wifi – Techdirt (original) (raw)

ACLU Says NYC’s Half-Baked WiFi Kiosks Still A Privacy Mess

from the more-of-the-same dept

In 2014, NYC officials decided to replace the city’s dated pay phones with “information kiosks” providing free public Wi-Fi, phone calls, device charging, and a tablet for access to city services, maps and directions. The kiosks were to be funded by “context-aware” ads based on a variety of data collected from kiosk users and NYC residents just passing by.

It… didn’t go well.

Within a few years, reports emerged that the company hired to deploy the kiosks (CityBridge) had only deployed 1,900 of an originally promised 7,000 kiosks. And the kiosks they had deployed were being used to watch porn. The program has also been long criticized for over-collecting user data and being completely non-transparent about what data was being collected or who access was sold to.

By 2020 CityBridge still owed the city $75 million. In 2021, an audit by New York State’s Comptroller found LinkNYC failed completely to meet its deployment goals, failed to adequately maintain existing kiosks, failed to turn on many already deployed kiosks, and had fallen well short of projected ad revenues.

It’s now 2023, and the ACLU of New York says that the lion’s share of the dodgy, privacy-violating tracking undertaken by the kiosk system still hasn’t been meaningfully addressed. And the city and its partners still refuse to provide full transparency on what’s being collected from passing city residents, whether they use the kiosks or not:

Beyond issues with the privacy policy, there is still a lot we don’t know about what information LinkNYC kiosks are sucking up. We also don’t know who has access to that information, how CityBridge is utilizing other third-party data to target people, and what’s being done with that treasure trove of personal data.

I wrote about this for Vice’s Motherboard last fall and absolutely nothing has really changed. The ACLU suggests that one alternative to this privacy-invading stopgap effort is for the city to actually deliver affordable fiber broadband to all city residents so they don’t need to huddle in the street in the first place:

“We need a publicly funded and controlled municipal broadband program that ensures every New Yorker, regardless of who they are or how much money they have, can enjoy high-speed, reliable Internet access. This program must put our privacy rights front-and-center so they aren’t traded away to the highest bidder.”

If you recall, NYC Mayor Eric Adams dismantled the city’s already underway plan to build a city-wide open access fiber network. That network would have boosted city broadband competition and driven down broadband access costs for all city residents, but it was unceremoniously dismantled, much to the surprise of folks that had been working on it for years.

The Adams administration insisted that the privacy-invasive undercooked kiosk system was good enough, likely because a city-owned municipal network would understandably upset regional mono/duopolies Verizon and regional cable giant Charter Communications (Spectrum).

As a substitute, the Adams administration also embraced a program dubbed Big Apple Connect. Under Big Apple Connect, the city decided to pay Charter $30 million a year for three years to give free broadband to around 400,000 folks living in public housing around the city.

Here’s the thing: this program will cost the city $90 million to temporarily fix a problem caused by the company it’s partnering with. That money will be thrown at a local monopoly directly responsible for high prices through its attacks on competition to temporarily lower costs. And the program only runs three years, after which those limited participants are out of luck and prices revert to their normal high.

In contrast, New York City’s original master plan called for spending 156milliontobuildanopenaccessfibernetworkthatalllocalISPscouldcompeteforbusinessover.Theresultingcompetitionwouldhaveloweredbroadbandaccesscostsforeveryoneinrange.That156 million to build an open access fiber network that all local ISPs could compete for business over. The resulting competition would have lowered broadband access costs for everyone in range. That 156milliontobuildanopenaccessfibernetworkthatalllocalISPscouldcompeteforbusinessover.Theresultingcompetitionwouldhaveloweredbroadbandaccesscostsforeveryoneinrange.That90 million being thrown at Charter could have gone a long way toward getting that network off the ground and inspiring other cities.

There’s a reason cities everywhere are building their own broadband networks, whether they’re municipal, cooperatives, or via the city-owned utility. It’s because data routinely show that treating broadband as an essential utility not only results in better, faster, and cheaper broadband, but also locally-owned networks are more easily to hold accountable for privacy and other competitive shenanigans.

This data-backed argument that broadband should probably be a publicly-owned utility understandably doesn’t make regional predatory telecom monopolies (or the endless federal, state, or local politicians that coddle them) particularly happy.

Filed Under: broadband, eric adams, high speed internet, kiosks, linknyc, new york city, nyc, telecom, wifi, wireless
Companies: aclu, citybridge

Another German Court Says The DNS Service Quad9 Is Implicated In Any Copyright Infringement At The Domains It Resolves

from the cluelessness-über-alles dept

Back in September 2021 Techdirt covered an outrageous legal attack by Sony Music on Quad9, a free, recursive, anycast DNS platform. Quad9 is part of the Internet’s plumbing: it converts domain names to numerical IP addresses. It is operated by the Quad9 Foundation, a Swiss public-benefit, not-for-profit organization. Sony Music says that Quad9 is implicated in alleged copyright infringement on the sites it resolves. That’s clearly ridiculous, but unfortunately the Regional Court of Hamburg agreed with Sony Music’s argument, and issued an interim injunction against Quad9. The German Society for Civil Rights (Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte e.V. or “GFF”) summarizes the court’s thinking:

In its interim injunction the Regional Court of Hamburg asserts a claim against Quad9 based on the principles of the German legal concept of “Stoererhaftung” (interferer liability), on the grounds that Quad9 makes a contribution to a copyright infringement that gives rise to liability, in that Quad9 resolves the domain name of website A into the associated IP address. The German interferer liability has been criticized for years because of its excessive application to Internet cases. German lawmakers explicitly abolished interferer liability for access providers with the 2017 amendment to the German Telemedia Act (TMG), primarily to protect WIFI operators from being held liable for costs as interferers.

As that indicates, this is a case of a law that is a poor fit for modern technology. Just as the liability no longer applies to WIFI operators, who are simply providing Internet access, so the German law should also not catch DNS resolvers like Quad9. The GFF post notes that Quad9 has appealed to the Hamburg Higher Regional Court against the lower court’s decision. Unfortunately, another regional court has just handed down a similar ruling against the company, reported here by Heise Online (translation by DeepL):

the Leipzig Regional Court has sentenced the Zurich-based DNS service Quad9. On pain of an administrative fine of up to 250,000 euros or up to 2 years’ imprisonment, the small resolver operator was prohibited from translating two related domains into the corresponding IP addresses. Via these domains, users can find the tracks of a Sony music album offered via Shareplace.org.

The GFF has already announced that it will be appealing along with Quad9 to the Dresden Higher Regional Court against this new ruling. It says that the Leipzig Regional Court has made “a glaring error of judgment”, and explains:

If one follows this reasoning, the copyright liability of completely neutral infrastructure services like Quad9 would be even stricter than that of social networks, which fall under the infamous Article 17 of the EU Copyright Directive,” criticizes Felix Reda, head of the Control © project of the Society for Civil Rights. “The [EU] Digital Services Act makes it unequivocally clear that the liability rules for Internet access providers apply to DNS services. We are confident that this misinterpretation of European and German legal principles will be overturned by the Court of Appeals.”

Let’s hope so. If it isn’t, we can expect companies providing the Internet’s basic infrastructure in the EU to be bombarded with demands from the copyright industry and others for domains to be excluded from DNS resolution. The likely result is that perfectly legal sites and their holdings will be ghosted by DNS companies, which will prefer to err on the side of caution rather than risk becoming the next Quad9.

Follow me @glynmoody on Mastodon or Twitter.

Filed Under: article 17, copyright, digital services act, dns, eu copyright directive, felix reda, germany, hamburg, leipzig, liability, quad9, sony music, switzerland, wifi
Companies: quad9, sony music

Cloud-Based Smart Home Gadgets Keep Getting Bricked Because You No Longer Own What You Buy

from the I'm-sorry-I-can't-do-that,-Dave... dept

Fri, Sep 2nd 2022 12:32pm - Karl Bode

We’ve noted more times than I can count how you no longer really own the things you buy. Whether it’s smart home hardware, or routers that become useless paperweights when the manufacturer implodes, or post-purchase firmware updates that actively make your device less useful, you simply never know if the product you bought yesterday will be the same product you think you own tomorrow.

The latest case in point: numerous folks had grown to really enjoy using a smart home device dubbed SmartDry. SmartDry attaches to the inside of your dryer’s drum and connects to your smartphone, and can inform you when clothes are actually dry (saving you money), when your vents need cleaning or there’s a gas buildup (saving your life).

Unfortunately, the company behind the device is shutting down, leaving fans of the product with a useless bauble:

The problem is that SmartDry alerted you to dry clothing by connecting to your home’s Wi-Fi; the device sent a message to parent company Connected Life’s servers and then relayed that message to your smartphone. But Connected Life Labs is closing, discontinuing SmartDry, and shutting down its servers on September 30. After that, “cloud services will cease operations and the product apps will no longer be supported.”

DIY enthusiasts could buy a ESP32 development board, load some custom code, and set up their own smart home assistant, but few folks will actually be doing that. It’s a bummer to the many folks, including the hearing impaired, that say no other device offered quite the same functionality.

SmartDry didn’t cost much (about $25), and its failure creates a market opportunity for some other smart home device manufacturers. Still, it’s just the latest in a long line of devices heavily reliant on one company’s cloud infrastructure that can quickly become both useless and environmentally wasteful should the original company run into troubles:

Cloud server dependence is a recurring problem with smart home devices. Smart home company Insteon seemed to vanish without warning in April. Insteon later blamed the pandemic and supply chain shortages. In June, a group of dedicated customers purchased Insteon and revived its services. Most of the time, shutdowns are more routine, like when a service is cut after an acquisition, or a large company loses interest in its smart home experiment.

So the real innovative opportunity lies in creating more resilient systems that can still function even if the manufacturer collapses. Enter the open source Matter platform, which is expected to launch this fall, and not only unify the fractured standards in the smart home space, but let all of your smart home devices communicate on a local network, without without the need for a controlling gateway and hub.

Filed Under: bluetooth, cloud, dryer, ownership, smart home, smart home standards, smartdry, wifi
Companies: connected life

Court Ruling Paves The Way For Better, More Reliable Wi-Fi

from the bigger-faster-stronger dept

Wed, Jan 5th 2022 06:29am - Karl Bode

A ruling (pdf) last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has paved the way for deployment of faster, better Wi-Fi, while simultaneously cementing the FCC’s authority to make important decisions related to spectrum and interference concerns.

Last year, the FCC voted to open up a chunk of spectrum in the 6GHz band for unlicensed use, providing more airwaves to be used by Wi-Fi and other technologies. Wi-Fi is the most immediate beneficiary; this posed the biggest expansion of available spectrum since Wi-Fi was first unveiled back in 1989. The expansion, and the new standards making more efficient use of more spectrum, should result first in better, more reliable Wi-Fi, and ultimately faster speeds of 1?2 Gbps connections over Wi-Fi. That means better broadband, and more innovation in the band:

Big news! Today the DC Circuit unanimously upheld the FCC's decision to free up the 6 GHz band for more unlicensed use. This decision = more Wi-Fi in more places and it matters because it comes at a time when being connected is more important than ever. https://t.co/jjN4G8ALzA

— Jessica Rosenworcel (@JRosenworcel) December 28, 2021

Granted, large wireless carriers like AT&T didn’t much like this plan. They wanted the FCC to auction off this swath of publicly owned airwaves to them for deployment of their 5G networks. Carriers masked this ambition under interference concerns in a subsequent lawsuit, claiming that Wi-Fi in these bands would interfere with the “tens of thousands of microwave links critical to maintaining network infrastructure.” The FCC and its staff of engineers (and a bipartisan array of commissioners) disagreed, and found that opening this spectrum to unlicensed use served both innovation and the public interest.

Now, the court has reiterated that the FCC has the expertise and authority to make these kinds of decisions. That had long been understood, but there’s been a concerted effort to reduce the FCC’s authority on countless fronts over the last decade. First, you watched as the broadband industry effectively gutted much of the agency’s consumer protection authority with the net neutrality repeal. We also watched a heavily-lobbied Congress gut the FCC’s broadband privacy authority with a partisan vote. More recently, everybody from the wireless industry to the FAA has been trying to malign the FCC’s engineering authority (see: the FAA’s weird attempt to limit 5G deployments based on shaky interference and safety claims).

The court basically made it clear the FCC has the expertise and authority to make major decisions in this space — provided it clearly explains why with real-world data (something it often didn’t do during the Trump era).

Today?s decision in AT&T Services has broader consequences for noting spectrum battles. 1. It reaffirms the @FCC gets deference on its technical judgments and which studies/methodologies it prefers. *As long as it explains why.* But failure to explain why results in remand. /1

— (((haroldfeld))) (@haroldfeld) December 28, 2021

It’s one of those weird and rare instances where a bipartisan coalition of FCC officials all align to do the right thing, despite heavy meddling from giant wireless carriers like AT&T, ever eager for policies more favorable to their bottom lines. The coalition of companies excited to develop innovative products making use of the additional spectrum are understandably happy about the ruling, as are consumers and tinkerers looking forward to better, faster Wi-Fi — and the policy wonks happy to see the FCC’s authority to do its job cemented by the courts.

Filed Under: 6ghz, fcc, spectrum, unlicensed spectrum, wifi

The FCC Ponders A Hugely Problematic Tax On WiFi

from the this-won't-end-well dept

Thu, Nov 18th 2021 06:35am - Karl Bode

For years, we’ve noted how telecom and media giants have been trying to force “big tech” to give them huge sums of money for no reason. The shaky logic usually involves claiming that “big tech” gets a “free ride” on telecom networks, something that’s never actually been true. This narrative has been bouncing around telecom policy circles for years, and recently bubbled up once again thanks to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr.

Carr’s push basically involves parroting AT&T’s claim that big tech should be funding AT&T network upgrades. You’re to ignore the fact that giants like AT&T routinely take billions in tax breaks and subsidies for network upgrades that never arrive. This quest to punish “big tech” with unnecessary new surcharges is something that’s also supported by the National Association of Broadcasters, who have long hated companies like Microsoft’s efforts to use unlicensed spectrum from unused television channels (aka “white spaces”) to deliver new broadband options.

The FCC does desperately need to find more funding revenue to shore up programs like the Universal Service Fund (USF) and E-Rate, which help provide broadband access to schools and low income Americans. So it recently announced it would be considering a new tax on unlicensed spectrum. Pressured by NAB, the Biden FCC’s plan would assess regulatory fees on ?unlicensed spectrum users,? which would include users of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and other consumer wireless devices. It’s a tax on tech, proposed by telecom and media companies that want to punish their ad and data collection competitors in tech.

Harold Feld, who probably knows more about wireless spectrum policy than anybody, has penned a helpful piece over at Forbes explaining why this is a terrible idea. He outlines that NAB’s real goal is to punish companies like Microsoft for daring to use spectrum the broadcast industry falsely believes belongs to them:

“The NAB has made it abundantly clear this is payback against tech companies ? particularly Microsoft. Broadcasters don?t just claim to own their individual channels. They claim to collectively own all ?broadcast spectrum.? About 10 years ago, the FCC authorized unlicensed access to unused television channels, aka ?TV white spaces.? Broadcasters vowed to strangle the new technology in its cradle rather than share ?their? spectrum and, unfortunately, were largely successful. But in recent years, Microsoft has tried to resurrect the TV white spaces as a way of bringing broadband to rural America.”

The FCC’s proposal may go nowhere. Interim (and soon permanent) FCC boss Jessica Rosenworcel may just be doing her due diligence, and opening the door to a conversation about various options to shore up dwindling FCC broadband program funding. But Harold makes it very clear the proposal, if adopted, would be hugely problematic and defeat the benefit of unlicensed spectrum:

“The idea that a tax on unlicensed spectrum would only hurt Microsoft or ?big tech? is absurd. The whole point of unlicensed spectrum is that it?s open for everyone to use. The effort by broadcasters to impose a Wi-Fi tax should be as laughably ridiculous as modem taxes and email taxes. But rather than simply deny the proposal, the FCC has put it out for public comment.”

While Harold’s correct that this particular push belongs to NAB, the broader push to hit “big tech” with various new FCC regulatory fees is something also being supported by telecom giants, and the regulators who love them. Both broadcasters and telecoms realize the FCC is desperate for new funding for low-income programs, and want to exploit that with efforts that predominately benefit themselves. For NAB, it’s punishing big tech for daring to innovate using spectrum it falsely thinks it owns. For AT&T, it’s forcing “big tech” to pay for network upgrades it routinely fails to finish despite billions in tax breaks, regulatory favors, and subsidies.

Filed Under: bluetooth, broadcasters, e-rate, fcc, radio, tax, usf, wifi
Companies: nab

Ajit Pai's FCC Does Something Good, Frees Wireless Spectrum The Auto Industry Had Done Little With

from the stopped-clocks,-twice-a-day dept

Wed, Nov 25th 2020 06:30am - Karl Bode

While we’ve had no shortage of criticism for Ajit Pai’s facts-optional, relentless ass kissing of entrenched telecom monopolies, or his wholesale demolition of U.S. consumer protection, his agency has done a good job bringing more wireless spectrum to market. Doing so wasn’t particularly controversial, since everybody, consumers to big carriers alike, benefit from having access to more spectrum — especially valuable middleband spectrum of great use in 5G deployments. Still, it’s complicated and warrants kudos in an era when government often can’t tie its own shoes correctly.

Last week, the FCC quietly voted unanimously to add 45MHz of spectrum to Wi-Fi to public access, taking it away from an auto industry public safety initiative that failed to materialize over the last 20 years. Spectrum in the 5.850GHz to 5.925GHz range for several decades had been set aside for something called Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC), a vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications system that was supposed to warn drivers of traffic dangers. But decades in, 99.9943% of cars still don’t have the technology, and many experts had argued this spectrum was better used elsewhere.

Because this spectrum aids his industry BFFs, Pai was keen on moving forward in ensuring this spectrum could be put to better use. Both consumer groups and telecom policy and lobbying groups agreed with the decision, which hasn’t happened all that often in the last four years. Public Knowledge counsel Harold Feld, who probably knows more about U.S. spectrum policy than anybody alive, had this to say of the move:

“The addition of 45 MHz of unlicensed spectrum will create a WiFi channel capable of supporting WiFi 6. This will enable wireless providers to dramatically increase the speed and reliability of rural broadband. It will dramatically increase the power of public hotspots and mobile hotspots on which many low-income families rely for access to school and work during the pandemic. Because this relies on already existing technology, the expansion and change to WiFi 6 can happen relatively quickly through software upgrades once the rules become effective.”

DSRC services now have to vacate the lower 45MHz within one year. The FCC also set aside around 30MHz for a newer vehicle safety technology dubbed Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X), which the FCC claims will serve the same function using less overall precious spectrum.

The decision wasn’t entirely without controversy. The Department of Transit wasn’t thrilled, arguing that DSRC tech still could have been useful, that 30 MHz wasn’t enough for C-V2X to work (“there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that 30 MHz will suffice to support a safety-driven ecosystem like the one in which DOT and other stakeholders have invested.”). The auto industry (which had been accused of “spectrum squatting”) understandably opposed the ruling via its various policy organizations. Other critics like Senator Maria Cantwell argued the FCC had been told to pause all controversial decisions during the transition, which is custom.

Still, you’d be hard pressed to find an issue where this FCC and consumer groups align, so progress is progress, even if not everybody’s happy with the outcome. Of course, this doesn’t make up for Pai’s long history of demolishing U.S. consumer protection on behalf of telecom monopolies in fits of lies and rank hypocrisy, but it’s still nice to see (most) folks agree on one of his last major decisions as agency boss.

Filed Under: ajit pai, auto industry, dsrc, fcc, mobile, spectrum, wifi

Safety in Name, Commercial in Fact: The Auto Industry Spectrum Squatting Campaign on 5.9 GHz Widens the Digital Divide

from the not-helping dept

Here’s an idea for a business model. Instead of using valuable spectrum to close the digital divide by opening it for everyone to use, get the FCC to give us exclusive use for free. Next, convince states and the federal government that rather than build broadband networks to the disconnected in rural America, they should build out our network (also at no cost to us). Then we will use this network to harvest everyone’s driving information while serving up advertisements and other commercial services. In order to persuade taxpayers to support it, we’ll pretend the network is “absolutely essential” to preventing car accidents, despite the recent development of superior technology. To really sell the idea, we’ll label this piece of spectrum the “Safety Band.”

Welcome to the auto industry business plan for the 5.9 GHz band, 75 MHz of spectrum originally allocated to the auto industry for free back in 2004. However, the FCC is now proposing to reclaim 45 MHz of this for much-needed rural broadband and Wi-Fi 6 to better connect America. This would leave 30 MHz for intelligent traffic management and auto safety technologies, but would not leave any space available for the auto industry’s commercial applications.

Needless to say, the auto industry opposes this tooth and nail, and has enlisted the help of the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to block the FCC’s effort to help close the digital divide. Additionally, the auto industry has consistently opposed efforts by consumer groups to have the FCC prohibit commercial uses and impose privacy protections on the band. Americans will be far better served — and much safer on the road — if the FCC follows through on its plan to repurpose the commercial part of the auto industry’s “safety band” for other uses.

A Brief History of 5.9 GHz – From “Safety Band” to $afety Band

For nearly two decades, the auto industry has pushed the idea of wireless “intelligent traffic” systems as a means of promoting safety. At the same time, however, the auto industry has made it equally clear to investors and equipment designers that the industry intends to use this network for commercial purposes as well. In 2004, the FCC adopted the auto industry plan to take 75 MHz of spectrum and reserve it exclusively for “Dedicated Short-Range Communications” (DSRC) for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) (and generically “V2X”) communications. However — unlike other bands reserved for public safety purposes at the time — the FCC permitted the auto industry to use these reserved frequencies for commercial purposes as well as safety purposes. The FCC restricts only two channels (totaling 20 MHz) to “collision avoidance” and “safety-of-life” applications, leaving the bulk of the spectrum available for commercial use.

Despite support from the auto industry, DSRC technology failed to catch on in the market.

There were many reasons for this. For one thing, V2X technologies only work to avoid collisions if the other car has a compatible V2X technology. This makes it absolutely useless against existing cars, pedestrians, bicyclists, or even stray deer. Other technologies, like LIDAR, do a much better job avoiding collisions, which is why these technologies caught on in the market and DSRC remains virtually undeployed. The auto industry responded to this market rejection by persuading the NHTSA to start a rulemaking to require DSRC in every new car whether consumers wanted the technology or not, and convincing federal and state agencies to invest hundreds of millions of dollars building DSRC “safety networks” for the auto industry to use for free. (The Trump Administration killed the DSRC rulemaking as part of its general deregulatory agenda in 2017.)

Reclaiming 5.9 GHz for Rural Broadband and Gigabit Wi-Fi to Connect America

The FCC began a set of proceedings in 2013 to expand the spectrum available for unlicensed uses with a particular eye toward expanding the 5 GHz band generally. For technical reasons, expanding existing bands creates huge advantages for increasing available bandwidth. The FCC hoped to expand the unlicensed portions of the 5 GHz band to enhance the ability of rural wireless internet service providers (WISPs) using the existing 5.8 GHz unlicensed band to offer real broadband in rural America, and creating the capacity for gigabit Wi-Fi in people’s homes. The FCC initially tried to work with the auto industry and NHTSA to find a way for unlicensed sharing to co-exist on a non-interfering basis with DSRC. That, to put it mildly, did not go well.

After nearly 20 years of waiting for the auto industry to make use of the 5.9 GHz band, and spending five years trying to work with the auto industry on a win-win solution, the FCC finally had enough. A unanimous FCC voted last December to propose simply taking away the 45 MHz of spectrum that the auto industry wants for commercial uses, leaving the auto industry with the 30 MHz needed to do actual safety and collision avoidance. (As the FCC noted, this 30 MHz is approximately what both Japan and the European Union allocate for similar technology.) The FCC proposal would also open the 30 MHz safety band to other V2X technologies, such as LTE-based V2X, that use existing mobile networks.

Needless to say, the auto industry did not take this lying down. Lobbyists have pressed the “safety band” argument consistently, while acting offended whenever someone points out that 30 MHz leaves them plenty of spectrum for actual highway safety uses if the industry just drops the commercial aspect. Of course, the auto industry says it’s “not about the money.” The industry claims it just expects even more awesome safety features at some indefinite time in the future and therefore requires all 75 MHz of spectrum for when that magical day arrives. In the meantime, though, the auto industry argues it might as well use the extra 45 MHz of spectrum for collecting people’s personal driving information and serving them personal ads — solely in the name of efficiency, of course.

For the Auto Industry, It’s About the Money — Not Saving Lives

As the old adage goes, when someone says, “it’s not the money, it’s the principle,” you know it’s about the money. In 2016, Public Knowledge — joined by a number of other public interest organizations — asked the FCC to prohibit commercial operation on the entire DSRC service and to impose privacy rules preventing the auto industry from using the information it collects from consumers for commercial purposes.

For the last four years, the auto industry has refused a non-commercial condition on a band that the industry itself claims is strictly for safety, arguing that it’s the “principle of the thing” that forces them to reject the condition. Likewise, while repeatedly affirming a deep and sincere commitment to protecting customer privacy, the auto industry refuses to accept any limitations on information collected outside the dedicated public safety channels. As one lobbyist for the industry put it: “On the commercial side, it’s whatever the privacy policy of the application provider is. . . . like Facebook.”

Furthermore, although publicly defending the V2X as a life-saving technology, the auto industry has pressed developers to include commercial applications in equipment and as an explicit part of the business case for adopting the technology. Even NHSTA, the regulator-turned-advocate for the auto industry, touts the commercial uses of DSRC and other V2X technologies.

As the FCC draws closer to a decision, expect to hear more from the auto industry and its surrogates about how the “safety band” saves lives while Wi-Fi just streams Netflix and cat videos. As hopefully everyone has learned in the current pandemic, access to broadband absolutely saves lives. Reclaiming 45 MHz from the 5.9 GHz band will help bring real broadband to rural America and to everyone dependent on Wi-Fi hotspots for access. The auto industry will still have plenty of dedicated spectrum for an actual safety band — it just won’t be a $afety band.

Harold Feld is Public Knowledge’s Senior Vice President. For more than 20 years, Feld has practiced law at the intersection of technology, broadband, and media policy in both the private sector and in the public interest community. Feld has an undergraduate degree from Princeton University, a law degree from Boston University, and clerked for the D.C. Court of Appeals.

Filed Under: 5.9 ghz, automotive industry, digital divide, fcc, nhtsa, rural internet, safety band, spectrum, wifi

Five Bar Owners Arrested In France For Not Logging Internet Use By Patrons Using Bars' WiFi Connections

from the what-even-the-fuck-but-in-French dept

A seldom used mandate from France’s 2006 anti-terrorism law is being wielded rather conspicuously in a single French city to lock up small business owners.

At least five bar owners in Grenoble, France have been arrested for providing WiFi at their businesses without keeping logs. The bar owners were arrested under a 2006 law that technically classifies WiFi hotspot providing establishments as ISPs, and require them to store one year’s worth of logs or connection records for anti terrorism purposes.

France has a long and inglorious history of forcing ISPs to log user activity, but this is the first time data retention laws have been used against business owners who allow customers to connect to their WiFi. In 2011, the law was expanded to demand the logging of user login info and passwords, thus ensuring service providers would always be tempting targets for malicious hackers.

The new and sudden enforcement of a nearly 15-year-old law seems pretty weird, considering it only targeted five bar owners in one city. This suggests Grenoble law enforcement might have a bit too much time on its hands. It doesn’t appear to be part of a larger sweep across the country to (harshly) remind small business owners of their data retention obligations.

The bar owners — who were all released after questioning — said the hospitality section union (UMIH) never made them aware they needed to retain 365 days of customer internet activity, despite holding several conferences and seminars on running hospitality business. UMIH responded by saying it’s not the union’s fault members don’t read UMIH junk mail.

Umih admitted that the training doesn’t mention WiFi logging but noted that Umih members should have known about this important requirement because it was mentioned in a newsletter.

Dystopia — well, more of it — has come to Grenoble, France. Five bar owners are now more than fully aware of their data retention obligations. Since these arrests have made international news, it’s safe to assume customers are also now fully aware their internet activity is being logged and stored every time they connect with a bar’s hotspot.

Not that staying home helps. Bar patrons face the same harvesting of data whether they stay in or go out. ISPs — which includes anyone offering a “public” connection — are under the same obligations. Failing to do so could net bar owners (or cable company employees) a 75,000 Euro fine and up to a year in prison.

And, in a damned if you do/damned if you don’t twist, there’s a good chance this kind of logging — especially without explicit consent from patrons — violates the far-more-recent GDPR. But few bar owners will have the money needed to challenge France’s law or have the ability to run this by the EU Commission for a second look. That leaves it up to the local cops, who appear to have found a new way to make things periodically miserable for the community they serve.

Filed Under: anti-terrorism, bar wifi, cafe wifi, france, isps, logs, privacy, small businesses, wifi

Libraries Want To Become Broadband Havens During The Pandemic, But Want More Help From The FCC

from the ill-communication dept

Wed, Mar 25th 2020 06:29am - Karl Bode

For many of the estimated 44 million Americans who lack access to any kind of broadband at home, the nation’s libraries are their only way to get online. And as libraries close up shop to slow the spread of COVID-19, that access is no longer available. That’s why the American Library Association, which represents the country’s 16,557 public libraries, fired off a letter to the FCC (pdf) last week asking if it would be okay if they left their WiFi hotspots operational during the pandemic quarantine.

The nation’s Libraries were apparently worried that the Ajit Pai FCC would penalize them under the FCC’s E-Rate program, which helps subsidize broadband access to rural Americans:

“Clarify that public libraries can allow community access to their Wi-Fi networks without jeopardizing E-rate funding. We?re all familiar with stories of people in the library parking lot after hours using the Wi-Fi, but some libraries may refrain if they believe they must cost-allocate a portion of their capacity to account for usage outside their building walls.”

But the ALA isn’t just interested in ensuring that existing WiFi hotspots remain available to impacted Americans. They’re eager to extend access to American communities wherever possible, including putting WiFi hotspots on bookmobiles to help ensure countless millions of Americans can still access the internet during the crisis. That’s somewhat important given the millions of American kids who currently can’t get online at home:

“Clarify that public libraries may use the Wi-Fi enabled bookmobile or techmobile as a community hotspot without jeopardizing E-rate funding. This would enable them to bring internet access to public locations in communities with a high percentage of families or individuals without home broadband access.”

The ALA?s request came on the heels of similar letters from both the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition (SHLB) and the Education and Library Networks Coalition (EdLiNC). All of these groups had already been concerned given the Trump FCC’s efforts to hamstring the E-rate program in general.

By this week the FCC had issued a statement that only bothered to answer some of these organizations’ questions. The good news: the FCC made it clear that it would not penalize libraries and schools that leave their WiFi hotspots online so that people can still access them on school property:

By this Public Notice, the Wireline Competition Bureau reminds schools and libraries that are closed due to the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak that they are permitted to allow the general public to use E-Rate-supported Wi-Fi networks while on the school?s campus or library property.

But the FCC effectively ignored the libraries’ request that they be allowed to extend service beyond that. Former FCC lawyer Gigi Sohn told me this week that the the FCC has been telling petitioners that it “lacks the authority” to allow flexibility in the way E-Rate works. That’s somewhat amusing given that this FCC has been repeatedly slapped down by the courts for ignoring or violating agency rules when it’s to the benefit of giant media and telecom monopolies.

Like here, when the courts told the FCC it was effectively making things up and ignoring established guidelines to try and kill media consolidation rules. Or here, when the courts told the agency it was again making things up as it rushed to pass the wireless industry’s preferred 5G guidance. Or here when the FCC tried kill modest broadband funding to tribal areas. Or the net neutrality debate, during which the Pai FCC not only repeatedly made up data points, but completely ignored wholesale identity theft and fraud because it benefited their primary agenda: an almost mindless deregulation of entrenched U.S. telecom monopolies.

In all of the above three examples, the FCC was more than happy to twist itself into pretzels when it comes to giving US telecom giants everything they’ve lobbied for, even if it meant bending or outright ignoring the rules. But U.S. libraries request the ability and funding to slightly expand broadband availability during an historic crisis, and the agency suddenly loses all of its appetite for creative policy and going the extra mile.

Filed Under: e-rate, fcc, hotspots, libraries, wifi

Google Finally Settles Lawsuit Over Decade-Old WiFi Snooping Accusations

from the that-took-some-time dept

Wed, Jul 24th 2019 01:49pm - Karl Bode

So if you’ve been around these parts for a while, you might remember a big stink back in 2006 or so when Google’s Street View vehicles were found to have been hoovering up data collected via WiFi. The collection came while the company was collecting Street View data via its army of specially-configured vehicles, and included pretty much any and all unencrypted data traveling over those networks, including telephone numbers, URLs, passwords, e-mail, or video streams. The goal was purportedly to ensure better geographical positioning data, but the data collected went well beyond what was needed for that goal.

Initially, Google claimed that the data collection was accidental, something supported by engineering analysis at the time. Here’s what Google said in 2010 about the issue:

“So how did this happen? Quite simply, it was a mistake. In 2006 an engineer working on an experimental Wi-Fi project wrote a piece of code that sampled all categories of publicly broadcast WiFi data. A year later, when our mobile team started a project to collect basic WiFi network data like SSID information and MAC addresses using Google’s Street View cars, they included that code in their software?although the project leaders did not want, and had no intention of using, payload data.”

In 2012 however, an FCC document detailed how a Google engineer had created a system that collected this data intentionally, but had downplayed the privacy risk because Google Street View vehicles would not be “in proximity to any given user for an extended period of time,” and “[n]one of the data gathered … [would] be presented to end users of [Google’s] services in raw form.” And while the engineer was probably right that not much useful data was collected, doing so at all was admittedly not a bright idea, and the “mistake” wound up being an intentional, poor engineering choice signed off on by project managers.

Admittedly the real-world risk of the entire scandal was violently over-hyped. The moving vehicles only had access to hotspots as vehicles passed for a few seconds, frequent channel hopping reduced data collection further, and again, the entire effort only collected data from hotspots that didn’t use encryption Still, it was a dumb decision any way you slice it.

Fast forward thirteen years after the data collection occurred, and Google has finally put the entire scandal to bed, at least here in the States. The company will wind up paying $13 million to settle a 2010 lawsuit over this data collection. Because the data is so fragmented, it’s hard to actually identify whose data was collected during that period; so the payout will largely go to lawyers and a handful of privacy activism organizations:

“Lawyers for the plaintiffs said it would be difficult to identify masses of affected people, a decade later, from the random snippets of data that the company collected when its vehicles drove by their homes.

Instead, what?s left of the $13 million — after administrative costs and the lawyers who brought the lawsuit get a commission of as much as 25% — will be distributed to a handful of consumer privacy advocacy groups, according to a court filing detailing the terms of the deal.”

While this scandal may have been over-hyped, it still managed to highlight how non-transparent privacy practices are, how companies have few reservations when it comes to misrepresenting what actually happened, and how long it takes to actually achieve anything even vaguely resembling accountability. Of course in the decade-plus since this scandal began, it has become abundantly clear that this sort of casual disregard for user privacy was always more of a feature than a bug, and we’re still not doing a very good job coming up with a meaningful model for doing much of anything about it outside of hand-wringing and hysteria.

Filed Under: privacy, street view, wifi
Companies: google