspaper on Friday rejected suggestions

Beijing might be behind global cyberattacks over the past five

years targeting more than 70 government entities, nonprofit

groups and corporations.

The ruling Communist Party flagship People‘s Daily said it was

―irresponsible‘‘ to link China with Internet hacking attacks

reported by computer security firm McAfee Inc. on

Wednesday.

McAfee‘s report said the attacks have targeted a broad range of

organizations, including the United Nations, the International

Olympic Committee and companies mostly in the United

States.

Some experts quoted in news reports said the targets of the

attacks suggested that China was a prime suspect.

McAfee did not say who may be behind the attacks but said the

culprit is likely a nation state, a claim the Chinese newspaper

criticized.

―McAfee‘s new report alleges that ‗a government‘ carried out a

large-scale Internet espionage hacking action but its analysis of

the justification is obviously groundless,‘‘ the People‘s Daily

said.

China has not officially commented on the report but has

denied all charges of hacking in the past and says the country

itself is a victim of hacking.

The newspaper said China is often accused of being the

perpetrator of cyberattacks.

―Linking China with Internet hackers is irresponsible,‘‘ it said.

―In fact, as hacking attacks against internationally renowned

companies or international organizations have increased this

year, some Western media have repeatedly described China as

‗the black hand behind the scenes.‘‘‘

More at http://bo.st/os1SdV

Twitter’s Role in London Riots Being Reviewed,

U.K. Police Say

By Lindsay Fortado, Bloomberg Business Week

London police will review the role messages sent via Twitter

Inc.‘s messaging service and other social-networking sites

played in two nights of rioting that led to more than 215 arrests

and injured at least 35 police officers.

―The police are ahead of the curve in information technology

and would have experience of the use of social- networking

sites by troublemakers,‖ said Steve O‘Connell, a member of the

Metropolitan Police Authority, which monitors London‘s

Metropolitan Police Service.

―The bad guys were using these sites to target areas quickly.

Small bands of ne‘er-do- wells were descending on high-

quality stores to loot.‖

The disturbances began Aug. 6 in the north London suburb of

Tottenham, after a local man, Mark Duggan, was killed in an

exchange of gunfire with police.

Last night, police battled rioters and looters in several areas of

the capital. Officers also dispersed youths at Oxford Circus in

London‘s main West End shopping district and today were

trying to suppress incidents in the east London borough of

Hackney.

Social media have been used to coordinate demonstrations

against Middle Eastern regimes, campaign for Saudi women‘s

right to drive and for lower prices for cottage cheese in Israel.

In the U.K., the use by troublemakers of Twitter -- and mobile

phones -- may help authorities identify them and restore peace

to London, O‘Connell said by telephone.

―My expectation is that the police, like all of us, can access

Twitter,‖ he said. ―I would expect the Met to use every

technology available to get it sorted out, make the arrests, and

bring peace back to our neighborhoods.‖

U.K. Home Secretary Theresa May broke off her vacation to

return to the U.K. and meet today with the Met Police‘s Acting

Commissioner Tim Godwin and other police chiefs, Prime

Minister David Cameron‘s spokesman, Steve Field, told

reporters in London.

More at http://buswk.co/oMDQlB

Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 11

Internet Governance - (cont.)

London Rioters' Unrequited Love For

BlackBerry

Rioters in North London have been using BBMs to

rally, presuming RIM's phone-to-phone, encrypted

messages won't land in the hands of authorities.

But in an increasingly familiar move, RIM has

now pledged to work with those authorities.

By Nidhi Subbaraman, Fast Company

Rioters in London have selected BlackBerry Messages as their

favorite way to communicate during flare-ups this weekend.

Too bad BlackBerry doesn't feel the same way about the

protestors.

The riots were reportedly initiated by the police shooting to

death a man in Tottenham, North London, but have become

more about overall anger at the current government.

BlackBerry Messages (BBMs) were as innocuous as "unite and

hit the streets" and as incendiary as those promising "pure

terror and havoc & free stuff."

Research In Motion (RIM), the Canada-based makers of the

smart device, are quickly making their stance clear.

@UK_BlackBerry tweeted: "We feel for those impacted by the

riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist

in any way we can."

This assistance could come in the form of cooperation with the

British police force, who have already hinted that Twitter users

who played a role in escalating riots could face arrest.

Compared to tweets, Blackberry Messages‚ "BBMs," are harder

to trace. The data sent through the devices is encrypted and

stored in RIM's locked-down data centers, which they'll open,

the Telegraph suggests, if the U.K. government asks nicely.

RIM is working with authorities in other words, but it declined

initially to answer questions about specifics. A RIM

spokesperson did offer Fast Company the following statement:

"As in all markets around the world where BlackBerry is

available, we cooperate with local telecommunications

operators, law enforcement, and regulatory officials. Similar to

other technology providers in the UK, we comply with The

Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and co-operate fully

with the Home Office and UK police forces."

More at http://bit.ly/rmqCEF

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and

Numbers (ICANN) Responds to Association of

National Advertisers (ANA) Criticism

By Hayley Tsukayama, The Washington Post

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

answered criticism from the Association of National

Advertisers, saying that its new top-level domain program

adequately protects trademarks and prevents fraud. The ANA

sent a letter to ICANN on Aug. 4, saying that the program was

harmful to intellectual property holders because the wide

range of new TLDs would force them to buy their brands and

invest in several domain names. The association also raised

questions about whether ICANN followed its own procedures

before approving the program in June. In the reply letter,

ICANN President and CEO Rod Beckstrom said that the ANA‘s

assertions ―are either incorrect or problematic in several

respects.‖

Beckstrom included documentation of collaboration ICANN

had with stakeholders regarding the new program, including

responses it has issued to the ANA in the past.

Addressing worries that the new program will hurt trademark

holders, Beckstrom said those concerns are unfounded. In

reply to the ANA‘s assertion that companies will have to apply

for their own gTLDs (think .apple or .washpost) before other

people buy them out from under their noses. Beckstrom said

that the program is designed to encourage no such thing.

―Operating a gTLD means assuming a number of significant

responsibilities; this is clearly not for everyone,‖ he wrote,

adding that there are trademark protections in place to make

sure that rightsholders have the first opportunity to secure the

domain names they want and that there is both a suspension

and dispute mechanism in place in cases of infringement.

ICANN will also require a more detailed ―Whois‖ location and

demographic profile of anyone registering for a new generic

top-level domain, to make sure that it‘s ―easier to locate

wrongdoers than in the current environment.‖

More at http://wapo.st/oVtqiM

Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 12

Points of View

Data Breach Bills Exclude Health Information

By Harley Geiger, Center for Democracy & Technology

One of the negative side-effects of the sectoral approach the

United States has taken to privacy regulation is confusion over

whether certain types of personal information are protected

under existing rules. Specifically, many people – and, it

appears, legislators – seem to assume that all health

information is protected under HIPAA. This is incorrect,

however, and the assumption that health information is

already fully protected in commercial contexts may be leading

to its exclusion in proposed data breach bills currently

circulating in Congress. Not only do the bills fail to protect

health data, but the preemption clauses in some of the bills

would prevent state legislatures from enacting their own health

privacy safeguards. As a result, if any of the data breach bills

introduced in this Congress pass as currently written, a

commercial entity that loses, say, your full name and a list of

your medications would not be obligated to notify you.

HIPAA Provides Limited Coverage

The HIPAA Privacy Rule is the nation‘s foremost health

privacy regulation. The Privacy Rule only applies to certain

organizations, collectively referred to as ―covered entities‖ – 1)

health plans, 2) health care clearinghouses, and 3) health care

providers. The Privacy Rule requires covered entities to notify

individual patients when they suffer a data breach of

identifiable health information. (See our previous blog post for

more on HIPAA breach notification requirements.)

HIPAA‘s limited reach means that the Privacy Rule does not

apply to health information held by a company or organization

that is not a covered entity. This was less of a problem even five

years ago, when fewer non-covered companies and

organizations held such information.

But with the explosive growth of health IT systems and the

rapid digitization of health information, urged along by

government incentive programs, health information is

increasingly finding its way into commercial products and

services. Examples include mobile health apps and social

networking sites devoted to medical conditions. Personal

health record products offered by HIPAA covered entities are

subject to HIPAA data breach rules, while the Federal Trade

Commission (FTC) has issued data breach rules for personal

health records not covered by HIPAA.

More at http://bit.ly/nal3GF

Beijing's Crash Course in News Censorship

China's inability to control new media has emboldened

the traditional press.

By L. Gordon Crovitz, The Wall Street Journal

There's a long list of industries made more difficult by digital

technology. But spare a moment of commiseration for the tens

of thousands of people with the job that may be the most

challenged by the Internet: censors in China. Censorship was

easier in the analog days.

In the 1500s, the Catholic Church had its Index Expurgatorius

of prohibited books. Britain's Star Chamber limited the

number of printers so as to stop "dyvers contentious and

disorderlye persons professinge the arte or mystere of

pryntings or selling of books." More recently, information

ministries could outlaw typewriters, as in communist

Romania, or edit political enemies out of photos, as under

Stalin in the Soviet Union.

Today, individuals around the world have the ability to publish

in the palm of their hands, through their smartphones. In

China, some 500 million people are online, many of them

using Twitter-like microblogging services. Even with its "Blue

Army" of Web censors, Beijing can't fully control digital

communications. As a result, its hold on traditional media may

also be loosening.

Beijing's failure to cover up the fatal collision of one high-

speed train into another near the city of Wenzhou last month

exposes the growing gap between government diktats and facts

on the ground. As details emerge about how government

censorship failed, Beijing must now deal with a new

combination of individuals on the scene posting photos, videos

and commentary online, in the process giving courage to news

professionals to ignore government edicts.

The crash led to 40 deaths and almost 200 injuries. Passengers

posted photos and videos in real time. The Communist Party

newspaper, People's Daily, ran an editorial declaring that

China "needs development, but does not need blood-smeared

GDP."

More at http://on.wsj.com/oc2CaP

Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 13

Points of View - (cont.)

Our Web Freedom at the Mercy of Tech Giants

By Rebecca MacKinnon, New America Foundation

Wael Ghonim, Google executive by day, secret Facebook

activist by night, famously declared right after Egyptian

President Hosni Mubarak stepped down in February: "If you

want to liberate a society just give them the Internet."

Overthrowing a government is one thing. But building a

sustainable democracy is turning out to be more difficult, and

the Internet's role in that process is much less clear.

In March, Egyptian activists stormed state security offices

around the country. Some people found their own surveillance

files, still intact, full of transcripts of their mobile phone text

messages, e-mail exchanges and even Skype chats.

One activist even found a contract sent from a Western

company to the Egyptian state security bureau for the sale of

surveillance technology. Activists in Egypt assume that the

transitional government still has such technologies at its

disposal.

In Tunisia, censorship returned in May, not nearly as extensive

as before, but still the transitional government decided that

some Web pages could incite violence and therefore needed to

be blocked.

Slim Amamou, a digital activist and member of the transitional

government, resigned in protest over the renewed censorship.

But other Tunisians who supported the revolution disagreed

with him, arguing that speech involving slander, hatred and

violence still needs to be controlled.

The question is: Who decides? And how do you prevent the

deciders from abusing their power?

The fact of the matter is, the world's democracies do not have

clear answers for the people of Egypt and Tunisia: In managing

our digital networks, we are fighting our own battles over how

to balance genuine economic and security concerns on the one

hand with civil liberties and free speech on the other.

In the United States, even people with mixed feelings about

WikiLeaks and its mercurial leader Julian Assange are

troubled by the reactions of some members of the U.S.

government and some businesses.

In December, Amazon Web hosting dropped WikiLeaks as a

customer soon after receiving a phone call from U.S. Sen. Joe

Lieberman, despite the fact that WikiLeaks was neither

charged, let alone convicted, of breaking any U.S. law.

More at http://bit.ly/qz5Dr9

Cyber War Worrywarts

By Mark Thompson, TIME

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta whipped up the cyber-threat

Friday during his get-acquainted visit to Nebraska's Offutt Air

Force Base, home of the U.S. Strategic Command.

"We could face a cyber attack that could be the equivalent of

Pearl Harbor," he said. Such an attack, Panetta warned, could

"take down our power grid system, take down our financial

systems in this country, take down our government systems,

take down our banking systems.

They could virtually paralyze this country. We have to be

prepared to deal with that."

The whole debate over cyber war is getting really interesting.

The ratio of scaremongers to calm logic -- currently about a 2-

to-1 edge in favor of the Jules Verne crowd -- is reflected in a

trio of major stories on the topic recently.

This is from a recent Bloomberg BusinessWeek cover story:

This Code War era is no superpower stare-down; it's more like

Europe in 1938, when the Continent was in chaos and global

conflict seemed inevitable.

Here's the latest from Vanity Fair (which is where I always

turn for the latest in balanced, relevant reporting on national-

security matters):

Hackers from many countries have been exfiltrating—that is,

stealing—intellectual property from American corporations

and the U.S. government on a massive scale, and Chinese

hackers are among the main culprits.

So it was a little like being a thirsty man stumbling into an

oasis after weeks in the desert to drink the cool water provided

by Michael Hirsh in National Journal:

In truth, cyberskeptics abound…These skeptics say that much

of the alarm stems from a fear of the unknown rather than

from concrete evidence of life-and-death threats.

More at http://ti.me/qwwPeU

Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 14

Points of View - (cont.)

Tech Industry Remains Poster Child for

Success, Despite Economic Woes

By Josh Smith, National Journal

Innovation is often tough to define and even tougher to

produce, but amid all the fiscal doom and gloom, technology

companies still say they have the right stuff to get the U.S.

economy back on track.

Representatives from Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T,

Accenture, Siemens, and other companies joined President

Obama at an event on Friday to announce new efforts to help

military veterans find jobs.

―Today‘s announcement brings people, companies, and

agencies together to increase the impact we can have on

helping the job situation,‖ Curt Kolcun, Microsoft‘s vice

president for the U.S. public sector, said in a telephone

interview afterward. Microsoft pledged to provide 10,000

technology training and certification packages to veterans.

―All jobs require some kind of tech skills … and I think this is

an opportunity relative to tech jobs in the United States,‖

Kolcun said.

AT&T, for example, launched two new online programs

designed to help veterans transfer their military skills to jobs at

the wireless company.

Under political pressure to jumpstart the economy, Obama has

said that Americans live in a ―fundamentally different‖ world

than previous generations, and argued that investment in high

-tech programs is key to economic growth.

But despite all the rhetoric, funding for research, development,

and education is often included in the discretionary spending

cuts that lawmakers at all levels of government are looking at.

With the debt-limit debate over for the moment, the tech

industry is looking ahead to the so-called congressional super

committee tasked with reducing government spending.

―The committee has a unique opportunity to make

recommendations that could encourage private-sector

investment in innovation and stimulate job growth and

productivity today and far into the future,‖ TechAmerica

President Phil Bond said on Tuesday. He said lawmakers

should remember that the technology sector is ―one of the few

areas of the economy that is currently expanding and is leading

the way to fiscal recovery.‖

More at http://bit.ly/oDB0M4

There's No Such Thing as Big Data

Even if you have petabyes of data, you still need to

know how to ask the right questions to apply it.

By Alistair Croll, O’Reilly Radar

―You know,‖ said a good friend of mine last week, ―there‘s

really no such thing as big data.‖

I sighed a bit inside. In the past few years, cloud computing

critics have said similar things: that clouds are nothing new,

that they‘re just mainframes, that they‘re just painting old

technologies with a cloud brush to help sales. I‘m wary of this

sort of techno-Luddism. But this person is sharp, and not

usually prone to verbal linkbait, so I dug deeper.

He‘s a ridiculously heavy traveler, racking up hundreds of

thousands of miles in the air each year. He‘s the kind of flier

airlines dream of: loyal, well-heeled, and prone to last-minute,

business-class trips. He's is exactly the kind of person an

airline needs to court aggressively, one who represents a

disproportionally large amount of revenues. He‘s an outlier of

the best kind. He‘d been a top-ranked passenger with United

Airlines for nearly a decade, using their Mileage Plus program

for everything from hotels to car rentals.

And then his company was acquired.

The acquiring firm had a contractual relationship with

American Airlines, a competitor of United with a completely

separate loyalty program. My friend‘s air travel on United and

its partner airlines dropped to nearly nothing.

He continued to book hotels in Shanghai, rent cars in

Barcelona, and buy meals in Tahiti, and every one of those

transactions was tied to his loyalty program with United. So

the airline knew he was traveling -- just not with them.

Astonishingly, nobody ever called him to inquire about why

he'd stopped flying with them. As a result, he‘s far less loyal

than he was.

More at http://oreil.ly/qShQkK

Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 15

Points of View - (cont.)

This is the Internet, Do Not Power It Down

By Dominic Basulto, Electric Artists

This past weekend saw the confluence of three different events

— the 20th anniversary celebrations of both the World Wide

Web and Lollapalooza, and the unprecedented S&P downgrade

of the U.S. government‘s sovereign debt. These events

happened days after the shuttering of the U.S. space shuttle

program in July. It feels as if we‘re witnessing the end of an

era.

The young men and women coming of age in 1991 could never

have predicted the changes that would take place over the next

two decades, as the World Wide Web established itself as one

of the greatest information and communication tools ever

created. The college graduates of 2011 are coming of age when

the Internet is nearly ubiquitous.

Today, it is commonplace to communicate with friends and

followers scattered across the globe. The dream of Tim Berners

-Lee twenty years ago — to create a truly World Wide Web —

has come true.

When the Web launched twenty years ago with a single website

and a single server (‖This machine is a server, do not power it

down! ―), it was entirely non-commercial and intended to

provide open access to a universe of hyper-linked documents.

The past twenty years, when seen as part of a larger

technological cycle, is a period of openness and global

participation.

This era gave rise to a uniquely social architecture that

encourages the rapid proliferation of information to everyone.

In fact, the very first Web site Berners-Lee created included

easy-to-follow instructions for anyone to create their own

website.

In technology circles, there is a tendency to create linear

narratives about the trajectory of innovation, in which one

technological innovation leads inevitably to the next. These

narratives reassure us that, when it comes to the increasingly

fast pace of technological change, there is a method to the

madness.

Today, when asked what comes next for technology, we usually

hear quick, easy answers like this: ―Every year, mobile phones

will become smaller.‖ And don‘t forget this classic: ―Each

iteration of an operating system will be faster and more

powerful.‖ And then there‘s this oft-repeated answer: ―Each

new online innovation will make the world more democratic

and more open.‖

More at http://wapo.st/qNjR5A

Network Effects: Social Media's Role in the

London Riots

Facebook and Twitter can fuel uprisings by allowing

participants to coordinate action and to see

themselves as part of a larger movement

By Mathew Ingram, GigaOm.com

In the wake of a controversial police shooting, Britain‘s capital

city has been rocked by two straight days of widespread rioting

and looting. As with previous riots—such as those in

Vancouver, B.C., following the Stanley Cup finals—everyone

seems to be looking for a culprit, with some blaming Twitter

and Facebook, and others pinning the violence on BlackBerry

(RIMM) and its instant messaging abilities.

But that‘s a little like blaming individual trees for the forest

fire. As we‘ve pointed out before with respect to the uprisings

in Tunisia and Egypt, these are just aspects of our increasingly

real-time, mobile, and connected lives, and they can be an

incredibly powerful force for both good and bad.

Although they are completely different in important ways,

there are also some interesting similarities between the riots in

London this weekend and the uprisings in Egypt‘s Tahrir

Square. Both were triggered by the death of a man whom some

believed was unfairly targeted by the authorities. In Britain, it

was Mark Duggan—a 29-year-old father of four shot dead after

being stopped by the police—and in Egypt, it was Khaled Said,

a 28-year-old businessman who was pulled from an Internet

cafe and beaten to death by security forces. Both deaths also

led to the creation of Facebook pages that became the focus of

a social media effort that ultimately fueled the protests.

Different Causes, Same Network Effects

That said, the two demonstrations obviously had completely

different causes and outcomes. In Egypt, the protests were the

result of decades of corrupt and authoritarian rule by a

dictator, as well as food shortages, unemployment, and so on—

and they led to the toppling of the government, followed by the

military taking control of the country.

More at http://buswk.co/pkTHSP

Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011 Page 16

Points of View - (cont.)

Web Tracking Has Become a Privacy Time

Bomb

The coolest free stuff on the Internet actually comes at

a notable price: your privacy.

By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY

For more than a decade, tracking systems have been taking

note of where you go and what you search for on the Web —

without your permission. And today many of the personal

details you voluntarily divulge on popular websites and social

networks are being similarly tracked and analyzed.

The purpose for all of this online snooping is singular: Google,

Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Facebook and others are intent on

delivering more relevant online ads to each and every one of us

— and bagging that advertising money.

Trouble is, the tracking data culled from your Internet

searches and surfing can get commingled with the information

you disclose at websites for shopping, travel, health or jobs.

And it's now possible to toss into this mix many of the personal

disclosures you make on popular social networks, along with

the preferences you may express via all those nifty Web

applications that trigger cool services on your mobile devices.

As digital shadowing escalates, so too have concerns about the

erosion of traditional notions of privacy. Privacy advocates

have long fretted that health companies, insurers, lenders,

employers, lawyers, regulators and law enforcement could

begin to acquire detailed profiles derived from tracking data to

use unfairly against people.

Indeed, new research shows that as tracking technologies

advance, and as more participants join the burgeoning

tracking industry, the opportunities for privacy invasion are

rising.

"It is a mistake to consider (online) tracking benign," cautions

Sagi Leizerov, executive director of Ernst & Young's privacy

services. "It's both an opportunity for amazing connections of

data, as well as a time bomb of revealing personal information

you assume will be kept private."

These developments are acting like kerosene on the already

contentious national debates in Congress over how privacy

ought to be recast to fit the Internet age. Much is at stake. The

corporations involved are vying for the juiciest claims on a

golden vein. Research firm eMarketer projects global spending

for online ads to climb to $132 billion by 2015, up from $80.2

billion this year.

The technology, retail and media giants shaping this brave new

world of online advertising insist that they respect — and can

be trusted to preserve — individuals' privacy, even as they

compete to dissect each person's likes and dislikes.

Tracking mobile apps

However, startling findings, to be released on Thursday here at

the Black Hat security conference, indicate otherwise. Website

security company Dasient recently found examples of PC-

based tracking techniques getting extended in a troublesome

way to Internet-connected mobile devices.

Dasient analyzed 10,000 free mobile apps that enable gaming,

financial services, entertainment and other services on Google

Android smartphones. Researchers found more than 8%, or

842, of the Android apps took the unusual step of asking users'

permission to access the handset's International Mobile

Equipment Identity number, the unique code assigned to each

cellphone. The IMEI was then employed as the user ID for the

given app. In a number of instances, the app subsequently

forwarded the user's IMEI on to an online advertising network,

says Neil Daswani, Dasient's chief technology officer.

"The fact that an ad network is getting your IMEI means they

can know how long you've used your phone and which mobile

apps you use most often," Daswani says. "The full implications

of this aren't clear, but with privacy you've got to be careful."

More at http://usat.ly/mWqHgb

Page 17 Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011

Calendar of Events

AUGUST 15 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM. The Heritage Foundation (HF) will host a panel discussion titled "National EMP Recognition Day: The Threat That Can't Be Ignored". The speakers will be Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), Peter Pry (EMPact America), Frank Gafney (Center for Security Studies), Drew Miller, and James Carafano (HF). This event is free and open to the public.

Location: Washington, D.C.

More at http://www.heritage.org/Events/2011/08/EMP-Day

AUGUST 16 2011 Physician Quality Reporting System & Electronic Prescribing Incentive Program 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services‘ (CMS) Provider Communications Group will host a national provider call with a question and answer session on the 2011 Physician Quality Reporting System and Electronic Prescribing (eRx) Incentive Program.

Location: Teleconference

More at http://www.eventsvc.com/palmettogba/register/1df934a3-0a10-4b0c-87dc-

bf200e8529a3

AUGUST 17 12:30 - 1:30 PM. The American Bar Association (ABA) will host a webcast panel discussion titled "Tax Aspects of Technology Transactions". The speakers will be Roger Royse (Royse Law Firm) and Kenneth Appleby (Foley & Lardner). Prices vary. CLE credits.

Location: Webcast

More at http://apps.americanbar.org/cle/programs/t11tat1.html

AUGUST 19 1:00 - 2:30 PM. The American Bar Association (ABA) will host a webcast panel discussion titled "Ownership of Digital Media and Electronic Privacy". The speakers will be Ben Kleinman (Manatt Phelps), Sharra Brockman (Verv), Eric Crusius (Centre Law Group), and Paul Roberts (Hogan Lovells). Prices vary. CLE credits.

Location: Webcast

More at http://apps.americanbar.org/cle/programs/t11dmp1.html

Featured Conference

of the Week

Fifth SENS Conference:

Rejuvenation Biotechnologies

AUGUST 31 TO SEPTEMBER 4, 2011

The purpose of the SENS conference

series, like all the SENS initiatives (such

as the journal Rejuvenation Research),

is to expedite the development of truly

effective therapies to postpone and treat

human aging by tackling it as an

engineering problem: not seeking

elusive and probably illusory magic

bullets, but instead enumerating the

accumulating molecular and cellular

changes that eventually kill us and

identifying ways to repair - to reverse -

those changes, rather than merely to

slow down their further accumulation.

This broadly defined regenerative

medicine - which includes the repair of

living cells and extracellular material in

situ - applied to damage of aging, is

what we refer to as rejuvenation

biotechnologies.

August

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

31 01 02 03 04 05 06

07 08 09 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31 01 02 03

More at http://bit.ly/oQnNPi

Page 18 Volume 10, Issue 29 August 12, 2011

Sites Compendium

www.brookings.edu

www.businessweek.com

www.cdt.org

www.fastcompany.com

www.gigaom.com

www.healthcareitnews.com

www.healthdatamanagement.com

www.modernhealthcare.com

www.msnbc.msn.com

www.nationaljournal.com

www.nejm.org

www.newamerica.net

www.nytimes.com

www.oecdbookshop.org

www.radar.oreilly.com

www.sens.org

www.sfgate.com

www.spiegel.de

www.thepowerofopen.org

www.time.com

www.usatoday.com

www.vanityfair.com

www.washingtonpost.com

www.wsj.com

Book Review

Cloud Culture

The Future of Global Cultural Relations

By Charles Leadbetter

The internet, our relationship with it, and our culture is about

to undergo a change as profound and unsettling as the

development of Web 2.0 in the last decade, which saw Google

and YouTube, Facebook and Twitter become mass, world-wide

phenomena.

Over the next ten years, the

rise of cloud computing will

not only accelerate the

global battle for control of

the digital landscape, but

will almost certainly recast

the very ways in which we

exercise our creativity and

forge relationships across

the world‘s cultures.

Yet even in its infancy, the

extraordinary potential of

cloud culture is threatened

on all sides – by vested

interests, new monopolists

and governments, all intent

on reassert ing their

authority over the web.

In this ground-breaking report, Charles Leadbeater argues that

we are faced with the greatest challenge of our time: the clash

of cloud culture and cloud capitalism.

Who will own the cloud? How can we keep it open and reap its

vast benefits? And how can it empower the world‘s poorest

people?

More at http://bit.ly/r3cNQj

Research and Selection: Stefaan Verhulst

Production: Kathryn Carissimi & Lauren Hunt

Please send your questions, observations and suggestions to

sverhulst@markle.org

The views expressed in the Weekly Digest do not

necessarily reflect those of the Markle Foundation.