December 2011 archive

Dec 16

The Snarky Tweet That Derailed Yesterday’s SOPA Hearing

Yesterday during the marathon US House Judiciary Committee hearings on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (which is an insanely bad idea), there came a point where the entire hearings ground to a halt...
... because of a tweet!

I had just tuned back in to the hearing and it took me a bit to figure out the kerfuffle (via Twitter, naturally), but Iowa Congressman Steve King was bored listening to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and tweeted that sentiment:

Twitter steveking

As Declan McCullagh recounts over on CNET once Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee learned of the tweet she termed it "offensive" in the open conversation of the hearing... and the hearing then went into the type of parliamentary rathole that can occur in such places as the U.S. Congress.

While people can debate whether this was this was offensive and disrespectful of Rep. King or whether it is all being overblown, the more interesting aspect to me was the intersection between Twitter and hearings such as this one.

Any of us who are used to speaking publicly in 2011 are very well aware that there is inevitably a "Twitter backchannel" going on, for better or worse.

And the SOPA hearings were no different... the #SOPA hashtag had way too much traffic yesterday for any sane person to handle... and representatives who were in the hearings were participating in that stream, too. Rep. Zoe Lofgren had a couple of tweets go out during the hearings - and Rep. Darrell Issa had a constant stream going, although in his case he has made it clear that his staff is tweeting during the actual hearing.

In this case of Rep. King, though, it was a more snarky message about another committee member... made on a public stage. Which, of course, got back to people within the room.

I'm sure this won't be the last time... we're in this brave new world where comments and opinions people might have kept private in the past are now made in public forums. Interesting times ahead, for sure...

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Dec 15

Nothing to see here…

Please check out danyork.me for all my writing and other content…

Dec 14

2nd FCC Workshop on PSTN Transition Streaming Live Today (Featured Blog)

Today, December 14, 2011, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is holding the second of two workshops on the transition of the PSTN to new technologies. The workshop started streaming live this morning at 9:30am US Eastern. The FCC's note about the workshops mentions that people watching the live stream can send in questions to panelists using either of two methods... More...

Dec 14

2nd FCC Workshop on PSTN Transition Streaming Live at 9:30am – Taking Questions Via Email and Twitter

FCC logoToday, December 14, 2011, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is holding the second of two workshops on the transition of the PSTN to new technologies, as I described last week. The workshop will be streamed live today starting at 9:30am US Eastern at:
http://www.fcc.gov/live

The FCC's note about the workshops mentions that people watching live can send in questions to panelists using either of two methods:

  • by e-mailing livequestions@fcc.gov
  • tweeting on Twitter using the hashtag #FCCLIVE
Today's sessions look to be quite interesting and contain quite a range of participants. The full schedule and list of participants is available on the FCC's web site (click on "Expand" in the lower right corner of the page), but here is the brief list:

9:30 a.m. – 9:40 a.m.
Welcome Remarks
by Zachary Katz, Chief Counsel and Senior Legal Advisor, Office of the Chairman, FCC

9:40 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.
Impact of the Transition on the Technology and Economics of the PSTN
Participants include: University of Colorado, Carnegie Mellon, George Washington University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Gillan Associates, SIP Forum

10:45 a.m. – 11:45 p.m.
Policies of the PSTN (e.g., accessibility, reliability, affordability, and public safety)
Participants include: Tufts University, Consumer Federation of America, University of Wisconsin, Neustar

1:00 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
Implementing the Transition to New Networks
Participants include: Verizon, Comcast, Carnegie Mellon, National Telecommunications and Information Association (NTIA), XO Communications

2:10 p.m. – 3:20 p.m.
Syncing Expectations, Emerging Technologies and the Public Good
Participants include: Georgetown University, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania – Wharton, Acme Packet, Panasonic Systems Networks

3:20 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Economic Rationales for PSTN Transition
Participants include: Queens College, Indiana University, Syracuse University, Sanford Bernstein, University of Auckland, NZ

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Dec 13

Video Recording Now Available of FCC Dec 6th Workshop on PSTN Transition (Featured Blog)

If you missed attending or listening to the live stream of the US Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) workshop on the transition of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to new technologies that was held last week on December 6th, the FCC has very nicely made a video recording available from their website for viewing... FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski also appeared briefly to provide a few comments. More...

Dec 13

Internet Society Joins Chorus of Those Opposing SOPA

IsoclogoYesterday the Internet Society formally joined the opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (a.k.a. "SOPA" - background info available) with a statement from the Internet Society Board of Trustees:

http://isoc.org/wp/newsletter/?p=4932

The statement says in part:

The Internet Society Board of Trustees has expressed concern with a number of U.S. legislative proposals that would mandate DNS blocking and filtering by ISPs to protect the interests of copyright holders. While the Internet Society agrees that combating illicit online activity is an important public policy objective, these critical issues must be addressed in ways that do not undermine the viability of the Internet as a platform for innovation across all industries by compromising its global architecture. The Internet Society Board of Trustees does not believe that the Protect-IP Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are consistent with these basic principles.

Specifically, the Internet Society is concerned with provisions in both bills regarding Domain Name System (DNS) filtering. DNS filtering is often proposed as a way to block illegal content consumption by end users. Yet policies to mandate DNS filtering will be ineffective for that purpose and will interfere with cross-border data flows and services undermining innovation and social development across the globe.

The statement goes on in further detail to outline the organization's concerns.

The opposition of the Internet Society to SOPA is not a surprise given that the organization issued a white paper on the perils of DNS Filtering back in the spring of 2011 in response to the U.S. Senate's version of the bill, the Protect-IP Act (a.k.a. "PIPA"). Still, a formal statement of opposition is very welcome to add to the many other voices indicating that SOPA and PIPA specify the wrong solutions to the problem.

Great to see!

[Full Disclosure: I am employed by the Internet Society but NOT in the public policy section and so all opinions expressed here are entirely my own and do not necessarily represent the views of the organization.]

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Dec 13

New WordPress 3.3 Available With Much Simpler User Interface, Uploading

The folks over at Automattic announced last night that WordPress 3.3 is now out and, as per usual, provided a spiffy little video to highlight the new changes:

I've already updated one of my sites and am indeed impressed by the simpler and cleaner UI. Just as one very simple example, it was always annoying in earlier versions of WordPress that you had to click on the down arrow in the left navigation admin menu to get to the menu choices. The new fly-out menus are a whole lot easier! Similarly, the simplification of the upload process to a single button is a nice step.

There are a veritable TON of other changes and fixes for those interested in the gory details:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.3

All in all it looks like quite a solid release. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works on my other sites!

P.S. WordPress 3.3 is available for immediate download, although if you are running any recent version of WordPress you can simply "update" your site (after backing it up!) through the admin menus.

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Dec 12

Dilbert On Using Skype Versus Flying To A Meeting…

Brilliant Dilbert comic on December 8th:

Dilbert.com

Well said... in this era of so many different communications and collaboration tools, the need to fly somewhere for a "quick meeting" should hopefully be reduced. I fully understand the need for face-to-face meetings... and find them to be extremely effective when done well. But the kind of travel for a "quick meeting" that used to be routine really shouldn't need to happen so much today.

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Dec 08

Heading to Boston for USENIX LISA 2011 Conference Dec 8 and 9

LISA11 1
Today I'm driving about 2 hours southeast into downtown Boston to attend the USENIX Large Installation System Administration (LISA) conference. As I wrote about on an ISOC blog, the head of my team within the Internet Society, Richard Jimmerson, will be speaking today at 2pm Eastern on the topic of:
IPv6, DNSSEC, RPKI, etc.: What’s the Holdup and How Can We Help?

You’re busy. We get it. This industry moves fast and you’ve got your hands full keeping your networks updated and secure from the threat of the day. But why is it taking so long to deploy IPv6, DNSSEC, and other standards coming out of the IETF? These standards are the future of the Internet, but deployment to date has been slow.

He'll be outlining the new ISOC project of which I am a part that aims to help speed up the deployment of these standards - and asking for feedback and help. I will be there along with another team member, Megan Kruse, to talk with folks about the project and interact with people involved with IPv6, DNSSEC and other technologies.

It's been a good number of years since I last attended a USENIX conference but I'm very much looking forward to getting back with the crowd. Looks like some excellent technical talks so I'm looking forward to learning a good bit.

If you are down at LISA, please do feel free to drop me a note - or find me on Twitter. I expect I'll be tweeting out of the event and probably posting some thoughts and comments.

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Dec 07

Slides: Does Anyone Really Give a _____ About VoIP Security?

Does anyone really give a (insert favorite profanity) about VoIP security? That was the key question I asked in the presentation I have to the recent 2011 ITT Real-Time Communications Conference. Technically, my talk with titled "The State of VoIP Security", but I decided to have a little bit of fun with it.

It was an enjoyable session and I recorded a video that I hope that I can make the cycles to produce and upload sometime soon.

Meanwhile, the slides for my talk are now online, although given my style they really need audio or video. Still, you can get a sense of what I covered:

The State of VoIP Security, a.k.a. “Does Anyone Really Give A _____ About VoIP Security?"
View more presentations from Dan York

P.S. If you would like to have me give a presentation like this at an event you are involved with, please contact me. I'm frequently presenting and always open to speaking at new venues.