Regulation

WASHINGTON--When politicians got together six years ago and decided to glue together a medley of federal agencies to create the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, one of the justifications was a better focus on cybersecurity.

"The department will gather and focus all our efforts to face the challenge of cyberterrorism," President Bush said when signing the 500-or-so-page bill into law in November 2002. "This department will be charged with encouraging research on new technologies that can detect these threats in time to prevent an attack."

That was then. Now, Homeland Security is weathering a deluge … Read more

After ducking questions this year from both Congress and the private sector about its National Cyber Security Initiative, the Department of Homeland Security finally revealed a little more on Monday.

Paul Schneider, deputy secretary for DHS, along with other senior federal officials, offered more information at a forum hosted by the Information Technology Association of America. Plans for the initiative include enhancing the current cyberintrusion detection system, working more closely with the private sector (a longstanding federal mantra), and focusing on foreign threats.

"Cybersecurity really is one of the top priorities of the Department of Homeland Security and the … Read more

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has not met requirements to provide "open source" intelligence--that is, publicly available information--for state and local law enforcement, a new report shows.

The House Committee on Homeland Security released a report Friday criticizing the department after interviewing more than 350 state, local, and tribal law enforcement officials about the DHS's open source intelligence efforts.

While 82 percent of law enforcement officials surveyed said they use open source information, 60 percent said the DHS needed to establish a training program on how to use the department's open source material. Half … Read more

WASHINGTON--Internet users have jumped head-first into the world of cloud computing, but both policy makers and the public have a lot to learn about it, tech experts said Friday.

Cloud computing will "transform how we do computing--and not in 10 years, but in four or five," said Mike Nelson, a visiting professor at Georgetown University's Center for Communication, Culture, and Technology and a former tech policy adviser under the Clinton administration. "This is going to change everything we do with computing, and there are lots of policy implications."

Nelson participated in a panel discussion of … Read more

A United Nations agency is quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous.

The U.S. National Security Agency is also participating in the "IP Traceback" drafting group, named Q6/17, which is meeting next week in Geneva to work on the traceback proposal. Members of Q6/17 have declined to release key documents, and meetings are closed to the public.

The potential for eroding Internet users' right to remain anonymous, which is protected by law … Read more

WASHINGTON--The potential for "cybersecurity" attacks on the United States' electric power grids has spurred politicians to consider legislation to broaden federal authority over electric companies.

Congress already has been consulting with federal agencies and industry associations over how to craft such legislation. On Thursday, legislators sought further input at a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce's subcommittee on energy and air quality.

Industry representatives endorsed the idea of strengthening federal authority in the event of an imminent cybersecurity threat but cautioned against expanding the government's powers too broadly.

"We understand the seriousness of the … Read more

About this time a decade ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was praying that the U.S. Justice Department would file an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft.

"I've competed against Microsoft for years, but I never quite appreciated how big Microsoft has become, not just as a company, but as a brand and as part of the national consciousness," Schmidt said in 1998, four months before the suit was filed. "It's the products, the Microsoft marketing juggernaut, Bill Gates's wealth, all those magazine cover stories. It's everything."

That was when Schmidt was the chief … Read more

Comcast is appealing a ruling by the Federal Communications Commission that found the broadband provider had illegally blocked some customers' Web traffic.

The appeal, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington, challenges the FCC's ruling on August 1 that Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent traffic last year was unlawful--the first time any U.S. broadband provider has ever been found to violate Net neutrality rules. The FCC issued a cease-and-desist order and required the company to disclose to subscribers in the future how it plans to manage traffic.

"We filed this appeal … Read more

Silicon Valley start-up NebuAd has suspended plans to deploy a controversial program that displays ads based on the monitoring of Web activity while Congress reviews privacy concerns, according to a report in The Washington Post.

The secretive company, which intercepts and performs deep-packet inspection of what's flowing through a company's network in hopes of delivering relevant ads, announced earlier this week that co-founder and CEO Bob Dykes was resigning. His departure comes as several Internet companies canceled or suspended trials of the tracking technique.

"Our platform was architected to be a multi-channel ad system," spokeswoman Janet … Read more