AlphaBay and Hansa, two of the top three dark web criminal marketplaces trading more than 350,000 commodities such as drugs, firearms and malware combined, were shut down by two major law enforcement operations led by the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Dutch National Police, Europol, which supported the operations, said in a Thursday news release. AlphaBay, which had more than 200,000 users and 40,000 vendors, is considered the largest illegal online market with 100,000-plus listings for stolen and fraudulent identity documents and access devices, malware and computer hacking tools and other illicit services and goods, the release said. The FBI and DEA shut down the site July 7 and arrested its creator and administrator, a Canadian citizen living in Thailand, the release said. No. 3-ranked Hansa was taken over June 20 by Dutch police, who covertly monitored criminal activities until the site was closed Thursday, Europol said. About "10,000 foreign addresses" of buyers were passed on to Europol, it added.
Joining CableLabs are NBN, Stofa, Nowo Communications and Guangdong Cable, respectively in Australia, Denmark, Portugal and China, said DOJ in Thursday's Federal Register. CableLabs told us it now has 60 members in 35 countries.
The BBC served 24.1 million stream requests during this year’s Wimbledon tennis championships via BBC Sport and BBC iPlayer, making it the most streamed Wimbledon in history, the broadcaster said in a Monday announcement. The most popular match was the July 10 “epic” that Gilles Muller won over Rafael Nadal after 66 games, generating 1.4 million stream requests, it said. “With more people streaming this year’s tournament than ever before, BBC Sport also saw record numbers of users signing in,” it said. During the second week of the tournament a weekly record of 2.1 million “unique browsers” signed into BBC Sport, it said.
Cellphone cases that include space to store credit cards or IDs are classifiable as containers and subject to a 20 percent duty rate, Customs and Border Patrol ruled. Unlike the standard cellphone cases that don't have storage space, inclusion of a slot for cards is a meaningful difference, CBP found. Classification of cellphone cases faced litigation, most recently with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirming an overturned CBP classification of OtterBox standard cellphone cases as “similar containers.” CBP's ruling last week responded to a request from Pelican Products.
Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and Alphabet/Google's YouTube formed the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism to boost their collaboration in curbing online terrorist and violent extremist content, said Facebook in a Monday news release. The forum builds on the companies' initiative with the EU (see 1606030037 and 1605310051), creation of a shared industry hashtag database (see 1612060053 and 1612090049) and other efforts. The forum "will formalize and structure existing and future areas of collaboration between our companies and foster cooperation with smaller tech companies, civil society groups and academics, governments and supra-national bodies such as the EU and the UN." Initially, the forum will focus on technological solutions, research on counter-speech efforts and more collaboration with counterterrorism experts to develop best practices and other initiatives.
Customs and Border Protection will soon announce a strategy to address the explosion of e-commerce imports, said acting CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan at the American Association of Exporters and Importers annual conference in Austin. CBP will combine engagement and education with internal changes that will help ports deal with surging volumes, he said. Enforcement will evaluate the compliance rate in "various e-commerce environments,” McAleenan said Wednesday. He said a recent five-day interagency operation at Kennedy International Airport in New York found a noncompliance rate of 43 percent of packages examined, with 800 intellectual property rights violations among nearly 1,300 noncompliant shipments. CBP’s e-commerce strategy will focus largely on small businesses, which are benefiting from the rapid expansion of e-commerce but “don’t necessarily know about international trade laws and regulations,” McAleenan said. CBP will conduct outreach and provide an “essential repository of information on clearance requirements,” he said. In combination with the recent increase in the de minimis limit to $800, the rapid rise of e-commerce caused shipments at some ports to increase by over 500 percent in the last 15 months, overwhelming what had been a “perfectly adequate staffing level,” he said.
Sprint and Samsung Electronics America recently tested massive MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) on the streets of Suwon, South Korea, using 2.5 GHz spectrum, said a joint news release Tuesday. “The Massive MIMO test represented a real-world application of the new technology, slated to help Sprint dramatically boost LTE Plus wireless capacity and coverage, and offer Gigabit LTE service to its customers.” Massive MIMO Samsung radios, “equipped with vertical and horizontal beam-forming technology, reached peak speeds of 330 Mbps per channel using a 20 MHz channel of 2.5 GHz spectrum,” they said.
As the European Parliament and Council of the EU wade through legislative proposals to create a digital single market (DSM) in Europe (see 1505070049), U.S. policymakers are watching how it may affect American industries and consumers, said a staff member of the House Commerce Committee at a Hogan Lovells event Monday. Republican Counsel Kelsey Guyselman said DSM will have an "almost disproportionate impact on U.S.-based companies" and consumers. She said U.S. policymakers want to ensure consumers have cybersecurity and privacy protections that aren't degraded. Adam Sedgewick, senior information technology policy adviser with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said it's a constant challenge to figure out the right policies without leading to a "fixed approach" on a type of technology, and U.S. government officials and industry representatives are discussing digital issues with their European counterparts through various fora. Both said it's unclear whether the DSM is a 'threat or opportunity" to the U.S. Clear rules across the 28 member states provide U.S. companies doing business in Europe with an opportunity, said Sedgewick. But there may be some fragmentation and the possibility of some protectionism in member states when rules are implemented, he added. Andrea Glorioso, a digital economy counselor for the EU Delegation in Washington, said the European Parliament and Council of the EU are considering more than a dozen European Commission legislative proposals in areas such as copyright, digital platforms, e-commerce, privacy and cybersecurity and telecom. Over the past month, the EP and Council of the EU adopted rules to allow consumers who paid for digital services in one country to access them while visiting another EU country. Those rules are expected to take effect in Q1. Glorioso, who said DSM will be a big opportunity for American businesses, said the plan is to have all legislative proposals adopted by the end of 2019.
Funai renewed its multiyear product and intellectual property license with TiVo for entertainment products sold in Japan, North America and Europe, said the companies in a Wednesday announcement. Funai, which is about to re-enter the Japanese market with 4K TVs, licensed TiVo’s G-Guide and G-Guide xD electronic programming guides and will incorporate TiVo’s G-Guide HTML in future 4K TV models, it said.
Though President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement (see 1706050032), the tech industry “remains committed to the goals of the accord, and our determination to combat the threats posed by climate change has not wavered,” said Rick Goss, Information Technology Industry Council senior vice president-environment and sustainability, in a Monday blog post. Support for the Paris agreement “is consistent with the core values of the tech industry,” said Goss. “We believe that operating a business in a sustainable fashion is not only good for the environment and our customers, but also for the U.S. economy and the American worker. No matter if you live in a red state or blue state, renewable jobs are coming to a place near you.” Failure of the U.S. “to build a low-carbon economy puts American prosperity at risk and hands the leadership role -- and the jobs and economic benefits that go with that -- to other countries,” he said. “The right action right now will create jobs and boost U.S. competitiveness.”