It's fairly widely accepted that the key digital device in the future will be the mobile phone, not the desktop computer that has had such an impact on Western society for the last few decades. That's partly a question of cost -- if devices are to reach even the poorest in emerging economies, they must be very cheap. But there are also other factors, such as the mobile phone's small size and portability; its rugged design and ability to cope with intermittent power supplies; and the built-in Net connectivity that more or less comes as standard.

But not everyone is delighted at the prospect of this powerful technology becoming pervasive. Here, for instance, is a depressing tale from India:

A village council in the state of Bihar this week prohibited unmarried women and girls from using mobile phones, saying that they promote extramarital affairs and unsanctioned marriages and erode the moral fabric of society. Married women will be allowed to use them only indoors and in the presence of a relative.

Well, perhaps mobile phones have indeed contributed to affairs, but logic dictates that there was probably a man at the other end of the conversation, and it's quite likely he was using a mobile phone too: why not ban all unmarried men and boys from using them, and only allow married ones to make calls under supervision of their relatives? The answer, of course, is that this is not about "eroding the moral fabric of society", but about power, and in particular the erosion of traditional male power in the village:

Many villagers, male and female, attended a village meeting Sunday about the ban, and most favored it, particularly older people, Mr. Alam said. He presided over the meeting. The panchayat [unelected council], which is made up entirely of men, also barred women from bathing outdoors, at water pumps or in ponds or canals.

Moreover:

The village's top elected official, Shamina Khatoon, a woman, was not invited to the panchayat’s meeting on Sunday.

Which is pretty strange, since she is both the top official in the village and a woman, and so might be expected to offer a useful perspective on the proposal.

Other comments from the New York Times article indicate that Indian officials are investigating the matter, which at least offers some hope that the ban will be rescinded. Whatever happens, this incident confirms that one of the best ways of empowering women and weakening the grip of patriarchal power is to help them acquire them mobiles cheaply. Moore's Law and mobile companies eager to sell phones and contracts to anyone, whatever their gender, will make sure that happens whether the village elders like it or not.

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I'm spending today at a conference at Santa Clara University's Law school on Solutions to the Software Patent Problem. It seems only fitting that as this is happening, I've been alerted to a completely ridiculous new patent: Appsbar has put out a press release gleefully announcing that it's been granted a patent on offering a "create your own mobile app" development platform. Stunningly, the patent in question, 8,261,231, was just applied for in February of this year. I'm at a loss as to how a competent patent examiner could possibly think that a mobile app development platform is somehow new or non-obvious in this day and age.

Hell there are entire lists of similar platforms, and those lists appear to have been created before this patent was applied for. What is the USPTO doing over there?

Patent system defenders will immediately jump in to say that a patent is really all about its claims, but go take a look at those ridiculously broad claims. Claim number 1 is the main claim here, and what it describes is nothing special at all. It's just a simple web-based platform for developing mobile apps that can run on a variety of mobile platforms.

That's not new. Companies, like the now apparently defunct Whoop were doing exactly that years ago. Just the very concept of a simple platform for app development (even cross-platform app development) isn't even close to new. Such things have been around for ages. How can someone honestly think that this is "new" and not "obvious."

And yet Appsbar (which at least does offer a product) now not only holds this patent, but the press release was put out as way of announcing its plans to enforce the patent vigorously:

“We are proud that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recognizes the innovative and proprietary set of features offered by Appsbar and we plan on strictly enforcing our patent with other companies that currently provide similar types of services,” said Scott Hirsch, founder and CEO, Appsbar. “Until Appsbar, novice tech users, small businesses, general consumers and more had to rely on an entire internal design and software team or hire a costly agency for the design, creation and publication of apps.”

First off, the second half of that quote? Not true. I remember a few years ago we developed a Techdirt app using one of these platforms. It took all of about 10 minutes of playing around on some website. As for the first half, the fact that even they admit that there are a bunch of other companies already in this space basically shows that this patent is covering an old idea that is quite obvious at this point.

So if we're looking at how to fix the patent problem, can we at least start with this simple concept: stop approving completely ridiculous patents like this one.

The incompetence of Homeland Security when it comes to actually doing things is well documented -- though, they're often so clueless that they take credit for successfully misleading Congress about their own failings. So I guess it should come as little surprise that a new report shows that DHS spent about $430 million of your taxpayer dollars to get all of its radios to communicate on the same frequency and it doesn't work. At all.

Of 479 radio users the DHS inspector general tested, only one knew how to tune into the common channel, the report stated. Personnel either were unaware the channel existed, could not find it, or switched to an outdated channel inherited from the Treasury Department.

“Personnel do not have interoperable communications that they can rely on during daily operations, planned events and emergencies,” acting IG Charles K. Edwards wrote in the report.

So what was the problem? Apparently no one in top management at DHS ever thought to tell the various departments that they should be using this common channel that they were spending so much money on getting ready for this usage:

The root of the disconnect, according to the report, is top department leaders have provided little guidance and no enforcement to ensure personnel use the channel. The shift to a single frequency began when the department formed in 2003.

“Components independently developed and managed their own radio programs with no formal coordination from DHS,” and as a result, “internal interoperability was not a priority for DHS components,” Edwards reported.

The report suggested that there should be someone in charge of actually coordinating all of this (what an idea!), but DHS officials shot back that they already have a "Joint Wireless Program Management Office." Of course, this only makes the situation worse, in that they basically admit that they have an entire office set up to work on this issue... and it's now apparent that the office did little to nothing in terms of actually accomplishing what needed to be accomplished. The author of the report pointed out that it's a bit silly to point to the office that failed to do its job as proof that they're now ready to deal with this issue.

So, in a normal business, when you screw something up this badly, people get fired. Lots of them. Who's getting fired for this? Shouldn't the head of DHS have to answer to the public as to why $430 million was spent under what appears to be totally incompetent management? What are they doing over there other than seizing domains and making up terrorist plots?

In the meantime, can we get our $430 million back?

While the Apple patent disputes with Samsung and Motorola seem to get most of the publicity, Apple's first patent lawsuit against an Android phonemaker was against HTC, who quickly sued back. However, over the weekend, the two companies announced a settlement in which they're cross-licensing all of their patents to each other for a period of ten years. While the full details are secret, all of the indications are that HTC is paying Apple, but not a huge amount. HTC has said that it won't have "an adverse material impact" on its financials. While HTC remains a smaller player than Samsung, one hopes that this is actually a sign that Tim Cook has realized that Steve Jobs' infatuation with killing Android in court is not a productive strategy. This, of course, won't end many of the other patent fights around smartphones, but hopefully it shows that Apple has become less ridiculously "religious" about fighting in court, rather than focusing on the marketplace.

You may recall that back when AT&T was trying to buy T-Mobile, a big part of the argument was a spectrum crunch around its wireless efforts. The company insisted -- strenuously -- that it would not be able to expand 4G LTE services to more than 80% of the population unless it had T-Mobile. That argument ran into some trouble when a lawyer accidentally posted some documents to the FCC which admitted that the company could fairly easily expand its coverage to 97% of the population of the US without T-Mobile (and, in fact, that it would cost about 10% of what buying T-Mobile would cost). Suddenly, the argument that it absolutely needed T-Mobile rang hollow -- even as the company continued to insist exactly that. Still, the FCC suddenly was skeptical and AT&T, seeing the writing on the wall, gave up on the merger.

So, it probably shouldn't have been seen as much of a surprise that just 11 months after the T-Mobile deal fell through, AT&T has announced plans to expand its LTE footprint to cover 97% of the population of the US. In other words, the internal document was exactly correct, and AT&T's public claims? Hogwash.

Even the mainstream news media is now mocking AT&T's obviously bogus claims during the merger fight. AT&T's response to this is to claim that it "chartered a new direction," doing something like 40 new deals for spectrum. However, as Broadband Reports notes, all of this seems to make clear that there is no spectrum crunch -- that's just a bogeyman story that the telcos tell the government when they want a handout. In fact, AT&T is now saying publicly that there is no spectrum crunch. It has more than enough.

Speaking to analysts, AT&T's chief strategy officer John Stankey yesterday acknowledged the company is now well-positioned on the spectrum front -- even before the company starts moving on their new plan to use WCS spectrum for LTE deployment.

"Even under ideal circumstances, getting new spectrum on the market in the next five to seven years is aggressive," Stankey said. "But what we do know is that AT&T is well-positioned now...These deals give us confidence that we can meet our LTE objectives for next two years and they will allow us to deliver competitive performance."

Of course, I'm sure the next time AT&T needs something from the government, or wants to wipe a competitor off the map, we'll be right back to that story about how they're in desperate need of spectrum.

We've had plenty of stories concerning open WiFi, and there seems to be a general opinion among some that open WiFi is "a bad thing." Some have even tried (and failed) to argue that having an open WiFi network makes you negligent. In some areas, law enforcement has even gone around telling people to lock up their WiFi. Those who argue against open WiFi are generally conflating different issues. It is true that if you use an open WiFi network without securing yourself you do open up yourself to snooping from others. Similarly, if others are using your open WiFi, it it could lead to at least an investigation if your access point is used for nefarious purposes. But combining those to claim that open WiFi itself is bad or illegal is a mistake. It is entirely possible to secure your own activities, and to set up an open WiFi network in a reasonable manner that minimizes any such threat.

The EFF and others have been trying to remind people that there are also tremendous benefits to open WiFi in increasing connectivity for everyone. As part of this, they've launched the Open Wireless Movement encouraging people to purposely leave their WiFi networks open (and to take appropriate security precautions). They're pointing out that especially in times of crisis, such open networks can be tremendously useful.

The Open Wireless Movement envisions a world where people readily have access to open wireless Internet connections—a world where sharing one's network in a way that ensures security yet preserves quality is the norm. Much of this vision is attainable now. In fact, many people have routers that already feature "guest networking" capabilities. To make this even easier, we are working with a coalition of volunteer engineers to build technologies that would make it simple for Internet subscribers to portion off their wireless networks for guests and the public while maintaining security, protecting privacy, and preserving quality of access. And we're working with advocates to help change the way people and businesses think about Internet service.

We're also teaching the world about the many benefits of open wireless in order to help society move away from closed networks and to a world in which open access is the default. We are working to debunk myths (and confront truths) about open wireless while creating technologies and legal precedent to ensure it is safe, private, and legal to open your network.

Hopefully we can finally get past the myth that open WiFi is automatically bad and get people moving towards a better understanding of how to use the internet safely while still offering up open access in a reasonable manner.

For many years, we've noted that courts have been very, very reluctant to allow lawsuits against companies who leak private data, when there's no evidence that the leaked data was used to create harm. The courts have more or less said, no harm, no broken laws. So it seemed likely that the class action lawsuit against software startup Path, for uploading a user's address book, wasn't likely to have much of a chance in court. As you may recall, earlier this year, there was a tremendous hubbub when some people realized that in order to use a "find your friends" feature, it uploaded a user's entire address book to a server. The reality is that many apps did exactly the same thing, because it made the process much easier. However, you can see why people would be quite annoyed and upset about a service grabbing their entire address book, without making it explicit that was about to happen.

Regardless, the lawsuits against Path and others didn't seem likely to have much of a chance -- but in one of the main cases against Path, the plaintiff who is trying to do a class action lawsuit came up with a way to try to show "harm," claiming that it would cost him $12,250 to hire someone to remove the Path app (though he never claimed to have actually paid that). Path responded by noting that deleting its app is "a simple act requiring no more than two swipes of his finger on his phone," and suggesting that the $12,250 is completely and totally bogus. The judge, however, is letting the case proceed, noting that at this stage of the game, it has to accept the $12,250 as true, and Path can push back on the validity of the statement later in the process.

The ruling does dismiss (while leaving open the possibility of amendment) a bunch of the claims, showing that the plaintiff, Oscar Hernandez, really tried to throw the kitchen sink at Path -- with a bunch of claims that made no sense at all. So it throws out the claim of wiretapping (no communications intercepted), the "Stored Communications Act" claim (no communications service or electronic storage as defined in the act is present), "Invasion of Privacy" under California state law (fails again for a lack of interception), "public disclosure of private facts" (nothing was publicly disclosed, so...), and trespass (he failed to show "significant impairment" as required by the law). On other points the motion to dismiss was denied, but on the whole, it seems likely that Path is going to win this case in the end. I'm just amazed at the $12,250 claim as an attempt to show "harm." They may have gotten away with it so far, but would a court really allow such a bogus claim to stand? Eventually, it's going to be shown that removing Path from an iPhone is ridiculously simple.

Various US government agencies have spent a lot of time and energy hoping to ensnare as much cell phone data as possible without having to deal with the "barriers" erected by the Fourth Amendment. The feds, along with Los Angeles law enforcement agencies, have bypassed the protections of the Fourth Amendment by deploying roving cell phone trackers that mimic mobile phone towers. The FISA Amendments Act has been used as a "blank check" for wholesale spying on Americans and has been abused often enough that the Director of National Intelligence was forced to admit these Fourth Amendment violations publicly.

The good news is that a few of these overreaches are receiving judicial pushback. Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy has a very brief writeup of a recent shutdown of another cellphone-related fishing expedition led by an assistant US Attorney. An attempt was made to acquire records for ALL cell phones utilizing four different towers in the area of a specific crime at the time of the event. As Kerr notes, this ruling refers to the Fifth Circuit court decision that found cell phone data to be protected under the Fourth Amendment, thus requiring a warrant to access it.

Magistrate Judge Smith points out that part of the issue is that the principals involved (the assistant US Attorney and a special agent) seemed to lack essential knowledge of the underlying technology, and that this lack of knowledge prevented them from recognizing the overreach of their request:

Moreover, it is problematic that neither the assistant United States Attorney nor the special agent truly understood the technology involved in the requested applications. See In re the Application of the U.S. for an Order Authorizing the Installation and Use of a Pen Register and Trap and Trace Device, ––– F.Supp.2d ––––, 2012 WL 2120492, at *2 (S.D. Tex. June 2, 2012). Without such an understanding, they cannot appreciate the constitutional implications of their requests. They are essentially asking for a warrant in support of a very broad and invasive search affecting likely hundreds of individuals in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

There has been a lot of discussion here at Techdirt regarding the incredible lack of knowledge present in those seeking to regulate or exploit various technologies. Considering the amount of possible collateral damage and the heightened chance of rights violations, you'd think these entities would be exercising maximum caution before tampering with something they don't understand. Instead, the common approach is to use the ends (safety, crime prevention, etc.) to justify the missteps and rights-trampling of the means, leaving the judicial system and various trampled citizens to sort out the mess.

Judge Smith quotes the Fourth Amendment and points out that warrants must be issued and only "upon probable cause" before continuing to run down the list of wrongs in this request.

Finally, there is no discussion about what the Government intends to do with all of the data related to innocent people who are not the target of the criminal investigation. In one criminal investigation, the Government received the names, cell phone numbers, and subscriber information of 179 innocent individuals. See United States v. Soto, No. 3:09CR200 (D.Conn. May 18, 2010) (Memorandum in Support of Motion to Suppress). Although the use of a court-sanctioned cell tower dump invariably leads to such information being provided to the Government, in order to receive such data, the Government at a minimum should have a protocol to address how to handle this sensitive private information.

But, as Smith points out, the government doesn't have a protocol in place, even more than two years down the road.

Although this issue was raised at the hearing, the Government has not addressed it to date.

This is hardly new territory for government agencies. The TSA has had nearly 20 months to begin taking public comments on the use of various body imaging scanners, but despite two trips to the DC Circuit Court, it has yet to begin this process, something generally undertaken before implenting a new system. If it's something the government feels may be unpopular with the public, it tends to attempt to stall indefinitely, an (in)action that (again) places the burden back on the courts and the general public.

But, at least in this case, Judge Smith is using this lack of action against the government representatives.

This failure to address the privacy rights for the Fourth Amendment concerns of these innocent subscribers whose information will be compromised as a request of the cell tower dump is another factor warranting the denial of the application.

It's a good sign that stalling tactics may hurt more than help in the future. Many government and law enforcement agencies are still looking for any loophole in current laws in order to bypass the limitations placed on them by the Constitution. There's still a long way to go before there's anything resembling an equitable relationship between the general public and those in power, but we'll take everything we can get and (hopefully) receive more help pushing back against these intrusions.

A few years back we created a graphic to highlight the ridiculous patent thicket around smartphones. It really just highlights some, though not all, of the litigation concerning patents related to smartphones. That image is a bit out of date, with some cases settled, others completed, and many more filed, of course. Note the lack of anything between Samsung and Apple for example. But, of course, patents in litigation are just one aspect of a patent thicket. Plenty of patents are used just to demand licensing fees, but are never actually used in litigation. And plenty of patents don't show up in litigation at all, but can still represent part of the problem of the thicket.

A new analysis shows just how insane the patent thicket is today. Done by "defensive" patent aggregator RPX (they try to position themselves as the "good" version of Intellectual Ventures), the estimate is that a stunning250,000 active patents today impact smartphones. 250,000. As the article notes that's one in six active patents today -- and for an industry that is certainly less than 1% of US GDP. As a comparison, the pharma industry, often put forth (inaccurately, in my opinion) as an area where patents make sense, has accounted for a little over 6% of US patents over the past 15 years. Also, there's this:

... in the pharmaceutical industry, there are approximately 46.8 patents per every 1,000 jobs, whereas in the computer and peripherals equipment sector, there are 277.5 patents per 1,000 jobs. Even the semiconductor industry, known for its highly complex products, has a patent/job ratio of 111.6 patents per 1,000 jobs -- approximately 40% the rate of patents to jobs as the computer and peripherals market.

It definitely appears that there's something of a "bubble" going on around smartphone patents -- which is what happens when you have a hot emerging area, combined with ridiculously broad patents. It also makes for an astounding minefield for anyone new who wants to enter the space, especially if you don't have a massive war chest to license or fight in court.

About a dozen years ago, Amazon's Jeff Bezos (taking a fair amount of criticism for his one-click patent) helped fund a project called BountyQuest, which offered up prize money for those who were able to bust bogus patents. To his credit, the first patent they put forth was Bezos' own one-click patent -- except then very little happened, and BountyQuest faded away. While it has occasionally used its own patents (such as suing B&N over that one-click patent), Amazon tends to be on the receiving end of tons of ridiculous patent lawsuits, leading Bezos to speak out about the broken patent system yet again in an interview with the UK publication Metro:

"Patents are supposed to encourage innovation and we’re starting to be in a world where they might start to stifle innovation. Governments may need to look at the patent system and see if those laws need to be modified because I don’t think some of these battles are healthy for society. I love technology, I love invention, I like rapid change, and really it’s the golden age of wireless devices and mobile devices."

I'd argue that the "starting to" understates where we are in this process. There's significant evidence that the problem has been around for a long, long time already. Of course, I'm curious just what kind of legislation Bezos thinks is right. Having his voice added to the debate on patents certainly would be helpful, given how so many in Congress still seem to think that there isn't a real problem here.