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Scott Bradner

'Net Insider

By Scott Bradner

Bradner is Harvard University's Technology Security Officer. Reach him at sob@sobco.com.

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Comcast: Unexplained bandwidth caps
09/02/08
Comcast is in the news again. Over the last few months it seems like a new Comcast-related story has broken every few weeks -- all of them quite bad news for the service provider. The PR people over there sure must be busy.
The last pre-Internet Olympics?
08/27/08
Expect to see a whole lot more Internet-oriented coverage of the Olympics next time around by NBC and others.
A hopefully terminal delay in enhanced advertising
08/18/08
NebuAd, an advertising service that tracks users' Web activities, is feeling the heat from Congress and others.
Transit officials don't understand publicity or security
08/11/08
Imagine you work for the transportation authority in a major U.S. city. Your organization deployed a fare collection system over the last few years that uses both prepaid mag stripe and prepaid RFID-based fare cards. Now imagine that one of your suppliers points out the agenda of a security conference where someone is going to give a talk whose description starts out with: "Want free subway rides for life?" The description goes on to say that the talk will show how to break your new fare cards. What would you do?
Unhappy the FCC supported net neutrality
08/05/08
A split FCC decided that Comcast had been a bad company when it interfered with specific customer traffic and told it to clean up its act in the future. As a proponent of network neutrality this should make me happy but it does not.
Microsoft: still a business of threats?
07/29/08
For years Microsoft has been claiming that Linux has been stealing its intellectual property rights, and there's no sign that the company will stop threatening Linux users with patent problems.
SCO Group: Its future is all used up
07/22/08
More bad news in court for The SCO Group, which is good news for the industry, writes columnist Scott Bradner.
Misdirected disappointment over fax inaction
07/15/08
Columnist clarifies target of his criticism: FCC, not FTC, needs to do more to combat unsolicited FAXs.
FTC: stealth enforcement or no enforcement?
07/10/08
For the last few months I've been dutifully telling the Federal Trade Commission when I receive an unsolicited fax, but I've decided to stop because there seems to be no reason to keep doing so. I guess the FTC’s 1,087 or so "active employees" have better things to do than deal with this type of lawbreaker. (The FTC seems to be paying about the same level of attention to enforcing the very weak CAN-SPAM law — your tax dollars not at work.)
Data centers: Green because you have to
07/08/08
Virtualization is key to controlling hardware and power costs for those looking to build environmentally friendly data centers in big cities.
All's well with U.S. broadband deployment (says FCC)
06/24/08
Earlier this month, the FCC finally got around to releasing the U.S. broadband deployment report it approved in March. This fifth in a series "examining the availability of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans" is just as silly as its predecessors. But the report and accompanying order (and further notice for proposed rule-making) on data collection about broadband data services may mean, assuming that the data they get is reasonably analyzed, that future reports may be a bit less silly.
Broadband pricing: solutions that are orthogonal to any real problem
06/17/08
Broadband pricing proposals by AT&T, Time Warner and Comcast to deal with Internet congestion fall short.
What will rule the "new" Internet?
06/10/08
Exploring the impact Google, Facebook and Apple's iPhone will have on the Internet, along with what economic models will rule.
Free wireless Internet with an asterisk?
06/05/08
A proposal floated by the FCC chairman that would result in a free nationwide Wi-Fi Internet service would come with some big strings attached, including censorship, says columnist Scott Bradner.
Maybe you did buy that software after all
05/27/08
Judge’s ruling in AutoDesk case could have implications for buyers of software from Microsoft, Apple and others, columnist Scott Bradner writes.
Bleak prospects for privacy
05/20/08
While Web surfing the other day I ran across a London Times story that described two shopping malls in England that individually track everyone who walks into their environs (as long as they have a cell phone turned on).
A surfeit of network neutrality legislation
05/13/08
Two proposed network neutrality bills are wending their way through Congress. They’re not bad but not perfect either, says columnist Scott Bradner.
Network managers: good worries, disappointing lapses
05/06/08
VanDyke Software recently published results of the fifth annual edition of its survey of network and system administrators the company hired Amplitude Research to conduct and analyze. Most of the survey questions concerned security.
The elusive third wire for Internet service
04/29/08
I wish network neutrality wasn't an important issue, but it is.
Online privacy: railing against the accepted
04/22/08
I frequently use this column to rail against threats to the privacy of Internet users, both from government and the private sector. I just found a survey published late last year by the Pew Internet & American Life Project that reports that people are coming to support, or at last not object too strongly to, some types of spying.
Telling Google and others to do less evil
04/15/08
Google, Yahoo and other search engine companies are in the data gathering business. The fact that they offer you and me the service of locating things on the Internet is a means to an end, and that end is data about what you and I do online. They are like the folks that hoard string - the more string they gather the better they feel even if there is little or no actual use for most of what they gather.
Telephony: creeping disconnection
04/08/08
Each new survey shows that the number of people who have forsaken their traditional landline phones keeps growing. This, coupled with changes in the way people use cell phones, is starting to impact a number of areas in ways that people might not have expected just a few months ago.
Comcast and Verizon: Foxhole conversions?
04/01/08
It's been a strange few weeks for us carrier-watchers. First Verizon announced it was going to open its cell network to all "approved" devices, then Comcast announced that it has become buddies with BitTorrent and would switch to a protocol-agnostic method of managing network capacity by year-end.
FCC: Consistent to a fault, but there is a (small) hope
03/25/08
FCC’s annual misrepresentation of U.S. broadband deployment status may change in the future
Irrelevant victories in the war on spam
03/18/08
On the surface it might look like there has been some real legal progress against spam of late. But don't be fooled; these victories, real as they may be for the people involved, don't mean much to you and me.

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