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we could use some sweeping surveillance powers here on slashdot. hurry up or we'll miss the party!

Don't worry, we have got you covered.

xoxoxoxo, the NSA.

I can't understand why your submissions are accepted.

New Snowden Doc Reveals How GCHQ/NSA Use The Internet To 'Manipulate, Deceive And Destroy Reputations'

A source "with detailed knowledge on the matter" told Reuters that hiring screeners for Booz Allen had found some details of Snowden's education that "did not check out precisely," but decided to hire him anyway

Resume falsified, yup sounds like a typical "expert" to me.

You have bought into the administration smear campaign and government propaganda. Booz Allen isn't necessarily lying, here, but this statement, along with the ridiculously picayune reasons for rejecting candidates based on some detail not being perfect, it's likely something as innocuous as listing the wrong day of the month for a graduation, or misspelling of an instructor's name.

You might educate yourself by checking out the form Snowden was required to complete. I challenge anyone to be able to fill it out completely and include nothing that does not "check out precisely".

Let's start with this. Soon after Daniel Ellsberg was revealed as the source behind the Pentagon Papers, White House officials started spreading rumors that Ellsberg was actually a Soviet spy and that he'd passed on important secrets to the Russians: None of it was true, but it was part of a concerted effort by administration officials to smear Ellsberg as a "Soviet spy" and a "traitor" when all he really did was blow the whistle on things by sharing documents with reporters.

Now we get to today:
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

So we've already written about the massive problems with the Sunday Times' big report claiming that the Russians and Chinese had "cracked" the encryption on the Snowden files (or possibly just been handed those files by Snowden) and that he had "blood on his hands" even though no one has come to any harm. It also argued that David Miranda was detained after he got documents from Snowden in Moscow, despite the fact that he was neither in Moscow, nor had met Snowden (a claim the article quietly deleted). That same report also claimed that UK intelligence agency MI6 had to remove "agents" from Moscow because of this leak, despite the fact that they're not called "agents" and there's no evidence of any actual risk. So far, the only official response from News Corp. the publisher of The Sunday Times (through a variety of subsidiaries) was to try to censor the criticism of the story with a DMCA takedown request. Either way, one of the journalists who wrote the story, Tom Harper, gave an interview to CNN which is quite incredible to watch. Harper just keeps repeating that he doesn't know what's actually true, and that he was just saying what the government told him -- more or less admitting that his role here was not as a reporter, but as a propagandist or a stenographer.

Say it again, we live in a "Free" country. The man who penned the article has admitted to being a government "shill". The OP is nothing more than government disinformation. There is a consistant *Motis Operedni* spanning several decades to lead us to believe they do this regularly.

Let's start with this. Soon after Daniel Ellsberg was revealed as the source behind the Pentagon Papers, White House officials started spreading rumors that Ellsberg was actually a Soviet spy and that he'd passed on important secrets to the Russians: None of it was true, but it was part of a concerted effort by administration officials to smear Ellsberg as a "Soviet spy" and a "traitor" when all he really did was blow the whistle on things by sharing documents with reporters.

Now we get to today:
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

So we've already written about the massive problems with the Sunday Times' big report claiming that the Russians and Chinese had "cracked" the encryption on the Snowden files (or possibly just been handed those files by Snowden) and that he had "blood on his hands" even though no one has come to any harm. It also argued that David Miranda was detained after he got documents from Snowden in Moscow, despite the fact that he was neither in Moscow, nor had met Snowden (a claim the article quietly deleted). That same report also claimed that UK intelligence agency MI6 had to remove "agents" from Moscow because of this leak, despite the fact that they're not called "agents" and there's no evidence of any actual risk. So far, the only official response from News Corp. the publisher of The Sunday Times (through a variety of subsidiaries) was to try to censor the criticism of the story with a DMCA takedown request. Either way, one of the journalists who wrote the story, Tom Harper, gave an interview to CNN which is quite incredible to watch. Harper just keeps repeating that he doesn't know what's actually true, and that he was just saying what the government told him -- more or less admitting that his role here was not as a reporter, but as a propagandist or a stenographer.

Say it again, we live in a "Free" country. The man who penned the article has admitted to being a government "shill". The OP is nothing more than government disinformation. There is a consistant *Motis Operedni* spanning several decades to lead us to believe they do this regularly.

Assuming this Sunday Times story is accurate, what idiot spymaster kept the real identities of active agents on a 'computer' that apparently any random IT techie had access to. I wonder if the media is trying to distract attention from that massive OPM hack.

Second OPM Hack Revealed: Even Worse Than The First

Well, among other things, he revealed that:

1) The NSA intercepts and stores virtually all communications sent on electronic networks anywhere it can reach. Not just metadata. In the case of phone calls, they also speech->text them and make that archive searchable.

http://rt.com/news/172284-nsa-...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/n...
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

2) The NSA constantly works at ways to break into encrypted communications, including hacking into the VPNs of supposedly friendly governments.

http://www.spiegel.de/internat...

3) The NSA listens to the cell calls of friendly foreign leaders. (hopefully, also, unfriendly ones).

http://www.spiegel.de/internat...

4) The NSA may have worked to weaken encryption standards in order to make their task easier.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9...
http://www.scientificamerican....

5) The NSA has physically broken into the fiber plants of major public Internet companies (ie. Google), supposedly without their knowledge, in order to steal data sent only internally.

http://www.extremetech.com/int...

6) Major Internet companies, and all telcos, have willingly shared much or all of their client's communications with the NSA.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/ar...

7) The NSA and foreign intelligence agencies share data in order to evade domestic spying restrictions.

https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

8) The NSA has hacked into at least one major supplier of SIM cards, in order to spy on calls made from the phones made with them.

http://news.softpedia.com/news...

So yes... it is theft. Suggesting that it isn't is just a specious rationalization used by people who don't want to feel guilty about it.

And by judges preventing improper inflaming of juries.

Don't you read Techdirt? Mike says we now live in a world where digital content is an "infinite good" with "zero marginal cost", and therefore, nobody should expect to pay anything.

So how does anybody make a living? Mike has an answer for that, too: with physical services like Uber, AirBnB, and Lyft! You can make tons of money doing that. Remember to thank Mike Masnick for your wonderful new career!

The hearings, as you may recall, did not go well for Team Prenda and all its associated players. While Wright may be somewhat limited in what he can do to Prenda, it appears he's doing his best to throw whatever book he can at them, randomly using as many Star Trek references as he can cram into the tight 11 page order.

It's called discovery! And it's required under the law. You can't hide evidence or its provenance from the defense!!!

In theory that is true.

In practice, many people cannot afford an extensive legal fight and settle quickly. Those who do actually go through the courts --- only about 3% in the federal system --- often learn during discovery that the initial reports came by anonymous sources.

Anonymous sources are tricky. A single anonymous source is not considered reliable enough to issue a warrant, but is reliable enough to investigate. Two different anonymous sources can be enough to meet probable cause (People v. Coulombe (2001)).

So as has been documented several times, one government agency, such as the NSA, will observe some illegal behavior but they are not allowed to prosecute. If the information is traced back to them during discovery then the unlawful search or unusable information would be dropped, so they give an anonymous tip to local law enforcement, reporting all the details they are able. Local law enforcement gets the anonymous tip, investigates, finds exactly what the tip said was there, and arrests them all. When questioned about their sources, law enforcement can pull out the records of an anonymous tip, mention that the reporter refused to give their name and that is why they investigated.

It isn't always that the source itself is unlawful. There are many types of lawful recordings and intercepts but during the course of the investigation they hear about other items. Due to the scope of their work they may be legally forbidden from following those other leads.

The term is "parallel construction". Usually the local police either are unaware that the report came from another agency or unlawful search, or they suspect it did but keep their mouths shut. With a successful parallel construction there is no evidence to be uncovered during discovery. The person making the report is careful to leave no evidence connecting their report (which would taint the entire case) that the local officers could discover.

Several cases have been several cases recently where officers were caught attempting to use parallel construction (and failing at it) when data came from these devices.

R or D doesn't matter if they agree to allow this type of bullshit they are assholes. Seriously how much are we spending on the witch hunt for terrorists? Can they show results of thwarted attacks to merit such spending? If not the assholes should be removed from office. On a side note I'd be interested to find out if there are any ties between these people and those that have the contracts to provide hardware for this project.

What? In Our America?
http://www.wired.com/2013/07/money-nsa-vote/
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...
http://www.digitaljournal.com/...
http://heavy.com/news/2014/01/...

EU consumer laws have the express purpose of limiting the abuse of consumers by sociopathic profit-seekers.

Well, the sociopathic profit-seekers who work for companies whose customers can go elsewhere. The sociopathic profit-seekers in government get to abuse to their heart's content. And lest there be any doubt about the latter, the regulator in question was yesterday specifically calling for abuse of "antitrust" action against American companies.

One should also remember that government employees with privileged access are people, and people can misuse the access they have.

We should recognize that the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution was created to prevent this exact scenario. Law abiding people encrypt sensitive information to protect it from misuse by criminals, but the information can be misused by ANYONE with access.

Dividing a backdoor key between multiple parties simply creates a requirement that all parties agree to access the information before it can be accessed. It doesn't guarantee that the access will be lawful.

it's not entrapment

it really isn't

entrapment is getting you to do something you don't want to do

if the guy expresses his sincere, original desire to do something, no coaxing, no suggestion, that's 100% on him

i don't know why so many people don't understand what entrapment is

Huh. You don't say. And here I was reading some excerpts from the original complaint:

[The FBI supplied, what Booker understood was, the explosives (actually inert material) needed for the bomb, then:]

CHS 1(*) provided Booker with a list of supplies that they needed to purchase in order to build the bomb.

Booker understood that CHS 1 and CHS 2 would build the VBIED

CHS 2 explained the function of the inert VBIED to Booker and demonstrated how to arm the device.

Out of curiosity, does this look like "no coaxing, no suggestion, that's 100% on him" to you?

Because, it doesn't to me...

(*) CHS stands for "Confidential Human Source", and means "FBI undercover agent"

FBI sets up naive person and then arrests him when he follows instructions from his FBI handlers.

Unless we start kicking DA's out of office for being soft on blue crime...

Another counter in the securistas' arsenal is declaring by law that a cop's word is worth more than video: https://www.techdirt.com/artic... this madness has been attempted already and may even succeed.

"But on August 11, 2011, however, BART took an unprecedented step. Under orders from BART police, the system shut down underground wireless service for three hours. The interruption covered stations in downtown San Francisco. In a statement, administrators clearly identified “organizers planning to disrupt BART service . . . us[ing] mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART Police” as the rationale behind the move."

https://www.aclu.org/blog/tech...

It has nothing to do with "bombs". We had to get the patriot act in order to fight terrorists.

"Of the 22,741 warrants issued since 2003, 21,838 (96%) were issued under the heading of "Narcotics."

https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

How many times are we going to fall for this trick?

NSA is buying security holes to use against us. This is part of what Snowden revealed with the leaks.

Offering a bounty, even though it is not as much as the security problem could fetch on the grey market, creates a certain loyalty towards the vendor, and makes it easier to go to them, and ensure the hole gets patched. It also attracts more eyeballs to your software, as finding a problem means money. Google has gone even further - by offering grants for research into specific products, where you get money for checking security of the software, not just finding security prolems.

So I believe it is a good thing; it probably means more holes will be reported directly to the vendor, and not sold for exploit. It probably attracts eyeballs as well...

The large percentage of people who have been 'disciplined' over misuse have self-reported their offenses...i.e. they have no idea of the scope.

The school had a multi-million-dollar advertising and legal budget, and created a chilling effect. At one point, they even got government websites warning about the school censored.

Maheshwar Peri and other journalists who went up against them took a tremendous personal financial risk. As the Newsweek article makes clear, they were sued repeatedly, and had to defend each case. See also Siddhartha Deb's story: Siddhartha Deb’s Publishing Odyssey, ‘Why I Took On Arindam Chaudhuri’.

The stark truth is that Wikipedia was part of the problem here, not the solution. This is in part due to Wikipedia's own chilling atmosphere towards critics, a topic discussed right now on Jimmy Wales' talk page.

Whistle-blowers taking on an admin run a significant risk of being sanctioned themselves under some pretext like "battlefield conduct" or "incivility".

You don't understand our new post-captialist economy. In post-capitalism, entrenched special interest have a right to make money and the basic purpose of government is to enact laws that insure profit. That is the law of the land manifest in the DCMA. So, for example, Kurig is using DRM to eliminate competition on refills for their machines.

Post-capitalism also conveniently eliminates pesky constitutional guarantees enforcing the rule of law. Contractual language can now eliminate search warrants and right of privacy when Stingray cellphone technology is used for mass surveillance. Both government and private enterprise benefit in post-capitalism.

Broadband providers have just as much right as any other business to run an entrenched monopolistic enterprise and make vast amounts of money. I fully expect that the current court system will correct the loopholes that threaten their guaranteed profitability, and give them the same protection under the law that other corrupt special interests enjoy in our post-capitalist system.

Why is this so hard to understand? It's obviously the American Way.

This isn't hard to understand that what is going on here is illegal.

What is apparently hard to do is get people to see that, and enforce the fucking laws we have today.

It's funny you use words like "entrenched monopolistic enterprise" without even suspecting what you're describing is illegal. It is. We have laws to protect against monopolies. We don't enforce them. Don't ask me why, I didn't write the damn law even though I know damn well why it exists.

And that IS the crux of the issue here. You don't need lobbyists to lobby for new laws when current government doesn't give a shit about enforcing the current ones. They don't even use a loophole as an excuse. They blatantly ignore the law.

And the new American Way is not only can you not do anything about it, but it's quickly becoming illegal for you to even try, which is why they don't bother enforcing them.

Don't agree with these illegalities and want to scream how it's unconstitutional? Well then, you're more a "terrorist" in the eyes of government, and worthy of their new (unconstitutional) laws to lock you up without due process and throw away the key.

Don't try and convince me this isn't the crux of the issue. It is, and will become very apparent when criminals are using the same defense your government is to break the law. And I'm not talking about the criminals you voted for.

Post-capitalism also conveniently eliminates pesky constitutional guarantees enforcing the rule of law. Contractual language can now eliminate search warrants and right of privacy when Stingray cellphone technology is used for mass surveillance. Both government and private enterprise benefit in post-capitalism.

Broadband providers have just as much right as any other business to run an entrenched monopolistic enterprise and make vast amounts of money. I fully expect that the current court system will correct the loopholes that threaten their guaranteed profitability, and give them the same protection under the law that other corrupt special interests enjoy in our post-capitalist system.

Why is this so hard to understand? It's obviously the American Way.

Sssh! You're not supposed to tell him he's on the GCHQ honeypot!

Consider the origins, contractors, new cash flows and other cell projects in the USA
CIA Worked With DOJ To Re-Purpose Foreign Surveillance Airborne Cell Tower Spoofers For Domestic Use (2015/03/10)
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...
"developed technology to locate specific cellphones in the U.S. through an airborne device that mimics a cellphone tower"
Products and services that was in use during the occupations and in other roles in South America are now back for domestic use and funding.
The only puzzle is how to keep the funding flowing at a city and state level.

What you are talking about is HBO Go, which requires the streaming application to verify you are a valid subscriber - only right now that verification system is failing on Comcast:

"Comcast doesn't really give an answer other than to say the massive (and soon to get much larger) company only has so many people available to ensure TV Everywhere authentication works on new devices"

HBO Now (I think that's the new name) is a totally new AppleTV only app, that you pay HBO directly for a subscription - it has its own authentication system, and is basically just like Netflix only with HBO. There's no reason to think it will not work.

Personally, I think it's insane HBO has two different systems, but there you have it...

Thanks, you may be right, but I was certainly wrong, I was actually thinking of the Netflix vs Verizon issue:

Verizon has confirmed that everything between that router in their network and their subscribers is uncongested – in fact has plenty of capacity sitting there waiting to be used. Above, I confirmed exactly the same thing for the Level 3 network. So in fact, we could fix this congestion in about five minutes simply by connecting up more 10Gbps ports on those routers. Simple. Something we’ve been asking Verizon to do for many, many months, and something other providers regularly do in similar circumstances. But Verizon has refused. So Verizon, not Level 3 or Netflix, causes the congestion. Why is that? Maybe they can’t afford a new port card because they’ve run out – even though these cards are very cheap, just a few thousand dollars for each 10 Gbps card which could support 5,000 streams or more. If that’s the case, we’ll buy one for them. Maybe they can’t afford the small piece of cable between our two ports. If that’s the case, we’ll provide it. Heck, we’ll even install it.

Emphasis mine.

The Comcast deal may be entirely different, I have little doubt the technical aspects were at least partially different, but I suspect the motivations were the same.

https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

What is the rationale for treating real property differently than other property?

Because you can't hide it. It is really easy to cheat on income tax. It is harder, but still pretty easy, to cheat on sales tax. It is far harder to cheat on real estate tax. Your title, the sales price, and the tax appraisal value, are all public information, available at the county courthouse, and very often on the county's website. I don't like paying taxes, but I dislike real estate tax the least, because I know that everyone is paying their fair share.

You've been bamboozled, real estate tax is about as easy to cheat on as sales tax.

Check this out https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130415/04461222709/lithuania-estonia-use-google-maps-street-view-to-catch-tax-cheats.shtml

That would never happen. The ISPs know which side their bread is buttered on. Its like the way the TSA created "Precheck" for people to pay their way out of being hassled. Guaranteed all members of congress have Precheck. In fact. Comcast has already been outted for having a special customer service program just for people living in the DC Suburbs.

It's all fine for them to be a humble "common carrier" when this gets them subsidies: https://www.techdirt.com/artic... but it's oh so scandalous when it doesn't pay.

Here you go!

So when do they release these 322 pages of new rules? With all this transparency, what could POSSIBLY go wrong?! /s

From TechDirt:

"First, it's important to note that despite a 3-2 vote approving the Title II-based rules, we won't get to see the actual rules today. Despite claims by neutrality opponents that this is some secret cabal specific to net neutrality, the agency historically has never released rules it votes on (pdf) until well after the actual vote. It's a dumb restriction that's absolutely deadly to open discourse, but it's not unique to one party or to this specific issue."

For all you ignorant fucks out there.
NO, NOT ALL LAWS ARE AVAILABLE!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
http://rense.com/general79/sud...
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

It is still better than going through official channels. Most whistleblowers who try to go through official channels, get thrown to the wolves.
How the US govt destroys the lives of whistleblowers. ... and things are getting worse: Obama has persecuted whistleblowers more than any other president.

What a fucking idiot, that article wasn't used as an excuse to keep deleting the bigger story.

Who the fuck would protect the NSA anyway, are you one of those fat fucks working in NSA basement dumbing down Americans?

New Snowden Doc Reveals How GCHQ/NSA Use The Internet To 'Manipulate, Deceive And Destroy Reputations'

Don't act like slashdot isn't crawling with these fuckers (I am looking at you TsuruchiBrian).

Dear Peter,

Please try to relax, you might actually enjoy the ride :)

And send our regards to your mom, we met her last week in the pharmacy when she was getting her refill.

No sense in signing, I guess...

What a fucking idiot, that article wasn't used as an excuse to keep deleting the bigger story.

Who the fuck would protect the NSA anyway, are you one of those fat fucks working in NSA basement dumbing down Americans?

New Snowden Doc Reveals How GCHQ/NSA Use The Internet To 'Manipulate, Deceive And Destroy Reputations'

Don't act like slashdot isn't crawling with these fuckers (I am looking at you TsuruchiBrian).

Facial recognition mostly gets used for all of the wrong reasons, Facebook tracking, illegal police tracking etc.

'photos of innocent people have been retained in contempt of an explicit order from the court to remove them' - 18million by police

Facebook's new face recognition policy astonishes German privacy regulator

And what about people who don't have Facebook accounts, does Facebook allow 'tagging' of their faces?, I'm already annoyed by Facebooks obvious data collection on me as shown by the fact I get email from them telling me who my friends are and inviting me to join.

Has anyone checked for this regarding the Stingray cell data collection program? Since "FBI Says All Public Records Requests For Stingray Documents Must Be Routed Through It," you'd think that these should also have a privacy report -- right?

If municipal GOVERNMENTS were banned from this practice, the ISPs wouldn't bother with bribing them.

yes but they'd still be monopolies, the natural monopoly/ network effect would still exist and no competitors would come. or they'd come, and since you have no regulations, the competitor would get destroyed, with this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

oh sure, you get a lower rate for awhile, then competition is destroyed and it's back to being the slowly boiled frog

what is the only solution to monopolistic dirty tricks like predatory pricing that prevents competition? government regulation is

the real purpose of these corrupt regulations is to prevent government itself from running the fiber

ironic, since the ISPs got their money to build the fiber from the government!

or, maddeningly, got money on the promise to build the fiber they never did

https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

this is the problem:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

this is the solution:

http://www.chanute.org/index.a...

So the more educated you are the more likely you have an unfavorable view of the NSA. Seems about right. There are some examples of young people asking the right questions: https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

"At present BT already covers most of the UK with hybrid Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) technology"

That's bullshit for a start, the rest likely is too

TechDirt refers to these announcements as "Fiber to the Press" technology.

Doesnt mean you did not commit ip theft.

http://www.bloombergview.com/a...

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/...

You committed massive IP theft during the industrial revolution, now china is doing the exact same thing you did..

Pot, meet kettle...

but most of the images are locked up for six months.

Seems a fair trade to me, given the scientists involved has spent anywhere from years to decades working on this project and aren't exactly getting rich in the process.
 
 

Maybe, but the approach is looking increasingly anachronistic. That's partly because of a new kind of real-time public engagement with science thanks to the Internet; but it's also to do with changes in the way raw scientific data is made available.

Um, no. The public avidly following the flavor-of-the-month in science isn't particularly new, with the internet and social media it's just become much more visible. (I can remember when three different popular magazines had Voyager's pictures of Jupiter on their cover in the same month.) Nor are there any notable changes in the way raw scientific data is becoming available - the Sentinel system is far and away the exception to the rule.

You know... Google is your friend...

https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

It isn't so much that they got an obligation but they did get tax breaks as an incentive with no repercussions for going back on the deal.

A tax break==owed taxes not paid==taxpayers took up that slack. So yes, it was taxpayer funded in that sense.

....but most of the images are locked up for six months.

Wait till your infrastructure dies because the FBI or some other three letter agency is poking around in your systems trying to install a backdoor or exploit.

Seems like you missed the news on that.

Last May, as part of Glenn Greenwald's book, the NSA's process of supply-chain interdiction was exposed. They would intercept shipments of Cisco hardware, install the back doors, replace factory seals, and put it back into the shipping chain. One story. And another.

Cisco's response was somewhat curious. It wasn't outrage. It wasn't a lawsuit. It wasn't an emotional response. It was a calm, publicly released letter addressed to President Obama about trust and confidence. Nowhere in their public statements do they say anything about surprise, or about lack of knowledge that it was happening, or that they were not complicit.

Nope, it is an open letter asking the government to restore trust and confidence. It reads like the company was asking "please don't let these secrets go public again."

It is widely believed -- and documented -- that government agencies have already inserted various backdoors into Cisco corporate security products. It is also likely that the companies know full well about their products being intercepted and modified by the government, and that Cisco and others are helping the various agencies by tagging the products to be modified.

Movie financing is a weird game. It is easy to get hosed for a lot of money if you don't hedge your bets. Also you are dealing with a lot of different unions. I know it seems easy, find a good project, fund it. But tripleAAA titles are hard to come by, then you have to secure a director that is free, sign actors with a free schedule. That's the easy parts. Plus the exhibitors have close relations with the distributors who might not want AMC releasing other products. They can and will hold back the number of screens you can show say X-men on if you don't play ball. Costing the exhibitors a lot of their profits. Everyone worth getting has part of the profits in their contracts. Don't forget cost overruns, city funds, agent lawyers. And that is still the easy parts. The movie has to be advertised, and compete with over movies in theaters. Also see Hollywood Accounting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... https://www.techdirt.com/artic... http://www.theatlantic.com/bus... I predict this will end very badly

Actually, yes, yes I do. Go read this https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

But here is an excerpt from the story in case you are too lazy to go read.

A decade ago, we wrote about how Verizon had made an agreement in Pennsylvania in 1994 that it would wire up the state with fiber optic cables to every home in exchange for tax breaks equalling $2.1 billion. In exchange for such a massive tax break, Verizon promised that all homes and businesses would have access to 45Mbps symmetrical fiber by 2015. By 2004, the deal was that 50% of all homes were supposed to have that. In reality, 0% did, and some people started asking for their money back. That never happened, and it appeared that Verizon learned a valuable lesson: it can flat out lie to governments, promise 100% fiber coverage in exchange for subsidies, then not deliver, and no one will do a damn thing about it.

Same exact promise in NJ, Verizon backed out of that as well, and managed to avoid a 45B fine http://www.dslreports.com/show...

Oh hey, look, NY City has the same problem... http://www.theverge.com/2013/1...

So yes, I do expect Verizon to wire every single household in a particular area. They made billions of dollars on tax breaks, cities, counties and states gutted consumer protections and franchise laws to appease the likes of Verizon, ATT and Comcast, and those companies turn around, and screw the residents.

If services like Google Fiber are made Title II, watch how fast those sorts of projects come to a screeching halt.

Oh really?

While Google's filing never specifically throws its support behind Title II, it does specifically point out how Title II rules could come with some significant benefits. Specifically, Google's director of communications law Austin Schlick argues that as a freshly-regulated telecom service under Title II, Google would gain access to utility poles and other essential utility infrastructure to aid expansion of Google Fiber. While the FCC has the right to forbear from these provisions, Google argues they really shouldn't if they value improved broadband services:

"In determining whether forbearance is consistent with the public interest, the Commission must consider whether forbearance would "promote competitive market conditions, including the extent to which such forbearance will enhance competition among providers of telecommunications services." Forbearance from allowing BIAS providers access to available infrastructure under Section 224 would have the exact opposite effect, maintaining a substantial barrier to network deployment by new providers such as Google Fiber, that telecommunications classification otherwise would remove."

Seems Google disagrees with your opinion of what they would think and do.

Using the comparison of cable television with the airline industry is foolish, as this Techdirt article reveals. Efficiency (by which I assume they mean profitability) is irrelevant if the only customers the cable industry has left are the sports nuts. In this country, there should be enough of them to keep the industry going, I suppose.