A commission created by Congress to study ways to protect children online will advise against requiring public schools and libraries to use filtering software, even as lawmakers in the waning days of the legislative session consider mandating the use of such tools. In a report expected to be released Friday, the 18-member panel, set up under the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, recommends that government should encourage the use of filtering technology to protect children from the Internet's seedier neighborhoods. It also will call on industry to improve filtering software. But the commission declined to recommend the mandatory use of antipornography filters, saying no particular technology yet offers an ideal solution. That puts the panel directly at odds with a Republican-sponsored amendment to the annual spending bill for the Department of Education and some other agencies, which would require schools and libraries to install software filters if they buy technology with certain types of federal subsidies.
Coalition slams cybercrime treaty .
A coalition of 28 international cyber-rights organizations have come out against a draft treaty on cybercrime that could broaden European and U.S. law enforcement powers online outlawing network security tools and requiring companies to keep extensive logs of the traffic on their systems. In a letter sent Wednesday to Council of Europe Secretary General Walter Schwimmer, the Global Internet Liberty Campaign, which includes groups from the United States, France, Britain, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Italy, South Africa, Austria, the Netherlands, and Denmark, claims the treaty is little more than a law enforcement wish list. The intelligence agency spins off the task of finding and funding needed defense technologies to a venture capital firm, taking itself into the heart of Silicon Valley. Privacy Concerns Inhibiting Online Credit Applications . The study found that privacy and security issues have stymied online lending activity.