The U.S. Congress should pass net neutrality legislation that overturns proposed rules at the Federal Communications Commission so that the protections survive over the long term, some opponents of the FCC approach said.With the FCC scheduled to vote on new net neutrality rules in less than 24 hours, broadband advocates at a House of Representatives hearing Wednesday told Republican lawmakers they should move forward with plans to pass their own rules.FCC rules without congressional action on net neutrality could open up the regulations to a court challenge or repeal by a future FCC, said Rick Boucher, a former Democratic congressman who is now honorary chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance, a broadband advocacy group. Long-lasting net neutrality rules are needed, he told members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Two U.S. government agencies are offering a US$3 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of a Russian man suspected of having served as an administrator for the destructive Gameover Zeus botnet.The U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of State’s Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program announced the reward for information about suspect Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev on Tuesday. Bogachev is charged in the U.S. with several crimes related to Gameover Zeus, which targeted banking credentials and other personal information over a two-year period.Gameover Zeus was responsible for more than 1 million computer infections, resulting in financial losses of more than $100 million, the DOJ said in a press release. The DOJ, working with law enforcement agencies from other countries, disrupted the botnet in mid-2014.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Spouses of U.S. immigrants holding high-skill H-1B visas will be able to work in the country later this year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced.The DHS decision will benefit holders of H-4 visas, which allow spouses of H-1B and other employment visa holders to legally live in the U.S. Until now, H-4 visa holders could not work in the U.S. until they received a green card, granting them permanent residency.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It probably comes as no surprise that the director of the U.S. National Security Agency wants access to encrypted data on computers and other devices.The U.S. should be able to craft a policy that allows the NSA and law enforcement agencies to read encrypted data when they need to, NSA director Michael Rogers said during an appearance at a cybersecurity policy event Monday.Asked if the U.S. government should have backdoors to encrypted devices, Rogers said the U.S. government needs to develop a “framework.”“You don’t want the FBI and you don’t want the NSA unilaterally deciding, ‘So, what are we going to access and what are we not going to access?’” Rogers said during his appearance at the New America Foundation. “That shouldn’t be for us. I just believe that this is achievable. We’ll have to work our way through it.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission should delay its vote on net neutrality rules for at least a month after releasing Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal for public comment, the commission’s two Republican members said Monday.Instead of voting on Wheeler’s net neutrality proposal on Thursday, as scheduled, the FCC should open his 332-page proposal to the public “and allow the American people a reasonable period of not less than 30 days to carefully study it,” Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly wrote in a joint statement.Wheeler, part of the three-Democrat majority on the commission, immediately rejected the request, however. The FCC received more than 4 million public comments on net neutrality during the past year, and they “helped shape” his proposal,” he wrote on Twitter. “It’s time to act.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies have reportedly hacked into the computer network of giant SIM card maker Gemalto and taken smartphone encryption keys potentially used by customers of hundreds of mobile phone carriers worldwide.The Gemalto hack, by the U.S. National Security Agency and the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), allowed the two spy agencies to monitor a large portion of the world’s mobile phone voice and data traffic, according to a story in The Intercept.The hack was detailed in a 2010 GCHQ document leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the story said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies have reportedly hacked into the computer network of giant SIM card maker Gemalto and taken smartphone encryption keys potentially used by customers of hundreds of mobile phone carriers worldwide.The Gemalto hack, by the U.S. National Security Agency and the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), allowed the two spy agencies to monitor a large portion of the world’s mobile phone voice and data traffic, according to a story in The Intercept.The hack was detailed in a 2010 GCHQ document leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the story said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The clock is running down on the chance to lobby the U.S. Federal Communications Commission before it votes on putting stronger net neutrality rules in place, and both sides of the battle are making sure their voices are heard.Advocates of strong net neutrality rules have generated more than 1 million messages to the FCC or Congress since the beginning of 2015 via the Battleforthenet.com website. “You can’t buy public opinion,” Evan Greer, campaign director of digital rights group Fight for the Future, said during a press briefing Wednesday. “We very clearly have won in the sphere of public opinion.”The FCC is scheduled to vote on new rules that would reclassify broadband as a regulated utility on Feb. 26, and with agency rules mandating a week-long quiet period on lobbying before then, groups on both sides of the long-running debate were making last-minute pitches.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A Russian man accused of high-profile cyberattacks on Nasdaq, Dow Jones, Heartland Payment Systems and 7-Eleven has been extradited to the U.S. and appeared in court in Newark, New Jersey, Tuesday.Vladimir Drinkman, 34, of Syktyykar and Moscow, Russia, was charged for his alleged role in a data theft conspiracy that targeted major corporate networks and stole more than 160 million credit card numbers, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release. Drinkman was arrested in the Netherlands in June 2012 and had been detained there.Drinkman appeared Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey and entered a plea of not guilty to 11 counts he faces. His trial is scheduled to begin in April.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
An Arabic cyberespionage group has attacked thousands of high-profile targets in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and other countries for the past two years, cybersecurity vendor Kaspersky Lab said.The cybermercenaries, which the vendor dubbed the Desert Falcons, has stolen more than 1 million files from 3,000 victims in more than 50 countries, Kaspersky Lab said Tuesday. The group, likely native Arabic speakers, began in 2011, with the first infections coming in 2013, the company said.Targeted countries include Algeria, Lebanon, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East, and the U.S., Russia, France and Sweden beyond the region, Kaspersky said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. businesses and government agencies need to work more closely together to combat the growing threat of cyberattacks, President Barack Obama said Friday.Calling on U.S. agencies and businesses to share more cyberthreat information, Obama said he had signed an executive order intended to encourage more cooperation.Protecting against cyberattacks “has to be a shared mission,” Obama said during a speech at Stanford University. “Government cannot do this alone, but the fact is, the private sector cannot do this alone either.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A long-standing effort to extend privacy protections to email and other data in the cloud got new life Thursday when U.S. lawmakers introduced not one, but two bills to reform the country’s electronic privacy laws.Both the Law Enforcement Access to Data Stored Abroad Act, called the LEADS Act, and the Electronic Communications Privacy Amendments Act would require law enforcement agencies to get court-ordered warrants to search data that’s been stored on Web-based or cloud-based services for more than 180 days.Under the 29-year-old Electronic Communications Privacy Act [ECPA], law enforcement agencies do not need a court-ordered warrant to search unopened email stored with a vendor for longer than 180 days, although they do need court approval to access unopened email less than 180 days old.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has undersold the amount of intrusive new regulations his net neutrality proposal will bring to the Internet and to broadband providers, a Republican commissioner said Tuesday.The net neutrality proposal from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler would bring “adverse consequences to entire Internet economy,” Commissioner Ajit Pai said during a press conference. “The imposition of these heavy-handed ... regulations is going to present onerous burdens on everybody, across the entire landscape.”The proposal would allow the FCC to define just and reasonable prices for broadband service and to impose in the future common-carrier telecom regulations, like requiring providers to share their networks with competitors, the commissioner said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Grant Gross