Showing posts with label America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label America. Show all posts
Tuesday, 18 August 2015
Monday, 15 July 2013
America Offline: Can the U.S. be disconnected from the Net?
Imagine a world with no tweets, no emails, no notifications pushed to your
phone. A world without Candy Crush or indeed, even Facebook; a land without the
Internet.
The thought may sound like heaven to minimalists, but in recent months, dictators around the world have been all too willing to transform the idea into a hellacious reality, flipping a switch and completely disconnecting whole nations from the Web: Syria. Egypt. Libya. All have been plunged into darkness during periods of civil unrest.
But is there any way the United States could be disconnected from the Internet? Could an act of terror, war, or simple governmental dictatorship snatch away our social feeds and online gaming? Curious, I reached out to several experts to examine all the potential doomsday scenarios.
They say the Internet is a series of tubes. One obvious way to disconnect the United States from the rest of the Net would be to cut, blow up, or otherwise destroy those tubes, right?
Not so fast. As it turns out, you'd need to cut a lot of tubes to completely disconnect the U.S. from the Internet. Check out the map below of all the undersea cables that connect the country to the outside world. Now, consider that TeleGeography's map lists only undersea cables (which you can peruse here), and doesn't include the legion of wires that connect the U.S. to Canada and Mexico over land. And what about wireless networks?
TeleGeographyThat's a lot of cables! (Click to enlarge.)
Yeah, you're starting to get the picture. Disconnecting all of America's tubes just isn't going to happen.
"It's close enough to impossible that in realistic terms, it's unlikely to the point of irrelevancy," says Patrick Gilmore, the chief network architect at Akamai, a content delivery network estimated to be responsible for up to 20 percent of all Web traffic. The good news doesn't end there.
"Even if you could do that, a lot of the reason things were done like that in Egypt and Syria were to keep people from posting to social networking sites," Gilmore continues. "Many of those social networking sites are hosted here in the United States. So if you could wave a magic wand and disconnect the United States, people would still see all those posts from each other inside the United States. It wouldn't stop that from happening."
Score one for free speech.
If the tubes are the veins of the Internet, the servers that power the Net are its brains. Could hackers use their botnets and evil geek powers to send America spiraling offline?
"That's actually much more likely than a physical attack, I think," says Dorian Kim, VP of IP engineering and network development for NTT Communications, the second-largest Internet backbone provider in the world. "…The entire wiring system relies a great deal on various systems of trust. It's possible for somebody—especially someone who is kind of an insider at an ISP or telco—to do things that would disrupt the infrastructure in a pretty widespread way."
There are several caveats to that, however. Any hack attack of that magnitude would very likely extend beyond U.S. shores, for one thing. It would be very difficult and take a high level of technical ability to accomplish. And it wouldn't last very long, either: Given the decentralized nature of the Net, Kim says the disruption would likely be limited to hours, or a day or two maximum.
Even if hackers managed to wreak havoc on the U.S. Internet, all the experts I spoke to expressed extreme doubt that an attack would be able to take out the entire country.
"Let's take the CloudFlare attack," says Gilmore, referring to a DDoS attack in Europe a few months ago that CloudFlare mitigated. "I was quoted in The New York Times as saying it was the largest publicly disclosed attack in the history of the Internet. That was 300 gigabits, or 300 billions. The total traffic on the Internet is measured in many, many terabits—trillions. And the U.S. is a large portion of that. A 500-gigabit attack—which again, would be the largest attack ever—would not be able to disrupt even a large portion of the United States.
"Some networks would go down," he continues. "You might be able to take out an ISP in a city, and have that ISP go offline, but to take 25 or 50 percent of the U.S. offline? It's not impossible to do, but it'd just be so ridiculously difficult."
Individual things—specific ISPs, websites, and so on—would be much easier to attack, says Gilmore. Kim agrees: The Internet's backbone carriers are just too strong to hack with any sort of effectiveness.
"[Hackers] would be much better off going for the softer underbellies of companies than going after core infrastructure," he says.
NSA headquarters.
So, widespread tube cutting and hack attacks would not only be incredibly difficult to pull off, but they would also be of questionable effectiveness. Now, let's explore the darkest of these dark options. The Middle Eastern countries mentioned above disappeared from the Net thanks to the heavy hands of iron-fisted dictators. Is there any way the U.S. government could possibly do the same? Does the Man have an Internet kill switch?
"No, there's no legal authority for it," says Dan Auerbach, a staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Even if some were invented through creative lawyering, the practical reality is that it would just be too difficult to do in any sort of short time frame."
This circles back to the United States' dense web of tubes, and all three experts I spoke to touched on this point. Small countries like Syria have very few Internet access points, and very few service providers maintaining those access points, making it trivial for the government in such nations to shut down the hardware. That ain't so in this country.
"In the U.S., by contrast, we don't have that sort of monolithic ISP space," says Auerbach. "We have many different networks, and within those networks, there are many types of subnetworks operating. The amount of machinery you would need to shut down is enormous and controlled by lots of people. It'd be really hard to do that in any sort of quick way."
And again, the headaches double when you add wide area and cellular networks to the mix. Safe to say, in the States, The Man isn't going to shut us all down.
So, rule out the tubes, the hackers, and The Man. What might be the most effective way to wreak havoc on the country's infrastructure? NTT's Dorian Kim has an idea.
"Most of the networks—whether you're talking about networks like NTT, Level 3, AT&T, or content distribution people like Netflix or Akamai—all their traffic tends to get exchanged in a very small number of 'carrier hotels' in cities around the country," Kim says.
"The number of those concentration points of activity that you'd need to knock out to do serious damage to the Internet is actually smaller than the number of submarine cables," he continues. "If you ... take out, oh, half a dozen of these around the country, you'd actually do serious damage to the infrastructure. And if you double that and take out the dozen biggest carrier hotels, the impact will be very severe."
And therein lies the Internet's biggest weakness. The great big Web's decentralized nature makes it incredibly resistant to attack, but when you get down to brass tacks, all the mininetworks that make the whole have to hook up somewhere.
"A lot of this comes down to the fact that there are economics behind how networks are built," Kim says. "You have to think about concentration points based on population, and with insulated networks, it makes sense for people who have to interconnect to be as close to each other as possible… Eventually, you wind up in a metro area with one or two gigantic carrier hotels where everybody's congregated."
But don't let that fool you: Pulling off an attack of that nature would be very difficult indeed, and its impact would be felt far and wide, not just in the United States. If—if—a large, well-informed, well-trained, and well-equipped team were able to pull off such a feat, it would be a direct attack against the entire world.
RenesysThe lighter the green, the more resistant the Net.
(Click to enlarge.)
Let's pull it back a bit. Thanks to its central role on the Net and its decentralized network infrastructure, the odds of the U.S. pulling a Syria and disappearing from the face of the Web are effectively nil. In fact, when Renesys—a leading network research firm—examined how difficult it would be for countries all around the world to be disconnected from the Net, the U.S. was ranked "Resistant." Not Average. Not even Low Risk. Resistant. (See the map above.)
So breathe easy, folks. For all intents and purposes, if you're in the States, you've got mail—and nothing is ever going to take away the Internet in a flash. Unless, of course, you forget to pay your bill.
The thought may sound like heaven to minimalists, but in recent months, dictators around the world have been all too willing to transform the idea into a hellacious reality, flipping a switch and completely disconnecting whole nations from the Web: Syria. Egypt. Libya. All have been plunged into darkness during periods of civil unrest.
But is there any way the United States could be disconnected from the Internet? Could an act of terror, war, or simple governmental dictatorship snatch away our social feeds and online gaming? Curious, I reached out to several experts to examine all the potential doomsday scenarios.
They say the Internet is a series of tubes. One obvious way to disconnect the United States from the rest of the Net would be to cut, blow up, or otherwise destroy those tubes, right?
Not so fast. As it turns out, you'd need to cut a lot of tubes to completely disconnect the U.S. from the Internet. Check out the map below of all the undersea cables that connect the country to the outside world. Now, consider that TeleGeography's map lists only undersea cables (which you can peruse here), and doesn't include the legion of wires that connect the U.S. to Canada and Mexico over land. And what about wireless networks?
Yeah, you're starting to get the picture. Disconnecting all of America's tubes just isn't going to happen.
"It's close enough to impossible that in realistic terms, it's unlikely to the point of irrelevancy," says Patrick Gilmore, the chief network architect at Akamai, a content delivery network estimated to be responsible for up to 20 percent of all Web traffic. The good news doesn't end there.
"Even if you could do that, a lot of the reason things were done like that in Egypt and Syria were to keep people from posting to social networking sites," Gilmore continues. "Many of those social networking sites are hosted here in the United States. So if you could wave a magic wand and disconnect the United States, people would still see all those posts from each other inside the United States. It wouldn't stop that from happening."
Score one for free speech.
If the tubes are the veins of the Internet, the servers that power the Net are its brains. Could hackers use their botnets and evil geek powers to send America spiraling offline?
"That's actually much more likely than a physical attack, I think," says Dorian Kim, VP of IP engineering and network development for NTT Communications, the second-largest Internet backbone provider in the world. "…The entire wiring system relies a great deal on various systems of trust. It's possible for somebody—especially someone who is kind of an insider at an ISP or telco—to do things that would disrupt the infrastructure in a pretty widespread way."
There are several caveats to that, however. Any hack attack of that magnitude would very likely extend beyond U.S. shores, for one thing. It would be very difficult and take a high level of technical ability to accomplish. And it wouldn't last very long, either: Given the decentralized nature of the Net, Kim says the disruption would likely be limited to hours, or a day or two maximum.
Even if hackers managed to wreak havoc on the U.S. Internet, all the experts I spoke to expressed extreme doubt that an attack would be able to take out the entire country.
"Let's take the CloudFlare attack," says Gilmore, referring to a DDoS attack in Europe a few months ago that CloudFlare mitigated. "I was quoted in The New York Times as saying it was the largest publicly disclosed attack in the history of the Internet. That was 300 gigabits, or 300 billions. The total traffic on the Internet is measured in many, many terabits—trillions. And the U.S. is a large portion of that. A 500-gigabit attack—which again, would be the largest attack ever—would not be able to disrupt even a large portion of the United States.
"Some networks would go down," he continues. "You might be able to take out an ISP in a city, and have that ISP go offline, but to take 25 or 50 percent of the U.S. offline? It's not impossible to do, but it'd just be so ridiculously difficult."
Individual things—specific ISPs, websites, and so on—would be much easier to attack, says Gilmore. Kim agrees: The Internet's backbone carriers are just too strong to hack with any sort of effectiveness.
"[Hackers] would be much better off going for the softer underbellies of companies than going after core infrastructure," he says.
So, widespread tube cutting and hack attacks would not only be incredibly difficult to pull off, but they would also be of questionable effectiveness. Now, let's explore the darkest of these dark options. The Middle Eastern countries mentioned above disappeared from the Net thanks to the heavy hands of iron-fisted dictators. Is there any way the U.S. government could possibly do the same? Does the Man have an Internet kill switch?
"No, there's no legal authority for it," says Dan Auerbach, a staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Even if some were invented through creative lawyering, the practical reality is that it would just be too difficult to do in any sort of short time frame."
This circles back to the United States' dense web of tubes, and all three experts I spoke to touched on this point. Small countries like Syria have very few Internet access points, and very few service providers maintaining those access points, making it trivial for the government in such nations to shut down the hardware. That ain't so in this country.
"In the U.S., by contrast, we don't have that sort of monolithic ISP space," says Auerbach. "We have many different networks, and within those networks, there are many types of subnetworks operating. The amount of machinery you would need to shut down is enormous and controlled by lots of people. It'd be really hard to do that in any sort of quick way."
And again, the headaches double when you add wide area and cellular networks to the mix. Safe to say, in the States, The Man isn't going to shut us all down.
So, rule out the tubes, the hackers, and The Man. What might be the most effective way to wreak havoc on the country's infrastructure? NTT's Dorian Kim has an idea.
"Most of the networks—whether you're talking about networks like NTT, Level 3, AT&T, or content distribution people like Netflix or Akamai—all their traffic tends to get exchanged in a very small number of 'carrier hotels' in cities around the country," Kim says.
"The number of those concentration points of activity that you'd need to knock out to do serious damage to the Internet is actually smaller than the number of submarine cables," he continues. "If you ... take out, oh, half a dozen of these around the country, you'd actually do serious damage to the infrastructure. And if you double that and take out the dozen biggest carrier hotels, the impact will be very severe."
And therein lies the Internet's biggest weakness. The great big Web's decentralized nature makes it incredibly resistant to attack, but when you get down to brass tacks, all the mininetworks that make the whole have to hook up somewhere.
"A lot of this comes down to the fact that there are economics behind how networks are built," Kim says. "You have to think about concentration points based on population, and with insulated networks, it makes sense for people who have to interconnect to be as close to each other as possible… Eventually, you wind up in a metro area with one or two gigantic carrier hotels where everybody's congregated."
But don't let that fool you: Pulling off an attack of that nature would be very difficult indeed, and its impact would be felt far and wide, not just in the United States. If—if—a large, well-informed, well-trained, and well-equipped team were able to pull off such a feat, it would be a direct attack against the entire world.
Let's pull it back a bit. Thanks to its central role on the Net and its decentralized network infrastructure, the odds of the U.S. pulling a Syria and disappearing from the face of the Web are effectively nil. In fact, when Renesys—a leading network research firm—examined how difficult it would be for countries all around the world to be disconnected from the Net, the U.S. was ranked "Resistant." Not Average. Not even Low Risk. Resistant. (See the map above.)
So breathe easy, folks. For all intents and purposes, if you're in the States, you've got mail—and nothing is ever going to take away the Internet in a flash. Unless, of course, you forget to pay your bill.
Saturday, 13 July 2013
Has Patent, Will Sue: An Alert to Corporate America
Mr. Spangenberg is likely to open the conversation on a diplomatic note, but if
you put up enough resistance, or try to shrug him off, he can also, as he put
it, “go thug.”
He demonstrated what that sounds like in a brief bit of role-play recently, sitting in the apartment he is renting for the summer in Paris near the Arc de Triomphe. His voice dropped, the curse words flowed, and he spoke with carefully modulated menace.
“Once you go thug, though, you can’t unthug,” he explained, returning to his warm and normal tone. “Actually, you can unthug, but if you do that, you can’t rethug. Then you just seem crazy.”
Mr. Spangenberg’s company, based in Dallas, helps “turn idle patents into cash cows,” as it says on its Web site. A typical client is an inventor or corporation, with a batch of patents, demanding a license fee from what it contends is an infringer, usually a titan in the tech realm. His weapon of choice in this business — the brass knuckles of his trade, so to speak — is the lawsuit.
In the last five years, IPNav has sued 1,638 companies, according to a recent report by RPX, a patent risk management provider, more than any other entity in the patent field. “To get companies to pay attention, in some percent of the market, you need to whack them over the head,” Mr. Spangenberg said. “In our system, you can’t duel, you can’t offer to fight in the street, which would be fine with me.”
This combat readiness has made Mr. Spangenberg, a high-school dropout raised in Buffalo, very rich. He earns about $25 million a year, he says, which is at least a couple of million more than the country’s top bank executives. Until recently, he lived in a 14,000-square-foot home in Dallas; it is now on the market for $19.5 million. He often flies on a company jet, and at one point he owned 16 cars, six of them Lamborghinis.
His clients, who pay IPNav a percentage of any recovery, contend that he earns every dollar and praise him as a hero.
“Erich saved our bacon,” said Steve Dodd, a patent holder with a client company called Parallel Iron. “We were more than $1 million in debt and I was getting ready to file for bankruptcy.”
Mr. Spangenberg’s opponents use less flattering terms to describe his work. Like shakedown artist. Or patent troll.
There is debate about the definition of patent trolls, but the term broadly refers to people who sue companies for infringement, often using patents of dubious value or questionable relevance, and then hold on like a terrier until they get license fees. In recent years, patent trolls — they prefer “patent assertion entities,” or P.A.E.’s — have gone from low-profile corporate migraine to mainstream scourge.
This is partly because the number of patent infringement suits has more than doubled in recent years, to 4,731 cases in 2012 from 2,304 in 2009, according to that RPX report. The cost to businesses, which pass along the expense to consumers, is immense. One study found that United States companies — most of them small or medium-sized — spent $29 billion in 2011 on patent assertion cases.
“And only about $6 billion of that money wound up in the hands of inventors,” said James Bessen, a co-author of the study and a professor at the Boston University School of Law. “As for the other $23 billion, most of it goes to legal expenses, both for defendants and patent troll companies, with the rest going to operating expenses of the trolls — overhead and marketing — and finally, patent troll company profits. That’s why we call this type of litigation a tax on innovation. It discourages innovation much more than it encourages it.”
The notoriety of trolls also arises from legal claims that, at minimum, sound absurd. Like the P.A.E. that last year mailed letters to companies contending it had a patent on e-mailing scanned documents and asking for a license fee of $1,000 per employee. Or the company that has sued for license fees from podcasters through a patent originally filed in 1996, long before podcasts were conceived.
The inevitable counterattack on patent asserters has begun. In June, President Obama announced a handful of executive orders “to protect innovators from frivolous litigation.” Companies, large and small, are starting to vent and fight back, and figures as varied as Judge Richard A. Posner, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and Marc Maron, the stand-up comedian and podcast host, have denounced trolling. Mark Cuban recently gave the Electronic Frontier Foundation $250,000 to help finance “The Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents.”
Mr. Spangenberg has been called “a costly nuisance,” “one of the most notorious patent trolls in America” and many unprintable names in the comments sections of Web sites like Techdirt. He has achieved a certain infamy.
In his telling, he is protecting put-upon inventors. But he may simply be profiteering from a flawed and creaky legal system.
He demonstrated what that sounds like in a brief bit of role-play recently, sitting in the apartment he is renting for the summer in Paris near the Arc de Triomphe. His voice dropped, the curse words flowed, and he spoke with carefully modulated menace.
“Once you go thug, though, you can’t unthug,” he explained, returning to his warm and normal tone. “Actually, you can unthug, but if you do that, you can’t rethug. Then you just seem crazy.”
Mr. Spangenberg’s company, based in Dallas, helps “turn idle patents into cash cows,” as it says on its Web site. A typical client is an inventor or corporation, with a batch of patents, demanding a license fee from what it contends is an infringer, usually a titan in the tech realm. His weapon of choice in this business — the brass knuckles of his trade, so to speak — is the lawsuit.
In the last five years, IPNav has sued 1,638 companies, according to a recent report by RPX, a patent risk management provider, more than any other entity in the patent field. “To get companies to pay attention, in some percent of the market, you need to whack them over the head,” Mr. Spangenberg said. “In our system, you can’t duel, you can’t offer to fight in the street, which would be fine with me.”
This combat readiness has made Mr. Spangenberg, a high-school dropout raised in Buffalo, very rich. He earns about $25 million a year, he says, which is at least a couple of million more than the country’s top bank executives. Until recently, he lived in a 14,000-square-foot home in Dallas; it is now on the market for $19.5 million. He often flies on a company jet, and at one point he owned 16 cars, six of them Lamborghinis.
His clients, who pay IPNav a percentage of any recovery, contend that he earns every dollar and praise him as a hero.
“Erich saved our bacon,” said Steve Dodd, a patent holder with a client company called Parallel Iron. “We were more than $1 million in debt and I was getting ready to file for bankruptcy.”
Mr. Spangenberg’s opponents use less flattering terms to describe his work. Like shakedown artist. Or patent troll.
There is debate about the definition of patent trolls, but the term broadly refers to people who sue companies for infringement, often using patents of dubious value or questionable relevance, and then hold on like a terrier until they get license fees. In recent years, patent trolls — they prefer “patent assertion entities,” or P.A.E.’s — have gone from low-profile corporate migraine to mainstream scourge.
This is partly because the number of patent infringement suits has more than doubled in recent years, to 4,731 cases in 2012 from 2,304 in 2009, according to that RPX report. The cost to businesses, which pass along the expense to consumers, is immense. One study found that United States companies — most of them small or medium-sized — spent $29 billion in 2011 on patent assertion cases.
“And only about $6 billion of that money wound up in the hands of inventors,” said James Bessen, a co-author of the study and a professor at the Boston University School of Law. “As for the other $23 billion, most of it goes to legal expenses, both for defendants and patent troll companies, with the rest going to operating expenses of the trolls — overhead and marketing — and finally, patent troll company profits. That’s why we call this type of litigation a tax on innovation. It discourages innovation much more than it encourages it.”
The notoriety of trolls also arises from legal claims that, at minimum, sound absurd. Like the P.A.E. that last year mailed letters to companies contending it had a patent on e-mailing scanned documents and asking for a license fee of $1,000 per employee. Or the company that has sued for license fees from podcasters through a patent originally filed in 1996, long before podcasts were conceived.
The inevitable counterattack on patent asserters has begun. In June, President Obama announced a handful of executive orders “to protect innovators from frivolous litigation.” Companies, large and small, are starting to vent and fight back, and figures as varied as Judge Richard A. Posner, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and Marc Maron, the stand-up comedian and podcast host, have denounced trolling. Mark Cuban recently gave the Electronic Frontier Foundation $250,000 to help finance “The Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents.”
Mr. Spangenberg has been called “a costly nuisance,” “one of the most notorious patent trolls in America” and many unprintable names in the comments sections of Web sites like Techdirt. He has achieved a certain infamy.
In his telling, he is protecting put-upon inventors. But he may simply be profiteering from a flawed and creaky legal system.
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Comic-Con: 'Thor,' 'Captain America' Sequels Head to Hall H
Walt Disney Pictures announced that Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier will both be featured during the Marvel presentation on its Saturday, July 20.
Marvel Studios' president of production Kevin Feige is currently the only panelist who has been named, but the Disney announcement promises "many special guests."
Thor: The Dark World, the sequel to the 2011 film, follows Thor (Chris Hemsworth) one year after the events in The Avengers. Alan Taylor directed, with a cast including Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård and Idris Elba. It's slated for release on Nov. 8.
STORY: Comic-Con 2013: The Film Lineup
Captain America: The Winter Soldier sees the return of Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson. It follows Steve Rogers (Evans) as he deals with adjusting to the modern world after the events of The Avengers. He'll team up with Natasha Romanoff (Johansson) to fight off enemies in Washington, D.C. It hits theaters on April 4, 2014.
There are sure to be some other surprises from Marvel and Disney when the audience fills the 6,500 seats in the massive Hall H at the San Diego convention on Saturday.
Comic-Con runs July 17-21 in San Diego.
Friday, 28 June 2013
The state of civil rights in America
, Washington Proponents of gay marriage celebrated in front of the Supreme
Court The US Supreme Court this week made it more difficult to ensure voting
access and recognised more benefits for gay couples. As the court comes to a
close, was it a good week or a bad week for civil rights?
The Supreme Court has published its final opinion of this term, closing on what some are calling a banner note for civil rights.
The court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, opening the door for couples who are legally married in states that recognise gay marriage to receive the same federal benefits as heterosexual couples.
It also declined to rule on California's Proposition 8 banning gay marriage, deciding instead to send the case back to a lower court, which had already invalidated the ban.
Continue reading the main story
But the rulings related to gay marriage came just a day after other rulings - including one on the federal law that protects the rights of minority voters - had activists worried that civil rights could be in peril.
In the voting rights case, justices revisited the Voting Rights Act, a 50-year-old law designed to protect minority voters. In part, it requires jurisdictions in 15 US states to receive federal approval when changing election laws.
While the court did not invalidate the law, it did require that Congress update the formula used to determine which states needed monitoring.
"The ruling is a major blow to civil rights advocates as it is widely believed that Congress, which currently uses data from as far back as the 1970s to determine that formula, will not be able to pass a new formula into law," wrote Sahil Kapur at Talking Points Memo. "As a result, the ruling has the practical effect of neutering the pre-clearance requirement."
As the week comes to a close, we asked experts: was it a good one or a bad one for civil rights?
States' rights rule supreme
The rulings both speak to the rights of the states to determine and protect the rights of their citizens, whether it's the federal government deferring to states' definitions of marriage or the right of states to determine their own voting regulations.
"They both support the notion of a reduced federal voice and limited federal power," said Jose Gabilondo, professor of law at Florida International University.
That fits with the general direction of the court under Chief Justice John Roberts, which favours the rights of states and businesses over federal intervention, Mr Gabilondo said. The trend can dangerous for the rights of minority groups who often benefit from consistent federal protection, he said.
Still, making a blanket statement about civil rights can be difficult, in large part because there is seldom consistency within the world of civil rights, which is a fairly broad term applied to a multitude of topics.
"The term 'civil rights' is a broad umbrella that is applied to a lot of issues, but if you look at the various subsections, they all have a different history," said Andrew Cohen, a national correspondent for TheAtlantic.com.
"Voting rights is rooted in the Civil War, while gay rights is recent," with most changes coming in just a generation.
The long history of voting rights as a civil rights issue, in fact, might make it more of a target for attack than gay marriage, which is relatively new.
"The sense of urgency that accompanies the immediate achievement of civil rights victories fades over generations," said Seth Kreimer, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania.
"We have a generation of jurists emerging who have forgotten some of the reasons why predecessors made some of the decisions that they did."
The Voting Rights Act's detractors say a formula created 40 years ago is useless in a world with a black president. There is a pervasive attitude that laws created to help rectify racism in the century after the Civil War have outworn their welcome, creating more of a burden than a benefit.
"Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions," Justice Roberts wrote for the court.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her dissent, said neutralising the Voting Rights Act was akin to "throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet".
Political pressure
By contrast, gay marriage is a civil rights issue that has moved with lightning speed, from being written off as impossible in the 1990s to being a defining issue of the gay community today.
Support for gay marriage, which now polls above 50% nationwide, also may have come into play.
"The Roberts court couldn't afford to look like a fossil," Mr Gabilondo said.
"The only thing the Supreme Court has is appearing credible. That means they have to be very nuanced, very hedged, very political."
But the small steps he sees the court taking have him concerned about civil liberties overall - especially considering some of the less-publicised decisions, like Vance v Ball State University, which narrowed the definition of who could be called a "supervisor" when workers sue for discrimination or harassment.
"That's not a civil right, but it's a proxy for power, abuse and structural inequality in society," he said.
Mr Kreimer, on the other hand, sees reasons for civil rights supporters to be hopeful, including another voting rights case, Arizona v Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, which upheld voting rights for Native American populations.
"The losses are losses that can be remedied, and the wins are wins that mark a way upward in American society," he said.
Of course, it is hard to predict the temperament of a court that so often changes.
"It's a fluid situation," said Mr Cohen. "In five years, it's very likely the make-up of the court will be different."
The Supreme Court has published its final opinion of this term, closing on what some are calling a banner note for civil rights.
The court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, opening the door for couples who are legally married in states that recognise gay marriage to receive the same federal benefits as heterosexual couples.
It also declined to rule on California's Proposition 8 banning gay marriage, deciding instead to send the case back to a lower court, which had already invalidated the ban.
Continue reading the main story
The sense of urgency that accompanies the immediate achievement of civil rights victories fades over generations”End Quote Seth Kreimer University of Pennsylvania Game director Jason Rubin echoed the thoughts of many when he tweeted: "Strike down of #DOMA and death of #Prop8 are big steps in the civil rights movement of my lifetime. I am proud to witness and support."
But the rulings related to gay marriage came just a day after other rulings - including one on the federal law that protects the rights of minority voters - had activists worried that civil rights could be in peril.
In the voting rights case, justices revisited the Voting Rights Act, a 50-year-old law designed to protect minority voters. In part, it requires jurisdictions in 15 US states to receive federal approval when changing election laws.
While the court did not invalidate the law, it did require that Congress update the formula used to determine which states needed monitoring.
"The ruling is a major blow to civil rights advocates as it is widely believed that Congress, which currently uses data from as far back as the 1970s to determine that formula, will not be able to pass a new formula into law," wrote Sahil Kapur at Talking Points Memo. "As a result, the ruling has the practical effect of neutering the pre-clearance requirement."
As the week comes to a close, we asked experts: was it a good one or a bad one for civil rights?
States' rights rule supreme
The rulings both speak to the rights of the states to determine and protect the rights of their citizens, whether it's the federal government deferring to states' definitions of marriage or the right of states to determine their own voting regulations.
"They both support the notion of a reduced federal voice and limited federal power," said Jose Gabilondo, professor of law at Florida International University.
That fits with the general direction of the court under Chief Justice John Roberts, which favours the rights of states and businesses over federal intervention, Mr Gabilondo said. The trend can dangerous for the rights of minority groups who often benefit from consistent federal protection, he said.
Still, making a blanket statement about civil rights can be difficult, in large part because there is seldom consistency within the world of civil rights, which is a fairly broad term applied to a multitude of topics.
"The term 'civil rights' is a broad umbrella that is applied to a lot of issues, but if you look at the various subsections, they all have a different history," said Andrew Cohen, a national correspondent for TheAtlantic.com.
"Voting rights is rooted in the Civil War, while gay rights is recent," with most changes coming in just a generation.
The long history of voting rights as a civil rights issue, in fact, might make it more of a target for attack than gay marriage, which is relatively new.
"The sense of urgency that accompanies the immediate achievement of civil rights victories fades over generations," said Seth Kreimer, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania.
"We have a generation of jurists emerging who have forgotten some of the reasons why predecessors made some of the decisions that they did."
The Voting Rights Act's detractors say a formula created 40 years ago is useless in a world with a black president. There is a pervasive attitude that laws created to help rectify racism in the century after the Civil War have outworn their welcome, creating more of a burden than a benefit.
"Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions," Justice Roberts wrote for the court.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her dissent, said neutralising the Voting Rights Act was akin to "throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet".
Political pressure
By contrast, gay marriage is a civil rights issue that has moved with lightning speed, from being written off as impossible in the 1990s to being a defining issue of the gay community today.
Support for gay marriage, which now polls above 50% nationwide, also may have come into play.
"The Roberts court couldn't afford to look like a fossil," Mr Gabilondo said.
"The only thing the Supreme Court has is appearing credible. That means they have to be very nuanced, very hedged, very political."
But the small steps he sees the court taking have him concerned about civil liberties overall - especially considering some of the less-publicised decisions, like Vance v Ball State University, which narrowed the definition of who could be called a "supervisor" when workers sue for discrimination or harassment.
"That's not a civil right, but it's a proxy for power, abuse and structural inequality in society," he said.
Mr Kreimer, on the other hand, sees reasons for civil rights supporters to be hopeful, including another voting rights case, Arizona v Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, which upheld voting rights for Native American populations.
"The losses are losses that can be remedied, and the wins are wins that mark a way upward in American society," he said.
Of course, it is hard to predict the temperament of a court that so often changes.
"It's a fluid situation," said Mr Cohen. "In five years, it's very likely the make-up of the court will be different."
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Box Office Report: 'Man of Steel' Sails Past $150 Million in North America
Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan's Man of Steel zoomed past the $150 million mark in its fifth day of release at the domestic box office, enjoying robust weekday business.
PHOTOS: Henry Cavill's Career: From 'Tudors' Nobility to 'Man of Steel' Superhero
The Superman tentpole, from Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, scored the top June debut of all time, grossing $116.1 million. Including $12 million earned last Thursday night from special Walmart screenings, the pic ended Sunday with a total $128.7 million under its belt.
Man of Steel, based on the marquee D.C. Comics superhero, took in another $12.6 million on Monday and $11.5 million on Tuesday, pushing its North American total to $$152.8 million. Overseas, the movie -- starring British actor Henry Cavill in the title role -- opened just north of $70 million last weekend.
Directed by Snyder and produced by Nolan, Man of Steel should cross $200 million domestically on Saturday.
The $225 million tentpole is a sizeable victory for Warners and Legendary. The movie also stars Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner and Diane Lane.
VIDEO: Isolation, Leaps of Faith: 'Man of Steel' Cast on Similarities to Superman
Superman isn't the only superhero celebrating.
Also on Tuesday, Disney and Marvel Studios' Iron Man 3 jumped the $400 million mark at the domestic box office as its blockbuster run comes to an end. Shane Black's threequel was already the No. 1 film of the year. Oz the Great and Powerful is currently No. 2 with $234.2 million, followed by Fast and Furious 6 with $222 million.
Globally, Iron Man 3 is the No. 5 top grossing film of all time with $1.2 billion, including $802.9 million in international ticket sales.
Returning Robert Downey Jr. in the title role, Iron Man 3 is the sixth Disney film to cross $1 billion and the second-highest grossing Disney film after Marvel's The Avengers ($1.5 billion).
Iron Man 3 has outpaced Avengers in many territories -- including China, Hong Kong, Korea and Russia -- indicating that it has played more like a sequel to Avengers than to Iron Man 2.
Tuesday, 25 June 2013
'Monsters University' Marks Disney/Pixar's Top Latin America Opening
Buenos Aires – The Latin American debut of Disney/Pixar’s Monsters University marked the studio’s biggest opening for the region, grossing $31.7 million across the region.
The Monsters, Inc. prequel opened last weekend in Latin America, and placed itself at the top of Disney/Pixar releases in Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina.
PHOTOS: 'Monsters University' Premiere: A Frightening Good Time
The film also topped the studio's debut mark in Central America, and placed itself behind Toy Story 3 and Cars 2 openings in Brazil and Mexico.
In Argentina, attendance for Monsters University climbed at the top and broke both box office and ticket sale records for a debut with more than 802,000 tickets in a four-day weekend that turned out to be one of the strongest in local history, with approximately 1.6 million people attending cinemas according to numbers by Ultracine and Rentrak.
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