Tuesday article links

CableLabs Clears Motorola's DOCSIS 3.0 Security [Multichannel News]

Here's another milestone on the road to DOCSIS 3.0 - yesterday CableLabs (the non-profit research and development consortium for cable technologies) certified Motorola's DOCSIS 3.0 products' security credentials. The CableLabs statement:

"The DOCSIS 3.0 specification itself establishes ways for cable companies to safely buy equipment from multiple vendors to deploy high-speed data services," CableLabs president and CEO Dick Green said in a statement. "The audit the Certificate Authority undertakes is another benchmark standard that we hold DOCSIS certificate suppliers to as additional fail-safe for the cable community. Motorola has further demonstrated its commitment to DOCSIS by participating and successfully fulfilling the requirements of the audit."

Update Your Browser, Dummy [Broadband Reports]

If you're like me, your computer is set to automatically download the latest operating system and web browser software patches. But, apparently not everyone uses this common OS feature. According to this study, over 40% of users aren't using the most current web browser with the latest software patches. That can be a real security issue for those users, as many patches are designed to prevent the exploitation of security flaws. If you haven't updated lately, maybe now is the time to get current.

FCC Hearing in Pittsburgh

Yesterday the FCC held a hearing on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Styled as a hearing on "Broadband and the Digital Future," the commissioners and panelists appear to have covered a wide variety of topics. Of course, net neutrality advocates continued to push their case for regulating the delivery of broadband Internet. AT&T Senior Federal Regulatory Vice President Robert Quinn cautioned the commission against the type of excessive regulation that the net neutrality crowd wants.

Over at Broadband Reports, Karl Bode has posted this morning that he believes AT&T's Quinn hinted during his testimony at the possibility of AT&T rolling out usage-based broadband billing. I'll let you all read that post and draw your own conclusions.

At FCC broadband hearing, speeches but no consensus [CNET News]

Liveblogging FCC hearing in Pittsburgh [Broadband Politics]

Broadband called a 'civil right' [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]

Groups Urge FCC to Keep the Internet Open [PC World]

AT&T Hints That Usage-Based Billing Is Coming [Broadband Reports]