Tech at Night: We need a pro-innovation FCC. We need fewer pro-regulation Republican Senators, too.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 14th at 12:00 AM  | 

Sorry for missing Tech at Night on Friday. After that near-miss with a cold, I decided to start the weekend a little early that night. But we’re back. So with five days of news to catch up on, let’s see what we have here.

Here’s a reminder of why Net Neutrality was a terrible idea. Making people pay for what they use creates opportunities for innovation. If ESPN wants to negotiate bulk rates for wireless data, let them!

And yet that John McCain would add more regulations. We need less micromanagement of cable, not more.

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Tech at Night: Getting proven right on CISPA, again, as Obama proves to be anti-privacy.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 9th at 12:30 AM  | 

I’m on antihistamines and hoping I’m not getting too sick, so this is going to be less… focused than it usually will be. Hang on.

Let’s recap the CISPA situation. Anonymous is proving why we need it (though BGR is delusional for thinking Anonymous was “attacking North Korea” when it hacked Twitter accounts, though BGR does sometimes go gaga for radical propaganda). China is, too. But the administration is opposing CISPA on “privacy” grounds. Hold that thought.

The Obama administration is not opposing and may back government mandates for “wiretapping” Internet communications – that is, government-mandated backdoors into encrypted communications. What was that about privacy, again?

At least Republicans are still serious on the matter, looking at the large scale of thefts and spying going on. Make no mistake: this is aimed at China. In theory it would affect Iran, but we already embargo them, so this affects China.

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Tech at Night: I don’t see how MFA passes the House with this rhetoric. Cybersecurity waffling by Team Obama.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 7th at 12:00 AM  | 

Even as I’ve said the bill is a good idea, Senate conservatives overwhelmingly voted against the Internet Sales Tax. The whole Tea Party era gang is there in the NAY column. It’s easy to see why too: guys like Mike Enzi are coming out and saying their purpose for the bill is to pick winners and losers in the marketplace. I can’t see this passing the House with the cloud of toxic rhetoric around it.

As Team Obama wavers between a bureaucrat and an actual expert for its DHS Cybersecurity head, insecure accounts are getting hammered by foreign attackers. Use good passwords. Never give the actual answers to ‘security questions.’ Keep software updated. And don’t approve random “Who unfollowed me/How much time am I wasting/Which President am I” Twitter apps!

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Tech at Night: Stand up to the gangs and pass CISPA. Obama nominates a new FCC chairman.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 2nd at 02:30 AM  | 

We’re still at war online, guys. The Chinese are scouting us and even criminal enterprise is under constant attack. And make no mistake DDoS attacks affect not just the target, but the networks surrounding the target, too, so even a criminal racket like Silk Road should have attacks on it stopped, for the health of American networks. And again, the anarchists SWATted a member of Congress, Mike Rogers, to fight for weaker security online.

Yet, The President and Democrats continue to obstruct CISPA, instead of getting the job done. This guy made illegal executive orders on the topic, but as soon as we take good, light-regulatory legislative action, he suddenly wants to slam on the brakes. Shameful.

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Tech at Night: A bad week for anarchists. Democrats selectively urgent about privacy.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 27th at 04:00 AM  | 

Crime Watch: Lulzsec bigshot gets taken down in Australia, and an Anonymous gang member is on trial for multiple rape at an Occupy event. Bad week for anarchists. Heh.

Democrats tuning their rhetoric for the moment: IMMEDIATE ACTION needed on Do Not Track, even as it’s taken YEARS to do anything on outdated ECPA email rules which now may include a warning requirement, and it wasn’t even Jay Rockefeller who got off his tail to get that done.

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Tech at Night: Pass CISPA. Don’t pass a big, messy copyright bill.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 24th at 10:30 PM  | 

Forgive me for being a bit brief tonight. I’ve had caffeine-related sleep issues the last two nights, getting up at 2am wide awake. So… yeah I’m tired!

I was productive this morning at least though, which is why I was able to bang out finally this post on CISPA and why we need to pass it.

CISPA should pass, but it looks like Michael McCaul is ready to move on regardless, talking about his own cybersecurity bill.

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This is why we need to pass CISPA

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 24th at 09:30 AM  | 

We’re at war online. Iran, North Korea, and Russia are the sources of sustained attacks on our government and our economy. They steal from us, they disrupt our operations, and they’re no better than the pirates of old. On the sea, such attacks would eventually mean war, but on the Internet they get a pass.

Individuals do tend to get nabbed after the fact, as they build massive botnets for credit card fraud and Bitcoin mining, but it’s not enough to sit back passively and wait to get attacked before doing anything.

We need to be proactive, and that means putting together all the information we can about attacks past, present, and future. We need to be able to deal with attacks before the spin up fully. We need to pass along warnings before it’s too late. And that means we need legislation to prevent trial lawyers from making a mess of all of this. So that’s why it’s time to pass CISPA.

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Tech at Night: ECPA email bill and MFA sales tax bill appear to have Senate support.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 22nd at 11:30 PM  | 

Some legislative action still ongoing: the Senate looking to fix the ECPA, an email search law that was written to the technology of the time, and now defies the expectations of its framers.

I was told Amazon and eBay would like the sales tax compact, but eBay is coming out against it, spamming its users. But the Senate continues to support it.

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Tech at Night: CISPA moves on. Ayotte takes on the Sales Tax. Google defeats Viacom.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 20th at 04:30 AM  | 

So yes, CISPA passed the House. Unsurprisingly, Anonymous isn’t happy, what when as things stand Lulzsec already is getting hammered. Greater information sharing is a threat to online anarchists, as well as foreign private and state actors.

The bill now goes to the Senate, where Jay Rockefeller may stall on an ego-driven separate bill. I think the bill’s a good idea. It’s not perfect, but not all of the criticisms floating around are correct. In particular, SOPA is a red herring, and totally unrelated. CISPA is about information sharing, not regulation.

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Tech at Night: CISPA gets amended but not quite as I wanted. FISMA reform quietly passes.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 18th at 03:30 AM  | 

So the House did not pass the amendment to CISPA that they probably should have passed, but the House did act to find a compromise that would ensure our needs are met, while addressing the privacy issues some have.

While the above-linked criticisms are legitimate, it is the case that not that all privacy criticisms of CISPA are legitimate. “Privacy” has become the vague catch-all for left-libertarian positions that “for the children” has become for progressives. All too often there’s no actual meat to the criticisms. Heck, half the people complaining about privacy would tell you that CISPA is the new SOPA, when the two bills are entirely unrelated. It’s baseless scaremongering designed to defeat Republican efforts and clear the field for Jay Rockefeller and Barack Obama to act.

I do plan to say more very soon on CISPA, explaining why we should pass the bill. Watch RedState.

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CISPA Shouldn’t Infringe on Freedom of Contract

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 16th at 01:00 PM  | 

I’ve long argued CISPA is a good idea, given that online we are at war with hostile foreign powers attacking our government and our commerce.  However that doesn’t mean the bill doesn’t have issues that should be addressed in the normal legislative process.  In the following post, Berin Szoka of TechFreedom and Ryan Radia of CEI explain why we should add a few words to | Read More »

Tech at Night: Why we need CISPA. Enzi defends the Sales Tax compact.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 13th at 01:30 AM  | 

CISPA is still the top issue right now. The new version is getting broad support in industry, it appears. Again: the attacks America faces against our government and industry would be acts of war if done on the high seas, but are continuing consequence-free just because they’re online. Francis Cianfrocca points out what is needed: a framework for sharing information about threats. Not massive regulations, which won’t help. Not blaming the victim, which will make the bad guys laugh.

In Internet Sales Tax Compact news, Mike Enzi is feeling the heat to defend his bill to his constituents, and is making reasonable arguments for it. “If we don’t collect that revenue, they’ll have to find a new source.” Ding. “This is a states’ rights bill and it would require the states to act before anything could happen.” Ding. But we shall see if it can pass the House. I do wonder if the terrible “fairness” rhetoric from the big box retailers has poisoned the well.

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Tech at Night: Fox confirms my theory about Aereo. CISPA advances.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 11th at 12:00 AM  | 

CISPA continues to remain the big story right now. It’s moving on, though some are concerned that it was effectively renegotiated in back room meetings. It needs scrutiny before passage, I’m thinking. It’s probably a decent but watered-down bill at this point, but let’s look before supporting at this point. We need a good cybersecurity bill, not just any old thing.

Which is exactly what Jay Rockefeller is up to: flailing about, expanding government willy-nilly, in the name of cybersecurity. The SEC? Doing Cybersecurity? Insane.

I like the idea of the Internet Freedom bill, though. The global trend is away from freedom online, and it’s up to us to try to do something about it. The idea that the bill would hurt Net Neutrality is just a bonus.

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Tech at Night: CISPA to be amended, Patent Trolls attack, Fighting for Spectrum

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 9th at 02:00 AM  | 

While it’s true that cybersecurity can be cover for bad proposals, it is true that foreign organized criminal and state-backed attacks are hitting American government and business interests online every day. They’re even stealing large sums of money on a regular basis. This is why we need to address the issue in a serious way. If these attacks were going on at sea, it would be an act of war. Because it’s online, nothing happens? Come on.

Amending CISPA in order to try to get it to pass might be a good idea. If anarchists and other left-libs don’t like it, then it may yet be a good bill after the changes.

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Tech at Night: Cybersecurity matters thanks to China, even if the Anonymous gang is a bunch of idiots.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 5th at 10:15 PM  | 

I have a charity event I’m participating in tomorrow (I’m the one doing The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II), and I’d like to have slept for it, so this may be briefer than usual.

Looks like a push for real patent reform is brewing. After the lawyer- but not innovation-friendly America Invents Act was signed by Barack Obama, we’ve been left with a need to fix the actual problems with the US patent system. the i2Coalition and Google are backing anti-Patent Trolling ideas. There’s got to be a way to continue to reward small-time inventors without allowing the fakes to abuse the system.

Do Americans have a duty to diminish the security of their communications to ease government spying? Some seem to think so, as we’re reminded of in the flap over Apple’s iMessage being more secure in its encryption than government would like. Let me remind you though that any back door that government can exploit, China and Anonymous can, too.

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