The 463: Inside Tech Policy

The FCC's 911 Quandry

The FCC today backed off its threat to force VoIP providers to disconnect customers who didn’t acknowledge that it may be hard to reach 911 from a VoIP phone. It’s easy to understand the FCC’s position – it wants to ensure that VoIP growth doesn’t lead to folks getting disconnected from emergency services. Unlike conventional phones, which can only be used from a set place, VoIP phones can be plugged into wherever there is a data network and work there. That means you can have your work phone ring at your house (“Yes, boss, of course I am in the office, enjoy your business trip. What? No, that is not the “Andy Griffith Show” you hear in the background, it's Fred talking to a customer.”).

The challenge with the flexibility is it makes it harder for 911 to know where you are.
The FCC’s solution was to force VoIP customers who didn’t acknowledge that to lose their service. Hmmm. Now how does that help them in an emergency?

By the way, the overwhelming majority of the roughly 2.7 million VoIP customers in the United States have met the FCC’s mandate.

UN Control over the Internet?

In a story in the Washington Times, John Zarocostas reports that that the United States will fight attempts to put the United Nations in charge of the Internet.  Amen!  The UN is a teriffic organization, but in charge of the net?  Come on.  The Internet has thrived to change the way we live and conduct business exactly because it has been able to develop without central control.  We're all for wiring the world, especially remote places in Africa and South America, but the way the UN would do it is exactly the way to prevent that from happening.

Read more below or see the entire story here.

Virginia's Governor Rightly Touts E-Health

Governor Mark Warner of Virginia gets it right in talking about e-health this week.  As reported in National Journal's Technology Daily, Governor Warner yesterday hailed the infusion of IT in healthcare as a means for companies to grow revenue.  Although he also said during the Virginia IT Symposium that "healthcare costs are making all American businesses less and less competitive."

He's right on:  Health IT can save money for companies but it can also save lives. Some estimates show that medical errors cost nearly 100,000 lives per year.  We can do better than that.  Warner went on to say: "It blows my mind that we have not brought the power of IT to our largest sector."

Kudos to the gov for being visionary when it comes to the potential power of e-health.

Read more about Governor Warner's efforts here.

YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY WON!

Got one of those “I need your help collecting $18 million dollars” scam emails today. While it’s hard to imagine anyone falling for it, the fact that these emails are sent so often means they must. What’s the business model for these email scams? Usually these scam artists seek either personal information or credit card information from those they dupe.

In this case, the domain name from which “Mr. Peter Chang” sent the email was oluchimix.net. This domain had been registered through the domain name company Dotster on Sept. 12. When I emailed “Mr. Peter Chang,” it actually showed up as an email address to a domain called financier.com, which was registered in 1996 and is now through Register.com. The contact person listed for financier.com is: