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The Telecom Digest for January 3, 2014
Volume 33 : Issue 2 : "text" Format
====== 32 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
|
Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
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See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details
and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest.
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Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:18:01 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: A Snapchat security breach affects 4.6 million users. Did Snapchat drag its feet on a fix?
Message-ID: <p0624085cceea19c78bdc@[10.0.1.11]>
A Snapchat security breach affects 4.6 million users. Did Snapchat
drag its feet on a fix?
By Brian Fung
January 1, 2014
Snapchat users are waking up to troubling news: Thanks to a gap in
the service's security, the phone numbers and usernames for as many
as 4.6 million accounts have been downloaded by a Web site calling
itself SnapchatDB.info.
The hack appears to be real, affecting at least one member of the
TechCrunch editorial team and possibly Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel
himself.
To see whether your account is among the compromised, you can use
this basic Web site, whipped up by a couple of developers named
Robbie Trencheny and Will Smidlein, that simply checks the list for
your details.
SnapchatDB reportedly gained access to the Snapchat data through a
vulnerability disclosed by a group of security researchers last week.
In a report posted on Christmas Day, Australia-based Gibson Security
explained how the app's Android and iOS API could be hacked to expose
user information.
Two days later, Snapchat wrote a blog post saying it was no big deal
-- that it had put in place some obstacles to "make it more difficult
to do."
...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/01/a-snapchat-security-breach-affects-4-6-million-users-did-snapchat-drag-its-feet-on-a-fix/
http://robbiet.us/snapchat/
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 08:06:44 -0800 (PST)
From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Broadcasters want to keep Aereo out of FilmOn X appeal
Message-ID: <d08506f3-da6c-4bd8-a308-55274ea92482@googlegroups.com>
By Josh Wein, FierceOnlineVideo, December 30, 2013,
| TV broadcasters asked a federal appeals court in Washington,
| D.C., to keep Aereo out of an appeal involving fellow
| streaming provider FilmOn X last week. FilmOn X appealed a
| preliminary injunction a lower court issued, blocking it from
| operating. Earlier in December, Aereo asked for permission to
| file an "amicus curiae" or "friend of the court" brief urging
| the appeals court to overturn the injunction.
|
| Last week, lawyers representing Fox, NBC, Disney, CBS,
| Allbritton and others asked the court to deny that motion,
| court filings show. Under court rules, parties are allowed to
| file such friendly briefs if they have either the consent of
| both parties in the matter or permission from the court.
|
| "Aereo's proposed amicus brief 'essentially duplicates'
| Appellants brief, offering nothing more than 'a few additional
| citations not found in the parties brief and slightly more
| analysis on some points,'" the broadcasters argued, citing
| relevant case law.
|
| Should Aereo be granted permission to file the brief, it could
| eventually ask for permission to participate in oral argument,
| according to court rules. Aereo's legal team has had a better
| track record than FilmOn X in defending its technology against
| legal attacks from broadcasters.
Source:
http://tinyurl.com/nufabqy
Neal McLain
Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2014 23:04:59 -0800 (PST)
From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: D.C. Circuit Rejects Challenge to Sunsetting of Viewability Rule
Message-ID: <d1bb7282-e975-4312-958e-554d96312b81@googlegroups.com>
I wrote:
>> I agree that "retrans consent has a very different legal
>> footing" vis-a-vis must-carry in the sense that each was
>> created by a different section of the 1992 Cable Act. Both
>> rights were created by that act; neither was created by
>> copyright law.
Garrett Wollman asked:
> How is cable retransmission not an exercise of the copyright
> owner's exclusive right of (digital) public performance?
I didn't say it isn't. I said that the applicable law governing
must-carry and retransmission-consent is communications law,
not copyright law. That law (the Cable Television Consumer
Protection and Competition Act of 1992) regulates the conditions
under which a cable operator may (or must) carry the signal of
a broadcast station. It makes a few references to copyright law,
but only to the extent that copyright law affects signal-carriage
requirements.
If a station licensee elects retransmission-consent, it may impose
certain conditions on the cable operator, including payment of fees.
One could argue that at least a portion of these fees reimburses the
station for the copyright liabilities that it incurs for the
programming it carries (and I'm sure the station would make that
claim).
If a station licensee's copyright liability increases as a result of
changes, draconian or otherwise, in copyright law (or for any other
reason), it can increase its retrans-consent fees to compensate. Such
an increase would constitute an "exercise of the copyright owner's
exclusive right of (digital) [or analog] public performance."
Of course any increase in copyright liability would be a dandy excuse
for the station to tack even more goodies onto the retrans-consent
agreement. Take or leave it, cable guys!
In any case, whatever the station does with retransmission consent,
it is acting under rights granted to it by the Cable Act, not by the
Copyright Act.
None of the above affects the cable operator's own copyright liability.
The Copyright Act of 1976 imposes direct copyright liability on cable
operators. Under that act, every cable operator must submit copyright
royalty payments to the Copyright Office for all broadcast programming
it carries. I explained this in some detail in a 2002 T-D post at:
http://tinyurl.com/pphctkk
One change since 2002 however: the CARPs have been abolished, and its
functions are now assigned to the Copyright Royalty Board, a unit of
the Copyright Office.
Neal McLain
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