ECONOMIE DES NTIC aux USA

Sources: US Embassy

Obama’s Online Opportunities
John B. Horrigan. The Pew Internet & American Life Project. Data Memo. December 4, 2008. 3 pages.
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Obama.and.Tech.pdf
There is no shortage of suggestions to the incoming Obama administration about what to do about communications policy in the United States. America’s middling standing in world rankings on broadband adoption has served as a call to arms for the new administration to develop a national broadband strategy to boost the economy, aid the environment and improve delivery of health care and government services.

Radio Communications: Congressional Action Needed to Ensure Agencies Collaborate to Develop a Joint Solution
Government Accountability Office (GAO). Report to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate. December 2008. 59 pages.

The Integrated Wireless Network (IWN) was intended to be a collaborative effort among the Departments of Justice (DOJ), Homeland Security (DHS), and the Treasury to provide secure, seamless, interoperable, and reliable nationwide wireless communications in support of federal agents and officers engaged in law enforcement, protective services, homeland defense, and disaster response missions. GAO was asked to determine the extent to which the three departments are developing a joint radio communications solution.

Telecommunications Task Group Final Report
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). October 28, 2008. 23 pages.
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/081028_telecomm_task_group.pdf
The Telecommunications Infrastructure of the United States is arguably one of the fundamental enablers of virtually all other critical infrastructures on which the nation depends. This paper describes the current status of cyber security within the telecommunications infrastructure, defines the interdependencies between the telecommunications infrastructure and the other critical infrastructures, and develops recommendations for expanding and enhancing the cyber security of the collective telecommunications infrastructure.


SPECTRUM MANAGEMENT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: PLAN TO IDENTIFY AND IMPLEMENT INCENTIVES THAT PROMOTE MORE EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE USE OF SPECTRUM
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). U.S. Department of Commerce. November 2008. 21 pages.

In May 2003, the President committed the Administration to the development of a United States Spectrum Policy that promotes economic prosperity and national security through the 21st century. Since then, the Executive Branch has worked to implement the President’s Spectrum Policy Initiative. Pursuant to the President’s directive, NTIA has developed this plan to expand on existing policies that identify and implement incentives that are appropriate to Federal Government users; and address incentives more broadly and develop possible legislative recommendations to increase the FCC’s incentive authority.

Lowering the Cost of Play: Improving Energy Efficiency of Video Game Consoles
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Issue Paper. November 2008. 29 pages.

More than 40 percent of all homes in the United States contain at least one video game console. Video game consoles consumed an estimated 16 billion kilowatt-hours per year -- roughly equal to the annual electricity use of the city of San Diego. This issue paper provides recommendations for users, video game console manufacturers, component suppliers and the software companies that design games for improving the efficiency of video game consoles already in homes as well as future generations of machines.

PREPAID PHONES IN THE U.S.: MYTHS, LACK OF CONSUMER KNOWLEDGE BLOCKING WIDER USE
New Millennium Research Council. December 4, 2008. 34 pages.

A combination of consumer uncertainty and myths about prepaid phones may account for the lower level of use in the U.S.: although about four out of five Americans (79 percent) own a cell phone, fewer than one in five (16 percent) of Americans with cell phones have a prepaid phone. Of the balance, 85 percent have “postpaid”/contract-based service where they pay a monthly fee.


Distance Isn’t Quite Dead: Recent Trade Patterns and Modes of Supply in Computer and Information Services in the United States and NAFTA Partners
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard. Peterson Institute for International Economics. Working Paper No. 08-10. October 2008. 73 pages.

This paper describes developments in US and regional NAFTA trade patterns in computer and information services (C&IS) in recent years, with particular emphasis on the relative importance of and trends in different modes of supply of C&IS. The study of C&IS trade warrants attention due to C&IS’s general characteristics as an enabling technology, which, as input to other sectors and products, have been found to positively affect productivity in the United States. Secondly, C&IS trade is intuitively among the most digitizable of commercial services and accordingly can be expected to be perhaps the most internationally tradable among commercial service categories. Investigating C&IS trade trends might therefore reveal early results also relevant for other, less immediately digitizable commercial services.

Homes with Tails: WHAT IF YOU COULD OWN YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION?
Derek Slater and Tim Wu. New America Foundation. Wireless Future Program. Working Paper #23. November 2008. 17 pages.

For the vast majority of homes, copper wires remain the principal means of getting broadband services. The deployment of fiber optic connections to the home would enable exponentially faster connections, and few dispute that upgrading to more robust infrastructure is essential to America’s economic growth. The costs of such an upgrade, however, are daunting for private sector firms and even for governments. These facts add up to a public policy challenge. In this paper, the authors propose and describe a new way to encourage broadband deployment.


The Durable Internet: Preserving Network Neutrality without Regulation
Timothy B. Lee. Cato Institute. Policy Analysis No. 626. November 12, 2008. 44 pages.

An important reason for the Internet’s remarkable growth over the last quarter century is the “end-to-end” principle that networks should confine themselves to transmitting generic packets without worrying about their contents. Not only has this made deployment of Internet infrastructure cheap and efficient, but it has created fertile ground for entrepreneurship. On a network that respects the end-to-end principle, prior approval from network owners is not needed to launch new applications, services, or content. In recent years, self-styled “network neutrality” activists have pushed for legislation to prevent network owners from undermining the end-to end principle. Although the concern is understandable, such legislation would be premature. Physical ownership of Internet infrastructure does not translate into a practical ability to control its use. Regulations are unnecessary because even in the absence of robust broadband competition, network owners are likely to find deviations from the end-to-end principle unprofitable.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-626.pdf

Voir Internet sur Internet

The Hacker Economy

How Does The Hacker Economy Work

It's a murky world of chat rooms, malware factories, and sophisticated phishing schemes. Here's a look inside.

By Larry Greenemeier J. Nicholas Hoover
InformationWeek

févr. 10, 2007 12:02 AM (From the février 12, 2007 issue)

When retailer TJX disclosed Jan. 17 that the computer systems that store data related to credit card, debit card, check, and merchandise return transactions had been broken into, it said it had discovered the hack in December. But security officials at Visa had been seeing an increase in fraudulent activity on credit and debit cards related to TJX properties, such as T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods stores, since mid-November. That means it's possible the purloined consumer data has been floating around the Internet, available for purchase on black market Web sites and chat rooms, for at least two months, maybe longer.

Hacking isn't a kid's game anymore. It's big business. Online black markets are flush with stolen credit card data, driver's license numbers, and malware, the programs that let hackers exploit the security weaknesses of commercial software. Cybercriminals have become an organized bunch; they use peer-to-peer payment systems just like they're buying and selling on eBay, and they're not afraid to work together.

While the independent hacker still exists (pardon us, but in this story, we'll refer to "hacker" in the layman's sense), the FBI sees true organized crime in parts of the hacking community, particularly in Eastern Europe, says special agent Chris Stangl, who works in the bureau's cybercrime division, the agency's third largest behind counter-terrorism and intelligence. "You'll have hackers cracking the machines, individuals collecting the data, and individuals selling for profit," Stangl says.

Getting a clear picture of the hacker economy isn't easy. It's a murky underground about which few people are willing to talk on the record. But the general outlines can be gleaned from inside and outside sources.

It's not a crime to point out vulnerabilities on the Net, making malware hard to prosecute, says eEye's Maiffret.

Direct Approach
Some hackers take the direct approach. Ransom scams--in which a criminal infects a company's systems with malware that encrypts data and then demands money to provide the decryption key--are common in Russia. Uriel Maimon, a researcher with the consumer division of RSA, a security vendor now owned by EMC, says he's seen a half-dozen of these scams over the past five months.

But in the scheme of things, those kinds of scams aren't all that common because they're risky--they require "a direct financial connection between the victim and the author or proprietor of the malware," says David Dagon, a researcher with the Georgia Tech Information Security Center. More omnipresent is the thriving black market in data. Online sites abound where credit and debit card numbers, cardholder names, and the card verification value, a three- or four-digit code that's used to verify a card's authenticity, can be bought and sold. Jeff Moss, who goes by the handle "The Dark Tangent" and is the founder of Black Hat, a security research and training firm (owned by InformationWeek parent CMP), says he knows of one European cyberattacker who makes nearly a half-million dollars annually buying and selling databases and customer lists.

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