It's the issue that won't die: A Senate committee has voted to weaken the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules.The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee voted Wednesday to approve a bill that would exempt small broadband providers from rules requiring them to provide their customers with information about network performance, network management practices, and other issues.The rules are intended to give broadband customers data about actual speeds, compared to advertised speeds, and potentially controversial congestion management practices.The Senate bill, the Small Business Broadband Deployment Act, would still ensure "meaningful transparency for consumers" because older FCC rules requiring some disclosure of network management practices remain in place, said Senator John Thune, a South Dakota Republican and committee chairman.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It's the issue that won't die: A Senate committee has voted to weaken the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules.The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee voted Wednesday to approve a bill that would exempt small broadband providers from rules requiring them to provide their customers with information about network performance, network management practices, and other issues.The rules are intended to give broadband customers data about actual speeds, compared to advertised speeds, and potentially controversial congestion management practices.The Senate bill, the Small Business Broadband Deployment Act, would still ensure "meaningful transparency for consumers" because older FCC rules requiring some disclosure of network management practices remain in place, said Senator John Thune, a South Dakota Republican and committee chairman.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The FBI has fallen short on assessing the privacy risks and accuracy of a huge facial recognition database used by several law enforcement agencies, a government auditor has said.A new report, released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office Wednesday, shows the FBI's use of facial recognition technology is "far greater" than previously understood, said Senator Al Franken, the Minnesota Democrat who requested the GAO report.The FBI's Next Generation Identification-Interstate Photo System (NGI-IPS), which allows law enforcement agencies to search a database of more than 30 million photos of 16.9 million people, raises serious privacy concerns, Franken added in a press release.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The FBI has fallen short on assessing the privacy risks and accuracy of a huge facial recognition database used by several law enforcement agencies, a government auditor has said.A new report, released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office Wednesday, shows the FBI's use of facial recognition technology is "far greater" than previously understood, said Senator Al Franken, the Minnesota Democrat who requested the GAO report.The FBI's Next Generation Identification-Interstate Photo System (NGI-IPS), which allows law enforcement agencies to search a database of more than 30 million photos of 16.9 million people, raises serious privacy concerns, Franken added in a press release.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Rejecting challenges by ISPs and broadband trade groups, an appeals court has upheld the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's controversial net neutrality rules, passed in 2015.
The legal wrangling will likely continue for years, however, and may go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in an opinion issued Tuesday, ruled that the FCC had the authority to reclassify broadband as a common-carrier telecom service to provide a foundation for net neutrality rules that prohibit broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Internet traffic.
Past court rulings have given agencies the authority to change their minds, like the FCC did when it re-regulated broadband, Judges David Tatel and Sri Srinivasan wrote in an 184-page opinion.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A bill to give email and other documents stored in the cloud new protections from government searches may be dead in the U.S. Senate over a proposed amendment to expand the FBI's surveillance powers.The Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act would require law enforcement agencies to get court-ordered warrants to search email and other data stored with third parties for longer than six months.Under U.S. law, police need warrants to get their hands on paper files in a suspect's home or office and on electronic files stored on his computer or in the cloud for less than 180 days. But under the 30-year-old ECPA, police agencies need only a subpoena, not reviewed by a judge, to demand files stored in the cloud or with other third-party providers for longer than 180 days.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A bill to give email and other documents stored in the cloud new protections from government searches may be dead in the U.S. Senate over a proposed amendment to expand the FBI's surveillance powers.The Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act would require law enforcement agencies to get court-ordered warrants to search email and other data stored with third parties for longer than six months.Under U.S. law, police need warrants to get their hands on paper files in a suspect's home or office and on electronic files stored on his computer or in the cloud for less than 180 days. But under the 30-year-old ECPA, police agencies need only a subpoena, not reviewed by a judge, to demand files stored in the cloud or with other third-party providers for longer than 180 days.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Qlik, a vendor of data visualization tools, has agreed to be acquired by private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo for US$3 billion.The sale will give Qlik "additional flexibility" to operate, Lars Björk, the company's CEO, said in a statement.Qlik is touted as a software package for business intelligence needs, with some customers saying it has strong data modeling features. Qlik offers what it calls "self-service" data visualization and discovery, with customer able to build custom charts based on their data needs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Federal Reserve, the nation's central bank, detected more than 50 cybersecurity breaches between 2011 and 2015, including a handful attributed to espionage.The Fed's Washington-based Board of Governors identified 51 information disclosures during the five-year period, according to information obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by Reuters.The breaches reported include only those at the Fed's Washington location and don't include any at its 12 privately owned regional branches.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Federal Reserve, the nation's central bank, detected more than 50 cybersecurity breaches between 2011 and 2015, including a handful attributed to espionage.The Fed's Washington-based Board of Governors identified 51 information disclosures during the five-year period, according to information obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by Reuters.The breaches reported include only those at the Fed's Washington location and don't include any at its 12 privately owned regional branches.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise is asking a jury to award the company US$3billion from Oracle after the database giant stopped supporting HPE's Itanium-based hardware, even though it allegedly signed a contract to do so.A jury trial in the 5-year-old legal dispute between the tech giants is scheduled to begin Tuesday, nearly four years after a California judge first ruled that Oracle must continue porting its software to HPE's Itanium platform. The new trial is scheduled in Santa Clara Superior Court in California.HP, which has since split into two companies, sued Oracle in 2011, saying the database company's decision to stop offering future versions of its popular database software for Itanium violated a deal the partners signed in 2010. Oracle argued parts of the deal were "a corporate handshake" and didn't impose long-term support obligations. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A proposal in the U.S. Senate to require smartphone OS developers and other tech vendors to break their own encryption at the request of law enforcement may be dead on arrival.The proposal, released as a discussion draft last month, may not be formally introduced this year because of strong opposition, according to a Reuters report.The draft bill, pushed by Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, would allow judges to order tech companies to comply with requests from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to help them defeat security measures and break into devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A proposal in the U.S. Senate to require smartphone OS developers and other tech vendors to break their own encryption at the request of law enforcement may be dead on arrival.The proposal, released as a discussion draft last month, may not be formally introduced this year because of strong opposition, according to a Reuters report.The draft bill, pushed by Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, would allow judges to order tech companies to comply with requests from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to help them defeat security measures and break into devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A new bill in Congress would require U.S. law enforcement agencies to obtain court-ordered warrants before demanding the emails of the country's residents when they are stored overseas.The International Communications Privacy Act, introduced Wednesday by three senators, would close a loophole that allows law enforcement agencies to request emails and other electronic documents without warrants. Congress has been working since 2010 to rework the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), a law that sets down rules for law enforcement access to electronic communications, but the focus has been on requiring warrants for emails and other communications stored in the cloud for longer than 180 days.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A new bill in Congress would require U.S. law enforcement agencies to obtain court-ordered warrants before demanding the emails of the country's residents when they are stored overseas.The International Communications Privacy Act, introduced Wednesday by three senators, would close a loophole that allows law enforcement agencies to request emails and other electronic documents without warrants. Congress has been working since 2010 to rework the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), a law that sets down rules for law enforcement access to electronic communications, but the focus has been on requiring warrants for emails and other communications stored in the cloud for longer than 180 days.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Some U.S. government agencies are using IT systems running Windows 3.1, the decades-old COBOL and Fortran programming languages, or computers from the 1970s.A backup nuclear control messaging system at the U.S. Department of Defense runs on an IBM Series 1 computer, first introduced in 1976, and uses eight-inch floppy disks, while the Internal Revenue Service's master file of taxpayer data is written in assembly language code that's more than five decades old, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.Some agencies are still running Windows 3.1, first released in 1992, as well as the newer but unsupported Windows XP, Representative Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, noted during a Wednesday hearing on outdated government IT systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Many states aren't confident of their ability to respond to cyberattacks on physical infrastructure such as water and electric systems, U.S. emergency response officials say.The U.S. government could do several things to help states improve their response to cyberattacks, including increased funding for technology training programs, cybersecurity experts told a House of Representatives committee Tuesday.States have difficulty hiring top cybersecurity employees, said Steven Spano, president and COO of the Center for Internet Security. Cybersecurity workers are a "high-demand, low-density asset," the former Air Force general told two subcommittees of the House Homeland Security Committee.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Many states aren't confident of their ability to respond to cyberattacks on physical infrastructure such as water and electric systems, U.S. emergency response officials say.The U.S. government could do several things to help states improve their response to cyberattacks, including increased funding for technology training programs, cybersecurity experts told a House of Representatives committee Tuesday.States have difficulty hiring top cybersecurity employees, said Steven Spano, president and COO of the Center for Internet Security. Cybersecurity workers are a "high-demand, low-density asset," the former Air Force general told two subcommittees of the House Homeland Security Committee.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A secret FBI hacking tool, used to compromise the Tor anonymous browser in one investigation, is facing challenges from criminal defendants, perhaps putting its future in doubt.Defendants have demanded to see details of the FBI network investigative technique (NIT), the agency's name for the relatively recent hacking tool, in a handful of criminal cases, but the agency has refused to disclose the information.A judge in a high-profile child pornography case, in which a website called Playpen was accessible only through Tor, is trying to decide whether the FBI should disclose the NIT"s source code to the defendant.If the FBI shares the source code, its hacking tools may be compromised in future cases, but the U.S. Constitution's Sixth Amendment gives the defendant a right to confront his accusers and challenge their investigation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A secret FBI hacking tool, used to compromise the Tor anonymous browser in one investigation, is facing challenges from criminal defendants, perhaps putting its future in doubt.Defendants have demanded to see details of the FBI network investigative technique (NIT), the agency's name for the relatively recent hacking tool, in a handful of criminal cases, but the agency has refused to disclose the information.A judge in a high-profile child pornography case, in which a website called Playpen was accessible only through Tor, is trying to decide whether the FBI should disclose the NIT"s source code to the defendant.If the FBI shares the source code, its hacking tools may be compromised in future cases, but the U.S. Constitution's Sixth Amendment gives the defendant a right to confront his accusers and challenge their investigation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Grant Gross