Week in review: Clueless in Congress?

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The video questions posed in the Democratic debate were more personal and more direct than the circumlocutions that political journalists tend to prefer. But the problem was that the politicians ducked, weaved and often replied without giving a straight answer. (Ironically, the first user-submitted video, which asked the candidates to "actually answer the questions that are posed to you tonight," anticipated this problem but was insufficiently persuasive.)

Text messaging as means of political outreach is hardly a new idea, but 2008 Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich claims a new drive launched by his campaign stands out from all the rest. The congressman from Ohio is asking Americans opposed to the Iraq war to text the word "peace" to the number 73223. From there, he plans to forward on the responses to President Bush and the Pentagon.

Piracy concerns
The FBI's chief is trying to defuse lingering concerns about abuse of secret requests for telephone and e-mail logs, as politicians proposed new limits on the practice. Director Robert Mueller's appearance before a U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary oversight committee highlighted the lingering fallout over a Justice Department inspector general report issued earlier this year. That inquiry found the FBI underreported its use of a secret surveillance tactic--called a national security letter--and concluded "serious misuse" had occurred.

Mueller told the committee that he "absolutely understands" the concerns raised by the report, although he emphasized there were no findings of "intentional" attempts by FBI agents to sidestep the law. Since then, he added, the agency has been implementing "numerous reforms," including retraining its agents and their supervisors on how and when to use the letters and establishing an internal program to monitor "compliance."

The FBI's planned actions apparently weren't satisfactory for some politicians who have dogged the Bush administration's surveillance techniques in the past. Just before Thursday's hearing, Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) introduced a new bill designed to place checks on the surveillance tools' use and to give Americans more recourse to respond to them.

The American Civil Liberties Union applauded the 20-page proposal, saying in a statement that it "will realign NSL authorities with the Constitution and reaffirm that Americans can be both safe and free."

Meanwhile, Congress is already well on its way to bestowing new powers on an internal White House panel that's supposed to judge whether Bush administration programs like the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance regime pose privacy and civil liberties concerns. But the board's chairman has a message for the politicians backing the new authority: thanks, but no thanks.

Civil liberties advocates have long dogged the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board--which, although it didn't meet until 2006, was created within the White House by Congress in 2004 at the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission--for its perceived inability to make real assessments without executive branch officials looking over its shoulder. The board also has been criticized for its lack of transparency to the public.

Apple shines
The Mac and iPod may be Apple's cash cow, but the iPhone is stealing the show. The company reported profits of $818 million, or 92 cents a share, for its fiscal third quarter. That's a 73 percent jump compared with last year, when third-quarter profit was $472 million.

The company also reported selling 270,000 iPhones during the 30 hours before the quarter ended on June 30. That's at the upper end of what estimates were going into iPhone weekend, though far below some of the extremely high estimates that surfaced following the launch. Still, some were anticipating a smaller number after AT&T reported activating 146,000 iPhones during the same period.

The disparity in the numbers piqued our curiosity. If Apple sold 270,000 iPhones in the first 30 hours the product was on sale and AT&T activated only 146,000 iPhones during a similar period of time, then what happened to the other 124,000 phones?

Both Apple and AT&T initially said that a small number of customers ran into activation problems. AT&T said the "vast majority" of customers sailed through the activation process, and Apple said "a small percentage" of customers were affected by the activation delays. But what's to account for the 124,000 iPhones that were sold by Apple but not activated?

An AT&T spokesman offered several explanations for the discrepancy, the first of which was rebutted by Apple statements. One odd reason offered by AT&T for the gap was procrastination. This is quite possible, but extremely difficult to believe. Given the zeal of those who waited in line for an iPhone on Friday or bought one the following day, however, it's hard to imagine 100,000 or more of those customers waiting a day to activate their new toy.

Those who were hoping to flip their iPhones on eBay or Craigslist could account for the some of those who waited to activate, since many sellers did not receive the number of bids they had once hoped to receive in the first 30 hours the iPhone went on sale. Some might have returned unopened boxes without activating the iPhone when met with lackluster demand on the auction sites.

Also of note
A federal judge in a Massachusetts district court gave the founders of college-based social networking site ConnectU two weeks to revise their complaint against Facebook, its CEO and four other early employees of the fast-growing social network. ..A power outage hit downtown San Francisco, knocking popular Web sites such as Craigslist, GameSpot, Yelp, Technorati, TypePad and Netflix offline for a few hours...Toyota said a hybrid car you can recharge from household outlets has been approved for public road testing in Japan.

[Informed Citizen]

Thanks CNET...

...for taking a firm stand against the reforming government ineptitude (which is what Waxman actually proposed) and for your own pocket book, which is directly tied to #6-most-downloaded program here, LimeWire (ta-da!).

Go here to see what actually happened at the hearing:
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1424

[morningowl]

P2P is not the problem

First of all, blaming an application vs. incompetence is not right way to go. As an IT professional myself, I know from experience that without proper training on any network, users will inevitably make mistakes...some serious.

Why does a government employee handling sensitive information have a file sharing program on their system in the first place? These systems and the accounts that use them should be locked down pretty tightly. In some companies I've worked for, the users who login to the network have all of their applications served by a profile server. Basically they are given access to only what is needed to do their job.

At the server level, use web and network filtering to do all of the dirty work behind the scenes.

There is no good reasoning here to call P2P a problem. The government just needs to hire good IT staff who know how to implement these necessary safeguards.

[Informed Citizen]

You agree with Waxman...

everything you just said was said at the hearing, either by Waxman or by witnesses whom he invited.



CNET failed to report it because they make big money from people downloading LimeWire here. Mark Gorton, the CEO of LimeWire said that he would make changes and admitted that LimeWire's current protections are inadequate. This was reported by the Washington Post, but not CNET.

You are incorrect in your assumption that all government business takes place on enterprise networks, with official security policies. All of the breaches discussed in the hearing took place from home computers of employees or contractors.

http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1424

You can watch the hearing like I did and see that Waxman specifically said that he had no plans to ban P2P, but hoped that government employees and contractors would be educated about this danger. Legislation could prove to solve this problem by inflicting more severe punishments for these types of breaches.

[unigamer69]

I'd do more.

If I were the administrator of a network handling classified information, I wouldn't have an Internet connection linked to the involved networks, period.

There's just too many ways for the stuff to leak out - both deliberately, and accidentally.

Even if Web and network filtering is in place, a spy could use VPN-type techniques to evade them - hell, even I've used such things before on "fascist firewalls." (while some of the older VPN protocols could be blocked [say, by port number], something like Hamachi - which can traverse almost any network or NAT configuration, and uses no standard ports - would be much more difficult).

Then, of course, there's malware - which is a completely different animal.

No... if these people need to use the Internet, they could go to a different set of machines, completely network-isolated from the classified info machines.

[bwvla]

They only understand what lobbyists tell them.

Unfortunately elected officials rarely come from an IT background so they only know what they are told in a language they can understand. These are not the type of people who surf cnet or wired, their interested in people not machines. Some academic type with a lecture on why the Internet should be open simply puts them to sleep. Meanwhile some lobbyist who's invited them to an expensive martini lunch where they speak to them in simplified terms tends to sell. It also doesn't hurt if they write them a campaign donation to prove their "good intentions."


Lobbyists compose their arguments in dumbed down terms selected to resonate with their target.

Lobbyists also represent money given by entities that have money to gain by a legislative move. Follow the money! Large wealthy businesses see more to gain in closed systems (captive market = cash cow products) than in open systems which favor aggressive competition by small and new business.

Until non-profit tech promotion entities or small tech business can form an effective lobby, the big companies are the ones educating our elective officials on technology.

[Informed Citizen]

Amazed-

Respectfully, I am amazed that you are so willing to bite the lure that CNET feeds you. You should know before you believe their "journalism" that CNET makes money by distributing LimeWire.

That is why they did not tell you about the academics and experts (none funded by the entertainment industry) who were invited by Waxman to sit on the panel at this hearing and who told the members their opinions about what can be done to keep government employees from leaking data.

CNET didn't tell you that Waxman specifically dismissed the possibility of banning P2P.

CNET didn't tell you that Mark Gorton, CEO of LimeWire promised to fix problems which were showed to him by Waxman and by Gorton's fellow witnesses.

CNET also won't tell you that LimeWire's more recent, safer versions are not available here at download.com, where a 13-month-old version of the program was downloaded a million times in the last month.

Find out what did happen at the hearing here:
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1424

[godofbiscuits--2008]

Clueless or Crafty

This sounds more like a diversion. Maybe I just can't imagine that
grown men and women can be *that* ignorant of something so
pervasive, but it makes more sense to me that their supposed
ignorance is a red herring. Big corps hate p2p. Big corps lobby
congress. Congress goes after p2p to satisfy their donors.

[unigamer69]

Possible.

This is possible - far more probable than CNET distorting the news because it carries a program. =:oD

[rjpotts]

Look at which politicians are tyring to crack down

Its the Democrats. They are trying to turn technology into a political issue. They think that the industry cannot deal with it and they need to control it. The purpose of the Federal government from the very beginning was to protect our boarders from foreign threats, and help to regulate foreign trade.

Its time to kick the lawyers out of Washington and bring in a more diversified group of people -- scientists, engineers, teachers, construction workers, etc... -- we need people who are in touch with the general population, who are willing to represent the interests of people they are serving, not their on personal agendas.

[JFDMit]

Why blame the Democrats?

Sure, this latest attempt to "regulate technology" by the usual suspects in the Democratic Party smells of the usual blend of incomprehension and knee-jerk pandering. But don't forget it was the current Republican junta that gave us the Patriot Act, The DMCA, warrentless wiretapping by our friends at NSAT&T, a free pass for companies like M$ to extend their monopolies, suppression of clean transportation technologies, promotion of pie-in-the sky initiatives like biofuels and hydrogen. It seems like our choice is between a party that doesn't understand technology and a party that will abuse it to the detriment of us all. I'm not sure putting scientists, engineers et al in charge would change much, because everyone, regardless of their profession, comes with their own political opinions. Politics always wins in the end.

[Phillep_H]

"By their acts ye shall know them."

Don't rely on party affiliation to decide what to think of any politician, check what they do.

[ralfthedog]

Working from home.

I work in an industry where almost everyone works from home by the internet. One basic rule followed by the industry is, "Your work computer is for work. Don't let the kids or your spouse use it. Don't use it to play music. Don't surf the internet on it."

If you work from home, use one computer for work, one computer for everything else.

[Informed Citizen]

Bingo.

Thanks Ralf. What you just said may not have seemed like rocket science to you when you wrote it, but it is a Eureaka! moment compared to some of the mind-numbingly ignorant posts I read here earlier this week.

You are the first talkbacker who seems to comprehend the fact that none of this problem has to do with Government Enterprise systems and all of it is on the systems of small private contractors and vendors who deal with government information.

All of the breaches discussed in the hearing, including those discussed by Gen. Wesley Clark took place on private computers, often where a spouse or kid had installed LimeWire.

The real lesson here is that once again, the private sector cannot hack solving problems which were solved at government agencies many years ago.

[Phillep_H]

Might work

The network admin needs some way to get in the computer at home and make sure there are no traces on anything not related to work on that computer, though.

[westonfe]

Clueless...for sure

Why did it take you this long to realize they are clueless?

It is the way Congress tries to run everything. They are totally clueless.

[jackjay]

Clueless Congress

No one ever went broke betting on the stupidity of Congress to do the wrong thing at the right time. With an IQ lower than their approval rating, they will eventually screwup the internet.
ie: Kerry.

[smarty_pantz]

...then ban Doors, Pocket, Briefcases, Hands...

If they want to ban p2p (which we ALL know they're not ACTUALLY using in sensitive govt networks), then according to that stupid logic, they should also ban:

--DOORS...since the staff might use them to walk out with sensitive information,
--POCKETS...since it may be used as a transport mechanism
--BRIEFCASES...whoa, imagine how many USB sticks could fit in a briefcase! LOL
--and of course...HANDS...since they are the root and starting point of all this 'evil'

So according to their logic, handless staff, in cement bunkers wearing pyjamas should make us safe.

:)

[smarty_pantz]

Oh, and don't forget to shut down the internet...

I forgot...

To the last CIA agent to leave the office...don't forget to shut down the internet.

[David Arbogast]

STOP

<< "If they want to ban p2p ..." >>

STOP
Stop right there.
WHO Wants to ban P2P? Where in the article does it say anything about a ban on P2P software?

Stop pouring the kool-aid.
Try to stick to the facts.

[unigamer69]

Don't forget...

...pens, pencils, scanners, removable media, photocopiers, cameras, film (when it's used, less and less nowadays), ink, toner, and paper. =;o)

[unigamer69]

Modification of the old axiom.

P2P doesn't expose classified documents, people expose classified documents!

Does that sound familiar?

Congress should focus on real issues... and quit it with the technophobia/technoignorance and their own internal witch-hunting.

[Todd Templeton]

Control

The elite (The Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral
Commission, Bilderbergers, International Bankers and AIPAC)
have finally met their undoing with the "internets". Expect
continued attacks from these folks (AKA, the government) due
to the danger the free flow of information poses for them.

After a long string of successes (wars, usury, big media, big
government and organized religion) they have finally met their
match.

The genie is out of the bottle now, but they will continue to try
to control it. Their fate is already sealed, because once you've
seen the men behind the curtain......

[stanzur]

Educate the Clueless

With the overwhelming readers voting in favor of clueless one can only hope that you'll make sure Henry Waxman gets a copy of the results...

[Fil0403]

Week in review: Problems at Apple?

"If Apple sold 270,000 iPhones in the first 30 hours the product was on sale and AT&T activated only 146,000 iPhones during a similar period of time, then what happened to the other 124,000 phones?"

Easy: they got their hands on a Windows Mobile 6 smartphone before they opened the iPhone box. ROTFLMAO

[ethana2]

Yeah, why would you...

commit copyright infringement, when you can enjoy the freedom of copyleft instead?

You'd think some of those pirates would get sick and tired of all the condescending attitudes they get and switch to creative commons media and gnu software. Come on people- let the inferior stuff die already.

So sad. Hey, my usual offer to any of you out there- if you want any help finding and/or switching to open source stuff like Linux, inkscape, blender, the GIMP- or just understanding free software in general a bit better, just let me know, and I'll give you all the help I can. [e-mail]

[bruceslog]

P2P isn't the problem, it's the Federal Employees

Wow, incredible ! Congress saying P2P is the cause of it's secrets being leaked out - is like saying we should ban automobiles because a federal employee could drive one to a meeting with 'the bad guys' and pass along some paperwork.

Duh !

Congress, you need to find a better excuse to justify your censorship of the people you represent while they are online !

[JJ_Wilde]

What the....

Are you suggesting that our legislators know what is going on before they pass legislation? That would be a horrible thorn in the side of legisative progress.

Besides, they are representatives of the public. How can we demand that they have more rationality than the majority of their voters?

[royrfmcc]

Our goofy Congress

Congress is clueless about a lot of very important matters.