Internet

Senators press Apple, Google on location privacy

Apple and Google returned to Capitol Hill this morning to defend themselves against accusations from U.S. politicians who claim that the companies aren't doing enough to protect their customers' location privacy.

Today's Senate subcommittee hearing, which Facebook also joined, came only a week after a different Senate subcommittee convened nearly the identical hearing on the identical topic: mobile phones, privacy, and user consent.

"I think anyone who uses a mobile device has an expectation of privacy, and sadly that expectation is not always being met," said Sen. John Rockefeller IV (D-W.V.), chairman of the … Read more

Sweeping bill would update privacy law

The U.S. Congress took the first major step today toward updating a 1986 law, crafted in the pre-Internet era of telephone modems and the black-and-white Macintosh Plus, to protect the privacy of Americans who use mobile phones, Web e-mail, and services like Google Docs, Flickr, and Picasa.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of the Judiciary committee, introduced sweeping legislation that would, in many cases, require police to obtain a search warrant to access private communications and the locations of mobile devices.

"Updating this law to reflect the realities of our time is essential to ensuring that our … Read more

How bin Laden evaded the NSA: Sneakernet

Far from being a technological recluse, Osama bin Laden was a prolific e-mail writer who reportedly relied on flash drives, couriers, and sneakernet to keep in touch with his correspondents.

Although bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan lacked phone and Internet connectivity, the al Qaeda leader used his computers to prepare messages and save them on flash drives, which would be passed to a courier, according to the Associated Press. The courier would head to a far-flung Internet cafe, send the outgoing messages, retrieve the incoming ones, and then return to Abbottabad with the responses.

That physical couriering of data, … Read more

Senate bill amounts to death penalty for Web sites

A new bill backed by movie studios and other large copyright holders takes a novel approach to curbing access to piratical Web sites: an Internet death penalty.

That's a good way to describe the approach adopted by the legislation introduced today, which specifies a step-by-step method for making Web sites suspected of infringing copyrights or trademarks vanish from the Internet. It's called the Protect IP Act.

The U.S. Department of Justice would receive the power to seek a court order against an allegedly infringing Web site, and then serve that order on search engines, certain Domain Name … Read more

House ISP-logging proposal would exempt wireless

A top House Republican is planning to propose that Internet service providers be required to store information about their customers to aid police in criminal investigations, CNET has learned.

But a recent draft has one huge exception: wireless companies aren't included.

That appears to be the result of lobbying from wireless providers, which don't want to have to comply with any new governmental mandates. But the exemption has already drawn the ire of the U.S. Justice Department, which says it doesn't go far enough and is likely to attract strong opposition from cable and DSL providers … Read more

DOJ wants wireless providers to store user info

The U.S. Department of Justice today called for new laws requiring mobile providers to collect and store information about their customers, a proposal that pits it against privacy advocates and even other federal agencies.

Jason Weinstein, the deputy assistant attorney general for the criminal division, picked an odd place to describe the department's proposal: a U.S. Senate hearing that arose out of revelations about iPhones recording information about owners' locations, and, in some cases, transmitting those data to Apple without consent.

Nevertheless, Weinstein said, "when this information is not stored, it may be impossible for law … Read more

Senate iPhone hearing preview: Don't single out only apps

New privacy laws should not single out only mobile app developers, a trade association representing small software companies is planning to tell a Senate committee tomorrow.

Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology, said in an interview with CNET this afternoon that any legislation arising out of the recent controversy over Apple iPhones and location tracking should be broad, not narrow. (See a list of related stories.)

"If you're going to put some privacy legislation in place, it shouldn't be some piecemeal regulation of some small portion of the technology industry because it's new … Read more

FCC chief to Congress: Leave Net neutrality alone

The head of the Federal Communications Commission will warn Congress not to repeal the controversial Internet regulations enacted last December, CNET has learned.

Undoing the agency's Net neutrality rules will "increase uncertainty, decrease investment, and hurt job creation," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will say, according to a draft of his prepared remarks.

Genachowski will offer an unyielding, point-by-point defense of the FCC's 3-2 vote, which fell along party lines, saying that it's already increased investment and that relying on antitrust laws to police errant behavior would be "problematic" and "ill-suited to the … Read more

Sohaib Athar on Twitter fame after bin Laden raid (Q&A)

As U.S. special forces assaulted Osama bin Laden's walled compound in Pakistan, a Twitter user was already recording a rough outline of the events to come.

Sohaib Athar, who describes himself as a 33-year-old programmer and consultant "taking a break from the rat race by hiding in the mountains with his laptops," happened to be staying up late at the time. And, from an account called Really Virtual, he live-blogged what he heard.

Athar's real-time dispatches and self-effacing follow-ups have transformed him into an instant online celebrity. He's received at least one marriage proposal--through … Read more