June 2007 Archives
Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras said, “In the absence of significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area.”
As usual, the federal government's research consisted of asking the phone companies what they thought would be best. S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press, complained, "They simply take the incumbents at their word that the U.S. broadband marketplace is competitive -- even though most U.S. consumers have at best two choices for broadband at home."
Lack of competition is leaving us in the dust.
Vermont is not a wealthy state. It's largely rural and leads all U.S. states in Iraq war deaths per capita. Many areas are poor, which affects broadband deployment.
Earlier this year, we wrote about the governor of Vermont's plan to bring universal broadband to the state. But all of this is at risk.
The problem, according to an editorial in the Burlington Free Press called Vt. interests at stake in FairPoint deal, is that Fairpoint may not have enough resources to buy Verizon's phone lines in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, and also invest enough in those lines to deliver top quality internet service.
If you're looking for a killer app, think about the current killer app: e-mail. If the next one is similar, it will be voice, and if it's voice, it will be Digium.
Don't do what the U.S. Department of Homeland Secrity (DHS) did. If you've got a security problem, admit it and fix it. Don't try to hide it, because if you do, the problem will only get worse.
Last November, Wired reported that the government tried to cover up the fact that the Moroccan Zotob virus infected DHS computers. The affected systems: the notorious US-VISIT workstations, responsible for tracking the names of the people we don't want to enter the U.S. They run Windows 2000 Professional.
AT&T's EULA prohibits customers from using their internet service to download video -- but that's exactly what a recent deal between AT&T and Apple will be for.
The uncensored statement of the AT&T employee who blew the whistle on the company's warrantless wiretaps has been posted to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website.
The .pdf file is just under 400K and is available here.
It shows that upper management was intimately involved in this and that the warrantless surveillance occurred at several locations in the company's network.
Did a finalist in a million dollar stockpicking contest manipulate shares in Hanaro Telecom (and other thinly traded shares too)?
As Wired's blog notes, "If you believe that cellphone towers give you cancer and WiFi signals kill your children, look away now. Wireless electricity, the holy grail for minimalist gadget freaks everywhere, comes one step closer thanks to boffins at MIT, who call the new tech 'WiTricity'."
Who wouldn't want to earn money from e-mail marketers targeting your subscribers. Verizon has agreed to do just that by signing up with Goodmail.
Where do pump and dump stock scammers get their lists of e-mail addresses? Some reporters are saying it looks like spammers have direct access to a regularly updated list of the e-mail addresses of all AMERITRADE customers.
Wi-Fi panic continues in Britain as a fearmongering tabloid press warns parents about the dangers of Wi-Fi while neglecting to mention that TV, radio, and microwave ovens all emit more powerful radiation.