By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 30th at 02:00 AM  | 

Amazon’s not kidding one bit about punishing states that attempt to punish it. After Amazon sent a last ditch warning to Associates that all California Associates would be terminated in the event Governor Brown signed the budget with the Amazon Tax in it, the Governor went ahead and did it. So, every Amazon Associate in California just got terminated, including countless small businesses scraping by | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 18th at 02:30 AM  | 

So while there have been a number of genuine online attacks lately against the Senate, the CIA, PBS, Bioware, and more, the headlines have been full of reports of aftershocks. What seems to be going on is that existing account credentials leaked from previous attacks are being plugged into other sites, including Paypal. Anyone who reuses passwords is vulnerable to these secondary attacks. Be careful | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 7th at 03:30 AM  | 

I really can’t wait until the Lulzsec crew learns about the joys of frogmarching. These arrogant punks need to have some sense smacked into them, and felony charges would be a great way to do that. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you improve domestic cybersecurity: find the people breaking into servers and take away their liberties under existing US law. More in security news: | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 14th at 04:11 AM  | 

House pressure on the FCC continues, with Friday’s hearings on FCC process reform, including testimony from all four active FCC Commissioners (Republican Commissioner Meredith Baker has quit the FCC). I associate myself with the remarks of Seton Motley on the preferred outcome of FCC Process Reform: “FCC ‘Process Reform’ Should Be About Reducing FCC Power. Oh, and making them obey the law.” Meanwhile, as much | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 12th at 02:00 AM  | 

For a while there, we seemed to have a bit of a break from the big news. We knew big fights like the AT&T/T-Mobile deal loomed, but it was all talk. But that’s changing. As the coalition of self-seekers and socialists forms, the final scope of the debate is beginning to take shape. Listen to this: Some Democrats are criticizing AT&T for planning to use | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 21st at 12:00 AM  | 

Good evening. Darrell Issa is stepping up the pressure on the FCC. He wants to tie spectrum reallocation incentives to Net Neutrality repeal. Many of us want to be able to reallocate spectrum from television stations to multipurpose wireless data, since we as a society are demanding more and faster data these days. If Darrell Issa makes the FCC’s ability to facilitate that, contingent on | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 24th at 03:30 AM  | 

So the top story this week is going to be the AT&T acquisition of T-Mobile USA. There’s a lot being said about it, about unions, about competition, but the story I’m seeing emerging is that this deal is about spectrum. AT&T sees in T-Mobile a way to get the spectrum it needs going forward. In fact, even power grabbing FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said to | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  February 3rd at 12:45 AM  | 

Net Neutrality is taking a real pounding this week. The Heritage Foundation has come out shooting, calling for a major rollback in the FCC’s authority, including repealing Net Neutrality legislatively. Also, The US Chamber of Commerce is calling upon the FCC to be held to the President’s standards for regulatory review, which would certainly put Net Neutrality at risk. But its supporters press on. Even | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 20th at 11:30 PM  | 

Good evening. I’m starting on tonight’s Tech at Night earlier than usual. That’s because I have much to cover. Sometimes a whole bunch of interesting stories just pop up all at once, and I don’t want to leave any out. So let’s hurry up and start. For all the way the far left is flipping out over the Fox/Cablevision dispute – in which Cablevision refuses | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 28th at 04:00 AM  | 

Hello. The longer the Democrats are in Washington, the more the mask slips with respect to their true beliefs regarding freedom online. They claim they don’t want a government takeover, they claim they don’t want to regulate content, they claim they don’t want a kill switch, they claim they want to respect privacy, but time and again all of these issues just keep coming up. | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 31st at 02:45 AM  | 

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 | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 25th at 11:59 PM  | 

Good evening. Yes, I’m late again on Tech at Night. Even later than I was on Monday in fact. But instead of scolding me, let’s take out our anger on Democrats like Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown for threatening California’s long-established high tech leadership. More and more companies and their good, high-paying jobs are fleeing the state. Green tech firms, medical supply firms, information service | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 18th at 11:30 PM  | 

Good evening. A story I expect to hear more about is this a proposed subsidy for radio stations and the RIAA both of some sort of legal requirement for new cellular phones to include an FM radio receiver. Such a requirement would raise costs on everyone, lower innovation and even basic differentiation options, and be nothing but a detriment to anyone who shops for cellular | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 4th at 11:30 PM  | 

Tonight, we start with a longer note that requires some setup, so bear with me as I break from the usual format for a moment. ––– The FCC’s attempt to reclassify broadband as if it were a telephone service had already encountered opposition from a strong, bipartisan majority of Congress – not to mention usually Democratic allies like the AFL-CIO, CWA, IBEW, LULAC, MMTC, NAACP, | Read More »