Washington Post

The Justice Department accused five members of the Chinese military of conducting economic cyber-espionage against American companies, marking the first time that the United States has leveled such criminal charges against a foreign country.

Industries targeted by the alleged cyberspying ranged from nuclear to steel to solar energy, officials said. The hacking by a military unit in Shanghai, they said, was conducted for no other reason than to give a competitive advantage to Chinese companies, including state-owned enterprises.

Attorney General Eric Holder Jr said: “The range of trade secrets and other sensitive business information stolen in this case is significant and demands an aggressive response. . . . Success in the international marketplace should be based solely on a company’s ability to innovate and compete, not on a sponsor government’s ability to spy and steal business secrets.” Attorney General Holder added that the Obama Administration “will not tolerate actions by any nation that seeks to illegally sabotage American companies and undermine the integrity of fair competition in the operation of the free market.”

In response, China’s Foreign Ministry charged that the US government “fabricated facts” in the indictment, which it said “seriously violates basic norms of international relations and damages Sino-US cooperation and mutual trust.” It said China lodged a “protest” with the United States, urging it to “correct the error immediately and withdraw its so-called prosecution.”

Q&A with to Lynne Bradley, the director of government relations at the American Library Association's Washington office.

The Internet's eyes turned to the Federal Communications Commission, as the panel approved a plan to consider allowing Internet service providers to charge Web sites like Netflix for higher-quality delivery of their content to consumers.

Another group who cares deeply about this issue is the library community. The Switch spoke to Bradley about how network neutrality affects libraries, the people who rely on them and public institutions at large.

“Net neutrality is really important for libraries because we are, first of all, in the information business. Our business now is not just increasingly, but dramatically, online, using digital information and providing services in this digital environment. That means that we need to have solid and ubiquitous Internet services,” she said.

As to the impact network discrimination could have on libraries, Bradley added: “And what we as librarians and as educators in our communities see is that subtle differences in these speeds can make a great difference in how a user receives and uses the information. Even slight slowdowns will have an impact and can potentially limit public access to public schools, to public libraries, to public education.”

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission just agreed to consider a set of proposed rules that would tacitly allow Internet providers to speed up some types of Web traffic at the expense of other types.

If adopted, it could fundamentally change how the Web works at a basic level.

Naturally, people have a lot of questions about what's going to happen. For one thing, Netflix could become more expensive. If it keeps signing deals with broadband companies like Comcast, just so that it can provide you with smoother service, it might consider jacking up your subscription fee to cover any extra expense it incurs.

The longer analysis is that the Netflix deal is not exactly the same as the types of deals we might see under the FCC's proposed rule, because its agreement with Comcast is about bringing data to Comcast's door -- not how Comcast routes that traffic to the end user over "last-mile" pipes.

As for how the Internet itself could change, it seems inevitable that Internet providers could speed up some traffic. However, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler did say that under the proposal (which is just a proposal!) broadband providers would not be allowed to slow down traffic to below what a user has bought and paid for. So if you have a 75 Mbps connection at home, for example, services should always be delivered at that speed.

Because of the potentially higher costs to Web-based businesses that may arise from the proposed rules, some smaller companies may languish in the slow lane because they can't afford to pay the fees assessed on large companies to reach broadband providers' subscribers. So, yes, small startups could be harmed by this outcome.

And while Chairman Wheeler has a connection to cable industry and brings an industry perspective into his thinking, it's probably unfair to say that he's been bought and paid for.

As for municipal networks, there are about 20 states with laws on the books that hinder cities from competing with big Internet providers by offering their own, public Internet service. The FCC has indicated, along with its net neutrality proposal that it wants to start preempting some of these state laws.

Q&A with George Takei, famous for playing Captain Hikaru Sulu on "Star Trek," now host for the award-winning Web series "Takei's Take," a show underwritten by AARP meant to help introduce technology to seniors, youngsters and everyone in between.

Asked if there policy debates that he's into, such as network neutrality, he said that issues like policy and privacy are complex.

Takei also said that his audience was not built by Internet service providers. Instead, it came about “by our efforts, by our creativity. And once we have that audience built, they want to charge us for it? […] They can't unilaterally say, 'All right, it's our platform, we're going to charge you for it.'”

The Federal Communications Commission split along partisan lines in its vote on net neutrality rules: All three Democrats voted for the proposal, while the two Republicans opposed it.

That may be not be surprising, considering the issue at hand pits large businesses against grass-roots consumer advocates. But the vote is also evidence of the internal frictions between the FCC's Democratic majority and Republican minority.

The nation's top telecommunications regulator is composed of five members, each nominated by the president and approved by Congress.

Generally, the only time we get to see those members interact is when they appear before the public at the commission's monthly open meeting. In recent weeks, though, we've had brief glimpses of their behind-the-scenes relationship, thanks to unusually public statements about the inner workings of the agency.

Republican commissioner Ajit Pai complained that the Democrats recently sent him a revised draft of a proposal at the last minute, forcing him to compare both drafts in the wee hours of the night to see what had changed. There apparently are divisions within the majority party, too. Democratic commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel opened her remarks by flatly: "I support the open Internet, but I would've done this differently."

Minnesota passed the nation’s first law requiring smartphones to have the ability to be remotely disabled. The law requires smartphone manufacturers to introduce so-called “kill switches” in devices to allow users to make lost or stolen phones unusable.

In so doing, the state hopes to remove the incentive for such robberies, which are on the rise.

A Consumer Reports survey released in April month found that 3.1 million Americans had cellphones stolen in 2013, nearly double the 1.6 million thefts reported the previous year. Some of those robberies can become violent, as was the case for a Minneapolis mayoral candidate who received nine stitches after being assaulted by teenage thieves in December.

“This law will help combat the growing number of violent cellphone thefts in Minnesota,” Gov. Mark Dayton said in a statement to announce the bill’s signing. Minnesota is the first state to pass such a law. A similar measure is working its way through the California legislature.

Under threat of a court challenge, the Obama Administration in 2010 revealed to Sprint the secret legal basis of a then-classified program that collected billions of Americans’ phone records for counterterrorism purposes, according to newly declassified documents and interviews.

The company -- the nation’s third-largest wireless provider -- is believed to have been one of the only firms to have raised concerns about the lawfulness of the National Security Agency program before its existence was revealed in June 2013 as a result of a leak from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, current and former US officials said.

The administration continued to resist opposition entreaties for surface-to-air missiles to fight Assad’s forces. But after being shown the legal rationale, the company dropped its challenge and continued to turn over customers’ call detail records to the NSA. Civil liberties advocates seized on the case to argue that the disclosure of the program’s legal reasoning to the phone company alone was not sufficient to protect the public’s privacy rights.

Broadband providers could still create Internet fast lanes even if federal regulators adopt stronger rules for the Web, as net neutrality advocates are hoping.

That's what the cable industry is arguing in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission. The letter, filed by the National Cable Television Association, opposes the labeling of broadband companies as utilities -- a move that would give the FCC much greater authority over Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon.

At issue is whether the FCC should regulate those firms like phone companies under Title II of the Communications Act, the law that serves as the commission's charter. The FCC's current proposal would regulate broadband companies under Title I, Section 706 -- a part of the law with murkier implications.

"Subjecting broadband access providers to regulation under Title II would not even accomplish the goal that reclassification proponents apparently seek," the letter reads. "Reclassification would not support a categorical prohibition on Internet 'fast lanes' any more than Section 706 would."

It's been over two years, but Miracom -- a Kansas firm that's developed an app to help the deaf and hard-of-hearing use mobile phones -- has finally gotten government approval to hit the market.

As The Washington Post reported in October, the Kansas firm had successfully designed an app, InnoCaption, to accurately transcribe mobile phone conversations in real-time. But it was spinning its wheels as it waited for the Federal Communications Commission to grant it access to a government fund that would allow deaf consumers to use the app for free.

The fund, known as the Interstate Telecommunications Relay Services Fund, reimburses companies for providing communication services to those with hearing or speech problems.

But after evidence that some companies were deceptively padding their reimbursement requests, concerns about fraud in the multi-million-dollar fund held up Miracom's progress and threatened to put the app on the ropes. Now, Miracom is planning a full release at the end of June.

"This is just tremendous," said Chuck Owen, Miracom's chief operating office. "We are very excited to be approved, be a part of the TRS community, very excited to offer a functionally equivalent solution to those that are in need and can make great utilization of this product."

Demonstrators are calling on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler to abandon a proposal that allows broadband providers to charge content companies like Dropbox and Google extra for speedy and reliable service.

They set up shop on a small strip of concrete and grass outside the FCC building on Maine Avenue in Southwest. Orange and white tents from REI dotted the perimeter. It was hard to see whether anyone was inside them taking refuge from the heat. Drawing inspiration from the Occupy Wall Street protests, the demonstrators are asking the agency to reclassify broadband providers as utility companies, which would allow the government to issue a ban on speeding up or slowing down types of Internet traffic. The FCC is considering rules that would prohibit companies from blocking traffic but could give them the freedom to offer faster service to Internet companies like Netflix and Google that chose to pay a fee.