OpenBSD developer “Jason L. Wright” has refuted rumors propagated by OpenBSD founder Theo de Raadt that he had somehow inserted backdoors into the open source operating system on behalf of the FBI. De Raadt forwarded a private email from Gregory Perry, CEO GoVirtual Education, which accused Wright of planting backdoors into the OpenBSD source code which is visible to anyone who cares to audit it (essentially in broad daylight).

The authors look at a new push by the FCC to promote a retail market for set-top-boxes as directed by Congress in Section 629 of the Communications Act. The authors point out the failure of the previous attempt, CableCard, and examine the new attempt, “AllVid”. With AllVid, any multichannel video program distributor (MVPD) would provide some type of adapter which would be a proprietary connection for all retail market televisions, DVRs, media PCs, Internet television devices, or any other device for use in this arena.

The Free Press recently took the lead in drafting a letter to the FCC expressing concern that whatever Net Neutrality rule the agency issues next week will not be enough, and laying out its demands for true openness: Paid prioritization must be outlawed; wireless included; definitions made “loophole-free”;  any specialized services segregated from the bulk [...]

Content Delivery Network (CDN) companies like Level 3 claim that they’re doing all the work delivering the video across the country and broadband providers are doing little work delivering video on the last mile. But it turns out that broadband networks have to do far more work to deliver thousands of replicated on-demand videos.

A colleague who sifts through a lot of political/historical/economic material on telecom and networks was impressed by a recent presentation by Columbia Professor Richard R. John at the New America Foundation. John wrote Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications, published last May and described by Amazon as “plac[ing] the history of telecommunications within the broader context [...]

Weinman has posted a two part series on pay-per-use broadband on GigaOm. He introduces the subject by looking at how providers began offering Internet service by the minute and moved on to flat rate plans. But these same companies are now looking at returning to a consumption based model, but based on bits rather than minutes spent online.

Tom Goldman at The Escapist reports: According to a video released on YouTube, anybody not playing a legitimate copy of the DS version of The Experience will hear Michael Jackson’s music with no lyrics, and a vuvuzela playing over the beat instead. Believe it or not, a vuvuzela can even destroy a classic like Jackson’s [...]

In my recent article about S.3804, I referred to Technology Liberation Front as an example for my statement that “The hidden factor is that many of those ginning up the outrage [about S.3804] are hostile to intellectual property as an institution.” CEI’s Ryan Radia calls “foul,” noting that the only TLF post explicitly on the [...]

With less than 10% of the US population subscribing to Netflix DVD rental service, Netflix already pays more than $700 million a year to the US Postal service for the postage for the DVDs they send which is a staggering 28% of Netflix revenue. Should taxpayers pick up the tab?

At The American, some thoughts about “Protecting Property on the Internet,” which defends S. 3804, Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA)(the Leahy Bill) against recent attacks. The major point: I agree that the free speech and due process are important, but I also think that the values which the bill defends — economic empowerment [...]