Court Questions FCC Authority to Impose Net Neutrality

The case before the U.S. Court of Appeals is an appeal from Comcast related to sanctions imposed on it by the FCC for discriminating against peer-to-peer networking file traffic in an effort to throttle bandwidth demand on its broadband network. Comcast's challenge claims the FCC has no such authority.

FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has stated that the FCC acted based on the Four Freedoms outlined by the previous FCC administration in 2005. These principles, while not formal rules, have been used to govern net neutrality on a case-by-case basis:

1. Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice.

2. Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.

3. Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.

4. Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

Based on how the case is proceeding now, it seems obvious that the appeals court will decide in favor of Comcast, leading to misguided speculation that the case will validate opposition to the FCC authority over Internet providers and put a nail in the coffin of its efforts at establishing formal net neutrality rules.

Losing this court case will provide the FCC with tangible proof for why the pursuit of net neutrality is so urgent, and give Congress incentive to more clearly specify the scope of the FCC's authority to oversee and police wired and wireless broadband providers.

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Office 2010 Prices Revealed

The Office suite, which includes popular applications like Microsoft Word, Office, and PowerPoint, is slated to ship to businesses and consumers later this year. Office will be available in four editions.

The standard Office Home and Student version is priced at $149 for packaged software, or $119 for those who wish to download the software and activate it with a key card. Office Home and Business is available for $279 boxed, or $299 for a key card. Office 2010 Professional, which includes a number of tools geared toward enterprise environments, is $499 boxed, or $349 for a key card. College students and professors can get a price break by purchasing Office Professional Academic priced at $99.

All versions of Office 2010 will include access to Office Web, which is a pared down, Internet-based version of the software. Microsoft also plans to make Office Web available for free to the public through its Windows Live portal. Microsoft intends to give its corporate customers the option of hosting Office Web on their own servers in order to give them more control over the product.

Microsoft confirmed that Office 2010 will be available sometime in the middle of this year, but did not provide a more specific timeframe.

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China Vows Tougher Crackdown On Web Offenders In 2010

In 2009, Chinese authorities arrested over 5,000 of its citizens for violations of Internet pornography laws — a number that could be much higher in 2010 as the government promises to come down even harder on Web offenders as part of its beefed-up “state security” plan.

According to official figures, China’s ministry of public security arrested nearly 5,400 people and shut down some 9,000 pornography-related websites last year, though it did not disclose how many of those arrests resulted in prosecutions.

Insiders say that such moves are just one part of the government’s multi-pronged strategy of fulfilling their resolution to “strengthen punishment for Internet operators that violate the laws and regulations [and] severely punish operations that have serious problems with harmful information.”

As use and availability of Internet access has exploded in recent years with the rise of China’s growing middle class, the government has found itself engaged in a sort of innovation arms-race with an increasingly computer-savvy population intent on avoiding government censorship.

Like all authoritarian regimes, Chinese autocrats are concerned over the dissemination of information that could potentially undermine their regime — which they propagandistically label as harmful to “society.”

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2009: Year of the Social Network

The year saw major changes at sites like Facebook and Twitter as millions of non-technical users became regular users of social networks. The user base of social networks this year expanded greatly from the traditional teenage and college student set. It now includes many of their parents and even grandparents who now use the technology as a primary mode of communication.

Perhaps most significant is that companies in various industries startedfacebook to see how social networks can help boost business even in a recession. While many CEOs may still be a bit disconnected from the social networking phenomenon, many companies, like Zappos.com and Dell Inc., have found ways to draw in new customers using Web 2.0 methods.

All this growth did have to come at someone's expense, and that burden seems to have fallen on MySpace. A pioneer in the social networking scene and an early market leader, MySpace's share fell behind Facebook globally and in the U.S. this year for the first time. Facebook's share of the U.S. market reached 30.26% in September while MySpace's September share plunged 55% to 30.26% from a market leading 66.84% share a year earlier, according to Experian Hitwise.

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Microsoft Word Sales Face U.S. Ban

Appeals court says software maker must halt distribution of popular program unless patent-friendly changes are made. An appeals court ordered Microsoft to stop selling Microsoft Word 2007 and other Office 2007 products by Jan. 11 because the software infringes on a patent held by a Canadian company. The judge also hit Microsoft with a $290 million fine.

I4i originally sued Microsoft in 2007, claiming that an XML editor built into Word steps on its patent. In August, the U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas found in favor of i4i, prompting Microsoft's appeal. The ruling means Microsoft can't sell versions of Word that can open documents saved in the .XML, .DOCX, or .DOCM formats that contain custom XML.

Those formats were at the heart of the patent dispute. DOCX is the default format for the most current version of Word, which is included in Microsoft Office 2007. Custom XML is used by businesses to link their corporate data to Word documents.

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Cybercrooks Target File Sharing Networks

Cybercriminals have changed their strategy and in 2010 they will no longer attack via websites and applications. They are now more focused on attacking computers through file sharing networks. This concept is not entirely new according to Kaspersky Lab, which points out that this year saw a series of mass malware epidemics supported by malicious files that were spread via torrent portals.

Partner programs will be popular in the future as botnet owners will try to make profits from activities such as sending spam, performing denial-of-service (DoS) attacks or distributing malware without committing an explicit crime.

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Adobe Reader Zero-Day Exploit

Reports that a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader is being exploited in the wild have been confirmed by Adobe in a blog post. Adobe is exploring the issue to determine how to patch it.

The issue reportedly impacts Adobe Reader, and Adobe Acrobat--versions 9.2 and earlier. The good news is that attacks thus far are narrowly-focused, targeted attacks rather than widespread efforts.

The Trojan horse exploits a flaw in the Adobe software to allow it to install additional malware components and further compromise the vulnerable computer. The additional malware could potentially be anything, but Symantec reports that the most prevalent malware associated with this threat right now is some type of information-stealing software.

The actual exploit relies on JavaScript. The Shadowserver Foundation and SANS Institute both recommend that you simply disable the execution of JavaScript within the Adobe software. In your Adobe product, go to Edit--Preferences--JavaScript, and uncheck the box next to Enable Adobe JavaScript.

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WiGig Fast Wireless Group Finishes Standard

The Wireless Gigabit Alliance has completed its specification for a technology to deliver as much as 7G bps (bits per second) over a very high unlicensed frequency band.

WiGig was designed for very high speeds over a relatively small area, using the 60GHz band. It will have the capacity to deliver high-definition video streams or let users connect laptops to desktop docks and displays.The WiGig Alliance had said in May the specification would be available to members in the fourth quarter.

The group originally had said WiGig would have a top speed of about 6G bps but has raised that estimate. At that speed, WiGig will have about 10 times the capacity of the fastest Wi-Fi technology today, a form of IEEE 802.11n that offers 600M bps.

Along with the completion of the specification, the WiGig Alliance said it has included a "beam-forming" feature that should allow WiGig networks to work over distances greater than 10 meters.

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