The Week in Internet News: Antitrust Investigations of Big Tech Heat Up

Playing monopoly: Antitrust investigations of large U.S. tech companies are launching, with 48 state attorneys general announcing a Google probe, Salon.com reports. The focus is on Google’s alleged domination of online advertising. Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee has asked Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google parent company Alphabet to turn over documents in its own antitrust probe, CNBC.com says. The House committee seems to be focused on Facebook’s and Google’s recent acquisitions, Amazon’s promotion of its own products, and other issues.

Broadband Island: Anacortes, Washington, on Fidalgo Island near Seattle, is building its own broadband network, Geekwire.com notes. The city is using existing water lines to install fiber optic cable, and the service will cost residential customers $39 per month for 100 Mbps service and $69 for gigabit speeds. 

The Internet of Gasoline: Hackers are increasingly talking about ways to target Internet of Things connected gasoline pumps, ZDNet reports. It’s unclear whether hackers are targeting gas pumps as a way to get cheaper gas or for more destructive reasons. Smart electricity meters are also a target, with the goal of reducing bills, the story suggests.

Free the root: CircleID.com has an Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Covert Social Media Campaign Champions Military Rulers

The Internet as warfighting tool: Military rulers in Sudan and other countries are paying “Internet warfare” firms to develop social media campaigns to praise their leadership, the New York Times reports. The story highlights a social media company called New Waves, run by a former member of the Egyptian military and a self-described “researcher on Internet wars.”

Internet warfare, part 2: Meanwhile, a “virtual army” from mainland China has focused on recent protests in Hong Kong, with social media posts boosting government interests, the South China Morning Post writes. New recruits to the nationalist Diba group are taught how to use VPNs and circumvent the government firewall to reach the “battlefield” – social media pages and websites normally banned.

Protestors strike back: The Hong Kong protestors had their own Internet-related tactics, QZ.com reports. In response to threats of Internet shutdown, protestors began to use Bluetooth-based mesh networking technologies, allowing them to communicate through a network of devices that are linked locally, rather than over an Internet connection.

Encryption loves blockchain: The Tide Foundation, a nonprofit building an open-source framework for protecting data, has developed a blockchain-based encryption approach, Silicon Angle says.  This type of encryption is much more difficult Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Your Doorbell is Spying on You

We’ve got our eyes on you: Ring, the Amazon-owned, IoT-powered video doorbell and security system vendor, has partnered with 400 police departments across the U.S. and is providing them with video footage, the Washington Post reports. Privacy advocates have raised concerns, saying the partnerships could subject innocent people, including those who Ring users have flagged as “suspicious,” to greater surveillance.

We’re listening, too: Meanwhile, Apple has apologized for some of its contractors listening in to recordings of customer’s interactions with the Siri digital assistant, Fox Business News says. Apple had been using the recordings for quality control, but the practice was not in line with Apple’s “high ideals,” the company said.

Also, the apps: Google has pulled a popular file-scanning app, CamSpanner, from the Google Play store, after reports that it contains malware, CNN reports. Researchers Kaspersky had found several negative reviews on the app’s profile that complained the app had the “presence of unwanted features.” The malware could show “intrusive advertising” to users.

Internet spycraft: China and other nations are using popular networking site LinkedIn to recruit spies in Western nations, the New York Times reports. One former foreign policy official in U.S. President Barack Obama’s Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Google, Mozilla Block Surveillance in Kazakhstan

Root-level spying: Google and Mozilla are blocking surveillance efforts by Kazakhstan’s government, Engadget reports. The two organizations are blocking a root certificate that the Kazakhstan government rolled out, allowing it to monitor the encrypted Internet activity of any users who installed it. The government forced ISPs to require all customers to install the certificate in order to gain Internet access.

Broadband for all: An opinion piece in the New York Daily News calls for citywide municipal broadband service after one city report estimated that 29 percent of city residents have no broadband service. “By virtually all measures, New York City’s system for providing broadband internet service is an abysmal failure,” the piece says.

A new war: The industrial Internet of Things is a new battleground for hackers, Silicon Angle says. Nation states are increasingly targeting these systems, with potentially deadly consequences. “The stage is set for the world to find out what might happen if petrochemical, gas and power plant safety systems designed to prevent catastrophic accidents are disabled by malicious hackers,” the story says.

Regulation isn’t the cure: Meanwhile, regulation alone won’t solve the IoT security problems, says IoT for All. While several governments are considering IoT security regulations, Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: White House Proposes Social Media Monitoring

We’re watching you: A leaked proposal from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration would put the Federal Communications Commission in charge of regulating how social media platforms and other websites decide what appears on their pages, CNN reports. Critics said the proposal amounts to censorship.

We’re watching you, part 2: In other U.S. government news, the Trump administration has asked a court to reauthorized a suspended National Security Agency surveillance program, targeting the telephone records of U.S. residents, the New York Times reports. The Trump administration wants to make the controversial phone records collection program permanent.

Not just the U.S. government: The Indian government wants Twitter to block what it deems is fake news by suspending eight Kashmir-based accounts for allegedly spreading rumors, India Today reports. Indian security forces have alleged that groups in Pakistan have attempted to divide the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir, areas controlled by India but claimed by Pakistan.

Even more watching: Technicians from Chinese networking vendor Huawei have reportedly helped government officials in Uganda and Zambia spy on political opponents, TechCrunch reports. News reports have Huawei technicians helping the officials spy on the use of apps like WhatsApp and Skype and Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Testing 1, 2, 3

This is a test: Amazon has asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for permission to test a new wireless Internet service using the 3.5 MHz spectrum band, Cord Cutters News reports. The test, in Sunnyvale, California, would run from mid-August to mid-February. The test is in addition to Amazon’s plans to launch 3,236 satellites for a new home Internet service.

Billions for broadband: U.S. presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, wants to spend $85 billion to expand rural broadband in the country, CNet reports. She also wants to override states trying to prevent local municipalities from building their own broadband networks.

Russian hackers vs. the IoT: Microsoft has accused a Russian hacking group of targeting Internet of Things devices, including a voice over IP phone and office printer, Security Today reports. The Russian group known as Fancy Bear was allegedly involved in the hack of the Democratic National Committee before the 2016 U.S. elections.

Lawsuit recognition: Facebook users can sue the social networking site for its facial recognition photo tagging service, a U.S. court has ruled. Illinois users have claimed the tagging service violates a state privacy law, NPR reports. “Once a Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Capital One Breach Affects Over 100 Million

Millions and millions served: More than 100 million people were affected by a massive data breach at banking and credit card company Capital One, Krebs on Security says. The stolen data included about 140,000 U.S. Social Security numbers and approximately 80,000 bank account numbers, and about 1 million Social Insurance Numbers for Canadian credit card customers. A former software engineer has been arrested and accused of stealing the data. The breach is one of the 10 largest ever, USA Today says.

Here we go again: The so-called Five Eyes spy agencies are again calling on tech vendors to allow law enforcement agencies access to encrypted material, Reuters reports. Encryption should not come at the expense of the public’s safety, the five countries argued, even though many security experts say encryption backdoors will hurt public safety. Meanwhile, the U.S and U.K. are specifically targeting encryption in WhatsApp, Forbes says.

Expanded access: Cuba has brought Internet access to private homes and businesses, the New York Times reports. The Cuban government has put into effect a new set of regulations that seek to expand Internet access across the country. The regulations permit the creation of private wired and WiFi internet Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: The Internet of Things and the Domain Name System

IoT vs. DNS: As the use of the Internet of Things grows, so do its threats on the Internet’s Domain Name System, Network World says. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and IBM’s X-Force security researchers have both issued reports describing how the insecurity of IoT could lead to more botnets that attack the DNS.

A lot of zeros: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced an expected $5 billion fine against Facebook for privacy breaches, The Verge reports. Still, some critics suggested the fine was too small. Facebook’s revenue in 2018 was 11 times more than the fine, at $55.8 billion.

Not too big to investigate: Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice has launched an antitrust investigation into Google, Amazon, and Facebook, Vox.com reports. The DOJ’s Antitrust Division is reviewing “whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers.” 

Not just the DOJ: And the Federal Trade Commission is also getting into the antitrust investigations act. Facebook has announced that its friends at the FTC, fresh off their $5 billion fine of the social media Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Community Broadband Offers Fastest Speeds in U.S.

Super fast: ISPs run by local communities or run through a partnership with a local community offer some of the fastest broadband in the U.S., a story at Vice.com says. Six of the 10 fastest ISPs in the country are either operated by local communities or are partnerships between the public and private sectors, according to a PCMag review.

Conflicting laws: Australia’s recently-passed encryption law, which mandates law enforcement access to encrypted communications, may conflict with the EU’s GDPR and the U.S. CLOUD Act, according to a story at ZDNet. Australian law enforcement agencies may have trouble requiring U.S. and EU companies to decrypt data, the Law Council of Australia has said.

Tweeting is back: The government of Chad has restored access to social media after a 16-month shutdown, QZ.com reports. That’s a lot of missed likes. The government had restricted access to electronic communications for “security reasons” and in “a context of terrorist threats.”

It steals your face: Mobile phone apps that allow you to edit pictures of your face may introduce security vulnerabilities, Forbes notes. One app may upload faces to a database without users’ permission, and another app Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Amazon, Microsoft Look to Expand Internet Access

More access, please: Two large tech companies have announced plans to expand Internet access. First, Microsoft and Ohio-based telecom firm Watch Communications have announced an agreement to extend broadband service to underserved areas in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, the Associated Press reports, via the Jacksonville Journal Courier. The project is part of Microsoft’s Airband Initiative, an effort to expand service across the U.S.

Look to the sky: Secondly, Amazon has asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for permission to launch more than 3,200 satellites, with plans to launch a global broadband network, Smart Cities Dive says. The Amazon plan would target underserved areas across the globe as well as aircraft, ships, and submarines.

That’s a long time without service: More than 350 Internet shutdowns during the last three years have caused the equivalent of 15 years of lost access, The Telegraph reports. About two-third of those shutdowns were in India, and protests or political instability were the reasons for the government actions, according to a report from Access Now.

Warning shot: Two companies, British Airways and Marriott, are facing nine-figure fines (in U.S. dollars) under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation for past data breaches Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Balloon-based Internet Service Passes a Big Test

The sky’s the limit: An Internet connectivity balloon, operated by Google sister company Loon, has spent 223 days in the air and circled the globe in an effort to demonstrate the feasibility of balloon mesh networks, CNET reports. The P-496 spent 140 days testing flight algorithms off South America.

Bad for business: A recent law that forces Australian communications firms to give the government access to encrypted messages has hurt business there, the government says. The public perception about the downsides of the law has “had a material impact on the Australian market and the ability for Australian companies to compete globally,” Computerworld Australia reports.

Weak security: D-Link, a maker of routers, IP cameras and other Internet-connected devices, would be required to stand up a new comprehensive security program in a proposed cybersecurity settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, GovInfoSecurity says. In early 2017, the FTC alleged that D-Link “failed to take reasonable software testing and remediation measures to protect their routers and IP cameras against well-known and easily preventable software security flaws.” The company allegedly left default usernames and passwords on devices and stored login credentials insecurely, and it left a private code-signing key on a Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Small Routing Error Has Big Consequences

Bad route: A small routing error led to Internet outages in the Northeastern United States on June 24, Inc.com reports. Small network services provider DQE Communications shared inaccurate routing information with Verizon, which then passed it along to the wider network. Internet services were flaky for about two hours, with Verizon Fios phone and Internet services in Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and other states affected, the Washington Post said. Server issues also affected Reddit, Twitch, and video gaming service Discord.

Attacking encryption? U.S. President Donald Trump’s National Security Council recently discussed ways to prohibit companies from offering customers unbreakable encryption, Politico reports. Officials debated whether to ask Congress to effectively outlaw end-to-end encryption, according to anonymous sources.

Embrace the dark side: Government entities looking to improve Internet speeds in their areas should consider dark fiber when it’s available, advises AmericanCityandCounty.com. Switching to dark fiber can offer both performance improvement and cost savings, but the transition can demand a major overhaul.

Service restored, for one guy: Sudan’s three-week Internet shutdown keeps going, except for one lawyer, who won a lawsuit against telecom operator Zain Sudan over the blackout ordered by the country’s military rulers, the Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: AI and IoT Could Lead to Industry 4.0

The new revolution: Advances in the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence are leading to a fourth industrial revolution, Ars Technica suggests. This so-called Industry 4.0 represents “huge changes in much of the technology we deal with in our daily lives. Some of those changes have been for the better, making our interaction with machines and information more natural and more powerful. Others have helped companies tap into consumers’ relationships, behaviors, locations and innermost thoughts in powerful and often disturbing ways.”

Security gaps: But all is not well in IoT land. Legacy problems related to networking technologies are making IoT security “as bad as it gets,” IoT Hub reports. In addition, staff remotely monitoring IoT sensors don’t have the experience to fix problems.

They’re keeping their eyes on you: The Indian government has found a way to track WhatsApp messages without breaking encryption, Business Insider reports. The surveillance technique involves the government asking the Facebook-owned messaging platform to implement an identifier that would allow law enforcement officials to pinpoint who sent the message without reading it.

A new way to pay: In other Facebook-related news, the company is planning to launch a new cryptocurrency called Libra, The Verge Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Hackers Eye Security Cameras

Big targets: Internet-connected security cameras make up nearly half of all the Internet of Things devices compromised by hackers, ZDNet reports. Smart hubs and network-attached storage devices are next on the hit list. The average U.S. household contains 17 Internet-connected devices, while the average European household has 14.

New rules for the IoT? A U.S. House of Representatives committee has approved an IoT security bill that would create security standards that vendors would have to apply before government agencies could buy IoT devices from them, Nextgov says. The legislation aims to leverage the government’s substantial purchasing power to drive security in the IoT market.

Cleaning house: The Chinese government has blocked several foreign media sites in the name of cleaning up the Internet, Reuters reports. China’s campaign will punish and expose websites for “illegal and criminal actions” and for failing to “fulfil their obligation” to take safety measures or prevent the theft of personal information, the government says.

Exposing anti-encryption: The Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups are going to court in an attempt to expose the U.S. Department of Justice’s efforts to break Facebook’s Messenger encryption, ZDNet reports. The groups are asking a court to unseal Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Better Broadband Boosts Employment

High-speed jobs: A new study suggests that better broadband service lowers unemployment rates, Vice.com reports. Researchers from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Oklahoma State University tracked broadband availability and unemployment rates in Tennessee and found that counties with access to high-speed broadband had a slightly lower unemployment rate than those with slower service.

More moderation: YouTube plans to remove white supremacist, hate speech and hoax videos, the Washington Post reports. The new policy will go farther than YouTube’s former prohibition on videos that promote violence or hatred against people based on their age, religious beliefs, gender, religion, immigration status and sexual orientation.

Encryption fight: Yandex, a provider of Internet-related services in Russia and the former Soviet Union, has reached an agreement with the Russian FSB security service on handing over encryption keys, Reuters reports. Details of the agreement weren’t immediately available. Yandex had originally resisted the FSB’s demand for encryption keys, Reuters says.

Bigger than the weather: U.S. residents believe fake news is a bigger problem than climate change or racism, according to a new survey detailed at Business Insider. Half of those surveyed said made-up news is a major problem, while just 46 said the Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Germany Considers Banning Encryption on Chat Apps

Transparent chatting: The German Ministry of the Interior is considering new regulations that would ban end-to-end encryption on chat apps, The Register reports. The proposed rules would require operators of chat services to provide plain-text records of users’ chats under court order. Meanwhile, by saying it sometimes needs access to user communications, Facebook is creating a blueprint for German officials, Forbes says.

No, thanks: In other anti-encryption news, the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, has issued its own proposal to allow spy agencies to listen into chat and other encrypted communications. But U.S. tech companies, cryptography experts, and human rights groups, lined up in opposition to the proposal, notes Fortune. The Internet Society has also added its name to the letter.

Attacking encryption another way: Meanwhile, a new study suggests a quantum computer could break 2048-bit RSA encryption in about eight hours, reports the MIT Technology Review. The researchers “have found a more efficient way for quantum computers to perform the code-breaking calculations, reducing the resources they require by orders of magnitude.”

No need to ban encryption on the IoT: At the risk of this being too encryption-focused this week, we look at one more related story: Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Broadband Goes to Space

The final countdown: After two delays, SpaceX has launched a rocket containing 60 satellites designed to deliver broadband to Earth-bound people, Marketwatch reports. SpaceX plans to eventually deploy up to 12,000 satellites in an effort to provide broadband service across the globe. SpaceX sees the satellite network as a way to fund future Mars missions.

Banning rural broadband: Moves by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to ban products from Chinese telecom hardware company Huawei may hurt rural broadband access, Phys.org says. Many small broadband and mobile providers serving rural areas use inexpensive telecom equipment from Huawei and other Chinese companies.

The (un)connected tractor: Meanwhile, the U.S. is far from the only country facing challenges with rural broadband. Farmers in Brazil often lack access, Reuters reports. Even as many pieces of new farm equipment require Internet access, less than 10 percent of Brazilian farms are connected, according to one estimate.

Dividing line: The Internet is dividing between a Chinese and a Western view of how it should operate, says ABC.net.au. And Chinese companies, aided by their government, are spreading their technologies and philosophies across the globe, the story suggests.

Expensive bugs: An 11-year-old laptop loaded with Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: San Francisco Bans Use of Facial Recognition by Police

No cameras, please: The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has voted to ban the use of facial recognition technologies by the policy and other agencies over privacy and civil liberties concerns, the New York Times reports. Even though police across the country have used the technology to identify criminals, facial recognition has raised fears of abuse and of turning the country into a police state.

Broadband in space: SpaceX had planned to launch a rocket containing 60 satellites designed to deliver broadband service, but the company delayed the launch a couple of times, first because of wind and then because the satellites need a software update, ExtremeTech reports. The launch was supposed to be a first step toward Elon Musk’s plan to create a space-based broadband network.

Broadband in drones: As an alternative to satellite broadband and other efforts, SoftBank is looking at ways to provide Internet service by drone, the L.A. Times says. The Japanese telecom carrier recently announced it is working with drone maker AeroVironment to build a drone capable of “flying to the stratosphere, hovering around an area for months and serving as a floating cell tower to beam internet to users on Earth.”

Just Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Broadband Project to Nowhere

Dead end: ProPublica has a story about Kentucky’s $1.5 billion broadband expansion program, which the story calls an information highway to nowhere. The program is behind schedule and over budget, with the state’s IT chief directing money to other projects and partnering with commercial ISPs.

Broadband billions: Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says that bringing broadband to unserved areas of the country would generate $47 billion of new economic activity a year, according to a story at Talkbusiness.net. Broadband in rural areas would enable precision agriculture technologies, which allows high-tech crop management based on sensors and other connected data sources.

I can’t Google: Finally, our broadband access trifecta of stories concludes with a Cronkite News story about the lack of access in many U.S. tribal areas. “Just Google it” has become a bit of a joke among the Hopi tribe in Arizona because many areas don’t have Internet access.

The luxury of privacy: Consumer privacy online can’t be a luxury good that only the rich have access to, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said recently in an opinion piece at the New York Times. Speaking at a conference, Pichai also spoke in favor of privacy legislation Continue reading

The Week in Internet News: Unencrypted USB Drives Pose Security Risk

No encryption for U(SB): About 55 percent of U.K. businesses don’t encrypt information on USB drives, according to the result of a survey published at Information Age. Also, 62 percent of executives surveyed admit to seeing USB devices in unsecured locations such as desks, drawers, and exposed office spaces.

Out of touch: As healthcare providers explore ways to use Artificial Intelligence to treat patients, the human touch may end up a casualty, NPR says. AI could “create a gulf between health caregivers and people of more modest means,” with some people not getting the human interaction with healthcare professionals that they need, the story says.

Ship it with blockchain: FedEx CIO Rob Carter, speaking at a recent conference, called on the international shipping industry to mandate the use of blockchain to track shipments, Computerworld notes. The technology could help weed out counterfeit goods, backers say.

Intelligent standards: The U.S. White House has launched an effort to develop AI standards, and it’s asking for public input, NextGov writes. An executive order on AI directs the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology to issue a set of standards and tools that will guide the government in its adoption of Continue reading