Economist: The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data

Posted on May 7, 2017 by admin

From the Economist

Regulating the internet giants: The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data

The data economy demands a new approach to antitrust rules

May 6, 2017

A NEW commodity spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting antitrust regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era. These titans—Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft—look unstoppable. They are the five most valuable listed firms in the world. Their profits are surging: they collectively racked up over $25bn in net profit in the first quarter of 2017. Amazon captures half of all dollars spent online in America. Google and Facebook accounted for almost all the revenue growth in digital advertising in America last year.

Such dominance has prompted calls for the tech giants to be broken up, as Standard Oil was in the early 20th century. This newspaper has argued against such drastic action in the past. Size alone is not a crime. The giants’ success has benefited consumers. Few want to live without Google’s search engine, Amazon’s one-day delivery or Facebook’s newsfeed. Nor do these firms raise the alarm when standard antitrust tests are applied. Far from gouging consumers, many of their services are free (users pay, in effect, by handing over yet more data). Take account of offline rivals, and their market shares look less worrying. And the emergence of upstarts like Snapchat suggests that new entrants can still make waves.

But there is cause for concern. Internet companies’ control of data gives them enormous power. Old ways of thinking about competition, devised in the era of oil, look outdated in what has come to be called the “data economy” (see Briefing). A new approach is needed.

Quantity has a quality all its own

What has changed? Smartphones and the internet have made data abundant, ubiquitous and far more valuable. Whether you are going for a run, watching TV or even just sitting in traffic, virtually every activity creates a digital trace—more raw material for the data distilleries. As devices from watches to cars connect to the internet, the volume is increasing: some estimate that a self-driving car will generate 100 gigabytes per second. Meanwhile, artificial-intelligence (AI) techniques such as machine learning extract more value from data. Algorithms can predict when a customer is ready to buy, a jet-engine needs servicing or a person is at risk of a disease. Industrial giants such as GE and Siemens now sell themselves as data firms.

This abundance of data changes the nature of competition. Technology giants have always benefited from network effects: the more users Facebook signs up, the more attractive signing up becomes for others. With data there are extra network effects. By collecting more data, a firm has more scope to improve its products, which attracts more users, generating even more data, and so on. The more data Tesla gathers from its self-driving cars, the better it can make them at driving themselves—part of the reason the firm, which sold only 25,000 cars in the first quarter, is now worth more than GM, which sold 2.3m. Vast pools of data can thus act as protective moats.

Access to data also protects companies from rivals in another way. The case for being sanguine about competition in the tech industry rests on the potential for incumbents to be blindsided by a startup in a garage or an unexpected technological shift. But both are less likely in the data age. The giants’ surveillance systems span the entire economy: Google can see what people search for, Facebook what they share, Amazon what they buy. They own app stores and operating systems, and rent out computing power to startups. They have a “God’s eye view” of activities in their own markets and beyond. They can see when a new product or service gains traction, allowing them to copy it or simply buy the upstart before it becomes too great a threat. Many think Facebook’s $22bn purchase in 2014 of WhatsApp, a messaging app with fewer than 60 employees, falls into this category of “shoot-out acquisitions” that eliminate potential rivals. By providing barriers to entry and early-warning systems, data can stifle competition.

Who ya gonna call, trustbusters?

The nature of data makes the antitrust remedies of the past less useful. Breaking up a firm like Google into five Googlets would not stop network effects from reasserting themselves: in time, one of them would become dominant again. A radical rethink is required—and as the outlines of a new approach start to become apparent, two ideas stand out.

The first is that antitrust authorities need to move from the industrial era into the 21st century. When considering a merger, for example, they have traditionally used size to determine when to intervene. They now need to take into account the extent of firms’ data assets when assessing the impact of deals. The purchase price could also be a signal that an incumbent is buying a nascent threat. On these measures, Facebook’s willingness to pay so much for WhatsApp, which had no revenue to speak of, would have raised red flags. Trustbusters must also become more data-savvy in their analysis of market dynamics, for example by using simulations to hunt for algorithms colluding over prices or to determine how best to promote competition (see Free exchange).

The second principle is to loosen the grip that providers of online services have over data and give more control to those who supply them. More transparency would help: companies could be forced to reveal to consumers what information they hold and how much money they make from it. Governments could encourage the emergence of new services by opening up more of their own data vaults or managing crucial parts of the data economy as public infrastructure, as India does with its digital-identity system, Aadhaar. They could also mandate the sharing of certain kinds of data, with users’ consent—an approach Europe is taking in financial services by requiring banks to make customers’ data accessible to third parties.

Rebooting antitrust for the information age will not be easy. It will entail new risks: more data sharing, for instance, could threaten privacy. But if governments don’t want a data economy dominated by a few giants, they will need to act soon.

 http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21721656-data-economy-demands-new-approach-antitrust-rules-worlds-most-valuable-resource

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Technical University of Munich: Holography with the Wi-Fi-router

Posted on May 7, 2017 by admin

From the Technical University of Munich

Holography with the Wi-Fi-router

Analysis of Wi-Fi data generates 3D images of the vicinity

04.05.2017,  Research news

PDF of study

Scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a holographic imaging process that depicts the radiation of a Wi-Fi transmitter to generate three-dimensional images of the surrounding environment. Industrial facility operators could use this to track objects as they move through the production hall.

Just like peering through a window, holograms project a seemingly three-dimensional image. While optical holograms require elaborate laser technology, generating holograms with the microwave radiation of a Wi-Fi transmitter requires merely one fixed and one movable antenna, as Dr. Friedenmann Reinhard and Philipp Holl report in the current issue of the renowned scientific journal Physical Review Letters.

“Using this technology, we can generate a three-dimensional image of the space around the Wi-Fi transmitter, as if our eyes could see microwave radiation,” says Friedemann Reinhard, director of the Emmy Noether Research Group for Quantum Sensors at the Walter Schottky Institute of the TU Munich. The researchers envision fields of deployment especially in the domain of industry 4.0 – automated industrial facilities, in which localizing parts and devices is often difficult.

WI-FI PENETRATES WALLS

Processes that allow the localization of microwave radiation, even through walls, or in which changes in a signal pattern signify the presence of a person already exist. The novelty is that an entire space can be imaged via holographic processing of Wi-Fi or cell phone signals.

“Of course, this raises privacy questions. After all, to a certain degree even encrypted signals transmit an image of their surroundings to the outside world,” says the project leader, Friedemann Reinhard. “However, it is rather unlikely that this process will be used for the view into foreign bedrooms in the near future. For that, you would need to go around the building with a large antenna, which would hardly go unnoticed. There are simpler ways available.”

CENTIMETER-SCALE PRECISION

Hitherto, generating images from microwave radiation required special-purpose transmitters with large bandwidths. Using holographic data processing, the very small bandwidths of typical household Wi-Fi transmitters operating in the 2.4 and 5 gigahertz bands were sufficient for the researchers. Even Bluetooth and cell phone signals can be used. The wavelengths of these devices correspond to a spatial resolution of a few centimeters.

“Instead of a using a movable antenna, which measures the image point by point, one can use a larger number of antennas to obtain a video-like image frequency,” says Philipp Holl, who executed the experiments. “Future Wi-Fi frequencies, like the proposed 60 gigahertz IEEE 802.11 standard will allow resolutions down to the millimeter range.”

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Well-known optical methods for image processing can also be deployed in Wi-Fi holography: One example is the dark-field methodology used in microscopy, which improves the recognition of weakly diffracting structures. A further process is white-light holography in which the researchers use the remaining small bandwidth of the Wi-Fi transmitter to eliminate noise from scattered radiation.

The concept of treating microwave holograms like optical images allows the microwave image to be combined with camera images. The additional information extracted from the microwave images can be embedded into the camera image of a smart phone, for example to trace a radio tag attached to a lost item.

But the scientists are just at the beginning of the technological development. For example, research on the transparency of specific materials is lacking. This knowledge would facilitate the development of paint or wall paper translucent to microwaves for privacy protection, while transparent materials could be deployed in factory halls to allow parts to be tracked.

The researchers hope that further advancement of the technology may aid in the recovery of victims buried under an avalanche or a collapsed building. While conventional methods only allow point localization of victims, holographic signal processing could provide a spatial representation of destroyed structures, allowing first responders to navigate around heavy objects and use cavities in the rubble to systematically elucidate the easiest approach to quickly reach victims.

The research was funded by the Emmy Noether Program of the German Research Foundation (DFB) and the TUM Junior Fellow Fund.

PUBLICATION:

Philipp M. Holl and Friedemann Reinhard: Holography of Wi-fi Radiation.
Physical Review Letters, 05.05.2017 – DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.183901
journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.183901

https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.183901 PDF

Links: Presentation with embedded video of the simulation: youtu.be/vle2ssAWiFg

CONTACT:

Dr. Friedemann Reinhard
Technical University of Munich
Walter Schottky Institute, E24
Am Coulombwall 4, 85748 Garching, Germany
Tel.: +49 89 289 12777 – e-mail – web

A cross made of aluminum foil between the viewer and the WLAN-router can easily be reconstructed from the WLAN-hologram as can be seen in the inserted picture (image: Friedemann Reinhard/Philipp Holl / TUM)A cross made of aluminum foil between the viewer and the WLAN-router can easily be reconstructed from the WLAN-hologram as can be seen in the inserted picture (image: Friedemann Reinhard/Philipp Holl / TUM)
Set-up of the WLAN-holography experiment (image: Friedemann Reinhard/Philipp Holl / TUM)Set-up of the WLAN-holography experiment (image: Friedemann Reinhard/Philipp Holl / TUM)
Simulation of a warehouse: from the "light" of the WLAN router in the basement, the three-dimensional image (right) can be reconstructed (image: Friedemann Reinhard/Philipp Holl / TUM)Simulation of a warehouse: from the “light” of the WLAN router in the basement, the three-dimensional image (right) can be reconstructed (image: Friedemann Reinhard/Philipp Holl / TUM)

https://www.tum.de/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/detail/article/33897/

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Wi-Fi holography can be used to “spy” on entire rooms and buildings

Posted on May 7, 2017 by admin

The IoT/Home Area Network of Smart appliances with reference antennas throughout the “smart” home including Wi-Fi, as well as the outdoor mesh network used by many Smart Meter systems, could provide this holographic surveillance capability indoors and outdoors. 5G will also provide it.

From New Atlas

By Eric Mack
May 6, 2017

We think of Wi-Fi as primarily bathing our homes and offices in a comfy, invisible blanket of data and internet access, but just as a blanket can take on the shapes of the bodies it covers, the microwave radiation sent out from a hotspot can be used to generate a three-dimensional image of the surrounding environment and the things and people in it.

Researchers at the Technical University of Munich have come up with a process that creates a holographic image of a space from the microwave radiation of a Wi-Fi signal bouncing off people and objects. The scientists say their method could be used in automated industrial settings, to track objects moving through a facility, for example.

“Using this technology, we can generate a three-dimensional image of the space around the Wi-Fi transmitter, as if our eyes could see microwave radiation,” says Friedemann Reinhard, director of the Emmy Noether Research Group for Quantum Sensors at TU Munich.

We’ve seen similar approaches use Wi-Fi to see through walls, even distinguishing human figures on the other side and performing head countsof people in an open area. But the TU Munich scientists say they’ve gone a step further: using Wi-Fi and even cellular signals to image an entire space with holographic processing.

Simulation of a warehouse using the Wi-Fi imaging system (Credit: Friedemann Reinhard/Philipp Holl / TUM)

Reinhard concedes that this new ability to use Wi-Fi to essentially spy on entire rooms and buildings does raise questions of privacy.

“After all, to a certain degree even encrypted signals transmit an image of their surroundings to the outside world,” he says. “However, it is rather unlikely that this process will be used (to look) into foreign bedrooms in the near future. For that, you would need to go around the building with a large antenna, which would hardly go unnoticed.”

The holographic imaging system requires simply one fixed and one movable antenna, but researcher Philipp Holl says a larger number of antennas could replace the movable antenna for higher-resolution images closer to that of video.

“Future Wi-Fi frequencies, like the proposed 60 gigahertz IEEE 802.11standard will allow resolutions down to the millimeter range,” Holl adds.

Potential future applications for this “Wi-Fi vision” include embedding microwave image data into camera images, allowing for easy tracking of lost items. Imagine taking a photo of a room and being able to see in the image that a lost object is hidden under a piece of furniture, for example.

The researchers also hope that the technology could advance to be useful in rescue operations to help reach victims buried by an avalanche or a collapsed building. They also hope to learn about materials that are more translucent or transparent to microwaves to provide better privacy protection or allow for better tracking of equipment in factory floors.

The research was published in the most recent issue of Physical Review Letters.

Source: TU Munich

http://newatlas.com/wifi-router-holography-microwave-radiation/49396/

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Who wants the Internet of Things (IoT) ?

Posted on May 5, 2017 by admin

From Washington’s Blog
March 15, 2017

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2017/03/whole-point-internet-things-big-brother-can-spy-2.html

No One Wants the Internet of Things …

No one wants the Internet of Things (IoT).

The Washington Post noted in 2014:

No one really wants a “smart” washing machine ….

***

If you’re wondering who would want to buy an Internet-enabled washing machine, you’re not alone. Even Whirlpool’s not so sure.

“We’re a little bit of a hammer looking for a nail right now,” Chris Quatrochi, Whirlpool’s global director of user experience and connectivity, said last week at a conference  hosted by tech blog Gigaom. The buyers of web-connected washers, more than a year after launch, are still “not at all widespread,” he said. “Trying to understand exactly the value proposition that you provide to the consumer,” he said, “has been a little bit of a challenge.”

It’s a big concession from one of the most notable champions of the buzzy “Internet of Things” ….

As Digital Trends blogger John Sciacca put it: “Have we gotten so pathetically lame that you need to be notified by an email that your laundry is done?”

Wired jokes:

Now it seems every kind of thing from dishwashers to doorknobs require an Internet connection, since after all, we all know our dishwashers have long harbored a pent up desire for scintillating conversation with our doorknobs.

… Except Big Brother

The government is already spying on us through spying on us through our computers, phones, cars, buses, streetlights, at airports and on the street, via mobile scanners and drones, through our credit cards and smart meters (see this), television, doll, and in many other ways.

The CIA wants to spy on you through your dishwasher and other “smart” appliances. Slate reported in 2012:

Watch out: the CIA may soon be spying on you—through your beloved, intelligent household appliances, according to Wired.

In early March, at a meeting for the CIA’s venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, CIA Director David Petraeus reportedly noted that “smart appliances” connected to the Internet could someday be used by the CIA to track individuals. If your grocery-list-generating refrigerator knows when you’re home, the CIA could, too, by using geo-location data from your wired appliances, according to SmartPlanet.

“The current ‘Internet of PCs’ will move, of course, toward an ‘Internet of Things’—of devices of all types—50 to 100 billion of which will be connected to the Internet by 2020,” Petraeus said in his speech. He continued:

Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters—all connected to the next-generation Internet using abundant, low cost, and high-power computing—the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing.

Last year, U.S. Intelligence Boss James Clapper said that the government will spy on Americans through IoT:

In the future, intelligence services might use the [IoT] for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials.

Yves Smith commented at the time:

Oh, come on. The whole point of the IoT is spying. The officialdom is just trying to persuade you that it really is a big consumer benefit to be able to tell your oven to start heating up before you get home.

Wired comments:

Why do you think there are so many buckets of cash pouring into the IoT hope-to-be-a-market? The Big Corporations don’t expect to make a big profit on the devices themselves, oh no. News flash: the Big Money in IoT is in Big Data. As in, Big Data about everything those sensors are learning about you and your nasty habits that you hide from your neighbors.

The value of Big Data, after all, aren’t the data themselves. “Fred’s car told Fred’s thermostat to turn on Fred’s hot tub” doesn’t interest anybody but Fred and perhaps his hot date (if he’s lucky). The value in Big Data, you see, are in the patterns. What shows you watch. What apps you use. Which ads influence your buying behavior. The more IoT you have, the more Big Data they collect, and the more Big Data they collect, the more they know about how you behave. And once they know how you behave, they know how to control how you behave.

The Guardian notes:

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Australia 2015 government report: You paid billions for Smart Meters in order for electricity companies to benefit

Posted on May 5, 2017 by admin

“[W]hen the government reviewed the program in 2011 it was clear there would be no overall benefit to consumers, but instead a likely cost of $319 million.”

And the costs will keep accruing.

I have made a series of recommendations, including to track and report on costs, improve consumer education and facilitate benefits pass-through, which if addressed will maximise the benefits to consumers. Disappointingly, the department has failed to satisfactorily respond to the issues raised by my report. I strongly urge the department to review its position in the interests of all consumers, and to fully address my recommendations. I intend to closely monitor the department’s progress in this regard.

Lastly, I note the department has misleadingly suggested that my report exhibits ‘systematic pessimism’ that is not justified by the evidence. This assertion fails to recognise that my audits must be conducted in accordance with the Australian Auditing and Assurance Standards which require auditors to exercise professional judgement and scepticism in assessing the sufficiency and appropriateness of audit evidence supplied by agencies. The conclusions I have reached in this report reflect such an assessment, on the quality of the evidence supplied by the department.
— Victoria Auditor-General’s report “Realising the Benefits of Smart Meters”

Canberra Times

By Marc Moncrief
September 17, 2015

Households forced to pay for the multibillion-dollar rollout of smart meters may never see their promised benefits, according to a scathing report by Victoria’s Auditor-General.

The report lashes the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport & Resources for failing to track properly the multibillion-dollar costs associated with the program, preferring instead to crow about its benefits out of context.

It says the largest benefit in the estimated life of the program — $1.4 billion out of $3.2 billion — could be attributed to avoiding costs such as installing and manually checking older meters. These are savings that flow primarily to electricity distributors, rather than consumers, who have instead seen bills climb higher and higher.

“When the rollout was announced, the benefits were promoted widely. However, when the government reviewed the program in 2011 it was clear there would be no overall benefit to consumers, but instead a likely cost of $319 million,” the Auditor-General’s report said.

The report says costs are likely to go beyond that figure, and that, even in ideal conditions, consumers will only receive about 80 per cent of the benefits that have been identified.

“The reality of the smart meter rollout is that the state approved a program, many of the costs of which it could not directly control, nor drive many of the benefits ascribed to it,” the report says.

“Nevertheless, the rollout is now complete and Victoria has infrastructure in place that might lead to future innovation and benefits to consumers. Government’s role must now be to help consumers to get the most out of what they have paid for,” it said.

Anti-smart meter campaigner Sonja Rutherford, of Broadmeadows, is one of thousands around the state who has refused the smart meter upgrade. She says her meter has been running for 45 years without incident.

“The so-called benefits the government keep repeating — none of that has come to fruition that I know of,” Ms Rutherford said.

She said smart meters, coupled with internet-connected appliances, would allow companies to cut off power to particular appliances at their whim. Up to 75,000 people kept “locked box” meters, refusing the upgrade, she said. A meter reader still comes to her house.

“I don’t know what the advantage is except that they can rake in money for the cost of the rollout,” she said.

Department secretary Richard Bolt said the report showed “a systemic pessimism that is not justified by the evidence” and that its recommendations “include actions that department is already actioning (sic) or has proposed to implement”.

The Auditor-General said that criticism was “misleading” because he was bound by law to act with “professional judgement and scepticism”.

The report says benefits from the program rely on consumers changing their behaviour, but for that to happen consumers have to be engaged and educated. Despite “improvements to consumer education” since 2009, two-thirds of Victorians “do not understand what the benefits provided through smart meters are”.

The report estimates Victorians have so far paid about $2.2 billion in metering charges, including the cost of installing the meters, but that the department “does not have a good understanding of the cost of the program, which it does not track”.

It describes the department’s response to the report as “disappointing”. The department’s view, according to the report, is that it should not disclose costs because they are “sunk” and that “only benefit tracking is important”.

“Of course benefits tracking is crucial, but the success or otherwise of the smart meters program cannot be properly scrutinised without an understanding of the costs of achieving the benefits,” the report says.

“None of the arguments raised by the department absolve it from providing full transparency to consumers and government. After all, consumers had no choice in paying for the rollout, but they are surely entitled to clear and transparent reporting of all aspects of the program,” the report said.

Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the government had “made significant progress in improving the smart meter system”, that the rollout was almost finished and “most of the report recommendations (are) already implemented or underway”.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/business/energy/you-paid-billions-for-electricity-companies-to-benefit–report-20150916-gjnpz7.html

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Australia: Two-way Smart Meters are vulnerable to hacking

Posted on May 5, 2017 by admin

Another security report on Smart Meters. Unlike Canberra, a high percentage of Smart Meters in the U.S. are two-way.

Once a surveillance-capable device is attached to a building, there is no longer any privacy. There is only a “confidentiality agreement” and “trust”  on the private data accessed.

From Canberra Times

3,225 smart meters vulnerable to hacking in Canberra

By Finbar O’Mallon
April 26, 2017

Your smart meter could be hacked, your energy held to ransom, its usage monitored to determine the best time to rob your house, or even used by advertisers to determine your favourite TV show.

Director of the Centre for Internet Safety at the University of Canberra Nigel Phair has warned Australian consumers aren’t aware of the risks associated with their smart meters.

There are two types of smart meters, ‘one-way’ or ‘two-way’ meters: one way meters simply transmit data back to utility companies.

Two-way meters can be updated to inform savvy consumers on fee changes or allow power companies to cut services at a moment’s notice.

Mr Phair said two-way meters had less secure data connections, allowing would-be criminals to hack in.

ActewAGL said there were 3225 two-way smart meters in the ACT, representing 1.7 per cent of meters in the capital.

Mr Phair said there were no Australian or global standards on security and privacy regarding smart meters and called for more stringent digital security standards.

“They’re vulnerable to cyber attacks back into the home because it can receive data over the internet,” Mr Phair said.

“The reason electricity companies want this is because they can turn it off when you don’t pay your bill.”

Mr Phair said hackers could potentially cut power then demand money from households before reactivating it, or use it to determine when no one was home before breaking in.

Mr Phair’s report Smart Meters: What does a connected house really mean? cited a case in Puerto Rico where hackers offered households lower power bills.

For fees ranging up to $US1000, hackers reprogrammed two-way smart meters remotely to reduce monthly power bills by 75 per cent, costing power bodies in Puerto Rico nearly $US400 million.

The report pointed to malware software capable of infecting two-way meters before leaping to nearby meters, potentially shutting down entire neighbourhoods.

“We should only roll out one-way meters in the first instance, until we work out the security and privacy issues of two-ways meters,” Mr Phair said.

“Essentially, one-way radio transmission is more secure for the customer.”

A scathing 2015 report by the Victorian Auditor-General found two-way meters had delivered no cost benefits to Victorian households.

While Mr Phair said the meters allowed consumers to actively monitor and analyse their usage, but most were unaware how.

Mr Phair added smart meter readings also had potential for advertisers.

German researchers eavesdropping on household energy outputs determined the type of TV and the show people were watching by the energy required to light the screen.

It required previous understanding of what energy patterns programs created but Mr Phair said the data could be sold to advertisers, raising privacy concerns.

He said the energy data could be matched with people’s social media use.

A report from the Australian Energy Market Commission last year set new rules in place to improve security and privacy standards on smart meters.

Mr Phair’s research was funded by a manufacturer of one-way smart meter systems.

RELATED CONTENT

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/adaptive/canberratimes/act-news/3225-smart-meters-in-canberra-vulnerable-to-hacking-20170426-gvsj7t.html

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Is the CPUC unlawfully interfering with city ordinances on Smart Meters?

Posted on May 4, 2017 by admin

The California cities of Sebastopol and Fairfax adopted ordinances prohibiting installation of Smart Meters and infrastructure several years ago. This has been protested by PG&E and by the CPUC.

On April 17, 2017, the CPUC sent new letters to the cities of Sebastopol and Fairfax warning them about their ordinances. In these letters, the CPUC alleges the cities are unlawfully interfering with the CPUC’s “exclusive jurisdiction”  over the regulation of public utilities and “exclusive authority” over electric utility equipment.

But is this true? Does the CPUC have exclusive jurisdiction or exclusive authority? Or is this action by the CPUC actually unlawful interference in the authority and jurisdiction of municipal governments?

Here is what any layperson who can read can discover. Consult an attorney specializing in utility law to get a legal opinion on this matter.  The Public Utilities Code and the California Constitution seem to indicate quite different facts than what CPUC attorneys allege. The sections include Public Utilities Code Section 761.3d and Section 2901-2906, the California Constitution Article 12, Section 8, and the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, Civil Code Section 11120. Laws in full below.

PUC Section 761.3d — Federal, state, or local agencies may adopt deadlines, standards, rules, or regulations for the purposes of protecting public health or the environment, and those standards, rules, or regulations may not be modified, delayed, or abrogated (abrogate means to void.)

PUC Section 2901-2906 — Municipal corporations have vested powers of control to supervise and regulate the relationship between public utilities and the general public in matters affecting the health, convenience, and safety of the general public. It doesn’t look like the state allows municipal corporations to relinquish those powers of control.

California Constitution, Article 1, Section 1 and Article 12, Section 8 — Californians have inalienable rights including pursuing and obtaining safety and privacy (this is in addition to being secure in their persons, protected from unreasonable search and seizure and eminent domain). Cities in existence on October 10, 1911 have broad powers over utilities unless those powers have been revoked by the electorate. All cities have the right to set franchise terms for utilities to do business with them.

Bagley-Keene Act, Calif. Government Code, Section 11120 — The people retain their sovereignty and their control over agencies such as the CPUC.

These laws seem to indicate that the CPUC and PG&E are unlawfully interfering with the jurisdiction and authority of municipal governments. The cities of Fairfax and Sebastopol appear to be blameless and to be acting in accordance with their public mandate.

The General Counsels of the CPUC also appear to be acting like “Philadelphia lawyers” instead of representing the interests of the people of California. Until Californians demand a purge and radical reformation of the CPUC and the political machine that sustains it, the CPUC will continue along the same path, and there will be San Bruno after San Bruno, and Californians will continue to be stiffed, sickened, and killed by Smart Meters.

Specifics (links to laws are below)

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10 reasons why handheld devices should be banned for children under the age of 12

Posted on May 3, 2017 by admin

In addition, the research not cited in this article is the NIH National Toxicology Program study which found 8.5% of male rats developed malignant heart tumors, malignant brain tumors or pre-cancerous lesions after only 2 years of exposure, from conception on. Rats also had lower birth weights.

From Huffington Post

By Cris Rowan
March 7, 2017

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Society of Pediatrics state infants aged 0-2 years should not have any exposure to technology, 3-5 years be restricted to one hour per day, and 6-18 years restricted to 2 hours per day (AAP 2001/13, CPS 2010). Children and youth use 4-5 times the recommended amount of technology, with serious and often life threatening consequences (Kaiser Foundation 2010, Active Healthy Kids Canada 2012). Handheld devices (cell phones, tablets, electronic games) have dramatically increased the accessibility and usageof technology, especially by very young children (Common Sense Media, 2013). As a pediatric occupational therapist, I’m calling on parents, teachers and governments to ban the use of all handheld devices for children under the age of 12 years. Following are 10 research-based reasons for this ban. Please visit zonein.ca to view the Zone’in Fact Sheet for referenced research.

1. Rapid brain growth
Between 0 and 2 years, infant’s brains triple in size, and continue in a state of rapid development to 21 years of age (Christakis 2011). Early brain development is determined by environmental stimuli, or lack thereof. Stimulation to a developing brain caused by overexposure to technologies (cell phones, internet, iPads, TV), has been shown to be associated with executive functioning and attention deficit, cognitive delays, impaired learning, increased impulsivity and decreased ability to self-regulate, e.g. tantrums (Small 2008, Pagini 2010).

2. Delayed Development
Technology use restricts movement, which can result in delayed development. One in three children now enter school developmentally delayed, negatively impacting literacy and academic achievement (HELP EDI Maps 2013). Movement enhances attention and learning ability (Ratey 2008). Use of technology under the age of 12 years is detrimental to child development and learning (Rowan 2010).

3. Epidemic Obesity
TV and video game use correlates with increased obesity (Tremblay 2005). Children who are allowed a device in their bedrooms have 30% increased incidence of obesity (Feng 2011). One in four Canadian, and one in three U.S. children are obese (Tremblay 2011). 30% of children with obesity will develop diabetes, and obese individuals are at higher risk for early stroke and heart attack, gravely shortening life expectancy (Center for Disease Control and Prevention 2010). Largely due to obesity, 21st century children may be the first generation many of whom will not outlive their parents (Professor Andrew Prentice, BBC News 2002).

4. Sleep Deprivation
60% of parents do not supervise their child’s technology usage, and 75% of children are allowed technology in their bedrooms (Kaiser Foundation 2010). 75% of children aged 9 and 10 years are sleep deprived to the extent that their grades are detrimentally impacted (Boston College 2012).

5. Mental Illness
Technology overuse is implicated as a causal factor in rising rates of child depression, anxiety, attachment disorder, attention deficit, autism, bipolar disorder, psychosis and problematic child behavior (Bristol University 2010, Mentzoni 2011, Shin 2011, Liberatore 2011, Robinson 2008). One in six Canadian children have a diagnosed mental illness, many of whom are on dangerous psychotropic medication (Waddell 2007).

6. Aggression
Violent media content can cause child aggression (Anderson, 2007). Young children are increasingly exposed to rising incidence of physical and sexual violence in today’s media. “Grand Theft Auto V” portrays explicit sex, murder, rape, torture and mutilation, as do many movies and TV shows. The U.S. has categorized media violence as a Public Health Risk due to causal impact on child aggression (Huesmann 2007). Media reports increased use of restraints and seclusion rooms with children who exhibit uncontrolled aggression.

7. Digital dementia
High speed media content can contribute to attention deficit, as well as decreased concentration and memory, due to the brain pruning neuronal tracks to the frontal cortex (Christakis 2004, Small 2008). Children who can’t pay attention can’t learn.

8. Addictions
As parents attach more and more to technology, they are detaching from their children. In the absence of parental attachment, detached children can attach to devices, which can result in addiction (Rowan 2010). One in 11 children aged 8-18 years are addicted to technology (Gentile 2009).

9. Radiation emission
In May of 2011, the World Health Organization classified cell phones (and other wireless devices) as a category 2B risk (possible carcinogen) due to radiation emission (WHO 2011). James McNamee with Health Canada in October of 2011 issued a cautionary warning stating “Children are more sensitive to a variety of agents than adults as their brains and immune systems are still developing, so you can’t say the risk would be equal for a small adult as for a child.” (Globe and Mail 2011). In December, 2013 Dr. Anthony Miller from the University of Toronto’s School of Public Health recommend that based on new research, radio frequency exposure should be reclassified as a 2A (probable carcinogen), not a 2B (possible carcinogen). American Academy of Pediatrics requested review of EMF radiation emissions from technology devices, citing three reasons regarding impact on children (AAP 2013).

10. Unsustainable
The ways in which children are raised and educated with technology are no longer sustainable (Rowan 2010). Children are our future, but there is no future for children who overuse technology. A team-based approach is necessary and urgent in order to reduce the use of technology by children. Please reference below slide shows on www.zonein.ca under “videos” to share with others who are concerned about technology overuse by children.

Problems – Suffer the Children – 4 minutes
Solutions – Balanced Technology Management – 7 minutes

The following Technology Use Guidelines for children and youth were developed by Cris Rowan, pediatric occupational therapist and author of Virtual Child; Dr. Andrew Doan, neuroscientist and author of Hooked on Games; and Dr. Hilarie Cash, Director of reSTART Internet Addiction Recovery Program and author of Video Games and Your Kids, with contribution from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Pediatric Society in an effort to ensure sustainable futures for all children.

Technology Use Guidelines for Children and Youth

2014-03-06-Screenshot20140306at3.29.09PM.png

Please contact Cris Rowan at info@zonein.ca for additional information. © Zone’in February

This post has elicited a number of responses from other bloggers. You can read some of those here and here.

Cris Rowan Pediatric occupational therapist, biologist, speaker, author

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cris-rowan/10-reasons-why-handheld-devices-should-be-banned_b_4899218.html

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Tech, electronics, and finance sector fuels societal divide in U.S.; “prejudice and power in a dual economy”

Posted on May 2, 2017 by admin

From Alternet

America Is Regressing into a Developing Nation for Most People

A new book reveals that the U.S. is becoming two distinct countries, with separate economies, politics and opportunities.

By Lynn Stuart Parramore
April 22, 2017

This post originally appeared on the blog of the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

You’ve probably heard the news that the celebrated post-WW II beating heart of America known as the middle class has gone from “burdened,” to “squeezed” to “dying.” But you might have heard less about what exactly is emerging in its place.

In a new book, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, Peter Temin, professor emeritus of economics at MIT, draws a portrait of the new reality in a way that is frighteningly, indelibly clear: America is not one country anymore. It is becoming two, each with vastly different resources, expectations and fates.

Two roads diverged

In one of these countries live members of what Temin calls the “FTE sector” (named for finance, technology and electronics, the industries that largely support its growth). These are the 20 percent of Americans who enjoy college educations, have good jobs and sleep soundly knowing that they have not only enough money to meet life’s challenges, but also social networks to bolster their success. They grow up with parents who read books to them, tutors to help with homework and plenty of stimulating things to do and places to go. They travel in planes and drive new cars. The citizens of this country see economic growth all around them and exciting possibilities for the future. They make plans, influence policies and count themselves lucky to be Americans.

The FTE citizens rarely visit the country where the other 80 percent of Americans live: the low-wage sector. Here, the world of possibility is shrinking, often dramatically. People are burdened with debt and anxious about their insecure jobs if they have a job at all. Many of them are getting sicker and dying younger than they used to. They get around by crumbling public transport and cars they have trouble paying for. Family life is uncertain here; people often don’t partner for the long-term even when they have children. If they go to college, they finance it by going heavily into debt. They are not thinking about the future; they are focused on surviving the present. The world in which they reside is very different from the one they were taught to believe in. While members of the first country act, these people are acted upon.

The two sectors, notes Temin, have entirely distinct financial systems, residential situations and educational opportunities. Quite different things happen when they get sick or when they interact with the law. They move independently of each other. Only one path exists by which the citizens of the low-wage country can enter the affluent one, and that path is fraught with obstacles. Most have no way out.

The richest large economy in the world, says Temin, is coming to have an economic and political structure more like a developing nation. We have entered a phase of regression and one of the easiest ways to see it is in our infrastructure: our roads and bridges look more like those in Thailand or Venezuela than the Netherlands or Japan. But it goes far deeper than that, which is why Temin uses a famous economic model created to understand developing nations to describe how far inequality has progressed in the United States. The model is the work of West Indian economist W. Arthur Lewis, the only person of African descent to win a Nobel Prize in economics. For the first time, this model is applied with systematic precision to the U.S.

The result is profoundly disturbing.

In the Lewis model of a dual economy, much of the low-wage sector has little influence over public policy. Check. The high-income sector will keep wages down in the other sector to provide cheap labor for its businesses. Check. Social control is used to keep the low-wage sector from challenging the policies favored by the high-income sector. Mass incarceration: check. The primary goal of the richest members of the high-income sector is to lower taxes. Check. Social and economic mobility is low. Check.

In the developing countries Lewis studied, people try to move from the low-wage sector to the affluent sector by transplanting from rural areas to the city to get a job. Occasionally it works; often it doesn’t. Temin says that today in the U.S., the ticket out is education, which is difficult for two reasons: you have to spend money over a long period of time, and the FTE sector is making those expenditures more and more costly by defunding public schools and making policies that increase student debt burdens.

Getting a good education, Temin observes, isn’t just about a college degree. It has to begin in early childhood, and you need parents who can afford to spend time and resources all along the long journey. If you aspire to college and your family can’t make transfers of money to you on the way, well, good luck to you. Even with a diploma, you will likely find that high-paying jobs come from networks of peers and relatives. Social capital, as well as economic capital, is critical, but because of America’s long history of racism and the obstacles it has created for accumulating both kinds of capital, black graduates often can only find jobs in education, social work, and government instead of higher-paying professional jobs like technology or finance— something most white people are not really aware of. Women are also held back by a long history of sexism and the burdens — made increasingly heavy — of making greater contributions to the unpaid care economy and lack of access to crucial healthcare.

How did we get this way?

What happened to America’s middle class, which rose triumphantly in the post-World War II years, buoyed by the GI bill, the victories of labor unions and programs that gave the great mass of workers and their families health and pension benefits that provided security?

The dual economy didn’t happen overnight, says Temin. The story started just a couple of years after the ’67 Summer of Love. Around 1970, the productivity of workers began to get divided from their wages. Corporate attorney and later Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell galvanized the business community to lobby vigorously for its interests.[1] Johnson’s war on poverty was replaced by Nixon’s war on drugs, which sectioned off many members of the low-wage sector, disproportionately black, into prisons. Politicians increasingly influenced by the FTE sector turned from public-spirited universalism to free-market individualism. As money-driven politics accelerated (a phenomenon explained by the Investment Theory of Politics), leaders of the FTE sector became increasingly emboldened to ignore the needs of members of the low-wage sector, or even to actively work against them.

America’s underlying racism has a continuing distorting impact. A majority of the low-wage sector is white, with blacks and Latinos making up the other part, but politicians learned to talk as if the low-wage sector is mostly black because it allowed them to appeal to racial prejudice, which is useful in maintaining support for the structure of the dual economy — and hurting everyone in the low-wage sector. Temin notes that “the desire to preserve the inferior status of blacks has motivated policies against all members of the low-wage sector.”

Temin points out that the presidential race of 2016 both revealed and amplified the anger of the low-wage sector at this increasing imbalance. Low-wage whites who had been largely invisible in public policy until recently came out of their quiet despair to be heard. Unfortunately, present trends are not only continuing, but also accelerating their problems, freezing the dual economy into place.

What can we do?

We’ve been digging ourselves into a hole for over 40 years, but Temin says we know how to stop digging. If we spent more on domestic rather than military activities, then the middle class would not vanish as quickly. The effects of technological change and globalization could be altered by political actions. We could restore and expand education, shifting resources from policies like mass incarceration to improving the human and social capital of all Americans. We could upgrade infrastructure, forgive mortgage and educational debt in the low-wage sector, reject the notion that private entities should replace democratic government in directing society, and focus on embracing an integrated American population. We could tax not only the income of the rich, but also their capital.

The cost of not doing these things, Temin warns, is incalculably high, and even the rich will end up paying for it.

“Look at the movie Hidden Figures,” he says. “It recounts a very dramatic story about three African-American women condemned to have a life of not being paid very well teaching in black colleges, and yet their fates changed when they were tapped by NASA to contribute to space exploration. Today we are losing the ability to find people like that. We have a structure that predetermines winners and losers. We are not getting the benefits of all the people who could contribute to the growth of the economy, to advances in medicine or science which could improve the quality of life for everyone — including some of the rich people.”

Along with Thomas Piketty, whose Capital in the Twenty-First Century examines historical and modern inequality, Temin’s book has provided a giant red flag, illustrating a trajectory that will continue to accelerate as long as the 20 percent in the FTE sector are permitted to operate a country within America’s borders solely for themselves at the expense of the majority. Without a robust middle class, America is not only reverting to developing-country status, it is increasingly ripe for serious social turmoil that has not been seen in generations.

A dual economy has separated America from the idea of what most of us thought the country was meant to be.

Lynn Parramore is contributing editor at AlterNet. She is cofounder of Recessionwire, founding editor of New Deal 2.0, and author of “Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture.” She received her Ph.D. in English and cultural theory from NYU, and she serves on the editorial board of Lapham’s Quarterly. Follow her on Twitter @LynnParramore. 

[1] http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/ [posted by editor]

http://www.alternet.org/books/america-regressing-developing-nation-most-people

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Canada: “The slippery slope” — privacy violation at center of city’s proposal to ‘mine’ Smart Meter data

Posted on May 1, 2017 by admin

Comment: Privacy is lost as soon as the surveillance is attached to the home. When they talk about “protecting privacy”, what they are really talking about is confidentiality. and as we know, promises of confidentiality are not kept. 

From the Toronto Sun

By Antonella Artuso
April 30, 2017

Dr. Ann Cavoukian, a three-term Ontario privacy commissioner and the executive director of the Privacy and Big Data Institute at Ryerson University, said Toronto Mayor John Tory’s comment that the city would “mine” residents’ water and hydro usage data to figure out how many homes are vacant raises privacy red flags.

The City of Toronto should not turn smart meters into snitch meters, a globally-recognized privacy expert says.

Dr. Ann Cavoukian said Toronto Mayor John Tory’s comment that the city would “mine” residents’ water and hydro usage data to figure out how many homes are vacant – the first step in his proposal to levy a special property tax on speculators – raises privacy red flags.

“I’m so appalled by this because it’s people’s private information. That’s what private property means. It’s private,” said Cavoukian, a three-term Ontario privacy commissioner and the executive director of the Privacy and Big Data Institute at Ryerson University. “I just think they haven’t a clue what they’re doing here in terms of how inappropriate it is – it is completely contrary to the law.

“This is a terrible erosion of what we consider to be the concept of private property,” she said.

Tory told reporters that city staff are preparing a report on empty homes to determine if a speculator tax will be effective in slowing down the dizzying rise in Toronto home prices and opening up more properties for purchase or rent.

Premier Kathleen Wynne, in her budget this week, confirmed that her government not only intends to give Toronto the “broad authority to levy an additional property tax on vacant homes,” but is open to offering other municipalities the same power.

When asked to explain how the city would use water and hydro data to see if a home is empty, Tory spokesperson Don Peat said the mayor is waiting to receive a report from city staff on a possible vacant homes tax.

“The report – which the mayor requested – is expected to contain details on how the City would determine whether a home is vacant and any arising privacy issues,” Peat said in an email. “Until those details are available, it would be premature for the mayor to weigh in.”

Cavoukian said the mayor stated that he would “mine” the data, and she can’t see how the city can establish vacancy without violating the privacy rights of all property owners in a municipality.

“This is bulk surveillance. They’re going to cast a big net and go fishing and see what they catch – all without the knowledge or consent of the individuals involved,” she said. “They have no authority to do this.”

Information on how much water is used or electricity consumed can only be collected and used for the purpose originally intended – paying bills – and it’s unacceptable to use it for a secondary purpose, she said.

Even if the information is just used to determine the overall extent of the vacant unit problem, which she considered unlikely, it would still be an inappropriate use of the data, Cavoukian said.

Governments, in particular, must be very careful about how they use the information they collect, she said.

When former premier Dalton McGuinty brought in legislation mandating a smart meter on every home, Cavoukian said she met with him to raise her concern that people’s private information might be wirelessly transmitted and abused.

McGuinty agreed that it was important to put in strong controls right at the start, and the privacy commissioner went on to produce several papers on the issue and meet with hydro authorities to spell out the rules.

People often don’t realize what their electricity use says about them – like when they are in or their midnight TV watching habits, she said.

And what about snowbirds who are away for almost half the year, she asked.

“This is where the slippery slope starts. And that’s why I want to put the walls up right now. Don’t even contemplate doing this, Mr. Tory,” Cavoukian said.

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/04/30/privacy-violation-at-heart-of-citys-potential-plan-to-mine-smart-meters-expert-2

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