Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., urged U.S. businesses to work harder to improve their cybersecurity posture, during a cybersecurity workshop Monday in Bend, Ore. “There needs to be better communication between the private sector and the government sector to identify these very serious threats and then empower each other do something about it,” the chairman of the House Communications Subcommittee told local TV station KTVZ (http://xrl.us/bntatb). “A lot of people don’t know they are even being attacked. So the information is really important to get out there.” Walden, a sponsor of the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) (HR-3523), told reporters he thought the bill “strikes the right balance.” CISPA strengthens liability protections for companies who share cyberthreat information with the government. The White House said it would veto the bill because it fails to create basic cybersecurity standards for businesses to meet. Bill Conner, CEO of cybersecurity company Entrust, said event participants should dedicate one machine for online sales transactions and avoid using email, Web browsing or USB devices on that machine in order to deter attacks.
Dish Network and Gannett signed a new long-term retransmission consent agreement, they said in news releases (http://xrl.us/bntasc) (http://xrl.us/bntasg). The deal allowed blackouts of Gannett stations to be avoided in St. Louis, Buffalo, Knoxville and other markets. The agreement was stalled by a dispute over Dish’s ad-skipping feature, AutoHop (CD Oct 9 p17). Some of the TV stations, including KSDK St. Louis and WUSA Washington, D.C., released news of the deal on their websites. Dish and Gannett didn’t say whether the retrans pact allows AutoHop.
CTIA is pleased with attendance at its revamped fall show, renamed MobileCON and underway in San Diego this week, said spokesman John Walls. “We took a long look and decided that the rebranded focus was the right way to go to grow a solid show for the future,” he said Tuesday. “We're pleased with the quality of the more than 5,000 attendees who are registered so far, which aligns with our emphasis of quality over quantity."
Another TV station and cable system sought exemption for a year (CD Sept 21 p12) from FCC rules on keeping the volume of televised ads not much louder than regular programming. Great Plains Cable, with fewer than 15,000 subscribers, and Billy Ray Locklear Evangelistic Association’s WLPS Lumberton-Pembroke, N.C., with less than $14 million in annual revenue, said they each fit the agency’s definition of small. The delays are needed so the system and TV station can each get the “specified equipment” needed to comply with the CALM Act, they said in filings posted late last week and Tuesday in docket 11-93. Great Plains (http://xrl.us/bntapo) and WLPS (http://xrl.us/bntapq) sought streamlined financial hardship waivers.
Comments on a rulemaking to update cable signal leakage rules are due Dec. 10, replies Jan. 7, in docket 12-217, the FCC said in Tuesday’s Federal Register. It said (http://xrl.us/bntaog) the rulemaking, approved by commissioners at August’s monthly meeting (CD Aug 6 p10), would create equivalents for digital cable systems for the rules now in place for analog.
The Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) clarified it wouldn’t require participants in its self-regulatory program to honor Do Not Track (DNT) requests that are “fixed” by a browser maker by default, rather than due to a setting chosen affirmatively by users. The group said it had received “questions” from participants about the default DNT setting in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 10 (http://xrl.us/bntaqc). The alliance’s own self-regulation program reaches “100 percent of the U.S. market” through more than 1 trillion monthly ad impressions, and is designed to “optimally assure transparency and trust in and consumers’ control over their interactive advertising environments,” it said. Program participants’ activities also are monitored for compliance by the Council of Better Business Bureaus and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), who “can refer violators to government authorities for sanction if they refuse to modify non-compliant behaviors,” the alliance said: All companies found to be in violation of the program so far “have changed their behaviors when notified of non-compliant behaviors and activities.” It’s not an alliance principle or “in any way a requirement” in its program to honor browser-default DNT signals, and neither the council nor the DMA will “sanction or penalize” companies regarding their treatment of DNT signals “set” on browsers, the alliance said. “Machine-driven do not track does not represent user choice; it represents browser-manufacturer choice” and could harm consumer benefits from alliance participants and “confuse consumers and be difficult to implement,” the alliance said. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) said it supports the alliance’s stance (http://xrl.us/bntak8). In a statement, Microsoft Chief Privacy Officer Brendon Lynch stood by the company’s decision to enable DNT by default on its newest browser. “A recent Microsoft survey of U.S. and European consumers shows 75 percent of PC users want Microsoft to turn ‘on’ Do Not Track (DNT). This reaffirms our decision to enable DNT in the ‘Express Settings’ portion of the Windows 8 set-up experience. There, consumers can easily switch DNT off if they'd like."
The No. 1 way that federal data get released without authorization is through work email, said a study from online government IT resource center MeriTalk, sponsored by security software company Axway (http://xrl.us/bntaok). Email was followed on the list by mobile devices and USB drives. The study, which surveyed 203 federal employees working in information security and email management in June and July, said employees of federal agencies send and receive an average of 1.89 billion emails per day, but 47 percent of agencies report needing better email policies and 45 percent said employees don’t follow the policies that are in place. While email encryption is “an important tool for protecting sensitive information,” it can make “outbound emails so opaque that sensitive information can pass through without detection,” said Michael Dayton, Axway senior vice president-security solutions. The study said 58 percent of those surveyed believe it’s harder to detect the unauthorized release of data in encrypted emails.
There is overwhelming support for federal funding of public broadcasting, according to a Washington Times/Zogby Analytics poll conducted after the Oct. 3 presidential candidate debate. The poll of 800 likely voters showed that, 55 percent to 35 percent, “voters do not want cuts in spending to public television,” the polling company said in a research note (http://xrl.us/bntahg). The majority includes 32 percent of Republicans and 50 percent of white voters, it said. The public broadcasting industry and its supporters expressed concern last week when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said during the first debate in the election cycle that he'd zero out funding for PBS if elected president (CD Oct 5 p6). “Best for Romney to drop the Big Bird attack,” said Zogby CEO John Zogby. The survey group included 38 percent Democrats, 35 percent Republicans and 27 percent independents, Zogby said.
About 10 percent of mobile apps leak users’ passwords and logins, said an analysis by Zscaler-owned security research firm ThreatLabZ. Researchers at ThreatLabZ analyzed hundreds of applications through its free Zscaler Application Profiler to complete its report, Zscaler said Monday in a news release. Many of the most popular apps included in the analysis left user names and passwords unencrypted; others shared personal information insecurely, including email addresses and phone numbers, Zscaler said. About 25 percent of apps in the analysis exposed personal information, while 40 percent communicated with third parties, including advertisers, Zscaler said. “App stores have strict guidelines about which logos and colors developers can use, yet application security remains largely unenforced,” Michael Sutton, Zscaler’s vice president for security research, said in the news release (http://xrl.us/bntaem).
Joint telco enterprise CVIN chose LightRiver Technologies to work on a federal stimulus-funded fiber project intended to improve broadband for 18 counties in California, LightRiver said Monday (http://xrl.us/bntabt). The network “traverses 1,750 miles of California’s Central Valley and connects 19 county offices of education, 14 community colleges, 3 California State University campuses, 20 county/main libraries and seven public safety sites,” according to the company.