Four days of attacks on government and online media Web sites have targeted Georgian and international servers in the U.S. and Europe, said Georgia’s largest ISP. Russia could cut off international voice and other traffic if it called a general embargo, an industry source said. A fiber link project expected to connect Georgia directly with Western Europe, skirting Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, is only two months from completion, the ISP said. The Russian Ministry for Information Technologies and Communications didn’t respond immediately to phone call and e-mail queries about the claims.
Four days of attacks on government and online media Web sites have targeted Georgian and international servers in the U.S. and Europe, said Georgia’s largest ISP. Russia could cut off international voice and other traffic if it called a general embargo, an industry source said. A fiber link project expected to connect Georgia directly with Western Europe, skirting Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, is only two months from completion, the ISP said. The Russian Ministry for Information Technologies and Communications didn’t respond immediately to phone call and e-mail queries about the claims.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Financial, health and children’s information should continue to get more federal privacy protection than other data, said a co-chairman of the Congressional Internet Caucus, though Web 2.0 has changed the information landscape since the distinctions were created. “We need to be constantly reviewing” how information in those categories is used commercially -- but without broadening their heightened protection to other material, said the official, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.
The International Trade Commission has issued a notice announcing the initiation of the third and final report in its series of reports on sub-Saharan African (SSA) trade entitled, Sub-Saharan Africa: Effects of Infrastructure Conditions on Export Competitiveness.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a notice announcing that the new password policy change for ACE Secure Data Portal users is scheduled to take effect in early August 2008. The new policy does not affect users with existing passwords; however, when a new password is generated or an existing password is changed or reset, the new rules will apply.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued a notice announcing that it is requesting input from the public on its effort to prepare a Strategic Plan for Climate Change Research, Education, and Extension.
KANSAS CITY -- The FCC is on the trail of public safety licensees who haven’t filed 800 MHz rebanding plans or sought a waiver from June’s reconfiguration deadline. Meanwhile, in some areas licensees are ready to reband but have had to stop because systems they're tied into are not, industry players said this week at the APCO annual conference.
Boston Acoustics is shipping its new Vista line of speakers priced $800 to $3,400 a pair, senior executives told a New York media briefing Tuesday. Vista is the company’s new “flagship product for where Boston Acoustics wants to live in the marketplace,” said Senior Vice President Eli Harary. “It’s an expression of what Boston Acoustics is about” and has been for 30 years -- the “best sound at the best price,” he said. Durable polyethylene-based black lacquer cabinets are among the line’s signature features, Harary said. Unlike rivals’ black lacquer finishes, which he said are done on the cheap, Vista speakers’ finish can’t be harmed by sharp objects, he said. Harary said he asked the company’s supplier for cutaway samples of Vista cabinets to use at trade shows and other demonstrations but was told that illustrating the material’s toughness would require a saw that would overheat. Still, the company won’t offer a lifetime guarantee on the finish, Harary said to our query. The speakers use “super wide bandwidth” one-inch tweeters with coupled dual-concentric diaphragms to beat phasing problems common to more conventional tweeter designs, the company said. A new organic composite cone material for Vista woofers and midrange drivers resembles paper but is made of a mix of natural fibers to reduce resonance and improve sonic accuracy, the company said. As he did a year ago (CED Aug 13 p2), Harary shrugged off media queries on whether using the name “Vista” would land Boston Acoustics in legal hot water with Microsoft. Approved uses of “Vista” exceed 700 in consumer electronics alone, Harary said. Boston Acoustics plans to distribute Vista through only about 40 custom installers and specialty retailers able to demonstrate the line in showrooms, said Phil Cohn, senior vice president of sales and marketing.
The FCC Friday approved 5-0 an order giving itself 60 days to address regulatory fees it charges submarine cable systems. The move responded to concerns raised by the operators. Regulatory fee payments cover all but $1 million of the agency’s $313 million fiscal 2008 budget.
China’s unblocking of Reporters Without Borders’ Web site there is “good news” but a planned virtual protest still will occur Aug. 8, when the Olympic Games kick off, the journalists rights group said Friday. The site, blocked since 2003, now is available at the Beijing Olympic press center, “other parts of the capital and in Shanghai,” the group said. Its tests show that other human rights and foreign news sites also have been unblocked. The International Olympic Committee and Chinese government have faced stinging criticism, including in a resolution adopted by the U.S. House, since the IOC admitted that it cooperated with China to keep some sites blocked for reporters at the Games, contrary to promises (WID Aug 1 p6). “This partial lifting of censorship shows that the Chinese government is not completely insensitive to pressure,” said Reporters Without Borders. Pressure should have started in 2001, when China landed the 2008 games, it said. Other sites newly available to reporters at the games include those of Amnesty International, which recently reported that China hadn’t lived up to human-rights promises as the games near. Others are the Human Rights Watch and the BBC English- and Chinese-language sites. Sites still blocked include Reporters Without Borders’ Chinese-language site, the Chinese Human Right Defenders site and the site of the Tor Project, which offers so-called onion routing to get around firewalls, as well as sites for Falun Gong, independent Chinese news site Boxun and Tibetan groups. Reporters Without Borders said its virtual protest will let visitors “protest outside a virtual version of Beijing’s Olympic Stadium, waving a placard with the slogan of their choice.” It will occur at 11 a.m. GMT at www.rsfbeijing2008.org, an hour before the opening ceremony, in coordination with protests outside China’s embassies in London, Madrid, Berlin, Paris, Washington, Brussels, Montreal, Rome and Stockholm and a rally at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.