Ars Technica

In a rare public rebuke of American prosecutors’ request on accessing a person’s e-mail, a federal magistrate judge in the District of Columbia has denied a government warrant request to search an unnamed user’s e-mail address, citing the request as being over broad.

According to the March 7, 2014 court opinion and order, the case involves alleged corruption and conspiracy by a defense contractor, and “for purposes of this opinion, the details of the investigation -- which remain under seal on the Court’s docket -- are irrelevant.” Citing a key 2010 appellate ruling establishing a warrant requirement (at least in one United States federal judicial district), Judge John Facciola observed, “[T]he government continues to submit overly broad warrants and makes no effort to balance the law enforcement interests against the obvious expectation of privacy e-mail account holders have in their communications.”

As a magistrate, Judge Facciola has the power to grant search and arrest warrants -- and he has done so numerous times in his nearly 17 years on the bench. Legal scholars note that this case is the latest example of increasing judicial scrutiny in recent years against the government’s overreach in its attempt to gather digital data in criminal investigations.

“I think it reflects a growing recognition that we can't treat e-mail as a separate, less-protected form of communication, either as a matter of law or as a matter of practice,” Brian Pascal, a research fellow with the University of California, Hastings Law School, told Ars. “It's just how we talk these days.”

A common charger for mobile phones sold in the European Union should be developed in order to reduce waste and hassle for consumers, according to members of the European Parliament voting on an update to radio equipment laws.

The draft Radio Equipment Directive outlines a range of harmonized rules for bringing "radio equipment," which includes mobile phones and modems, on the market. The rules aim to make sure that the increasing range of devices don't interfere with each other and respect health and safety requirements. Part of the directive focused on reducing waste.

MEPs called for a renewed effort to develop a common charger for certain categories of radio equipment -- particularly mobile phones. They amended the draft law to stipulate that the ability to work with common chargers will be an essential requirement for radio equipment. It will be up to the European Commission to decide which specific types of radio equipment will have to meet the requirement. Rapporteur Barbara Weiler said that the directive is "an efficient tool to prevent interference between different ratio equipment devices."

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft and Google are both out to stifle any device that doesn't have a firm allegiance to either Android or Windows.

The report says that both companies have told Asus to end its dual-OS product lines and that Asus is complying. The WSJ says Asus' newest dual-boot product, the Transformer Book Duet TD300, which we wrote about during CES 2014, will never see the light of day. Asus' all-in-one PCs, the Transformer AiO P1801 and P1802, will be pulled from the market.

The report seems to indicate that Microsoft is unhappy that Android would be packaged with both Windows 8 and Windows Phone, which is interesting given that Microsoft has an upcoming Windows Phone update that supports on-screen buttons, which would mean Android hardware could be reused for Windows Phone. Apparently switching operating systems in the factory is OK, but allowing consumers to do so at will is a step too far.

In a new federal court filing, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has asked for a preservation order similar to one that it already received years ago in one National Security Agency-related case (Jewel v. NSA) to be extended to a second case (First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles et al v. NSA) that the group filed after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden began leaking NSA documents.

Such an order compels the government to retain everything it collected even after the standard five-year deletion period, so that the plaintiffs can pursue civil discovery and if necessary, prove that their calls were among those swept up.

In the filing to Judge Jeffrey White, the EFF also said that it wants the United States government to “disclose the steps it has taken to preserve evidence and to disclose whether it has destroyed telephone records, Internet metadata records, Internet or telephone content data, or any other evidence potentially relevant to these lawsuits.”

Days after new documents provided by Edward Snowden showed that the National Security Agency was deploying malware allowing it to pose as Facebook and other sites in order to intercept data, the NSA is now denying this characterization and insisting that what it does is legal.

With Turbine, no humans are required to exploit phones, PCs, routers, VPNs. “NSA uses its technical capabilities only to support lawful and appropriate foreign intelligence operations, all of which must be carried out in strict accordance with its authorities,” says the document, which was published on the NSA’s Twitter account. (Yes, the NSA has a Twitter account.)

"Technical capability must be understood within the legal, policy, and operational context within which the capability must be employed. NSA's authorities require that its foreign intelligence operations support valid national security requirements, protect the legitimate privacy interests of all persons, and be as tailored as feasible. NSA does not use its technical capabilities to impersonate US company websites. Nor does NSA target any user of global Internet services without appropriate legal authority. Reports of indiscriminate computer exploitation operations are simply false.”

“On Thursday, the City Council approved a long-term contract with Google Fiber Texas, allowing the tech company to install about 40 so-called 'fiber huts' at San Antonio libraries, fire and police stations, and other city buildings," the San Antonio Express-News reported.

In response to a series of questions posed before his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, National Security Agency director nominee Vice Admiral Michael Rogers said that the NSA is working with the White House to create a process to determine what to do with zero-day vulnerabilities that the agency uncovers.

In his response to the questions, posted on the Armed Services Committee’s website, Adm Rogers acknowledged that some of those bugs are kept secret by the NSA for “purposes of foreign intelligence.” But he added that the NSA always had a process for handling information on flaws it discovers in commercial software and hardware, and more often than not, the agency discloses the vulnerabilities discovered in products to their developers or manufacturers.

Time Warner Cable has been offering customers $5 monthly discounts in exchange for giving up unlimited data for the last couple of years, but almost no one has taken the company up on its offer.

Time Warner Cable CEO Rob Marcus said that only "thousands" of its 11.5 million subscribers have opted for metered billing. Marcus argued that the 30GB product is a good deal even though few people want it.

The good news, Marcus said, is "we plan to offer unlimited for as far out as we can possibly see. I think that the concept of 'use more pay more, use less pay less,' is an important principle to establish. So notwithstanding the low uptake of usage-based tiers, I think it's a very important component of our overall pricing philosophy."

Netflix performance on Comcast, which had been deteriorating for months, finally got a little better in February according to Netflix's latest speed rankings.

The latest Netflix data shows some Internet service providers (ISPs) struggling, while Google Fiber soars. Netflix streamed at an average of 1.68Mbps on Comcast in the US in February, up from 1.51Mbps in January. The average on Comcast was above 2Mbps as recently as September, but it had gone down each month until Netflix decided to pay Comcast for a direct connection to its network.

Netflix requires at least 0.5Mbps to stream video, but it recommends at least 1.5Mbps. 5Mbps is recommended for HD quality and 7Mbps for "Super HD" quality. Netflix on Verizon FiOS continued to decline, going from 1.82Mbps in January to 1.76Mbps in February, while Verizon DSL dropped from 0.97Mbps to 0.93Mbps.

[March 10]

Tennessee is one of 20 states that have restrictions on municipal broadband networks, enacted to protect private Internet service providers from competition.
Bills limiting municipal ISPs in Kansas and Utah continue noble tradition.

Now, though, there are four bills in the Tennessee House and Senate that would "un-do some of the restrictions previous legies put in place several years ago," broadband industry analyst Craig Settles wrote. "This kind of reversal is practically unheard of," he wrote. "What’s more surprising? Republicans lawmakers, typically the party that leads the charge against public-owned networks, are taking the lead on many of these bills in Tennessee!" Internet service providers aren't happy about this, naturally.

"We are particularly concerned about four bills that have been introduced this session," Tennessee Telecommunications Associations chief Levoy Knowles said in an announcement. The TTA claimed to be presenting "concerns of rural consumers" but are more worried about the potential of losing customers. "These bills would allow municipalities to expand beyond their current footprint and offer broadband in our service areas. If this were to happen, municipalities could cherry-pick our more populated areas, leaving the more remote, rural consumers to bear the high cost of delivering broadband to these less populated regions," Knowles said. [March 7]