Regulation

An uninvited guest showed up at dinnertime for some Pennsylvania families last week: a robotic telephone message informing them that Barack Obama had associated with a terrorist.

The robocall warned of Obama's "extreme leftist agenda" and noted that the Democratic presidential nominee "has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home and killed Americans."

That message, which identified itself as originating with the McCain-Palin 2008 campaign, was telephonically delivered to voters in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and other states as well.

Because of a … Read more

The government is taking steps to protect consumers by reducing its use of Social Security numbers, yet with identity theft complaints numbering in the millions, counties across the country are still making the numbers available in bulk or online to businesses and the public.

The President's Identity Theft Task Force released a report (PDF) Tuesday marking the progress of federal agencies in combating identity theft. Steps taken include better assisting identity theft victims and increasing prosecutions and other deterrent measures--federal identity theft convictions increased 26 percent from 2006 to 2007, according to the report.

Many steps have also been … Read more

The federal agency responsible for regulating the export of sensitive goods and technologies is moving to an entirely Net-based system to process applications for export licenses and other requests.

Starting Monday, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security is requiring members of the public to submit export and re-export license applications--along with classification requests, encryption review requests, and agricultural commodities license exception notifications--via its Simplified Network Application Process (SNAP-R) system.

The BIS is retiring its Electronic License Application Information Network (ELAIN). Paper forms may only be submitted if the applicant meets one of a handful of exceptions, such … Read more

WASHINGTON--Financial information about companies is sometimes difficult to uncover, and even more difficult to compare.

It's buried in footnotes to earnings reports and sometimes almost seems intentionally obfuscated. The Securities and Exchange Commission thinks it has the answer: a type of language for business data that could be to finance what HTML was to the Internet.

That was the plan, at least. There have been no fewer than 17 conferences so far to advance the Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, standard, and it still is not mandatory for U.S. companies. (The SEC started a voluntary XBRL filing program, … Read more

WASHINGTON--The threat of cybersecurity attacks are on the rise from organized crime, terrorists, and foreign governments, an FBI official warned on Wednesday.

There are a "couple dozen" countries interested in breaching U.S. networks, said Shawn Henry, assistant director of the FBI cyber division, though he declined to list any specific countries.

The attempted attacks on U.S. networks are "increasingly sophisticated" and "the amount of information that has been stolen is significant," Henry said.

In particular, the use of botnets continues to increase, he said, while companies have lost tens of millions of … Read more

The government has made great strides working with private industry to secure the nation's critical infrastructure, an advisory board to the president and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday, but top executives in the private sector need to step up and do more.

With infrastructure like electric grids, water, and telecommunications largely in the hands on private industry, it is up to the leaders in those sectors to work with government to keep the country safe--yet the participation of chief executives in such efforts has steadily waned since September 11, 2001, according to a working group … Read more

Child predators will be easier to track online because of two new laws President Bush signed Monday.

The Protect Our Children Act--which includes provisions introduced by Sens. Joe Biden (D-Del.), Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), and John McCain, (R-Ariz.)--sets requirements for Internet companies to report incidences of child pornography. It also authorizes more than $320 million for the Justice Department over the next five years for, among other things, the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

The president on Monday also signed the Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act, which requires a sex offender to provide the … Read more

President Bush on Friday signed into law a bill that would facilitate the collection of data regarding broadband access in the United States, though most of the actions required by the law have already been accomplished by federal regulators.

The Broadband Data Act directs the Federal Communications Commission to redefine broadband, which was largely achieved earlier this year. The commission in March voted to consider 768Kbps, which is the entry-level speed offered by major DSL providers like Verizon, the low end of "basic broadband," a range that extends to under 1.5Mbps. For years, the commission had considered … Read more

WASHINGTON--The federal government is trying to find better ways to standardize and coordinate personal information about American citizens that is currently spread across thousands of databases, according to a White House official.

There are more than 3,000 programs or databases in the federal government that hold personal information--Social Security numbers, addresses, fingerprints, and so on--yet the government is only beginning to develop a plan for collecting, protecting, and using such information.

"You have a lot of duplication of data" among various agencies, said Duane Blackburn, a policy analyst in the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy. … Read more