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Submission + - AT&T, Verizon Attempting to Get Government Approval to Cut Off Competitors. (timmins.net)

An anonymous reader writes: In Michigan, Senate Bill 636 will remove any remaining requirements of AT&T and Verizon to lease lines to other providers, effectively killing all competing phone and internet providers, including wireless providers, which rely on leasing any connectivity from AT&T or Verizon. Readers should not be fooled by the title of the bill into thinking it only applies to a hard-wired phone line coming into their home or office. What the consumer calls a landline differs greatly from what the law calls a landline.

Comment Re:The battle now begins. (Score 4, Informative) 407

I believe the legal term is tortious interference and Facebook could pursue civil action for it. Possibly even pursue criminal action under the CFAA by arguing it is still unauthorized access despite the fact that the password was disclosed.

"Tortious interference with contract rights can occur where the tortfeasor convinces a party to breach the contract against the plaintiff, or where the tortfeasor disrupts the ability of one party to perform his obligations under the contract, thereby preventing the plaintiff from receiving the performance promised."

Comment Re:But but but (Score 5, Interesting) 536

Ah the old NSA DES conspiracy theory. The NSA suggested two changes to DES: 1) shorten the key 2) changed the S-boxes. They gave no public explanation for the latter and for years the story was that this somehow introduced a backdoor into the algorithm. The truth came out over a decade later:

"Some of the suspicions about hidden weaknesses in the S-boxes were allayed in 1990, with the independent discovery and open publication by Eli Biham and Adi Shamir of differential cryptanalysis, a general method for breaking block ciphers. The S-boxes of DES were much more resistant to the attack than if they had been chosen at random, strongly suggesting that IBM knew about the technique in the 1970s. This was indeed the case; in 1994, Don Coppersmith published some of the original design criteria for the S-boxes. According to Steven Levy, IBM Watson researchers discovered differential cryptanalytic attacks in 1974 and were asked by the NSA to keep the technique secret."

Of course, they could still be lying, better keep the tinfoil hat on.

Comment Re:TFA is useless; here's the actual order (Score 1) 439

From the TFO (the fraking order):

In this Third Report and Order ("Order"), we remedy shortcomings in our CableCARD rules in order to improve consumers' experience with retail navigation devices (such as set-top boxes and digital cable-ready television sets) and CableCARDs, the security devices used in conjunction with navigation devices to perform the conditional access functions necessary to access cable services.

Maybe they should get around to actually implementing the provisions of the Telecommunications Act that requires the cable system to be open to innovation!

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