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Arms control and free speech go to court over 3D-printed guns
Cody Wilson fundamentally altered the way we produce and distribute firearms in 2013 when his company, Defense Distributed (DD), first published the plans for a 3D-printed pistol, dubbed The Liberator, on its website. The State Department didn't take too kindly to this revelation and sent DD a letter demanding the instructions be removed as they violated a number of US Arms Export control laws. Now, two years later, Defense Distributed and the State Department are going to court over the matter in a lawsuit that potentially holds far-reaching implications for both the First and Second Amendments.
Hillary Clinton confirms she wiped her email server
Members of the US House of Representatives hoping to get a look at Hillary Clinton's personal email server just got a big disappointment. Clinton's attorney has confirmed to a House committee on Benghazi that, after handing over work-related email to the State Department, the politician both "chose not to keep" personal messages and set a 60-day limit on what the server retains. In short, she effectively wiped it clean. There's no going back to mail from her Secretary of State days beyond the 30,490 messages on the record, or roughly half of what the server held during the period.
Hillary Clinton: 'I think I went above and beyond' email requirements
The most contentious work-related email debate of this month (at least) continued today, as likely presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held a press conference (video) at the UN headquarters. The topic? Her use of a self-hosted email address during her time as Secretary of State. She gave a statement, then answered a few questions from the press, claiming that her choice to use a personal address was done for convenience. Last month the former First Lady told Re/code that she uses both an iPhone and a Blackberry, and said today that "looking back, think that it might have been smarter to have those two devices from the very beginning."
Hillary Clinton ran her own email server while in office
Just because Hillary Clinton wasn't using work email as Secretary of State doesn't mean she was throwing caution to the wind -- if anything, she may have been shrewder than most. The Associated Press has learned that Clinton conducted official business using an email server registered to her home. It's not clear exactly where the server was or who ran it until 2013 (probably not internet 'inventor' Al Gore), but the move gave the politician a lot of control. Since the email was strictly hers, she could decide if and when she turned over messages to the government or lawyers. It may have also let her toughen up security versus off-the-shelf services. If the server was in her house, she would have even had the Secret Service offering physical protection.
Hillary Clinton hates using work email just as much as you do
There are plenty of things that unite us as a species: our need to visit the bathroom, our dislike of Bieber and our seething hatred of corporate e-mail systems. It's the third on that list that's landed Hillary Clinton in hot water since it appears that, in her four years at the state department, she avoided using official email altogether. The former Secretary of State is believed to have conducted all of her business via a personal email account, breaching federal requirements to maintain an automatic record of all communication.
US allows widespread exports of armed drones to its allies
The US has unsurprisingly kept a tight lid on sales of armed drones to prevent the technology from getting into the wrong hands, but it's about to loosen up... to a degree. The Department of State has introduced an export policy that clears the way for selling weaponized drones to allied countries. These partners must agree to use robotic warplanes according to certain principles; the machines are for national defense, not crushing internal political dissent. Nations also have to make a strong argument for why they truly need armed drones, and the US reserves the right to monitor usage, train crews or both.
State Department shuts down unclassified email to cope with hack
The US government is no stranger to dealing with cyberattacks, but it just took a rare and relatively extreme step to keep itself safe. The State Department shut down its entire unclassified email system this weekend to bolster its defenses after spotting "activity of concern" (read: potential data breaches) that happened at the same time as an earlier hack that targeted the White House. Officials aren't naming culprits at this stage -- they've pinned some previous attacks on China and Russia, but it's not clear that there was digital warfare involved this time around. More details are expected to come once the security upgrades are in place, so you may get a better sense of what happened in the near future. [Image credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite]
Coursera teams up with State Department on series of MOOC-based 'learning hubs' around the world
Coursera is already one of the leading providers of MOOCs (or massive open online courses) in the US, and its now getting a helping hand from none other than the US government in broadening its worldwide ambitions. The company announced a new initiative today that will see it partner with the State Department and a number of other organizations on a series of "learning hubs" around the world, where students will be able to go and access the internet and participate in MOOCs as a group. Those classes won't be quite as "massive" as your usual MOOC, however. According the The New York Times, the classes will all be small ones -- some with as few as 15 students -- and they'll be supplemented by weekly in-person sessions with a local instructor for what Coursera's Lila Ibrahim describes as a "blended learning experience." For its part, the State Department says that it hopes the courses will not only help students where they are, but "help connect them to U.S. higher education institutions" as well.
Syrian internet access mostly restored, for now
History has a way of repeating itself, and the turmoil in Syria is proving no exception -- though potentially for the better. Following a communications blackout that began Thursday, reports have surfaced from Renesys, the AP, the BBC and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that internet and phone access has resumed across major swaths of the country as of Saturday. President al-Assad's office and rebels accuse each other of severing the links, although the US State Department doesn't see there being much debate: it believes the near-simultaneous cut was an attempt by Assad to disrupt opposition that has been using the internet as one of its coordinating tools. It's difficult to know if links will remain intact when battles inside the country are as fierce as ever. While there's some comfort to be had in knowing that technologies like satellite internet access are available if the lines go dark once again, we just hope that peace comes to the country instead. [Image credit: Aziz1005, Wikimedia Commons]
Chrome adopted by US State Department as optional browser, IE8 prepped for mid-March release (video)
State department workers frustrated with their dated web browsers will get some relief very soon. At the latest town hall meeting, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was questioned on the update roll-out of secure, state-certified browsers and -- prefacing with a chuckle -- she announced that Google's Chrome had started already begun its roll-out last month. For now, it's an optional web browser for those not enamored with Internet Explorer -- the only browser compatible with the full breadth of the Department of State's IT system. Governmental workers that are fans of that big blue 'e' also got some good news -- they'll be seeing the roll out of Internet Explorer 8 from March 20th, with the department planning to leap over version 9 and straight into the loving embrace of Internet Explorer 10. Judging by the whoops and applause during the announcement (included after the break), we wouldn't be shocked if those public servants hugged their updated PCs outright.
US funds shadow networks, builds 'internet in a suitcase' for repressed protesters
Whether a repressive government, a buggy DNS server or a little old lady is behind your internet outage, it can't be much fun, but the US government sympathizes with your plight if you're dealing with reason number one. The New York Times reports that the US State Department will have spent upwards of $70 million on "shadow networks" which would allow protesters to communicate even if powers that be pull the traditional plug -- so far, it's spent at least $50 million on a independent cell phone network for Afghanistan, and given a $2 million grant to members of the New America Foundation creating the "internet in a suitcase" pictured above. It's a batch of mesh networking equipment designed to be spirited into a country to set up a private network. Last we'd heard, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had pledged $25 million for just this sort of internet freedom, and the New America Foundation had applied for some of those bucks -- see our more coverage links below -- but it sounds like the money is flowing fast, and in multiple directions now.
