[Note:  Watching the video you'll get the chance to see all the third party apps that have been developed for the iPhone.  An impressive list for so short a time.  DLH]

iPhone protest vid uses Apple’s own words to support the “crazy ones”

<http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/30/iphone-protest-vid-uses-apples-own-words-to-support-the-crazy/>

A lot of people out there aren’t too happy with Apple right now. Some of them express their displeasure with expletive-filled tirades in the comments section of any pertinent blog post they can find. Other, arguably more creative folks use the popular medium of the day to make the object of their frustration appear foolish and hypocritical in an entertaining manner. To witness just such a protest, head over to the video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a40BQ8ThsTc>

[Note:  This comment comes from reader Robert Berger.  That is now possible.  Instructions on how to do this (and a video) are available at: "iPhone 1.1.1 to 1.0.2 downgrade instructions released!" <http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/163136593/>  The Apple/iPhone Hacker war continues.  DLH]

From: “Robert J. Berger” <rberger@ibd.com>

Date: September 28, 2007 9:17:23 PM PDT

To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@warpspeed.com>

Subject: Re: [Dewayne-Net] iPhone Re-Reviewed (Verdict: Don’t Buy)

Can you not “re-hack” your phone?

[Note:  This item comes from reader Randall.  DLH]

From: Randall <rvh40@insightbb.com>

Date: September 29, 2007 10:27:52 PM PDT

To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>, Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@warpspeed.com>, johnmacsgroup@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Court:  Just because it’s from the InterNET, doesn’t mean it’s InterSTATE, necessarily

<http://HTDAW.livedigital.com/blog/96104>

Court: Web Downloads Not Necessarily ‘Interstate Commerce’

DENVER — In a ruling that departed from a previous holding by another federal court, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that merely demonstrating that a defendant used the Internet is not sufficient to prove that the defendant engaged in “interstate commerce.”

The decision arose from an appeal filed by William Schaefer, a resident of Kansas who was convicted on a single charge each of receiving child pornography and possession of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2) and 18 U.S.C. §2252(a)(4)(B), respectively.

According to information obtained through an investigation by the Kansas City office of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Schaefer used his computer and credit cards to subscribe to child pornography websites. When authorities searched Schaefer’s home, they found two CDs that contained a total of 11 child porn images, and evidence of child porn images in unallocated clusters and temporary Internet cache files on Schafer’s computer.

Although Schaefer admitted to using the Internet to seek out child porn images, prosecutors did not present evidence directly tying the images on the CDs to Schaefer’s Internet use, and he was not charged with possessing or receiving the images contained in his computer’s temporary Internet cache.

Following his conviction by bench trial (Schaefer waived his right to a jury trial), Schaefer appealed his conviction on the basis that the “government failed to offer evidence to show that any single visual image he received or possessed traveled across state lines,” as required by the statute under which he was convicted.

In its ruling, the 10th Circuit noted that each section of the statute in question “requires the government to establish that in committing the offense a visual image ‘has been mailed, or has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce . . . by any means including by computer,’” and held that since the government did not meet that burden, Schaefer’s conviction must be overturned.

“Ultimately, the decision to uphold or overturn Mr. Schaefer’s convictions turns on whether an Internet transmission, standing alone, satisfies the interstate commerce requirement of the statute,” the court wrote in its decision. “Mr. Schaefer asserts that § 2252(a)’s jurisdictional provisions requires movement across state lines, and it is not enough to assume that an Internet communication necessarily traveled across state lines in interstate commerce. We agree.”

In evaluating the legislative history of the statute at issue in the case, the court noted that in 1988, Congress amended the statute to include the phrase “including by computer,” in order to indicate that using a computer to transmit digital depictions between jurisdictions should be treated in the same way as using the U.S. mail system to send paper copies of photographs between states.

What Congress did not intend by including that phrase, the 10th Circuit held, was to suggest that any use of a computer, or of the Internet, by a defendant automatically represents engaging in “Interstate commerce.”

“We do not construe this amendment as indicating that Congress intended for use of a computer, without more, to satisfy the statute’s jurisdictional requirements,” the court wrote in its decision. “The phrase ‘including by computer’ specifies a method of interstate movement; the government must still establish that any computer-related movement crossed state lines…. the government was required to prove that any Internet transmissions containing child pornography that moved to or from Mr. Schaefer’s computer crossed state lines. The government failed to do so.”

The 10th Circuit acknowledged that its ruling contradicted a previous ruling by the 3rd Circuit, in which that court held that “given the interstate character of the Internet, a connection to a website server or request for an image from a server via the Internet invariably involves data moving in interstate commerce.” With respect to that holding, the 10th Circuit wrote that it “must respectfully disagree.”

In coming to its ruling, the 3rd Circuit “overlooked the limiting jurisdictional language that Congress employed, i.e., the ‘in commerce’ language,” the 10th Circuit wrote in its ruling.

“In effect, [the 3rd Circuit court] recast the jurisdictional requirement of the child-pornography statute into one that could be satisfied by use of an ‘interstate facility,’ and determined that the Internet was such a facility,” the 10th Circuit wrote. “Consequently, it did not insist on proof that the particular child-pornography images crossed state lines, only proof that the defendant ‘downloaded those images from the Internet.’”

Attorney Rob Apgood told XBIZ that he thought the 10th Circuit’s ruling in the Schaefer case was correct in its analysis of the law.

“This was a highly fact-specific ruling,” Apgood said. “The government failed to prove an element of the case. There has to be proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every element of the crime before a conviction will be sustained, and the government just failed to prove the interstate element here.”

Apgood said that he thought the question was “ripe for adjudication by the Supreme Court,” because of the split between the 10th and 3rd Circuits on the issue of whether Internet use, in itself, can be construed as evidence of interstate commerce in cases where interstate transport of materials is an element of the alleged crime.

<http://xbiz.com/news/84246>

[Note:  This item comes from reader Mike Cheponis.  DLH]

From: Mike Cheponis <mac@Wireless.Com>

Date: September 29, 2007 7:35:18 PM PDT

To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@warpspeed.com>

Subject: Penn and Teller on the FCC

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg5zodsZdds>

Short and of course excellent.

[Note:  This comment comes from friend Bob Frankston.  DLH]

From: “Bob Frankston” <bob37-2@bobf.frankston.com>

Date: September 29, 2007 3:11:36 PM PDT

To: <dave@farber.net>, <ip@v2.listbox.com>

Cc: <dewayne@warpspeed.com>

Subject: RE: [IP] A Phone Company’s Discretion Isn’t Enough

The question is why we are giving these companies the opportunity to look at the bits. Why do we have a service provider guarding the transport. It seems as if we presume the fox should guard the henhouse because it has the greatest interest in the chickens.

We have to remember that the Internet isn’t even a thing – it’s a dynamic (http://www.frankston.com/?Name=InternetDynamic). How have we managed to allow a situation that gives a third party control over our inalienable right to communicate?

Thursday, Sep. 27, 2007

Wirecutters: State-Run Wi-fi

By MARK HALPER

 

Catalonia may be renowned for its hospitality, but the mobile-phone industry could be excused if it were feeling a bit betrayed. Earlier this year, Barcelona, capital of the Spanish province, hosted the 3GSM World Congress, the world’s biggest annual cellular conference. During his keynote address, Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin implored his colleagues to improve cellular networks’ ability to provide rapid and easy Internet access, otherwise a new wireless technology called WiMAX could take over. WiMAX doesn’t require phone handsets or cellular networks. It can deliver fast Net connections over long distances directly to computers or handheld devices. “If we don’t build our broadband networks we will have this opportunity taken away from us,” Sarin warned.

Indeed, the opportunity was closing quicker than he may have feared. A day later, the Catalonian government announced it was embracing the very technology Sarin had declared enemy No. 1. In a press release announcing the region’s plan to extend broadband coverage throughout its territory, Telecommunications and Information Society secretary Jordi Bosch said, “The Catalonian government is a highly satisfied WiMAX user and believes in promoting the WiMAX advantage.”

Catalonia’s announcement raised a series of pressing questions. Are governments or businesses the best entities to build wide-area wireless broadband networks? And what technology should those networks employ? Funded by citizens’ tax dollars, governments generally look after roads, schools and defense. But telecoms? Haven’t most governments been privatizing their fixed-line phone networks over the past 25 years? Why jump back into the same business? Wouldn’t state-backed initiatives undermine free-market efforts to build networks and offer wireless services?

Apparently, many elected and appointed officials don’t think so. Local and sometimes national governments around the world are not leaving matters to unfettered capitalism. Instead, some are investing public money or working to secure the corporate investment needed to build wireless Internet networks that use fledgling WiMAX technologies and, more often, mature wi-fi platforms. Singapore is “unwiring” using tax revenue. Macedonia is doing the same with the help of U.S. aid. Municipalities as diverse as Prague, Paris, Norwich, Dublin and Chicago are either building or attempting to build wireless networks with public funds.

Some governments cite the “digital divide” between rich and poor to justify these initiatives. Many cities also want to deploy the networks to connect citizens and tourists to local information, to support city workers including police, building inspectors and social workers, and to remotely monitor infrastructure such as parking meters and cctv cameras. But governments usually mention economic competitiveness as their primary justification. “We see this to be an enabler for new opportunities, new businesses, and to attract new companies,” says Yeng Kit Chan, head of Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority. “Without this new infrastructure Singapore would not have an edge over other locations.” Late last year, Singapore said it would invest $20 million in a wireless project that will provide Internet access in public places such as parks, hotels and malls.

Even if governments are gung-ho, regulators aren’t so sure. In late May, the European Commission forced Prague to tone down its proposed $16 million free wi-fi initiative by stripping out full Internet access and providing only public-service websites, lest it distort competition. “Investment in broadband networks is primarily a matter for private companies,” E.U. Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said after completing a probe that held up the project for months. She added that state subsidies for such networks are acceptable only in limited situations — for example, “if they address a well-defined market failure.” The Commission has on several occasions approved state aid when it determines that market forces are failing to provide a region with broadband. In February it okayed a publicly-funded fiber-and-wireless broadband scheme in North Yorkshire in the U.K. because the area was underserved by private industry.

But competition is increasingly giving way to cooperation. The mutual interest of private enterprise and often cash-strapped governments to provide and sell wireless services is encouraging both camps to experiment with public-private partnerships. “This was the best way to improve access to the Internet for all,” says Glenn Strachan, now an independent consultant who, as an IT specialist for the Washington-based Academy for Educational Development, helped funnel $2.5 million of U.S. aid to On.net, an Internet provider based in the Macedonian capital of Skopje. On.net matched the sum and, in September 2005, began offering free wi-fi to 460 schools, along with subsidized services for hospitals, orphanages, libraries and ngos. On.net has also used the infrastructure to start bringing commercial services to the general public.

Birmingham, England, is likewise going the public-private route, turning to British Telecom to help it cover the city with wi-fi service that’s due to go live soon. In what is becoming a common arrangement, Birmingham provides access to urban infrastructure such as lampposts on which BT mounts wi-fi transmitters. The city uses the network to give free access to local services, transport information and events listings, while BT sells full Internet access to the public.

[snip]

Find this article at: <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1666002,00.html>

[Note:  This item comes from reader Mike O'Dell.  DLH]

From: Mike O’Dell <mo@ccr.org>

Date: September 29, 2007 10:07:35 AM PDT

To: dewayne@warpspeed.com

Subject: iphone “control”, etc

it’s very unlikely this is solely Apple’s idea.

Demands that Apple retain control over the bits in the phone might well be a contract term for service by a wireless carrier. US carriers are known for their iron-fisted control over phones.

Such control could also be a requirement for FCC approval. depending upon the hardware interfaces exposed internally, it could well be possible for code to interfere with the channel air interface, compromising service for other users homed to the same cell site. Even the possibility of that happening would probably invalidate FCC approval.

and at the end of the day, i wouldn’t be a bit surprised for there to be contract requirements for Apple to take the heat for any compromise and not mention these other issues.

-mo

[Note:  This comment comes from Dave Farber of the IP list.  DLH]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne@warpspeed.com (Dewayne Hendricks)

Date: September 29, 2007 9:42:03 AM EDT

To: dave@farber.net

Subject: Re: [IP] Altered iPhones Freeze Up – New York Times By KATIE HAFNER

On Sep 29, 2007, at 5:52 AM, David Farber wrote:

The best quote is

Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, has said the company wanted to maintain control over the iPhone’s functions to protect carrier networks and to make sure the phone was not damaged.

Just like Ma Bell used to say when you wanted to connect a non Bell phone.

You know, you’re right and you’re the first one that I’ve seen make that connection.  Bravo!

– Dewayne

[ a good history is presented at http://www.cybertelecom.org/ci/cpe.htm   djf]

Bells Want To Use DoubleClick Hearing As Bank Shot On Google

Submitted by Art Brodsky on September 25, 2007 – 11:13am.

<http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1199>

 

A Senate Subcommittee will hold a hearing Thursday on Google’s proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick, and what the deal would mean for the online advertising industry. This is a complex transaction, with lots of issues of market competition and privacy to be worked out. But one witness isn’t coming to the hearing to fret about the ad market or the dangers to consumer privacy. He’s only coming to tarnish Google at the behest of other parties. Guess which ones?

This is one of those moments that shows how tactics work here, uncovering the underbelly of powerful forces in play. Call this the Bank Shot. The idea is not to hit a target directly on an issue of interest, but to hit it via a less direct route.

Here are the witnesses to testify before the Antitrust Subcommittee. David Drummond, a Google senior vp will be first. That makes sense. It’s his deal. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, will appear. Microsoft also tried to buy DoubleClick, got outbid by Google, and now claims that the deal will harm the online ad world. Microsoft has a direct interest in the deal, as it has started competing with Google across a variety of business fronts. Marc Rotenberg, exec. dir. of the Electronic Privacy Information Center will testify about the issues surrounding the storing and use of consumer information. That’s a legit issue.

Then there are two others. Thomas Lenard of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a “free market” think tank, will testify. He has been interested in DoubleClick and related issues since publishing a book, “Privacy and the Commercial Use of Personal Information” in July, 2001.

And then there is the last, most curious witness, Scott Cleland of the Precursor Group. His interest in Google is recent, going back to last year and his interest in DoubleClick even more recent. That’s because he doesn’t really care about Google or its policies except for one aspect. Google opposes his main clients, the Bell companies, on Net Neutrality, spectrum auctions and a range of other issues.

Here the larger framework: Historians will note that when the Berlin Wall came down and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed, a generation of American policymakers and military officers lost their reason for existence. The enemy that had defined their existence for decades ceased to exist, and it would be a while until a new one was found.

The Bell companies are in a similar mode. Following the Jan. 1, 1984 breakup of the old Bell System, the then-new Bell companies were in a state of war with the long-distance industry led by their former parent, AT&T, as well as MCI, Sprint and a batch of lesser foes. The conflict ranged from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to the hall of Congress, to state legislatures as the long-distance industry fought to have the Bells make conditions ripe for competition, and the Bells sought to prevent them while getting into long distance themselves. Then SBC, a Bell company, bought AT&T, Verizon, another Bell (plus GTE) company bought MCI, and the big game was over. But who would there be to fight?

For a while, they just thrashed around, but then as the fights over who should control the Internet started, one company gradually raised its Washington profile to oppose the Bell machine: Google. Google until relatively recently had little or no presence in Washington. But as the company became more prominent in Washington, to say nationally and globally, the Bell companies rejoiced. Now they had a new enemy, and a new talking point – the poor, downtrodden phone companies versus big, bad, freeloading Google.

Telephone company executives couldn’t wait to start throwing out Google’s name at every turn. They said Google was pushing Net Neutrality as a way of getting free or cut-rate telecommunications services. They said Google’s Net Neutrality policy would raise prices for consumers. Those are nonsense, of course, because Google pays millions of dollars in telecommunications charges.

When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was considering how to auction off prime spectrum, the Bell companies again brought Google front and center. It was rich Google that was trying to get cheap spectrum and Google that wanted advantages in the auctions, the telephone companies said. Never mind that a coalition of public interest groups, including Public Knowledge, was in the forefront of some of the proposals. Never mind that the wholesale issue would bolster innovation. Google once again and front and center as the target.

[snip]

A Phone Company’s Discretion Isn’t Enough

Submitted by Art Brodsky on September 27, 2007 – 3:34pm.

<http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1202>

 

Once upon a time, the law governed what telephone companies could and couldn’t do to affect the content of telephone calls sent over the network. The answer, basically, was nothing. The Communications Act provided that it would be “unlawful” for carriers to “subject any particular person, class of persons, or locality to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage.”

Over time, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has whittled away the protections consumers had from the discrimination the law was supposed to prevent by changing the definitions of the types of calls or uses to which the law applies. Now, Internet traffic is excluded. Cellphone traffic excluded. Text messaging excluded. Any service offered over Digital Subscriber Line, fiber lines or cable were moved out from under the law that allowed consumers to be secure that they could use their telephones, or other devices, in any legal way they chose.

What has replaced a well-known legal standard is the much more amorphous, and much less public, rule of discretion. That is, the carriers do what they want and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

This morning brought the latest example, when the New York Times reported that Verizon turned down the application of NARAL Pro Choice to be set up so that it could send text messages to their members who requested the service. This could not be more clear. This is not spam. NARAL, as other activist and political organizations have done, wanted an effective way of communicating quickly with their members who voluntarily signed up to receive text messages informing them of events or asking them to take some sort of action.

PK’s reaction to the Times story is here

The explanation NARAL’s vendor, Mobile Commons, first received, was that “VZW (Verizon Wireless) legal does not accept issue-oriented (abortion, war etc.) programs – only basic, general politican-related campaigns (Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, etc.)” After further inquiry, NARAL got a fuller explanation: “For now VZW will not accept programs that are issue oriented from lobbyist [sic], PACs or any organization that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users. General informational campaigns about candidates are acceptable that the content involved is, in VZW’s sole discretion, not issue-oriented or controversial in nature.”

[snip]