Tag Archives: ATT

NSA Bulk Metadata ruled likely unconstitutional

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Today was a pretty big day for privacy fans. The NSA’s bulk collection of metadata has been ruled likely unconstitutional. Why is this a big deal? It’s “Just” metadata. Well, as the CBS 60 Minutes report showed the NSA is able to convert that information into a network. Networks show everyone that you talked with and despite assurances otherwise that phone numbers weren’t used, it’s fairly easy to unmask a person in a network based on the network characteristics. I wrote a blog post about this a while back that talked about a paper showing the power of metadata. I think it’s important to reiterate here what that is.

In the article, titled Using Metadata to find Paul Revere, the author explains by using who talks who it is possible to construct a large network and that it was likely to determine the major players of the US revolutionary war. Just using club membership, it wasn’t even what they talked about, just what groups they were members of and how they were all associated. Based on the metadata Paul Revere is a pretty central figure and knows a lot of the other leaders of the revolution.

The NSA would take this view and say, “See it could have caught those terrorists back before the revolution!” However, the judge in this case says that the government did not do a sufficient job showing that this actually worked. It is, in fact, likely that the British had some of this membership information but wasn’t able to put it to good use. In this case, the judge ruled that the collection of Bulk metadata is a violation of the 4th amendment.

What can we expect next? Well, the ACLU has a very similar case that is being heard. If the judge rules differently the Supreme Court may need to weigh in to deal with the problem once and for all. Which depending on how these cases are dealt with could be a good or bad thing.

It is unclear at this point how this will change the conversation in DC, it will likely just lead to more denials from the NSA and White House. They will argue it’s still legal and that they will appeal to the highest court that they can. If they lose this case, it will likely lead to a lot of other questions being asked and possibly calls for impeachment and resignations. I would not be surprised if some of the more extreme on the right call for Obama’s arrest as well.

The other piece that is of interest to me is the question about the companies that have been complicit with sharing of our metadata. Are they going to be in the clear or not? In the case of AT&T there was a law that protected them retroactively. I am interested to know if that will also be ruled unconstitutional as it enabled the government to break the law farther than it could have before.

In general this is something really good, but I believe it opens many more questions than it answers about the long term repercussions of this program. I will continue to blog about this topic!

Book Review: Idea Factory, the history of Bell Labs

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Yea, I know I’ve just been doing book reviews.

This book was amazing. I had no idea of all the different things that Bell Labs produced from the mid 1920’s until the 1970’s and later. The book focused on the high point of Bell Labs innovation run. It followed the career of several, at the time, famous and prominent scientists that were employed at Bell Labs. Please such as Mervin Kelley (vastly improve the vacuum tube and was a long running director, VP and President of the Labs), William Shockley (inventor of the transistor) Brattian (inventor of a different kind of transistor), Claude Shannon (inventor of the field of Information Science), John Pierce (inventor of passive and active satellite). These there were many others, however, they each had significant impacts on how our modern society works.

The book does an excellent job in explaining some of the basics of how the research was conducted, what work needed to be done to make it work on an experimental level, the method of transferring the invention into innovation or a full product and the goal of each of these inventions. Mervin Kelley was famous for saying that to implement a change in AT&T’s network the new technology must be “better or cheaper or both.” This prevented a great deal of frivolous technologies from being implemented into the telephone network. Additionally, this was required to ensure that AT&T was always able to work towards reducing rates for subscribers as they were a “natural” monopoly.

This was a time when research was done to ensure that the network would be operational for 30 years without malfunction. This required huge investments in quality control and required that additional costs were built into the network for redundancies and protection. In fact Statistical Process Control was invented at Bell Labs to ensure proper quality.

How did all of this work? Well, there were two factors going on here. First, Bell Labs was able to hire the best and brightest to work on interesting problems. Second, the scientists had a continually evolving project that always needed more innovation. These two combined with a freedom to explore allowed the scientists to delve into basic and applied research. In some cases they did not know how or why something would work, but felt that it would improve the quality of the telephone network.

One of the goals of AT&T was to create a coast to coast network with universal service. This required the company to figure out how to address signal decay due to distances over several miles. To address this the company developed the vacuum tube repeater, which significantly increased the distance a voice call could travel. The manufacturing of a tube was extremely difficult and expensive. Bell Labs felt that there had to be a different way to create a repeater. Over the next 20 years they investigated off and on (with a break for WWII) how to make semiconductors work as a repeater. Bell Labs was capable of making this sort of investment because it had a guaranteed revenue stream and a mandate to continually improve the network. These two together allowed the Labs to do work that they otherwise would not have been able to investigate.

This is a very different model for innovation than we currently have in any organization. Universities come close, but they fall short in the fact that the professors are continually required to apply for more money and seek permission from someone to pursue their work. Bell Labs was much more relaxed about this.

This innovation method is also very different than some of the historic events in the US, such as the Manhattan Project or the Moon Landing. Those were single goals which allowed the focus of a great group of minds.There was never any intention of keeping those minds together for the next big project. Bell Labs had the ability to do this.

There are some organizations that should be able to do something like this. The National Labs are one, but there’s no direct business need so even this doesn’t exactly work. An organization like TNO in the Netherlands, which focuses more on practical matters could increase the amount of basic research they conduct in various different areas. TNO is structured differently than the National Labs in the US, because they are expected to work closely with both industry and universities. This gives each of the groups a strong business focus and could serve as a pipeline from basic research into business activities for the companies that work with TNO. However, at this point TNO does not perform these activities.

I give this book a 4.5/5. It was extremely well written, well organized and dealt with some amazing subject matters.

AT&T deal is most likely dead

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We all should be extremely happy that this deal failed. Even those that don’t live in the US. Two major US agencies were investigating the eventual impact of a merger between AT&T and T-Mobile. From a consumer point of view what would have been the impact of the merger?

Well, there could be benefits, for instance T-Mobile users will get access to a much larger network. They will have higher quality signal connection in more cities and in more areas through out the US. T-mobile has one of the smaller network area coverage of the 4 remaining cellphone providers in the US. (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile). AT&T users may get some relief in large cities like San Francisco and New York. It is likely that the combination of the two companies’ networks will increase the total capacity in a given city.

AT&T and T-Mobile claim that not only will these things be better for the customers of both providers but there will also be an increase in investment in the network. However it really doesn’t seem to be the case. Based on their own documents they show that it would actually reduce the yearly investment in the cell networks for the new network overall, reduce the number of employees and likely increase the prices of cell service.

Why is this expected? Well, if the networks are combined there will likely be a reduced need for RF Engineers. These guys are effectively the “Can you hear me know guy” from Verizon commercials. They both design the interaction between the cell sites and look into where the coverage, how much capacity there is for calls/text/data in a given area and if there will be dead spots within their expected coverage area. If a group of engineers for both T-Mobile can cover all of NYC and there’s a group at AT&T to cover the same area, well some of them will have to go.

What about the investment though? Well, if capacity suddenly increases in areas that are cramped for capacity, then there will be less investment. Additionally, if there is excess capacity in areas that don’t have the growth potential for fully meeting that capacity the new merged company would be stupid not to redeploy those areas that have less capacity. This means that AT&T could potentially go a few years without actually buying new equipment to meet capacity demands.

Why would prices go up? I wrote an article about how monopolies at the Urban Times. Effectively, when there are not pressures driving a company to lower prices to attract more customers prices will rise or stay the same. Which will be significantly higher than the costs of the company. With only two other competitors, which most people assume Verizon would buy Sprint, there is little pressure to innovate and keep prices low. Additional the cost of switching keep prices higher too.

Because of these reasons it’s a very good thing that the US government stepped in to prevent this merger. It also indicates that the government is still willing to step in and act in the best interest of the people. In fact, the collapse of this merger could be a good thing for T-Mobile users as the company will get a settlement of $4 Billion. This should be invested in their network and will increase their ability to compete. Another reason we should be happy for this collapse, is that T-Mobile is a very innovative company in terms of adoption of new types of cell phones. T-Mobile has also had excellent customer service compared to the other cell phone providers.