Good morning tech

Good morning!

Breaking this morning: Google announced on Friday that it will be able to stay in China. The government renewed its website license after threatening to allow the site to go dark for Chinese users.

"We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP license and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China," the company said in a statement.

Chinese regulators had warned Google over its policy that rerouted traffic from China to its uncensored Hong Kong search site. Google promised to stop doing so last month.

Defining the day: The National Security Agency is pushing back on Friday against reports that its "Perfect Citizen" cybersecurity program is invasive. A Wall Street Journal article on Thursday quoted a contractor terming the system "Big Brother."

NSA spokesperson Judith Emmel said it is inappropriate to confirm or deny the specific allegations in the article, but added that "any suggestions that there are illegal or invasive domestic activities associated with this contracted effort are simply not true."

"Perfect Citizen is purely a vulnerabilities-assessment and capabilities-development contract. This is a research and engineering effort. There is no monitoring activity involved, and no sensors are employed in this endeavor. ... Specifically, it does not involve the monitoring of communications or placement of sensors on utility company systems."

WHO, WHERE

The State Department's PHILIP VERVEER will discuss the experiences of American information and communication technology companies in providing direct assistance in Haiti following the earthquake. (1:30 p.m. State Department, 2201 C St. N.W., Loy Henderson Auditorium, Washington, D.C.)

White House Cyber Coordinator HOWARD SCHMIDT made a rare public appearance at Hotel Washington on Thursday afternoon to deliver remarks to an Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association crowd on the current status of cybersecurity in the federal government.

CAN'T-MISS NEWS

Hill Notes

Hoax prompts new Senate e-mail system. A new e-mail validation system in the Senate will verify that all e-mails sent from Senate.gov addresses originate from legitimate — not "cloaked" — servers, the sergeant at arms announced Wednesday. The system was implemented this week after news outlets received a series of false press releases saying that Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had died of cancer in their homes.

Bill would block porn from federal networks. The House passed an amendment last week that would bar agencies from investing in computer networks that don't automatically block pornography websites. On July 1 the House added the amendment to a supplemental spending bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other things. The amendment states, "None of the funds made available in this act may be used to maintain or establish a computer network unless such network blocks the viewing, downloading and exchanging of pornography."

Military Notes

Military says good cyber offense equals good defense. The military must improve its offensive and defensive cyberwarfare capabilities to protect the nation's networks from foreign hackers, military leaders said on Thursday. Representatives from the various branches of the armed services gathered Thursday in Washington to discuss the threat. Officials said U.S. networks are constantly being probed by adversaries seeking information of strategic or economic value. 

Executive Notes

Obama tours Missouri electric-truck factory funded by stimulus. President Barack Obama stopped in Kansas City, Mo., on Thursday to visit a firm that received Recovery Act funds to build commercial trucks powered completely by electricity. The firm, Smith Electric Vehicles, manufacturers all-electric, zero-emissions commercial trucks. After touring the facilities Obama spoke to an audience of workers and Missouri Democratic lawmakers including Gov. Jay Nixon, Sen. Claire McCaskill, and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver on the state of the economy.

Locke touts stimulus broadband funds for western Mass. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke appeared in Greenfield, Mass., on Thursday to promote a $45.4 million Recovery Act grant aimed at expanding broadband Internet access in western Massachusetts. Locke was joined for the announcement by Democratic lawmakers — including Gov. Deval Patrick and Sen. John Kerry — and said the grant will go to the Massachusetts Broadband Institute to fund a new fiber network that will link 1,400 institutions in the western part of the state.

Industry notes

AT&T receives most from FCC fund. AT&T has received the most money over the last three years from a federal fund subsidizing the cost of telephone service in areas where it is especially expensive, such as in insular towns in the countryside. AT&T received $1,302,540,713 between 2007 and 2009 from the universal service high-cost program, a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) fund. Verizon ranked second, receiving $1,275,473,981.

CNN denounced by Hezbollah after tweet firing. Hezbollah criticized CNN on Thursday for letting go of Middle East editor Octavia Nasr for a message she wrote in Twitter, AFP reports.
Her tweet had praised the late Shiite cleric Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. According to AFP, "Hezbollah spokesman Ibrahim Moussawi denounced the 'intellectual terrorism represented by the firing of journalist Octavia Nasr of CNN after she expressed sadness' at the death of Fadlallah."

Lockheed plans Web access for subs. Lockheed Martin is working on a program to give their submarines phone and Internet access while submerged, according to a report from Wired's Danger Room. Lockheed's subs can now receive Internet messages and other forms of communication at very low bit-rates, but cannot respond without coming up for air or raising an antenna above the surface.

Wireless industry says 'bill shock' rules are unnecessary. The wireless industry urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) not to mandate that cell phone companies make their billing practices clearer, a possibility the agency is considering in its effort to mitigate "bill shock." The commission started a proceeding in May seeking comment on whether it should make regulations to prevent consumers from receiving higher-than-expected cell phone bills. CTIA, the wireless trade group, and the Rural Cellular Association (RCA) said in filings this week that such rules are "unnecessary."

WATERCOOLER

PROFILE: White House party crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi have been caught breaking the rules — again. This time they created a Facebook profile for their dog, Rio. 

"Maintaining a pet or animal Facebook Profile is a violation of our terms of use," Facebook's manager of public policy communications Andrew Noyes told the Washington Examiner. "Similarly, it's a violation of our policies to use a fake name or operate under a false identity." Noyes steered Rio toward Dogbook.